A FOX-HUNTER IN EIRE
Hanighen, Frank C.
A Fox-Hunter In Eire By FRANK C. HANIGHEN Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON observers feel considerably mystified by the aggressive diplomatic action towards Eire. From reliable reports, the necessity...
...Roosevelt...
...Observers in Dublin reported that Mr...
...J. F. C. Fuller...
...He was writing articles for the London press when his extraordinary talents should have been utilized in the War Office...
...I can still recall the embarrassment of a veteran career diplomat who sat in on this interview...
...It is the case of the American Minister to Dublin, Mr...
...It insists that it is the "European problem" which is the most important to solve, not the "German problem...
...Hitler, when told of his presence, walked clear across a parade ground filled with tanks to where the foreign observers were standing, saluted, and said, "Well, General, what do you think of your children now...
...But after the war was over, Fuller visited the coast of Belgium and examined the sea wall...
...Fuller is often called "the father of the tank...
...He has paid the penalty with retirement from the Army...
...I would be interested to know whether subsequent military experiences have altered the General's views...
...Give me, if I were in Von Rund-stedt's place, 300,000 mechanized and motorized troops, placed in the center of France, and I would guarantee to smash any cross-channel invasion.'* The General, however,, qualified this statement by saying that, of course, air cover might give such an amphibious operation a chance of success, but he believed that airpower in such situations was an unknown factor...
...Gray, •if proceedings had been on the record, would have been the delight of any reporter—and the cause of much trouble in the State Department...
...One factor, in all such discussions, is never mentioned...
...The sea wall is covered with a mass of slime and marine vegetation which would have caused the tractor wheels to go round and round without climbing...
...Prestige now leaps into the saddle and willy-nilly lashes us on...
...In fact, they took the trouble to contrast his official deportment with that of the British diplomatic representative, Sir John Maffey, whom they seemed to like and respect...
...All I can say is that Mr...
...In the various political disputes which ensued the British Government managed to take a position of not recognizing the Free State as having full "Dominion Status," which caused considerable disapproval among other dominions...
...He was kind enough to defend Capt...
...Then he said with deliberation, "If we should launch a cross-channel offensive, I should be very happy to be Von Rundstedt...
...He produced a manual for the use of tanks as early as 1915, was prominent in the employment of tanks in the last war and throughout Europe his name is associated with mechanized warfare...
...But throughout his career, Fuller has been a gadfly to conservatives...
...He is gentle, courteous, and soft-spoken...
...Gray and I hope they are not true...
...The General was explicit about the dangers of an amphibious operation like a cross-channel front...
...Why this was not done remains a mystery...
...Since it was "off the record," I cannot reveal the interesting proceedings...
...He achieved a reputation as an expsrt on fox-hunting and has written several books on that subject...
...The Axis, it is believed, possesses other channels of information much quicker and surer than via Eire...
...Jottings and Joltings The State Department has Informed the British Foreign Office that the writings of F. A. Voigt in the British monthly, The Nineteenth Century, have created an unfortunate impression in this country...
...But his manner is far from Napoleonic...
...In fact, these elements caused the British Government to break the Irish Treaty of 1921 which established the Irish Free State as a "dominion...
...Boney" Fuller The magazine Newsweek deserves praise for securing the services, as military commentator, of the British Maj...
...Fuller stammered, "I confess that they have grown up so big that I hardly recognize them...
...Likewise, British domestic politics may have a role to play...
...Fuller claimed that critics have over-simplified Liddell Hart's statements and that the latter has received undeserved attacks...
...The reference in the piece by Hanson Baldwin in the New York Times of Mar...
...Washington observers wonder why the Administration has started fishing in a pool from which, from the standpoint of domestic politics, she can only catch nettles...
...I recall how he went over to the map and stood for several minutes examining the north coast of France and Belgium...
...He emphasized that no matter how careful preparations may be, there is a danger that some vital detail may be overlooked...
...De Valera has a rather tenuous hold on the Eire Parliament as a result of reverses in the last general election...
...3 which virtually appropriates Voigt's own words...
...Voigt's opening salvo in his campaign to awake Britain to Russia's menace to the balance of power in Europe indeed seems to have enjoyed wide circulation in the United States and no little influence on American editorial thinking...
...Gossip has it that he obtained his post by one of the famous "Eleanor chits"—for he is an uncle of Mrs...
...Henry Lane Wilson, our Ambassador to Mexico under Woodrow Wilson, who was implicated in the ousting of President Francisco Ma-dero which resulted in his assassination...
...The Irish with whom I talked bore a resentment to-t wards the American Minister which I have rarely witnessed in foreign capitals...
...I note an editorial in the New York Times on Mar...
...I met Gen...
...This also contributed to the downfall of the moderate Cosgrave Government in Dublin and the return of De Valera...
...There was one important detail which he and his engineers had forgotten...
...Gray seemed to me peculiarly representative of the type of amateur whom our unfortunate political custom of naming campaign-fund contributors has brought into the international scene...
...The Danger Of Error It was at a time—July 1942—when there was much talk in London about the possibility of a cross-channel front...
...Some elements in the Tory party employ the Irish policy as a political football in Parliamentary maneuvers...
...These dominions would have welcomed the Irish Free State as another member of the Commonwealth V had it not been for this British position...
...When I passed through Dublin in 1942, I had an interview with Mr...
...The responsibility of British party politics in creating the present neutrality of Eire is heavy...
...Fuller is a short, wiry man with a thin nose and bald head...
...We cannot abandon this campaign...
...He has rather over-emphasized his stand for neutrality to curry favor to the almost unanimous support of neutrality among the Irish electorate...
...I think I have said enough to suggest that if this diplomatic crisis is man-handled, it may not be wholly the State Department's fault...
...Politics In Dublin Sophisticated diplomatic observers in Washington are amused at the over-simplification (not to mention the propagandistic falsification) of the situation over Eire...
...Among diplomatic and military quarters in Washington it is accepted that the Abbey could have been saved without the loss of a single American or British life...
...It is recalled that about 25 British cabinets have fallen in the past century over the Irish question...
...Fuller commences his articles this week with a caustic criticism of the "Second-Hand Front in-Italy": "We should never have embarked on this Italian adventure because it was unstrategic from the start...
...From reliable reports, the necessity for keeping news of the cross-channel preparation from Axis agents in Eire seems exaggerated...
...His appearance has earned him...
...Gray...
...It may be that he will go to the country in another election and strengthen his hold on power...
...Fuller, who used to attend all the military maneuvers on the Continent, before the war received a surprising tribute from Hitler on one of these occasions...
...But even "Dev," when he entered office, continued to insist on the "Dominion Status" of the Free State...
...I asked Fuller for his opinion...
...the sobriquet of "Boney...
...Gray seemed to know all the "wrong" people—his social intimates being among the long-discredited fox-hunting class...
...The invasion did not come off because of the German debacle in France...
...that is clear...
...Liddell Hart, whose writings on military affairs have far greater publicity than Fuller's and who is, in a sense, Fuller's rival-since Hart espoused the "defensive" theory of warfare, while Fuller urged the "offensive...
...When I was in London in 1942, it was common knowledge there that neutral legations—and the Spanish, Swedish, Swiss, and Turkish missions were prominently mentioned—would naturally obtain much knowledge of such preparations at least a month before the invasion date set...
...17 to the Monte Cas-sino Benedictine Abbey "already futilely pounded into rubble" by Allied forces is the first public intimation that this destruction of a great landmark of western civilization was unnecessary...
...This is the kind of outspoken criticism which has put Gen...
...In the Summer of 1918, he remarked, he was detailed to study the possibilities of invading the Belgian coast held by Germans...
...Gray...
...The attempt, the General concluded, would have proved a failure because of this one obstacle...
...They thought they had worked out every detail...
...Fuller in London in the Summer of 1942...
...His engineers built a model of the famous Belgian sea wall and arranged attachments for tanks to mount the wall and go over the hubbed parapet...
...Few American publications seem to realize that domestic politics in both Eire and Britain play their part in this situation...
...Therefore we must go on with it, and at the very moment when we ought to be conserving and marshaling every ship, man, plane, tank, and gun for a second front...
...It made me squirm a bit as an American to hear some of the things charged against Mr...
...Failure at a strategic point is bad enough, but at an unstrategic point it brands those who failed as fools...
...Gray is an elderly gentleman, without previous experience in the diplomatic service...
...Readers reap the harvest...
...Liddell Hart has received much criticism for his views because of the failure of the Maginot line and defensive warfare in the early years of the war...
...Fuller in the military dog-house in Britain...
...It recalled a little too forcibly the activities of Mr...
...His other literary works include a title, The Recantation of an Anti-Imperialist, which may or may not have some significance at present...
Vol. 8 • March 1944 • No. 13
