Army to the Government’,22 as Florrie O’Donoghue so aptly put it.
Clearly, then, from Mulcahy’s perspective, there could be little or no relief in the short term. For instance, had he thought that he had at last faced Brugha down, at least in terms of day-to-day one-upmanship, he was wrong. Soon afterwards Brugha informed him that he was to have no formal role in the Treaty negotiations.23 And, on 4 October, he also informed him that the Cabinet had, four days previously,24 appointed Ginger O’Connell to chair a commission on defence.25 On the face of it, O’Connell was probably the best choice for that sort of work. His interests were military history and theory, particularly operations and training, on which topics he had already contributed notes to The Irish Volunteer and to An tÓglach.26 So, on those grounds, Mulcahy should hardly have begrudged O’Connell the honour. But other considerations made that response unlikely.
In the first instance, O’Connell also featured in Collins’ Hans Place defence team list, along with O’Duffy and Emmet Dalton. Ironically Brugha was also annoyed by those appointments, because, technically speaking, they fell within his Ministerial brief,27 and because, even after six weeks, the issue of Ministerial responsibility had still not been settled, causing de Valera, at Brugha’s request, to express the opinion at a Cabinet meeting ‘that all business should be transacted through the responsible Ministers’.28
Then, O’Duffy had just lately joined Collins and Ó Murthuile in the IRB executive as treasurer,29 thereby ipso facto making him more politically powerful than his nominal boss in GHQ, who was a prominent but less senior Brother. (Perhaps in continuation of his membership of the SC since July 1917 – as already mentioned in the context of his appointment as secretary of the WTMA during the Ashe funeral – Mulcahy was almost certainly voted on to the SC at the end of the period, March -mid-October 1921, during which time the IRB’s biennial elections were held.30) In addition, O’Duffy and Collins had of late become closer to the extent that, just prior to his death, he told Batt O’Connor that O’Duffy had the necessary ability to eventually replace him.31 He had even brought him along to share a platform with him at a republican rally in south Armagh, part of Collins’ Dáil constituency, where the two strands of the post-Treaty north-eastern policy – conciliation and coercion – were all but unveiled. Collins promised the audience of 10,000 that he would not neglect them politically and O’Duffy promised to defend them militarily.32
And, possibly because Collins had to move fast on the London appointments, Mulcahy was not kept up to date by him. For those three reasons – Brugha keeping him at home, O’Connell’s and O’Duffy’s promotions and Collins’ ignoring of him – Mulcahy reacted with apprehension. Next day, 5 October, he wanted to know from Brugha what powers O’Connell would have and how those powers would relate to GHQ.33 Brugha replied that, because O’Connell’s job was to compose memoranda on naval and aerial subjects, he, O’Connell, would have duties but no powers.34
Mulcahy continued his fightback three weeks later. On 22 October, he wrote to Brugha that he was awaiting instructions on the formation of the ‘new army’ and, despite the fact that he had already been told that he was not allowed to name his GHQ, he recommended, in particular, that O’Duffy should become DCS and that O’Connell should become Assistant Chief of Staff (ACS).35 On 1 November, he wrote to Brugha again: ‘With reference to my no. 171 of 22/10/21 and our conversation of yesterday, it is obvious that, if the Ministry decide to make an appointment to such an important Staff position [Stack’s proposed position as DCS?] against my judgment, I cannot accept responsibility attaching to any position on the Staff.’36 Then, on 16 November, he acknowledged Brugha’s offer to him of the position of CS but added that his acceptance was conditional on the proviso ‘that an appointment to a position on the General Staff should not be made against his [the CS’s] judgment and without his concurrence’.
Brugha replied straight away. Yet he offered no compromise: ‘It is not proposed to vest the holder of the position [of CS] with the powers you describe. His advice will be sought and considered, but both himself and the whole general staff will be appointed by the cabinet on the recommendation of the M/D.’ Furthermore, he tried to trump Mulcahy’s previous suggestion regarding O’Duffy and O’Connell, by recommending that Stack would become DCS and O’Duffy would become DO.37
On 17 November, Mulcahy forwarded a copy of Brugha’s correspondence to Collins, in which he declared that ‘If the proposals of the M/Defence are accepted[,] I, at any rate, cannot continue to act in any way on the Staff.’ He closed with the comment that he ‘proposed addressing a memorandum to the President on one or two points in connection with the matter’.38 Even so, four days later, he contacted Brugha again to the effect that his ‘willingness to continue to bear the responsibilities for this position of Chief of Staff is contingent on the Cabinet’s decision regarding the rest of the personnel of the General Staff’.39 Then, next day, 22 November, he complained on GHQ’s behalf about the issue of seniority and ranking: ‘The apparent proposal to give Directors on the General staff ranks subordinate to Divisional Commandants, raises serious difficulties.’ Moreover, he requested that ‘the Cabinet will meet the old G.H.Q. Staff, in order: 1. That the Cabinet proposals may be explained to them, and 2. That the passing of the old G.H.Q. Staff[,] as such, may not be without some formality.’40
Brugha replied immediately. Amazingly, he seemed to offer a compromise: ‘I intend recommending to the cabinet that the personnel of the new Staff shall be the same as the old one that worked so well.’41 Regarding the suggested Cabinet/GHQ meeting, there was little time, he said, but he would try to facilitate him. Then, next day, having already realised, two weeks previously, that Brugha and Stack intended to ‘bust it up’,42 and having been informed of developments by Griffith, as well as, seemingly, been concerned, like Mulcahy, that there should be an acknowledgment of the work which the ‘old’ army had put in, Collins contacted Mulcahy: ‘I think we ought to have a meeting of the GHQ staff very early Friday morning [25 November]’,43 the day which was settled upon for the Cabinet/GHQ meeting, it being coincidentally the eighth anniversary of the founding of the Volunteers.
And so, on the Friday, at three o’clock, Griffith and Collins attended at the drawing room of the Mansion House for the first full Cabinet meeting since the beginning of the Treaty negotiations.44 There were two weighty topics on the agenda, namely the envisioned reference to the monarch in the Treaty document,45 and the army question. In all, the Cabinet meeting lasted seven hours. There were two parts to it. The first part lasted four hours, overrunning its allocated time by one hour, and the second part, with Mulcahy present, lasted a further three hours.46
Most of the seven-hour period was devoted to the army question and, according to the Cabinet minutes, de Valera and Brugha secured virtually all of what they had been striving for in terms of modernising the civil–military relationship, and in terms of disempowering the army-based IRB. Consider the following civil–military decisions:‘(b) The supreme body directing the Army is the Cabinet; (c) The immediate executive representative of the Govt. is the Min. for Def. who is therefore Administrative Head of the Army. The MD is [should be?] a civilian; (d) The Administrative Head of the Army is responsible to the Govt. for the well-being & efficiency of the Army.’47 And also consider the following army organisational decisions: ‘(f) All appointments in the Army must be sanctioned by the Min. for Defence; (g) The Min. for Defence has the right to nominate, or veto the nomination of any member of the Army, but he must produce a working Army.’48 Moreover, on the same subject, the minutes record that every member of GHQ accepted their commissions, Mulcahy even taking an oath of acceptance of his duties under the terms of the new dispensation.
Nonetheless, there are clues in the minutes which indicate that all was not well. In the first instance, de Valera knew that he had to sweeten the pill of change if he was to succeed: ‘The Army to be referred as the ‘‘Recommissioned Army’’ instead of the ‘‘New Army’’ henceforth.’49 Also, the act of defining the duties of the CS position was not an open-and-shut case: ‘The President to draw up a memo defining the executive powers of the Chief of Staff.’50 Then there was the difficulty that, even
