Irish Independent, Ireland
Moral compass lost in quest for truth about Cromwell
An attempt to ameliorate judgement of Cromwell runs the risk of
sparking genuine outrage, writes Marc Coleman
By Marc Coleman
Sunday September 21 2008
Cromwell – An Honourable Enemy
Tom Reilly
Phoenix Press, ??¬13.99
Cromwell’s campaigns in Ireland annihilated one fifth of Ireland’s
population, by both direct killing and by the famine and disease that
accompanied the mass evictions of Catholics from their lands. Although
the moral gravity is less than the Holocaust — the most premeditated
genocide in history — the calculated prejudice and lasting human
trauma of Cromwell’s campaign mean writing about it ought to be done
by only the most serious, well-trained and morally guided of
historians.
Tom Reilly is no David Irving. He doesn’t deny the facts of Cromwell’s
campaign. But neither is he — judging by the biography on his book’s
cover — a trained historian. Good historians are story-tellers, not
Devil’s advocates and had Reilly stuck to his story, he might have
written something worth reading. Like a someone telling a victim of
child abuse that they should try to understand the motives of their
abuser, there is something deeply disturbing about Reilly’s book. Its
very title Cromwell, An Honourable Enemy is a sweeping statement that
the incomplete facts gathered in the remainder of the book fail to
validate.
The key phrase in Reilly’s argument is "the context of his
times". It’s an approach to history that has been used before, often
by tyrants seeking to justify their actions: Stalin’s purges together
with mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were used by
Hitler to convince himself and his acolytes into the most vicious
campaign of genocide in human history. In this country, the IRA
justified its bombing of civilians and campaigns against Protestants
living in border areas by pointing to British atrocities past and
present, including those of Cromwell. The UDA justified its actions by
pointing to the IRA. Reilly doesn’t justify Cromwell’s actions. But,
although he intends to do the very opposite, his attempts to qualify
and ameliorate judgement on Cromwell run the risk of inciting genuine
outrage.
They are also out of date. Since the Nuremberg Trials, we have
accepted the idea of an absolute moral imperative on government, that
genocide is wrong and that tyrants cannot excuse their actions by
pointing to relative circumstance or the "context of the times", as
Reilly puts it: Radovan Karadzic’s trial in the Hague is the principle
being put into action in our time.
Reilly refers to massacres of Protestants by Catholic generals in the
German town of Magdeburg in 1631 and the massacre of Protestants in
Ulster 10 years later as reasons why — although they had nothing to
do with either event — the massacre of the citizens of Drogheda
should be seen "in context’. Doubtless, Karadzic may have traced a
line from his ghoulish actions in Srebrenica back to Turkish
atrocities against Serbs half a millennium ago.
Reilly is on just as dubious ground in assessing Cromwell the man. The
image of Cromwell as a champion of democracy does not survive any
analysis of how Cromwell suppressed the Leveller and Digger movements
— a group of his own supporters who were hanged for believing in one
man one vote and in genuine religious toleration. This receives no
significant attention in Reilly’s book.
It also fails to grasp the extent to which Cromwell’s actions in
Ireland were driven by economic motives. In circumstances that in some
ways parallel those prevailing when Hitler came to power, Cromwell
inherited a country financially exhausted by war and the economic
profligacy of his predecessor and a population demoralised by
defeat. The Irish were a weak minority that Cromwell could exploit to
the full.
As scapegoats, his campaigns satiated frustration at England’s failure
to engage against continental Catholic powers in the Thirty Years
War. By portraying the Irish — who were merely fighting for their own
land and freedom of religion — as "traitors", Cromwell was then able
to harness political support for a campaign of conquest that would pay
in land what Cromwell could not pay his generals and investors back in
coin. The destruction of Irish culture and the death of at least
200,000 people were the result. Pathetically, Reilly’s book makes no
effort to measure the enormous cost to the future of Ireland arising
from Cromwell’s actions. So far as he is concerned, Ireland is a
stepping stone for Cromwell to ascend to glory.
He is also blind to Cromwell’s duplicity. As it pumped out pamphlets
depicting the Irish rebels as wicked barbarians for English
consumption, Cromwell’s propaganda machine was issuing proclamations
of a very different nature in Ireland, telling the Irish that he would
protect them against any "wrong or violence toward country people or
persons unless they be actually in arms or office with the
enemy". Like Elizabeth, Cromwell denied knowledge of the worst
atrocities committed by his generals in Ireland. But the atrocities
committed under his nose in Drogheda, together with his inaction
against generals guilty of mass killings and evictions, testify to the
ultimate truth of Cromwell’s intentions and actions. Reilly’s
interpretation of Cromwell’s motives here is gullible beyond belief.
As an exercise in devil’s advocacy, the book might yet be worthwhile
if it were not so hard to read. Bizarre sentences like this one —
where he interrupts a narrative on Cromwell’s advance on Drogheda to
tell us that the town "houses a modern commercial establishment that
is representative of international twentieth century cuisine: a
McDonald’s fast food outlet" — are a case in point. The book is
devoid of maps or pictures to bring the campaigns and characters to
life. The chapters are badly structured and mainly focused on a
discussion of Cromwell’s actions in Drogheda, Wexford and, finally,
Clonmel where — with no proper concluding chapter — the book
abruptly ends. And while a historian is entitled to opinions,
Reilly’s views on Catholicism are, for those of us who subscribe to
that faith, somewhat patronising. "Imaginative superstition and
na?Ã?¯ve wholesale gullibility, concerning both supernatural and divine
matters have been replaced by scientific solutions." From one so
easily taken in by Cromwellian hagiography, the charge of gullibility
is almost laughable.
In one respect, he has a point, but it’s not the point he thinks:
Cromwell was not "honourable" as he claims (massacring tens of
thousands of innocent people never is). But neither was he the only
perpetrator of these deeds. What Reilly might have done — and some
historian should — is to extend backwards an analysis of genocide in
Ireland to include the actions of Elizabethan campaigners, such as
Blount, Mountjoy and Drake (who slaughtered the inhabitants of Rathlin
Island regardless of age and gender). In doing what he did, Cromwell
was going down a well-trodden path.
Those who fail to learn the lessons of history will repeat it. As the
Iraq war shows, political leaders with economic agendas can misinform
public opinion to pursue wars that cause large-scale civilian
death. In doing so, they create the "context" for their enemies use to
justify future atrocities. And so the bloody cycle of world history
goes on. In an age of rising global tension, we need pseudo-history
and moral relativism of this nature like a hole in the head.
Perhaps Reilly is worried that telling the truth — the moral as well
as the factual truth — about Cromwell will fan flames of
Anglophobia. The opposite is true: Attempts to suppress the truth are
far more likely to do that. Truth and unrequited recognition of wrongs
done are the only firm bases for peace and reconciliation. The idea
that hating Cromwell amounts to hatred of the English is equally
untrue. So much did the English hate Cromwell that after his death
they threw his corpse on a dump. Once the chore of reading it was
over, that’s what I did with this book.
– Marc Coleman