Editing Michael Collins (Irish leader) (section)

==Anglo-Irish Treaty==
[[File:Michael Collins 1921.jpg|right|thumb|Collins in [[London]] as delegate to the [[Anglo-Irish Treaty]] negotiations.]]
The Irish delegates sent to London were designated as "plenipotentiaries", meaning that they had full authority to sign an agreement on behalf of the Dáil government. The Treaty would then be subject to approval by the Dáil.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Smith|first1=Jeremy|title=Britain and Ireland: From Home Rule to Independence|date=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1317884934|page=128|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sbqOAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA128|access-date=26 March 2018|archive-date=23 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210923035104/https://books.google.com/books?id=sbqOAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA128|url-status=live}}</ref> The majority of the delegates, including Arthur Griffith (leader), [[Robert Barton]] and [[Eamonn Duggan]] (with [[Erskine Childers (author)|Erskine Childers]] as Secretary General to the delegation) set up headquarters at 22 [[Hans Place]] in [[Knightsbridge]] on 11 October 1921. Collins shared quarters at 15 [[Cadogan Gardens]] with the delegation's publicity department, secretary [[Diarmuid O'Hegarty]], [[Joseph McGrath (Irish politician)|Joseph McGrath]] as well as substantial intelligence and bodyguard personnel including [[Liam Tobin]], [[Tom Cullen (Irish republican)|Tom Cullen]], Eamon Broy, [[Emmet Dalton]] and Joseph Dolan of The Squad.<ref>Mackay, p. 217</ref>

The British team were led by their Prime Minister [[Lloyd George]], the Colonial Secretary [[Winston Churchill]] and [[F.E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead|F. E. Smith]]. During two months of arduous negotiations, the Irish delegates made frequent crossings between London and Dublin to confer with their Dáil colleagues, and Collins' correspondence reflects his frustration at Dáil debates and the Irish delegate's inability to agree to clear instructions as to whether or not they should accept a treaty.<ref name="Coogan, TP Michael Collins 1990"/>{{page needed|date=July 2020}}<ref>O'Broin, Leon. ''Michael Collins''</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2020}}

In November, with the London peace talks still in progress, Collins attended a large meeting of regional IRA commanders at Parnell Place in Dublin. In a private conference, he informed [[Liam Deasy]], [[Florence O'Donoghue]] and [[Liam Lynch (Irish republican)|Liam Lynch]] that there would have to be some compromise in the current negotiations in London. "There was no question of our getting all the demands we were making." He was advised by Lynch not to bring this out in the full assembly. Reviewing subsequent events, Deasy later doubted the wisdom of that advice.<ref name="ReferenceF"/>

The negotiations ultimately resulted in the [[Anglo-Irish Treaty]] which was signed on 6 December 1921. The agreement provided for a [[Dominion]] status "[[Irish Free State]]", whose relationship to the British [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] would be modelled after Canada's. This was a compromise, halfway between an independent republic and a province of the Empire. The Treaty was signed under considerable pressure from the British. The negotiators had agreed at the cabinet meeting in Dublin that they would not sign the Treaty without bringing it back for the Dáil cabinet to ratify. But once back in London on 5 December at 7:30 pm, Lloyd George told them it was immediate signature or "immediate and terrible war" and that he had to know by the next day.<ref>Frank Pakenham, Peace by Ordeal, (1972) p.245-247</ref> Winston Churchill recalled Collins's reaction: "Michael Collins rose as if he was going to shoot someone, preferably himself. In all my life I have never seen so much passion and suffering in restraint."<ref>Churchill, Winston (1929), ''The Aftermath: 1918–1922. The World Crisis'', Vol. IV, London, pg 321.</ref> The Treaty was signed at 2:20 am, 6 December 1921.

The settlement overturned the Act of Union by recognising the native Irish legislature's independence. Under a [[bicameral parliament]], the executive authority would remain vested in the king, represented in Ireland by a [[Governor General]], but exercised by an Irish government elected by Dáil Éireann as a "[[lower house]]". British forces would depart the Free State forthwith and be replaced by an Irish army. Along with an independent judiciary, the Treaty granted the new Free State greater [[independence]] than any Irish state, and went well beyond the Home Rule which had been sought by [[Charles Stewart Parnell]] or by his Irish Parliamentary Party successors [[John Redmond]] and [[John Dillon]].

The Treaty acknowledged the partition of Ireland. Before Treaty negotiations had concluded, executive powers had already been passed to the government of [[Northern Ireland]] created under the Government of Ireland Act in 1920.<ref>Ronan, Fanning, The Fatal Path, British Government and Irish Revolution 1910–1922, p288</ref> Northern Ireland, which had a majority [[Unionists (Ireland)|unionist]] population, could opt out of the Free State, a year after the signing of the Treaty. An [[Irish Boundary Commission]] was to be established to draw a border, "in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants' and 'economic and geographic conditions".<ref>Liam Weeks, Michael O Fatharthaigh, The Treaty, p.279</ref> Collins anticipated a redrawing of the border would result in much of the south and west of Northern Ireland becoming part of the Free State, making Northern Ireland economically non-viable, and facilitating the reunification of the 32 counties in the near future.<ref name="ReferenceD"/>

Collins argued that he had signed the Treaty as the alternative was a war that the Irish people did not want. "I say that rejection of the Treaty is a declaration of war until you have beaten the British Empire, apart from any alternative document. Rejection of the Treaty means your national policy is war…. The Treaty was signed by me, not because they held up the alternative of immediate war. I signed it because I would not be one of those to commit the Irish people to war without the Irish people committing themselves to war."<ref name="oireachtas.ie">{{cite web|title=Dáil Debate on Treaty|date=19 December 1921|url=https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1921-12-19/2/|access-date=2 March 2020|archive-date=24 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200824023005/https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1921-12-19/2/|url-status=dead}}</ref> While the Treaty fell short of the republic for which he had fought, Collins concluded that the Treaty offered Ireland "not the freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it."<ref>Collins, Michael. ''The Path To Freedom'', Cork, Mercier 1968</ref>

Nonetheless, he knew that elements of the Treaty would cause controversy in Ireland. Upon signing the treaty, F.&nbsp;E. Smith remarked "I may have signed my political death warrant tonight". Collins replied "I may have signed my actual death warrant".<ref name="generalmichaelcollins.com" />

===Treaty debates===
This remark encapsulated his acknowledgement that the Treaty was a compromise that would be vulnerable to charges of "sell-out" from purist Republicans. It did not establish the fully independent republic that Collins himself had shortly before demanded as a non-negotiable condition. The "physical force republicans" who made up the bulk of the army which had fought the British to a draw would be loath to accept dominion status within the [[British Empire]] or an [[Oath of Allegiance (Ireland)|Oath of Allegiance]] that mentioned the King. Also controversial was the British retention of [[Treaty Ports (Ireland)|Treaty Ports]] on the south coast of Ireland for the [[Royal Navy]]. These factors diminished Irish sovereignty and threatened to allow British interference in Ireland's foreign policy. Collins and Griffith were well aware of these issues and strove tenaciously, against British resistance, to achieve language which could be accepted by all constituents. They succeeded in obtaining an oath to the Irish Free State, with a subsidiary oath of fidelity to the King, rather than to the king unilaterally.

Éamon de Valera, the President of the Dáil objected to the Treaty on the grounds that it had been signed without cabinet consent and that it secured neither the full independence of Ireland nor Irish unity.<ref>Frank Pakenham, Peace by Ordeal, (1972), p209-211</ref> Collins and his supporters argued that de Valera had refused strenuous pleas from Collins, Griffith and others to lead the London negotiations in person. He had refused the delegates' continual requests for instruction, and in fact, had been at the centre of the original decision to enter negotiations without the possibility of an independent republic on the table.<ref name="Coogan, TP Michael Collins 1990"/>{{page needed|date=July 2020}}<ref name="ReferenceI">O'Broin, Leon. ''Michael Collins'', Dublin, Gill & MacMillan 1980</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2020}}

The Treaty controversy split the entire nationalist movement. Sinn Féin, the Dáil, the IRB and the army each divided into pro- and anti-Treaty factions. The Supreme Council of the IRB had been informed in detail about every facet of the Treaty negotiations and had approved many of its provisions, and all but one voted to accept the Treaty – the single exception being [[Liam Lynch (Irish republican)|Liam Lynch]], later Chief-of-Staff of the anti-Treaty IRA.<ref>Coogan, ''Michael Collins'', pp. 236–76.</ref>

The Dáil debated the Treaty bitterly for ten days until it was approved by a vote of 64 to 57.<ref>[http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E900003-001/ Debate on the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland...] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170329053956/http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E900003-001/ |date=29 March 2017 }} from University College Cork</ref> Having lost this vote, de Valera announced his intent to withdraw his participation from the Dáil and called on all deputies who had voted against the Treaty to follow him. A substantial number did so, officially splitting the government.

A large part of the Irish Republican Army opposed the Treaty and in March 1922 voted at an Army Convention to reject the authority of the Dail, Collins' GHQ and to elect their own Executive. Anti-Treaty IRA units began to seize buildings and take other guerrilla actions against the Provisional Government. On 14 April 1922, a group of 200 anti-Treaty IRA men occupied the [[Four Courts]] in Dublin under [[Rory O'Connor (Irish republican)|Rory O'Connor]], a hero of the War of Independence. The Four Courts was the centre of the Irish courts system, originally under the British and then the Free State. Collins was charged by his Free State colleagues with putting down these insurgents, however, he resisted firing on former comrades and staved off a shooting war throughout this period.<ref name="ReferenceJ">Provisional Government minutes, Public Records Office, Dublin</ref><ref name="ReferenceK">O'Donoghue, Florence. ''No Other Law'', Dublin, Irish Press, 1954</ref>

While the country teetered on the edge of civil war, continuous meetings were carried on among the various factions from January to June 1922. In these discussions, the nationalists strove to resolve the issue without armed conflict. Collins and his close associate, [[Teachta Dála]] (TD) Harry Boland were among those who worked desperately to heal the rift.<ref name="Coogan, TP Michael Collins 1990"/>{{page needed|date=July 2020}}<ref>Fitzpatrick, David. ''Harry Boland's Irish Revolution'', Cork, Cork University Press, 2003</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2020}}

To foster military unity, Collins and the IRB established an "army re-unification committee", including delegates from pro- and anti-Treaty factions. The still-secret Irish Republican Brotherhood continued to meet, fostering dialogue between pro- and anti-Treaty IRA officers. In the IRB's stormy debates on the subject, Collins held out the Constitution of the new Free State as a possible solution. Collins was then in the process of co-writing that document and was striving to make it a republican constitution that included provisions that would allow anti-Treaty TDs to take their seats in good conscience, without any oath concerning the Crown.<ref name="ReferenceK"/>