ABSTRACT
The 1916 Easter Rising marks the beginning of a new era in what Clausewitz called “the character of warfare.” Col. Charles Callwell (Small Wars) noted the ability of European armies to put down most varieties of nineteenth-century rebellion and resistance through a combination of punitive raids and superior firepower. The Easter Rising is the last in a tradition of Irish rebellions based on secret societies, elite leaders, limited political mobilisation, and fragile foreign alliances. Inadequate military capability and a narrow elitist political base doomed the Rising, but its military failure contained the seeds of eventual Republican victory in 1921. After the disaster, rebels innovated and adapted. The new alliance between Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers created a national movement with a broader political base and a unifying ideology. The template of evolving conflict, increasing in intensity as popular support was mobilised and radicalised, replaced the older archetype of a secretly organised conventional assault. The Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) reflected “lessons learned” from the Rising, and became a prototype for wars of national liberation later in the twentieth century, including Palestine, Cyprus, and Algeria, and was echoed by Mao’s revolutionary warfare practices.
