ABSTRACT
The Great War was a total war, and it stretched Britain's resources as they had never been stretched before. In India, the promises came very slowly, because for a long time it looked as though they might be done without. Guerrilla warfare made Ireland a death-trap for British troops, who were unused to it. In February 1920, the Conservative Lord Chancellor, Lord Birkenhead, said that he would have liked to try 20 years' coercion again in Ireland: but he knew that he did not have the material means or the popular support to do it. Morale is most difficult to sustain among troops in retreat, and the ICS was assuredly in retreat, whether it welcomed it or not: giving ground all the time to native Indians, its years numbered, its judgement day in sight.
