I Signed My Death Warrant Read Online Free

landslide victory, winning 473 of the 707 seats throughout Great Britain and Ireland, but the ab­stention of Sinn Féin with its 73 seats, meant the Conservatives with 322 seats, enjoyed an overall majority of their own in par­liament.
    The coalition’s majority was so big that cracks quickly began to appear, as it was a combination of very different ideologies. The traditional wing of the Unionist Party had little desire for reform, and there was a gulf of suspicion between them and Lloyd George’s faction of the Liberal Party. The events in Ireland and the behaviour of the Black and Tans raised serious issues.
    Following the general election Lloyd George was preoccupied with the peace negotiations in Paris. He had created problems for himself by promising to squeeze Germans until the pips squeak, but he was unable to command the kind of influence he would have liked at the Peace Conference in the midst of the strong personalities like President Woodrow Wilson of the United States and Premier Georges Clemenceau of France. Asked how he felt he had fared in Paris, Lloyd George replied, ‘Not badly, considering I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon.’ Such irreverence was symptomatic of another problem. The prime minister was having an affair with his secretary Frances Stevenson, whom he eventually married after his wife’s death. Although this affair had not been publicised, it was well known in political circles, and did not go down well with the moralistic element in the Conservative Party that included Stanley Baldwin, especially when there were also rumours of growing sleaze with whispers that Lloyd George was selling knighthoods and peerages.
    Rather than strengthening his character, his popularity tended to bolster his weaknesses, such as his passions for intrigue and self-assertion, his indifference to principle and his naked man­ipulation of public opinion by his adroit handling of the press. He even endorsed the outrageous tactics of the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries by bragging that he had ‘murder by the throat’.
    Lloyd George had been sending out peace feelers in Ireland since the autumn of 1920, and de Valera encouraged those by suggesting that Ireland would be prepared to satisfy Britain’s legitimate security needs. The Big Fellow’s approach was clearly unhelpful as far as de Valera was concerned, and he was naturally annoyed. He later told his authorised biographers that from April 1921 onwards, ‘Collins did not seem to accept my view of things as he had done before and was inclined to give public expression to his own opinions even when they differed from mine.’
    Collins organised a daring rescue attempt after MacEoin was transferred to Mountjoy Jail, but it failed due to an inopportune change in procedures that day. De Valera’s advocacy of major battles seem to bear fruit in late May when the IRA launched an attack on the Custom House. As this was the biggest operation since the Easter Rebellion, it seemed to make a mockery of British claims that they were winning the war, as they suffered their heaviest casualties that month since the rebellion, but it was something of a pyrrhic victory for the IRA, especially from the perspective of Collins, as the Squad was virtually eradicated with the arrest of most of its members.
    Alfred Cope, known to his friends as Andy, had been a detective in the office of customs and excise when he was sent to Ireland as an assistant under-secretary. His real function was to act as a kind a secret envoy on behalf of Lloyd George, making contact with Sinn Féin leaders as part of a peace initiative. He met with Fr Michael O’Flanagan, a Sinn Féin vice president, and Bishop Michael Fogarty, a strong Sinn Féin supporter, and he even met with Michael Collins. He also arranged meetings between de Valera and Lord Derby in April 1921 and with Sir James Craig the following month.
    Cope had talks with