XIX. MOUNTAIN WARFARE. The movements of the flying columns of the I.R.A.—gangs of armed ruffians, usually numbering about forty, but sometimes more, sometimes less, and led by men with military experience (ex-soldiers and even ex-officers, to their everlasting shame)—have always corresponded accurately to the amount of police and military pressure brought to bear on them, which pressure has continually fluctuated in agreement to the whims and brain-waves of the politicians in power. Figuratively speaking, these same politicians have kept the police and military with one hand tied behind their back, and sometimes when the screams of the mob politicians in the House have been loudest, have very nearly tied up both their hands. If a chart had been kept during the Irish war showing the relative intensity of the politicians’ screams and the activities of the I.R.A., the reading of it would be highly interesting and instructive. Extra pressure, more rigid enforcement of existing restrictions on movement, and increased military activity have always resulted in a general stampede of flying columns to the mountains of the west, where the gunmen could rest in comparative safety, and swagger about among the simple and ignorant mountain-folk to their hearts’ content. Here they would stay until the politicians, frightened by inspired questions in the House, would practically confine the military and police to barracks. The gunmen would then, with great reluctance, leave the safety of the mountains, and return to the southern front, to carry on once more the good work of political murder. And so the game of seesaw went on. Every time that the Crown forces saw victory in sight the politicians would drag them back again to start all afresh. The wonder is that the Crown forces stuck it so long with every hand against them, and their worst abuse coming from a cowardly section of their own countrymen in England. Early in 1921 the Crown forces in the south of Ireland suddenly gave forth signs that a determined effort was to be made to deal effectively, once and for all, with the gangs of armed murderers and robbers roaming the country, masquerading as soldiers of the Irish Republic; and again the flying columns fled in haste to their mountain retreats in the west, a part of the country where the majority of the inhabitants have always done their best to keep out of the trouble, with a few isolated exceptions. This time they stayed longer; in fact, each time it became harder to induce the gunmen to forsake the peace of the mountains for the war in the south. After a time they started to vary the monotony by carrying out punitive expeditions against the police and the unfortunate Loyalists in the surrounding lowlands, but always to fly back to the mountains at the first sight of a force of police or soldiers.