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79

The History Sale

162 MONTGOMERY IN CORK

A very rare photograph showing about 40 uniformed British soldiers in front of a Cork college building circa 1921, mounted with Guy’s of Cork label to rear, 11½ x

15 ins. The officer in centre of front row is Bernard Law Montgomery, later the victor of Alamein, then Brigade Major of the 17th Infantry Brigade serving in Cork.

Montgomery later wrote to a fellow officer,

‘Personally, my whole attention was given to defeating the rebels but it never bothered me a bit how many houses were burnt. I think I regarded all civilians as ‘Shin-

ners’ and I never had any dealings with any of them. My own view is that to win a war of this sort, you must be ruthless. Oliver Cromwell

<https://en.wikipedia

.

org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell>, or the Germans, would have settled it in a very short time. Nowadays public opinion precludes such methods, the nation would never

allow it, and the politicians would lose their jobs if they sanctioned it.That being so, I consider that Lloyd George

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lloyd_

George> was right in what he did, if we had gone on we could probably have squashed the rebellion as a temporary measure, but it would have broken out again like

an ulcer the moment we removed the troops.’

We have not previously seen this photograph. It may be a unique surviving copy.

€ 500 - 600