Glasgow 1919 by Kenny MacAskill

Author:Kenny MacAskill [Kenny MacAskill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785904585
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc.
Published: 2018-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

12

OFFENSIVE AND COUNTER-OFFENSIVE

Spring 1918 saw the German offensive start to cause alarm in military high command, whilst also having an effect on the government’s actions at home. Although America had officially entered the war in April 1917, the arrival of troops on European soil would take far longer. In the interim, the British and French were required to face the German offensive alone. The Ludendorff Offensive, as it was called, started in the early hours of 21 March with attacks all across the Western Front. Allied forces reeled and, in many places, were forced to pull back. However, German supply lines became stretched, the Allies regrouped and by late April the danger had passed.

But the German offensive was still massive in its scale and intensity. Even before its launch, concern over troop numbers caused by the constant carnage had been increasing, hence the actions from tightened conscription criteria and combing out, as the generals pled for ever more recruits to replace the fallen. The offensive confirmed the dread the authorities had, and they increased their efforts to speed up enlistment, but also to reignite their own efforts to close down open dissent. As with the preceding year when the arrests and deportations had occurred, 1918 would bring an internal spring offensive against the leading opponents of the war and the principal target would again be John Maclean.

The Bolshevik consulate had been an irritancy that had obviously piqued the authorities as shown by their unwillingness to even recognise it as a postal address, despite its obvious existence. Still it had been tholed despite the impediments placed in its way, but all that was to change when the German offensive was launched and fear ran deep in both the civil and military establishment. For, the day after the Allied lines came under attack, the consulate was raided. The Russian assistant employed there (required as Maclean didn’t speak the language) was arrested, compounding the refusal to either recognise or accord any diplomatic status to it. Detained in custody, he was soon to be deported as the authorities ramped up the pressure upon both consul and consulate.

As the offensive continued on the Continent, so did the suppression of those most vocal against the war. On 15 April Maclean was taken into custody once again and charged with sedition under DORA regulations. Detectives this time went to the consulate, where they arrested him and took him once again to the central police station, where he was charged and refused bail when he appeared in court. The following day the Herald carried a factual report of his arrest and narrated that it was on the basis of his advocating revolution, with specific reference to speeches he was alleged to have made seeking to ‘raise the red flag as in Russia’ and for workers to ‘down tools’. It went on to narrate that further calls had been made to ‘copy methods’, including ‘seizing’ hostages and ‘buildings’, including the City Chambers, the Post Office, banks and newspaper offices.

Though,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.