Vidovdan Constitution and the Serb-Croat Rift
Ireland's treaty settlement in 1921 gave twenty-six counties a dominion constitution and produced a civil war about an oath. The truce in July 1921 had ended two and a half years of guerrilla war that neither side could win: the IRA was short of weapons and the British government was unwilling to apply the force its generals said would be needed. De Valera, the president of the republic declared in 1919, declined to lead the negotiating team and sent Griffith and Collins instead. The Articles of Agreement signed in December created an Irish Free State with the constitutional status of Canada, a governor-general, a boundary commission for the six northern counties, retained naval facilities, and an oath of allegiance to the constitution of the Free State and of fidelity to the crown. Lloyd George presented an ultimatum of immediate and terrible war. The Dáil ratified it by sixty-four votes to fifty-seven in January 1922. The split was not about partition, which almost nobody debated, but about the oath and the republic, and it ran through families, brigades and the cabinet. The constitution drafted that year attempted to minimise the crown and was amended under British pressure before enactment. The civil war from June 1922 lasted eleven months, killed Collins and Griffith and perhaps 2,000 others, and was fought between men who had been on the same side eighteen months earlier. The oath was abolished in 1933. The Free State also acquired the machinery of a state very quickly and kept it. An unarmed police force was established in 1922, the army was brought under civilian control, and elections were held and lost and accepted, which is more than most states emerging from a civil war have managed.
- Year: 1921 CE
- Category: Political
