e refused he
would order an assault on their position. The cavalry, whose pro-Ulster
sentiments must have been well known to the Commander-in-Chief, were
told that they would only be required to prevent the infantry "bumping
into the enemy," or in other words to act as a cavalry screen; that they
would not be called upon to fire on "the enemy"; and that as soon as
the infantry became engaged, they would be withdrawn and sent to Cork,
where "a disturbance would be arranged" to provide a pretext for the
movement. A Military Governor of Belfast was to be appointed, and the
general purpose of the operations was to blockade Ulster by land and
sea, and to provoke the Ulster men to shed the first blood.

The publication of this statement with the authority of the two Ulster
leaders created a tremendous sensation. But it probably strengthened the
resolution of the Government to refuse at all costs a judicial inquiry,
which they knew would only supply sworn corroboration of the Ulster
Unionist Council's story. In this they were assisted in an unexpected
way. Just when the pressure was at its highest, relief came by the
diversion of attention and interest caused by another startling event in
Ulster, which will be described in the following chapters.

This Curragh Incident, which caused intense and prolonged excitement in
March 1914, and nearly upset the Asquith Government, had more than
momentary importance in connection with the Ulster Movement. It proved
to demonstration the intense sympathy with the loyalist cause that
pervaded the Army. That sympathy was not, as Radical politicians like
Mr. John Ward believed, an aristocratic sentiment only to be found in
the mess-rooms of smart cavalry regiments. It existed in all branches of
the Service, and among the rank and file as well as the commissioned
ranks. Sir Arthur Paget's telegram reporting to the War Office the
feeling in the 5th and 16th Lancers, said, "Fear men will refuse to
move."[81] The men had not the same facility as the officers in making
their sentiments known at headquarters, but their sympathies were the
same.

The Government had no excuse for being ignorant of this feeling in the
Army. It had been a matter of notoriety for a long time. Its existence
and its danger had been reported by Lord Wolseley to the Duke of
Cambridge, back in the old days of Gladstonian Home Rule, in a letter
that had been since published. In July 1913 _The Times_ gave the
warning in a le