100 Years ago....
IRA shoot British Army Chief in London
June 22, 1922
Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, the former chief of the Imperial General Staff, was gunned down yesterday as he walked to his home in London's Belgravia. His killers were two Irishmen who had served with the British Army in the war. After a chase, both were captured by the police, the capture of one having been facilitated by a milkman with a bottle. But there are fears today that the assassination could spark further trouble.
Nobody knows whether the killers were acting on orders from outside the country, but Arthur Griffith, President of the Irish Free State, denounced the murder in a statement last night. He said "It is a principle of civilised government that the assassination of a political opponent cannot be justified or condoned".
Though born in what is now the Irish Free State, Field Marshal Wilson was an Ulsterman and he upset the Asquith Government by a partisan attitude to Army officers who prefered resignation to fighting in Ulster.
Article from "Chronicle of the 20th Century" ISBN 1 872031 80 3
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