Auxiliary Division

The Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary (ADRIC), also known as Auxiliaries or Auxies , was a paramilitary group within the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) during the Irish War of Independence . It should not be confused with the Auxiliary Units , a British stay-behind organization that was founded in the wake of World War II .

The force recruited in Great Britain only accepted former Army and Air Force officers who had gained combat experience during the First World War . Quite a few were highly decorated; two of them, George Onions and James Leach , even carried the Victoria Cross .

Recruitment began in July 1920. The British soon abandoned the plan to distribute the Auxies as commanders to the Black and Tans units . Instead, their combat strength was bundled and so the ADRIC already had 1,900 men in November 1921. The Auxies , officially also called Temporary Cadets , ranked with the sergeants of the Royal Irish Constabulary. The pay was £ 1 a day, twice the wage of a Black and Tan . The Auxies were officially part of the RIC, but operated more or less independently, mostly in the countryside. After a six-week police training only about the candidate of the fifteen existing departments (were divisions ) are distributed, each of which was strong on 100 men. The commandos were stationed in ten Irish counties, mostly in the south and west, where IRA activity was most intense.

Initially, the Auxies were still dressed in their old khaki army uniforms, with the typical officer 's belt ( Sam Browne belt ) and any war decorations they had received during the World War. However, they took off their former badges of rank. But soon the ADRIC was given the dark blue uniforms of the RIC. Heavily armed, each man had a revolver and a rifle. Each unit was equipped with two armored vehicles and six trucks and was thus able to carry out actions extremely quickly and even in more distant places.

Nevertheless, the ADRIC failed as a rapid reaction force in the sense of a counter-guerrilla: The former front-line officers were poorly prepared for the underground struggle with its hit-and-run warfare . Without a concrete strategy of its own , the ADRIC got bogged down in often insufficiently prepared individual actions and discharged their frustration in violent excesses against the civilian population. The role of ADRIC in the bloody riots on Dublin's Bloody Sunday (November 21, 1920) is one of the most notorious chapters in its history. They lost their aura of invincibility just a week later when two ADRIC trucks were ambushed near Kilmichael, County Cork, killing 16 of 18 auxies . A similar fate befell another RIC unit on February 2, 1921 near the town of Clonfin, County Longford .

The Irish soon hated the auxies and, because of their brutality and ruthlessness, were considered as bad as the Black and Tans . In February 1921, their commandant, Brigade General Frank Crozier , himself a former paramilitary officer of the Ulster Volunteer Force , resigned as he was hopelessly overwhelmed with disciplining his men.

The auxiliaries are often confused with the black and tans, and many acts ascribed to the black and tans were actually committed by the auxiliaries. Both groups are still a contentious issue in Ireland today.