Talk:Early life and career of Hubert Gough (1870–1914)

Curragh

What is written here about the Curragh Incident is based on me dutifully copying out a summary what Gough's biographer Farrar-Hockley, Wilson's biographer Keith Jeffery and Sir John French's biographer Richard Holmes had to say, way back in 2013. They were and are the leading biographers of each man and the text holds up OK 11 years later. However, I've since read a lot more about the Curragh Incident, and unless my memory is playing tricks on me the second meeting, which Gough did not attend, was the one at which Paget (who may or may not have had secret oral orders, or been briefed more than he was letting on) insisted that the deployment was purely precautionary but came out with all kinds of loopy nonsense about how the Army would approach the UVF under a white flag of truce and that the cavalry would form an advance guard then withdraw to the flanks, or something. So Gough's claim that he would have obeyed orders if he'd attended the second meeting, a claim which I've since discovered comes from his memoirs written 40 years later, perhaps needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. Just as likely he'd have thought, like everyone else, that Paget was off his head. Anyway, more on this anon, one of these days. Paulturtle (talk) 17:29, 8 July 2024 (UTC)