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The Larne gun-running was a major gun smuggling operation organised in April 1914 in Ireland by Major Frederick H. Crawford and Captain Wilfrid Spender for the Ulster Unionist Council to equip the Ulster Volunteer Force.〔〔〔 The operation involved the smuggling of almost 25,000 rifles and between 3 and 5 million rounds of ammunition from the German Empire, with the shipments landing in Larne, Donaghadee, and Bangor in the early hours between Friday 24 and Saturday 25 April 1914.〔〔〔 The Larne gun-running may have been the first time in history that motor-vehicles were used "on a large scale for a military-purpose, and with striking success".〔 == Background to the gun-running == In November 1910 the Ulster Unionist Council formed a secret committee to oversee the creation of an army in Ulster to fight against the imposition of Home Rule, which was proposed to give Ireland self-government within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.〔 The Council approached Major Frederick H. Crawford to act as its agent to purchase the guns needed to equip such an army. Crawford wrote to five arms manufacturers, including the Austrian Steyr and the German Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken, seeking quotations for the purchase of 20,000 rifles and one million rounds of ammunition.〔 In January 1913, the Ulster Unionist Council instituted the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), consisting of men who had signed the Ulster Covenant.〔〔 They wanted to co-ordinate the paramilitary activities of Ulster’s unionists, as well as to give military backing to the threats of the Ulster Covenant to resist implementation of the Third Home Rule Bill, which had been introduced on 11 April 1912 by Prime Minister H. H. Asquith.〔〔 These threats had been regarded as a "gigantic game of bluff and blackmail" by Irish nationalist leader John Redmond as well as most Liberal MPs, including Winston Churchill.〔 UVF membership grew to around 90,000 members, led by retired officers of the British Army, with the organisation under the charge of Lieutenant-General Sir George Richardson KCB, a veteran of the Afghan Wars.〔〔〔〔 By 1913 the UVF had over £1 million pledged to it, and £70,000 invested in attempts to import arms.〔 Throughout 1913 Major Crawford, with the use of aliases and disguises, had attempted to smuggle in arms bought in Great Britain and Imperial Germany, but vigilant customs officials had seized the goods at the docks.〔 In one instance, patrol boats thwarted a gun-running attempt to Carrigart in northern County Donegal carried out by Lord Leitrim.〔 Lord Leitrim had been carrying out a weekly small-scale gun-smuggling operation since February 1913, run by his chauffeur. In early June 1913, around seven thousand rifles being stored by Crawford in a disused inn in Hammersmith were seized by police. The inn was being rented out to Crawford by a brother-in-law of staunch Unionist Sir William Bull, 1st Baronet.〔 One week later, Crawford openly transported weapons to Belfast from several locations across England, which were intercepted by customs officials, with the intention of forcing the government to accept that there was a real risk of armed resistance to Home Rule in Ulster.〔 Major Crawford convinced the Ulster Unionist Council that he could provide the weapons and ammunition needed "to equip the entire UVF".〔 In February 1914, when Crawford spoke with Edward Carson in London, Carson said: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Larne gun-running」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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