De Valera and Anti-Treaty Policy
De Valera thought the first option to be the constitutionally correct but could not see getting ‘from the Army that unconditional allegiance without which our Government would be a farce’. He went on to say “Even if we had the allegiance we have not the military strength to make our will effective; and we cannot, as in the time of the war with the British, point to authority derived from the vote of the majority of the people – We will be turned down definitely by the electorate in a few months time in any case”. He rejected a joint executive and concluded that the only practicable policy was for the Army Executive to publicly accept all responsibility (as this would answer Pro-Treaty propaganda that Republican politicians were behind the military resistance). He went on to say “Rory O’Connor’s unfortunate repudiation of the Dáil, which I was so foolish to defend even to a straining of my own views in order to avoid the appearance of a split, is now the greatest barrier that we have.”