Ormonde Winter
Encyclopedia
Brigadier-General
Sir Ormonde de l'Épée Winter KBE
CB
CMG
DSO
(1875–1962) was a British Army
officer and author who after service in World War I
was responsible for intelligence operations in Ireland
during the Anglo-Irish War. He later became a British Fascist and fought for the Finnish Army
in the Winter War
.
officer and served in the First World War. He was appointed as Chief of the British Army intelligence branch and deputy chief of police in Dublin where he was known as "O," and "the holy terror". Prior to his appointment as CIO he was an 'old' Colonel, who next found himself a young Brigadier-General. Draconian
in outlook he was reported to have precipitated the suicide of three of his juniors.
, Winston Churchill
. Even given Winter's lack of experience in the espionage field. 'O' impressed at the time with his initial reorganisation of heavily centralised departments. Mark Sturgis wrote of the Dublin Castle
regime; "'O' is a marvel, he looks like a wicked little white snake, he can do anything" . (Sturgis papers) If nothing else he was innovative, yet his detractors claimed him to be obsessed with cloak and dagger operations.
In his final report to the British Government Winter listed the following as his main methods of intelligence gathering(Narratives; British Intelligence in Ireland 1920-1921; The Final Reports-edited by Peter Hart)
Many members of his exotically named "Cairo Gang
" (possibly named after their meeting place the Cairo Cafe (Michael Collins's Intelligence Operations; T Ryle Dwyer) or possibly due to many having served in the Middle East) met their end on Bloody Sunday
in November 1920. The net result was that the intelligence service either retreated into Dublin Castle
or evacuated to England (Ireland Forever; F P Crozier).
Another of his plans was for potential informers to write to a secret address in England, and the net result as he freely admitted was a pile of hoaxes and abusive mail. However, amidst this mass were some valuable nuggets of genuine intelligence.
One informer for Winter, Vincent Fovargue
was given safe haven in England, but with informers everywhere even inside Dublin castle (Michael Collins' female cousin was a stenographer who passed security checks but was later uncovered and arrested) Fovargue was tracked down and his body was found upon a golf course with the traditional message 'Spies and traitors beware.'
Another was revealed to be a criminal fraud, uncovered not by Winter but by newspaper reporters and IRA intelligence. The IRA allowed this man to live so that he could be uncovered. Other agents were more successful. One quoted at length in Narratives; [British Intelligence in Ireland 1920-1921; The Final Reports-edited by Peter Hart] led a raid that captured 3 senior IRA members writing communiques to their subordinates. He rewrote the messages summoning all IRA leaders in the district to a meeting where they were arrested. Maintaining his cover as an IRA member he was placed into custody alongside them, gaining more intelligence from their conversation in jail.
Amongst Winter's other ideas was 'The Raid Bureau', a unit dedicated to analysing the vast amounts of paperwork generated by IRA leader Michael Collins
. An obsessive clerk, his dedication to paperwork would to some degree compromise certain activities of the IRA, revealing arms supplies, financial records and even providing lists of IRA members and the identities of traitors within the police. Such documents were more valuable than any informer and could be presented in court as evidence which an informer would be unwilling to do.
The principal reason for lack of informers, jury, and even judges in the civil courts was intimidation, which was one of the reasons martial law was in place.
Another innovation was collecting photographs of IRA members netted as results of raids. Winter was able to recruit at least three leading IRA members as informers and many lesser ranks. To supplement the crippled Cairo Gang
, Winter formed the igoe Gang named after its commander, Eugene Igoe a policeman from County Galway, who was expelled from Ireland after the Anglo-Irish War. They were a unit of plain clothes police who had limited success in killing and capturing IRA members and a number of other young men who fell into their hands on the streets of Dublin. Ormonde personally killed one IRA assassin whilst shooting his way out of an ambush and captured another.
Also, to counter IRA propaganda
, Winter published his own versions of IRA newspapers, skillfully edited to subvert the Irish republican cause.
During the first months of 1921, Michael Collins described the IRA as 'dead beat' and within two weeks of defeat. However, by May, it was clear that the British Government strategy of combining repression with limited concessions was not working. Faced with the choice of either waging a war of reconquest or negotiating peace, the government chose negotiation. A Truce was signed in July 1921, and the Treaty
in December.
types as The Times
reported. Winter may have been an agent provocateur.
The director was Brigadier General Robert Byron Drury Blakeney ex Royal Engineers who was in part responsible for the birth of the extremist Imperial Fascist League
. Through mismanagement and scandal the BF faded into obscurity in the late 1920s and membership was swallowed up by other fascist movements. In his book Winter makes virtually no mention of this period, perhaps under the Official Secrets Act
. After the financial demise of the BF, he apparently took no further part in Fascist politics.
In 1940 at the age of 65, he offered his services to the Finnish Army
, in their defence against Communist Russia. He was honoured for his service—certificates can be seen in his personal collection in the Imperial War Museum
. He was a master of five Russo-Slavic languages and was a chain smoker. His obituary read that he neither feared God nor man, (Times Obits) and he boasted of having been cleared of manslaughter
in his student youth, in an incident when a man was struck on a river with a rowing oar whilst attacking Winter.
Brigadier General
Brigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...
Sir Ormonde de l'Épée Winter KBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
CB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
CMG
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....
DSO
Distinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
(1875–1962) was a British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
officer and author who after service in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
was responsible for intelligence operations in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
during the Anglo-Irish War. He later became a British Fascist and fought for the Finnish Army
Finnish Army
The Finnish Army is the land forces branch of the Finnish Defence Forces.Today's Army is divided into six branches: the infantry , field artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, engineers, signals, and materiel troops.-History of the Finnish Army:Between 1809 and 1917 Finland was an autonomous part of...
in the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
.
Service
Winter was a Royal ArtilleryRoyal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery , is the artillery arm of the British Army. Despite its name, it comprises a number of regiments.-History:...
officer and served in the First World War. He was appointed as Chief of the British Army intelligence branch and deputy chief of police in Dublin where he was known as "O," and "the holy terror". Prior to his appointment as CIO he was an 'old' Colonel, who next found himself a young Brigadier-General. Draconian
Draconian
Draconian is an adjective meaning great severity, that derives from Draco, an Athenian law scribe under whom small offences had heavy punishments .Draconian may also refer to:* Draconian , a Death/doom metal band from Sweden...
in outlook he was reported to have precipitated the suicide of three of his juniors.
Irish War of Independence
He was appointed by the Home SecretaryHome Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
, Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
. Even given Winter's lack of experience in the espionage field. 'O' impressed at the time with his initial reorganisation of heavily centralised departments. Mark Sturgis wrote of the Dublin Castle
Dublin Castle
Dublin Castle off Dame Street, Dublin, Ireland, was until 1922 the fortified seat of British rule in Ireland, and is now a major Irish government complex. Most of it dates from the 18th century, though a castle has stood on the site since the days of King John, the first Lord of Ireland...
regime; "'O' is a marvel, he looks like a wicked little white snake, he can do anything" . (Sturgis papers) If nothing else he was innovative, yet his detractors claimed him to be obsessed with cloak and dagger operations.
In his final report to the British Government Winter listed the following as his main methods of intelligence gathering(Narratives; British Intelligence in Ireland 1920-1921; The Final Reports-edited by Peter Hart)
- 1. Agents obtained by local Police and through the agency of Local Centres
- 2. Agents recruited in England and sent to Ireland
- 3. Dublin Special Branch
- 4. Persons friendly to the Police volunteering information
- 5. Those persons who gave information whilst under arrest or in prison, with a view to escaping the punishment of their crimes
- 6. Captured documents
- 7. Information from ordinary Police sources based on observation
- 8. 'Moutons' (infiltrators) placed either in prisons or in detention cells with rebel prisoners
- 9. Listening sets
- 10. Interrogation of prisoners
- 11. Censorship of letters of prisoners in jail
- 12. Scotland House (the address to which anonymous letters were sent)
Many members of his exotically named "Cairo Gang
Cairo Gang
The Cairo Gang was a group of British Intelligence agents who were sent to Dublin during the Anglo-Irish War to conduct intelligence operations against prominent members of the Irish Republican Army...
" (possibly named after their meeting place the Cairo Cafe (Michael Collins's Intelligence Operations; T Ryle Dwyer) or possibly due to many having served in the Middle East) met their end on Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday (1920)
Bloody Sunday was a day of violence in Dublin on 21 November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. In total, 31 people were killed – fourteen British, fourteen Irish civilians and three republican prisoners....
in November 1920. The net result was that the intelligence service either retreated into Dublin Castle
Dublin Castle
Dublin Castle off Dame Street, Dublin, Ireland, was until 1922 the fortified seat of British rule in Ireland, and is now a major Irish government complex. Most of it dates from the 18th century, though a castle has stood on the site since the days of King John, the first Lord of Ireland...
or evacuated to England (Ireland Forever; F P Crozier).
Another of his plans was for potential informers to write to a secret address in England, and the net result as he freely admitted was a pile of hoaxes and abusive mail. However, amidst this mass were some valuable nuggets of genuine intelligence.
One informer for Winter, Vincent Fovargue
Vincent Fovargue
Vincent Patrick Fovargue was a member of the Dublin Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence. Under duress after his capture, Fovargue turned informer...
was given safe haven in England, but with informers everywhere even inside Dublin castle (Michael Collins' female cousin was a stenographer who passed security checks but was later uncovered and arrested) Fovargue was tracked down and his body was found upon a golf course with the traditional message 'Spies and traitors beware.'
Another was revealed to be a criminal fraud, uncovered not by Winter but by newspaper reporters and IRA intelligence. The IRA allowed this man to live so that he could be uncovered. Other agents were more successful. One quoted at length in Narratives; [British Intelligence in Ireland 1920-1921; The Final Reports-edited by Peter Hart] led a raid that captured 3 senior IRA members writing communiques to their subordinates. He rewrote the messages summoning all IRA leaders in the district to a meeting where they were arrested. Maintaining his cover as an IRA member he was placed into custody alongside them, gaining more intelligence from their conversation in jail.
Amongst Winter's other ideas was 'The Raid Bureau', a unit dedicated to analysing the vast amounts of paperwork generated by IRA leader Michael Collins
Michael Collins (Irish leader)
Michael "Mick" Collins was an Irish revolutionary leader, Minister for Finance and Teachta Dála for Cork South in the First Dáil of 1919, Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations. Subsequently, he was both Chairman of the...
. An obsessive clerk, his dedication to paperwork would to some degree compromise certain activities of the IRA, revealing arms supplies, financial records and even providing lists of IRA members and the identities of traitors within the police. Such documents were more valuable than any informer and could be presented in court as evidence which an informer would be unwilling to do.
The principal reason for lack of informers, jury, and even judges in the civil courts was intimidation, which was one of the reasons martial law was in place.
Another innovation was collecting photographs of IRA members netted as results of raids. Winter was able to recruit at least three leading IRA members as informers and many lesser ranks. To supplement the crippled Cairo Gang
Cairo Gang
The Cairo Gang was a group of British Intelligence agents who were sent to Dublin during the Anglo-Irish War to conduct intelligence operations against prominent members of the Irish Republican Army...
, Winter formed the igoe Gang named after its commander, Eugene Igoe a policeman from County Galway, who was expelled from Ireland after the Anglo-Irish War. They were a unit of plain clothes police who had limited success in killing and capturing IRA members and a number of other young men who fell into their hands on the streets of Dublin. Ormonde personally killed one IRA assassin whilst shooting his way out of an ambush and captured another.
Also, to counter IRA propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
, Winter published his own versions of IRA newspapers, skillfully edited to subvert the Irish republican cause.
During the first months of 1921, Michael Collins described the IRA as 'dead beat' and within two weeks of defeat. However, by May, it was clear that the British Government strategy of combining repression with limited concessions was not working. Faced with the choice of either waging a war of reconquest or negotiating peace, the government chose negotiation. A Truce was signed in July 1921, and the Treaty
Anglo-Irish Treaty
The Anglo-Irish Treaty , officially called the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was a treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the secessionist Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of...
in December.
Later service
Winter retired from the army in 1924. In the 1920s Winter joined the directorship of the burgeoning but badly managed British Fascisti, which held several massive rallies (12,000 at one) in the London Parks, their followers being mainly women, ex suffragetteSuffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
types as The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
reported. Winter may have been an agent provocateur.
The director was Brigadier General Robert Byron Drury Blakeney ex Royal Engineers who was in part responsible for the birth of the extremist Imperial Fascist League
Imperial Fascist League
The Imperial Fascist League was a British fascist political movement founded by Arnold Leese in 1929.-Origins:Leese had originally been a member of the British Fascists and indeed had been one of only two members ever to hold elected office for them...
. Through mismanagement and scandal the BF faded into obscurity in the late 1920s and membership was swallowed up by other fascist movements. In his book Winter makes virtually no mention of this period, perhaps under the Official Secrets Act
Official Secrets Act
The Official Secrets Act is a stock short title used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, India and Malaysia and formerly in New Zealand for legislation that provides for the protection of state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security.-United Kingdom:*The Official Secrets...
. After the financial demise of the BF, he apparently took no further part in Fascist politics.
In 1940 at the age of 65, he offered his services to the Finnish Army
Finnish Army
The Finnish Army is the land forces branch of the Finnish Defence Forces.Today's Army is divided into six branches: the infantry , field artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, engineers, signals, and materiel troops.-History of the Finnish Army:Between 1809 and 1917 Finland was an autonomous part of...
, in their defence against Communist Russia. He was honoured for his service—certificates can be seen in his personal collection in the Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. The museum was founded during the First World War in 1917 and intended as a record of the war effort and sacrifice of Britain and her Empire...
. He was a master of five Russo-Slavic languages and was a chain smoker. His obituary read that he neither feared God nor man, (Times Obits) and he boasted of having been cleared of manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
in his student youth, in an incident when a man was struck on a river with a rowing oar whilst attacking Winter.