2020 IB Extended Essays

Jus in bello

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Men have been led in dark paths, through the providence and dispensation of God.

Oliver Cromwell (1657)

Introduction

In 1649, Oliver Cromwell invaded Ireland with the English New Model Army to reassert

sovereignty on behalf of the new Commonwealth. About 41% of Ireland’s population was

killed due to fighting, disease, and famine during the invasion. Consequently, Cromwell is subject to an enduring controversial and passionate historical debate. 1 For example, in

Cromwell: An Honourable Enemy , historian Tom Reilly defends Cromwell, arguing the

orthodox line that, “there is absolutely no evidence to substantiate the stories of the [Drogheda] massacre,” 2 which was a notorious event during his invasion. By contrast, the revisionist historian Alan Axelrod argues that his actions were “… something very nearly approaching genocide.” 3 To resolve the opposing historical perspectives, I decided to objectively evaluate

the actions of Cromwell against criteria from Hugo Grotius’ doctrine De jure belli ac pacis , or

known today as On the Law of War and Peace (1625). I selected Grotius’ published laws of

warfare as it was a renown contemporary derivative of the ‘just war’ and ‘solemn war’ theories.

Additionally, for contextualisation, I analysed Cromwell’s military actions with a

commensurate military leader, namely Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. This benchmarking

was necessary because, although Grotius’ work may have been theoretically ground-breaking,

if not conducted in practice, then Cromwell could not be judged to have violated the normative

standards for warfare during the Age of Reason. My analytical framework for evaluating

Cromwell’s actions has not been used by historians, to my knowledge. This is surprising

because this approach proved highly effective for responding to my inquiry question on the

extent to which Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland (1649-1653) violated the laws of war,

according to Hugo Grotius’ Doctrine ‘On the Law of War and Peace’ (1625). After applying

Grotius’ theorical doctrine, I find that Cromwell’s reasons for invading Ireland complied with

the theory of jus ad bellum . However, Cromwell’s actual execution of the war violated the

articles of jus in bello and the standards inferred by Adolphus’ campaigns. Hence, today,

Cromwell would be on trial in The Hague.

1 Noel M. Griffin, “How many died during Cromwell’s campaign?” History Ireland, published December 2008, http://www.historyireland.com/cromwell/how-many-died-during-cromwells-campaign/ . 2 Tom Reilly, Cromwell: An Honourable Enemy (London: Phoenix, 2000). 3 Alan Axelrod, Profiles in Leadership (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall Press, 2002).

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