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The Cardiff Commune was a revolutionary state established in late 1924 at the onset of the British Revolution. Cardiff was not the first city to declare a communal form of governance, but rather it was the first to successfully take control of its claimed city, form a cohesive administrative apparatus and receive international recognition. Despite its name, the Commune came to control much of South Wales and its Chairman, Noah Ablett, proposed reorganising it into the Commune of South Wales though this never went ahead. After its brief existence, it was voluntarily annexed into the Union of Britain and formally dissolved.
History[]
Background[]
Amid the backdrop of the 1925 General Strike and the chaos that followed, the South of Wales - already a hotbed of left-wing militancy - became one of the most tumultuous locales. But in an area where the police and volunteer security forces were already struggling to maintain order, the Massacre at Port Talbot served to throw the nation as a whole into bloody chaos and lit the spark among the Welsh coal fields. Massive and violent protests quickly broke out in the area, at first referred to as the Rhondda Riots. The violence soon spread to encompass Tonypandy, Merthyr Tydfil and the Ebbw Vale before spreading as far as Cardiff and Newport. Territorial army soldiers and the police were keen to avoid a second Port Talbot incident and so the dispersal of crowds was increasingly attempted by firing over protesters heads, an action that was met with mixed results across the country. Many mining villages and towns in the valleys began to emulate their English comrades and now sought to physically expel the soldiers by forcing them out of their communities, often to success against wary soldiers who were averse to inflaming the issue and acting under unsure guidance. The red flag was raised over the valleys and often violently torn down by still loyal soldiers and the police who tried to suppress the now unfolding rebellion in South Wales.
The Battle for Cardiff[]
In Cardiff, the situation was becoming increasingly tenuous with the local army units increasingly unable to keep the peace among a riotous populace and an influx of angered refugees who had fled the chaos of the valleys. Amid a riot on September 17th, troops were now given orders to fire into crowds when necessary and in the local garrison's leadership immediately began informing the soldiers to use this if needed. The first troops began to follow these orders - when on the evening of the 19th, a riotous mob of workers threatened to besiege police barricades protecting the upper-class neighbourhood of Tredegarville. While the crowd dispersed, news traveled fast throughout the city and on the 21st, a second and now larger mob, besieged the barricade and broke into the district, overwhelming the garrison and attacking defenders and local residents. Across the city, some hundred soldiers deserted their posts rather than fire on civilians, many joining the angered rioters and participating in the now ongoing frenzy. The local administration effectively lost control over whole neighbourhoods, as many of Cardiff’s inhabitants only recognised government authority when police or the army were near enough to pose an immediate threat.
The situation finally reached its zenith when on the 24th of September, after another three days of continuous protests and rioting, rumours began to spread that a military column was being moved to occupy the city and disperse the rioting by force. The rumour spread quickly and underground, pro-socialist newspapers began to print the allegations, quickly whipping up the populace. In a push to stop the occupation of the city, in the evening of the 26th, a large and riotous mob besieged Maindy Barracks alongside deserters and other militant activists. Not prepared to fire on their own citizens and already discontented, much of the garrison mutinied and fighting broke about between the loyalists, rebellious soldiers and rioters. By the next morning, the barracks had fallen and the mutineers and other militants had formed an impromptu "Free Cardiff Militia" to fight for the city. The Barracks were made the headquarters of the resistance, weapons were distributed to any men willing to fight and the Welch Regiment's ceremonial goat mascot, Taffy, "defected" to the Militia.
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The following day, a crowd thousands strong formed with remarkable speed and marched towards City Hall. Most were armed with improvised weapons, but a sizable minority carried guns. Soldiers willing to fire upon it found the mob firing back, and after the crowd forced its way through one roadblock, killing or injuring the soldiers who did not flee, City Hall was evacuated as government forces were reduced to merely slowing the radicals. After occupying City Hall, Stephen Owen Davies declared the "Cardiff Commune", a term that had been in use for some time, but rarely taken seriously outside Syndicalist Party loyalists and paranoid members of the upper class.
The rebels’ victory was a large boost to morale and gained them significant donations of arms and ammunition from sympathisers on top of the munitions left behind by fleeing royalists. Hours after the Hall's fall, a government counteroffensive attempted to dislodge the rebels, but found resistance had grown alarmingly, with large tracks of the city hostile to all members of His Majesty’s Armed Forces. Royalists were further surprised at the tenacity of the Hall's defenders, and the attack was quickly called off in preparation for a more sophisticated one later.
Royalist forces hastily improvised two defensive lines, one facing City Hall and a concentric one defending them from the rest of Cardiff. During this time, they were often fired upon by rebel sharpshooters. From the evening of September 29 to midday on October 1, numerous expeditions were sent into nearby buildings to hunt the guerrillas down. This proved difficult given their ease of pretending to be civilians, and on numerous occasions British soldiers were ordered to beat and torture suspects for information and summarily execute perceived traitors. While not the first time such tactics were used, the sudden concentration of them caused many to worry it would be the standard going forward.
News of soldiers’ brutality spread throughout Cardiff, outraging even some government supporters and increasing doubt in their cause among a number of soldiers. On October 1, a protest tens of thousands strong marched towards City Hall. Unlike the previous day, the large majority were unarmed, and when the army units positioned to intercept the crowd were ordered to open fire, nearly all refused to, some joining the protesters.
As the demonstrators streamed within sight of the soldiers manning the outer ring of defenses, many officers were aware that attempting to use bullets to stop the crowd had failed. At first, some soldiers fired over the protesters’ heads, but this deterred few. Some officers ordered their men to shoot to kill, and those who disobeyed triggered the mass desertion. Several officers joined hundreds of soldiers in a farrago of insubordination, and hundreds of protesters walked through the barricades with no opposition. As the United Kingdom found its forces fleeing in all directions, those who remained began a disorganised withdrawal to more secure parts of Cardiff.
French agents had secretly arrived in Cardiff in September. Stephen Davies had once visited the Federation of Communes, and an agreement was quickly reached where a trickle of French weapons and advisors were smuggled into the city.
Efforts by the royalists to discipline mutinying soldiers were quickly abandoned as few obeyed such orders and some platoons declared for the Cardiff Commune wholesale rather than risk punishment for disloyalty. Over the next few days, royal morale underwent a death spiral in Cardiff as even officers discarded their uniforms and went absent without leave rather than risk being shot by the ever-bolder supporters of the Commune who controlled more and more of the city. On October 5, the Parliamentarians realised the situation could no longer be salvaged and ordered their few remaining forces to abandon Cardiff.
Bastion of the Rebellion[]
With the city taken, a part-professional workers militia was formally established to protect the city from reactionary threats, keep order and stop looting. Willing former British soldiers were rapidly inducted into this new force. A hastily formed meeting of all prominent union officials in the area, voted establish the City Council as the Commune’s new government with Stephen Davies as its first and only premier. The only other significant law passed was a reaffirmation that the Commune was “united in the rebellion with its English and Scottish comrades”, pledging to help them any way possible.
As Britain’s socialist uprising grew through the remainder of 1924, the stream of French aid became a flood. The Cardiff Commune formed the centrepiece of the revolt with international volunteers from all across the world flocking to the city to organise battalions and train the disparate British forces. With this backing, the Commune linked up with other rebel forces in Wales and pushed into the north of the country.
Dissolution of the Commune[]
By 1925 the rebellion had expanded far beyond the Commune's core territory; its own military forces now focused on pushing into England, particularly towards Bristol which was taken in January. The following month the Commune chose to send Arthur Horner to as its representative to Liverpool, where members of Lansbury Labour, National Labour and some dissident Liberals met to discuss the future of the rebellion. On February 20, they issued the Liverpool Manifesto and the Republican Proclamation and Cardiff's City Council unanimously voted to voluntarily annex itself into the newly established Union of Britain, bringing it and its forces under the purview of the Provisional Government.