On May 1 an Order in Council was issued by the British Government postponing the operation of the National Service, or conscription, act in Ireland beyond that date, to which it had been previously postponed.
Premier Lloyd George, commenting on the new attitude of the Irish Home Rulers in a letter addressed on May 2 to Irish workers on the Tyneside in England, wrote:
The difficulties have not been rendered easier of settlement by the challenge to supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament in that sphere, which always has been regarded as properly belonging to it by all advocates of home rule, which recently was issued by the Nationalist Party and the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in concert with the leaders of the Sinn Fein.
While Nationalist and Catholic Ireland had already begun its campaign of resistance to conscription, the Ulster Unionists, under the leadership of Sir Edward Carson, prepared to oppose home rule. Sir Edward Carson declared that the Government had broken its pledges to Ulster by undertaking to pass a Home Rule bill, and on April 24 he advised the Ulster Unionist Council to reorganize its machinery for the impending struggle.
The appointment of Field Marshal Viscount French as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and of Edward Shortt, member of the House of Commons for Newcastle-on-Tyne, as Chief Secretary for Ireland was officially announced on May 5.
Lord French, before his new appointment, was Commander in Chief of the forces in the United Kingdom and had gone to Ireland in that capacity a few days before he became Viceroy. Edward Shortt, in addition to being a Home Ruler, had voted against the extension of conscription to Ireland until an Irish Government had been established.
Greatest Gas Attack of the War
W. A. Willison, Canadian correspondent, cabled from the Picardy front on March 22, 1918:
While British and German troops were struggling far to the south in the opening clash of the Spring campaign, the greatest projector gas bombardment in the world's history was carried out by the Canadians tonight against the enemy positions between Lens and Hill 70. Sharply at 11 o'clock the signal rocket gave notice of the beginning. A moment later over 5,000 drums of lethal gas were simultaneously released from projectors, and were hurled into the enemy territory from the outskirts of Lens, and northward to Cité St. Auguste and the Bois de Dix-Huit.