Tanks in the Cattle Market, 1919.
In January 1919 engineering trade unions in Glasgow called a general strike to demand a 40 hour working week. After the police charged demonstrators in George Square on "Bloody Friday", the Government received alarmist reports that Glasgow might have been on the brink of a Bolshevik uprising. Troops accompanied by six tanks and 100 motor lorries began to arrive in the city on the evening of the riot, on 31 January. English units were chosen to go to the city, supposedly because of fears that Scottish soldiers might have been sympathetic to leftist political agitators and strikers.
The tanks remained in Glasgow for a week, by which time it had become apparent that reports of an impending Red Revolution had been unfounded.
Reproduced with the permission of the Herald and Evening Times, (c) SMG Newspapers Ltd
Keywords:
Bloody Friday, Bolshevism, Cattle Market, Forty Hours' Strike, markets, Red Clydeside, riots, socialism, soldiers, strikes, tanks
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