Fear men will refuse to move[71]"; and later in the day he reported that the "Brigadier and 57 officers, 3rd Cavalry Brigade, prefer to accept dismissal if ordered north."[72] Next day he had to add that the Colonel and all the officers of the 4th Hussars had taken up the same attitude.[73] This was very disconcerting news for the War Office, where it had been taken for granted that very few, if any, officers, except perhaps a few natives of Ulster, would elect to wreck their careers, if suddenly confronted with so terrible a choice, rather than take part in operations against the Ulster Loyalists.

Instructions were immediately wired to Paget in Dublin to "suspend any senior officers who have tendered their resignations"; to refuse to accept the resignation of junior officers; and to send General Gough, the Brigadier in command of the 3rd Cavalry Brigade, and the commanding officers of the two Lancer regiments and the 4th Hussars, to report themselves promptly at the War Office after relieving them of their commands.
Had the War Office made up its mind what to do with General Gough and the other cavalry officers when they arrived in London?
The inference to be drawn from the correspondence published by the Government makes it appear probable that the first intention was to punish these officers severely _pour encourager les autres_.

An officer to replace Gough had actually been appointed and sent to Ireland, though Mr.Asquith denied in the House of Commons that the offending generals had been dismissed.
But, if that was the intention, it was abandoned.

The reason is not plain; but the probability is that it had been discovered that sympathy with Gough was widespread in the Army, and that his dismissal would bring about very numerous resignations.

It was said that a large part of the Staff of the War Office itself would have laid down their commissions, and that Aldershot would have been denuded of officers.[74] Colonel Seely himself described it as a "situation of grave peril to the Army."[75] Anyhow, no disciplinary action of any kind was taken.