From tea and biscuits to the longest 'war' in history of Britain's military

MAKESHIFT barbed wire barricades were hastily thrown across the streets leading to the beleaguered Catholic ghetto as British troops with rifles at the ready marched up Belfast's Falls Road in mid-August 1969.

With the civil power - the RUC - losing control of a situation that was worsening by the hour, the London government ordered its troops onto the streets of Northern Ireland in what was supposed to be a short-term emergency measure.

It was to become the longest continuous operation in their history with the soldiers only returning permanently to barracks at midnight last night.

Initially those troops on the Falls Rd were greeted as saviours and protectors as Catholic women - terrified by the loyalist pograms - turned out with cups of tea and biscuits for the soldiers.

But it was a brief honeymoon. As the soldiers bedded in and began to adopt to their new surroundings notices warning 'No Fraternisation' appeared in the windows.

Only a handful of troops were involved in that initial deployment but the relief of Catholic Belfast soon became a siege and the violence spread to such an extent that at one stage 27,000 soldiers were on duty in the North.

Relationships between the occupiers and the occupied deteriorated rapidly as republicans attempted to use the breakdown in law and order to impose their own rule.

In February 1971 the first soldier - Gunner Robert Curtis - was shot dead by a sniper in the New Lodge Road area of Belfast. Nearly 800 of his colleagues would follow such a fate as the violence escalated.

Earlier - in July 1970 - all semblance of trust between the British army and nationalist civilians disappeared when "the brass" ordered what was immediately branded the Falls Road curfew.

Catholic alienation was exacerbated by the fact that a junior unionist minister from Stormont triumphantly toured the Falls district in an armoured personnel carrier to see for himself "the success" of the operation.

As the Official IRA were replaced by the more militant Provisionals in the early 1970s the situation deteriorated further with both sides displaying a frightening capacity for brutality.

Men women and children died at the hands of British and Irish guns as the conflict continued into 1972, the worst year for loss of life in the Troubles when almost 500 people were killed.

Other operations aimed almost exclusively against nationalists, such as the introduction of internment - against the advice of the British army it must be said - meant there could be no going back.

Brought in at the insistence of Stormont Prime Minister Brian (later Lord) Faulkner on August 9, 1971, this draconian measure was a political and military disaster from the start.

The shooting dead of 14 unarmed civilians in Derry's Bloody Sunday and allegations - some well founded - of collusion with loyalist gunmen and claims that troops were operating a shoot-to-kill policy all furthered the sense of hatred that existed within nationalist communities for the British army.

Such activities of course proved invaluable for the political propaganda machine operated by the IRA who have admitted demand to join after Bloody Sunday was so great they could not cope.

Thirty-eight years on the British army are now off the streets of Northern Ireland and as is always the case republicans and unionists have different views about their deployment.

Unionists claim their presence helped develop the peace process - republicans allege the soldiers brought an Orwellian nightmare for generations.