Occurring during Ireland's Revolutionary period, the Irish Nationalist experience of the war was complex and its memory of it divisive. At the outbreak of the war, most Irish people, regardless of political affiliation, supported the war in much the same way as their British counterparts, and both nationalist and unionist leaders initially backed the British war effort. Their followers, both Catholic and Protestant, served extensively in the British forces, many in three specially raised divisions. Over 200,000 Irishmen fought in the war, in several theatres with 30,000 deaths. In 1916, supporters of Irish independence from the United Kingdom took the opportunity of the ongoing war to proclaim an Irish Republic and to defend it in an armed rebellion against British rule in Dublin. The rebellion was poorly planned and quickly suppressed. After summary Courts Martial, the British executed 15 of the prisoners which caused public opinion to surge in favour of independence. Britain's intention to impose conscription in Ireland in 1918 provoked widespread resistance and as a result remained unimplemented.