On 14 April 1922 about 200 Anti-Treaty IRA militants led by Rory O'Connor occupied the Four Courts in Dublin, resulting in a tense stand-off. They wanted to spark a new armed confrontation with the British, which they hoped would bring down the Anglo-Irish Treaty, unite the two factions of the IRA against their former common enemy and restart the fight to create an all-Ireland Irish Republic. At the time the British Army still had thousands of soldiers concentrated in Dublin, awaiting evacuation.