Tales From the Tower of London (29 page)

When Henry Laurens died in 1792, seven years after his return to the United States, his will instructed that two endowments be left to people he had known in England; one to Mrs Vernon, wife of the Lieutenant General of the Tower, and another to the Vernons’ daughter Elizabeth, who had befriended, and loved, an ageing rebel and convicted traitor.

Intrigue, sexual betrayal and cloak-and-dagger deception somehow seem most at home amid the romance of the Middle Ages and renaissance. But where love of country and people’s private lives collide with politics and war, time and place become irrelevant. When Sir Roger Casement’s divided loyalties were put to the test during the turbulent years of the First World War, the results were as harrowing for him and his nation as anything in a medieval chronicle.

England’s rule of Ireland dates back to the reign of Henry II who invaded his island neighbour in 1171 and subdued the Irish kings to extract tribute from them. As much as the Irish resented foreign rule, their ire increased after Henry VIII reformed the church, replacing traditional Catholicism with his new Church of England. The staunchly Catholic island nation now had two enemies, the English and their church, and the tension more than once pushed the two nations over the brink of war.

By 1800 Ireland had gained representation in Great Britain’s House of Commons and by 1900 the British government was seriously considering allowing them to govern themselves under the Home Rule Bill. According to the terms of Home Rule, Ireland would govern its own internal affairs with the English government retaining control of foreign policy and the military. With its protectorates Canada, Australia and South Africa already governing themselves, it seemed a logical step to grant Ireland the same autonomy. It was, however, a step that deeply divided the Irish people. The 75 per cent of Ireland’s population who were Catholic desperately wanted autonomy, but the Protestant minority, concentrated mostly in Ireland’s six northern counties, demanded a continuation of full ties with Great Britain. On 25 May 1914, the
Irish Times
reported that ‘The Home Rule Bill is carried in the House of Commons for the third and last time, provoking Unionist [sic, Protestant] attacks on Catholic property in Belfast.’

But a mere three months after the above report, Great Britain (along with the rest of Europe) was dragged into the hell of the First World War. With the entire continent going up in flames and German submarines destroying millions of tons of British shipping, the Irish question was laid aside.

In Ireland it was a time of desperate soul-searching. The vast majority of the people understood the necessity of supporting England in its struggle against imperial Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Over the course of the war more than two hundred thousand Irishmen would volunteer to serve in Britain’s armed forces. There were some, however, who were so desperate for independence that they actively supported Germany, hoping that a pro-German stance would entice the German Kaiser to take an active part in Ireland’s fight for independence. In the ensuing confusion, Ireland tore itself apart in a series of devastating strikes and riots. Simple reason, along with religious and political loyalties, became blurred by anger and hate. Into this maelstrom of controversy walked Sir Roger Casement, a retired consular official with more than twenty years of distinguished service in the British Foreign Office.

Casement had come from a wealthy Irish family, his father a Protestant and his mother a Catholic, but Roger had been raised in his father’s church and educated at the best schools in England. In 1884, at the age of twenty, Roger went to work for the African International Association but left seven years later when he began to suspect that the association was involved in the exploitation of the native African labour force. The following year, 1892, he went to work for the British Foreign Service, serving as consul to Portuguese East Africa. Cited in government dispatches as ‘brave, diplomatic and unusually observant’, Casement was chosen to investigate reports of extreme racial oppression in the Belgian Congo. While there, he exposed some of the most horrific working conditions on earth and tied them directly to King Leopold II of Belgium. The work drew such international criticism of Belgian policies that American author Mark Twain demanded the overthrow of King Leopold.

With a worldwide reputation for humanitarianism, Casement was sent in 1910 to the Putumayo region of Peru to investigate conditions similar to those he had uncovered in the Congo. His reports on the systematic exploitation of Indian labourers at the hands of international rubber conglomerates were so well documented that international laws could be instituted to halt such atrocities. Within a year, Casement’s work in Peru had earned him a knighthood and the thanks of a grateful British nation. In 1913, at the age of fifty, Casement retired from the Foreign Office on the grounds of health problems dating from his years in the tropics. In retirement, he returned to Northern Ireland.

But Casement’s relocation to Ireland ran far deeper than nostalgia for his childhood home. As early as 1902 he had become fascinated by the issue of Irish independence and began donating money to various Republican causes. Soon, he became a devoted advocate of a free Ireland and although his position in the British government forced him to work anonymously, he began writing articles for the
Irish Review
. In 1912, the year before his retirement, he wrote an article in which he said that should war break out between Great Britain and Germany, the situation could be used to Ireland’s advantage. If the Irish people refused to support Britain, it might induce Germany to aid them in their struggle for independence. The following year he helped organise the Irish Volunteer Force (IVF), a paramilitary group dedicated to driving the English out of Ireland. He also joined the Irish National Volunteers (INV) and helped them organise a London committee to raise funds from London’s Irish immigrant population.

It must have been an odd association. Most of the Irish rebels were working-class Catholics with few of the social graces of a trained diplomat. In contrast, the tall, almost emaciated Casement was well spoken, well dressed and a career diplomat. Because of his long association with the British government, the Irish Nationalists never quite accepted, nor trusted, Casement, but if he were sincere, they were more than willing to use his services and connections in high places.

When the First World War broke out in August 1914, Casement was in the United States addressing a pro-Irish rally in Philadelphia in support of the Irish National Volunteers and their radical political wing, Sinn Fein. Obviously, news of the war changed Casement’s plans dramatically. With Britain now embroiled in a war with Germany, Casement’s plan to enlist German help in securing a free Ireland could be put into action. In a letter to his comrades back in Ireland, he insisted that Ireland was not strong enough to gain its own independence without outside help. Any move towards an uprising without foreign aid would be doomed to disastrous failure, but he would support the ‘cause’ no matter what course of action they chose. He wrote ‘if you are bent upon this act of idiocy, I will come and join you [although] . . . I . . . regard it as the wildest form of boyish folly . . . I . . . have always stood for action, but not this action and not under these circumstances . . .’

Hoping to convince the INV and Sinn Fein that his plan could work, Casement hurried to Washington DC, where he arranged a meeting with the German military attaché. The Germans seemed interested, but with the war only a month old it was impossible to commit themselves to any such radical deviation from their original plans. They would, however, arrange for Casement to go to Germany and meet members of the High Command and make his case personally. In October 1914, Roger Casement booked passage to Germany on a neutral Norwegian freighter. Travelling with him was a man named Adler Christensen, an out-of-work Norwegian seaman who Casement claimed was his butler.

Once in Berlin, Casement held a series of meetings with members of the Military High Command, up to and including Germany’s Foreign Minister Count Arthur von Zimmerman, who was always eager to gain new allies for the German cause. Casement laid out his plans carefully and clearly. If Germany would agree to supply the Irish rebels with two hundred thousand guns and ammunition, along with a substantial war loan and an invasion force of fifty thousand German troops with orders to land in Ireland, the Germans and the Irish people could force the English to fight a two-front war, dividing British forces, and pulling tens of thousands of men off the Western Front. This would allow Germany to push through France clear to the English Channel. The Germans may have had no interest in Irish independence, but anything that would help weaken English forces on the continent seemed like a good idea. To test Casement’s sincerity and his organisational abilities, the Germans suggested he visit prisoner-of-war camps and try to recruit a fighting unit from among the thousands of Irish PoWs being held by the Germans. Casement readily agreed but, as he would soon discover, the Irish were less enthusiastic.

For more than a year, from late 1914 till spring 1916, Roger Casement travelled from one PoW camp to another talking to every Irish internee he could find, in an attempt to convince them that the cause of a free Ireland outweighed any loyalty they may have had to the British Empire. Although he did convince nearly two thousand men to begin training, only fifty-five of them openly supported the idea of siding with the hated Germans – even if it meant gaining national freedom.

Trading English domination for autonomy might have been desirable, but betraying King George to the Kaiser was quite another matter. Besides, they argued, if Germany won the war, what assurance did they have that Ireland would not become a vassal state of the German Empire just as it now was to England? Casement tried to convince them by providing encouraging dispatches from Irish Nationalists back home, but all communiqués had to be routed from Berlin, through Germany’s American Embassy and back to Ireland – it took forever and too often the answers simply never came.

Casement’s ultimate failure to raise a fighting force of Irish volunteers did nothing to convince Germany that supporting Ireland was in the Fatherland’s best interests, and Casement’s own growing frustration led many in the High Command to conclude that he was either a crackpot or simply a man on a fool’s errand. Casement’s position was not strengthened by the fact that his close association with his companion Adler Christensen caused many in the German government to whisper.

In early April 1916, the Germans finally agreed to provide Casement with twenty thousand Mauser rifles and one million rounds of outdated ammunition. There would be no monetary loan and no invasion force. Casement would be returned to Ireland by submarine and the arms would be delivered shortly thereafter by the German navy. It was only one-tenth the number of arms he had requested, and lacked the badly needed money and military back-up, but it was the best he was going to get. Reluctantly, Roger Casement accepted the offer.

Casement knew that the great uprising, scheduled to take place on Easter Sunday – now less than two weeks away – could not hope to succeed. The Irish could not win their independence without help and he had to persuade them to call off the insurrection. If they went ahead without help the cause was doomed and they would probably all be slaughtered. Casement was devastated. But had he known the full extent of his problems, he would have been even more disheartened.

Since the beginning of the war British Intelligence (MI5) had been monitoring messages between the German ambassador in Washington and his superiors at home as well as with Sinn Fein. At least thirty-two messages had been intercepted and London knew all about the planned uprising. To make matters worse for Casement, his lover, Adler Christensen, was on the payroll of MI5. His companion had duly reported every move Casement had made since he left New York over a year earlier. The only thing the British were unsure of was whether the Germans were actually going to support the expected Irish rebellion.

With the cache of arms and ammunition stowed aboard the German ship
Aud
(which had been disguised as a Dutch trawler) Roger Casement climbed into a U-boat and headed for Ireland for the first time since before the war broke out. On Good Friday, 21 April 1916, the German submarine surfaced off the coast of County Kerry. Casement, who had shaved off his beard so he would not be recognised, was provided with an inflatable rubber raft and began paddling towards the shore as the submarine disappeared beneath the waves of the Irish Sea.

When he landed at Banna Strand, Casement walked through the driving rain towards an ancient, abandoned fortress where he took shelter to wait for the
Aud
. Six hours later a local policeman found him there, exhausted and soaking wet. When he asked what the bedraggled man was doing, a rather disoriented Casement muttered that he was an author out exploring the countryside. Considering the weather, the story seemed a little strange. When the policeman asked for identification, Casement fumbled through his pockets, accidentally allowing a soggy German train ticket to fall to the ground. His suspicions now on high alert, the officer made a quick search of Casement’s suitcase where he found a cargo manifest from the
Aud
revealing details of twenty thousand rifles and ammunition. Roger Casement was arrested on suspicion of spying and taken to nearby Ardfert barracks for questioning by the military.

Even as the hapless Casement was being taken to Ardfert, the Royal Navy intercepted the
Aud
. The information provided by Christensen and intercepted German transmissions had conveniently provided the exact time and place of its arrival. Rather than have his cargo of contraband confiscated by the British, the captain scuttled his ship, sending the rifles and all hopes for Irish independence to the bottom of the Irish Sea.