Rebels

by Peter De Rosa

  On 7 March, Monteith returned from machine-gun practice to find a note. He was to come to the German General Staff.

  He arrived in Berlin at 3 in the afternoon. Captain Nadolny told him of Devoy’s message about a rising.

  ‘This American gentleman,’ he sniffed, ‘has made a request for officers, artillery and machine-gunners and, obviously, the Fatherland will do its best.’

  Monteith bit his tongue in remorse at the things he had recently been saying about Germany.

  ‘We have notified our response to the gentleman in New York,’ Nadolny said, screwing his monocle into his eye. ‘We were intending to use three small trawlers but the Admiralty say they will not have enough capacity, so we have switched to a single steamer.’

  ‘Not enough capacity,’ Monteith echoed, his eyes widening.

  ‘Lastly, Devoy requests that Sir Roger stays in Berlin.’

  Monteith knew this was a snub but Casement was not fit to travel, anyway.

  In a buoyant mood, he went for a more detailed briefing to the Admiralty. Staff Captain von Haughwitz told him the arms would be landed at Fenit Pier, Tralee from 20–23 April, at some time between 10 p.m. and dawn.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Monteith exclaimed. ‘Our men will do wonders with about 100,000 rifles.’

  Haughwitz blinked. ‘The boat can only take 20,000.’

  ‘What the hell is the good of that?’ cried Monteith. ‘Our men are fantastically brave but there are 100,000 British troops either in Ireland or less than three hours away.’

  Haughwitz shrugged. ‘We are already over-stretched.’

  On 9 March, Devoy returned to his office from the Convention to find that Bernstorff had forwarded to him Nadolny’s long-awaited telegram B No 6080. He read it with shaking fingers. In marked contrast to Monteith, he was perfectly satisfied.

  ‘Now, Lord,’ he muttered, ‘dismiss your servant in peace.’

  Mimi Plunkett was about to leave for home. Devoy encoded the telegram and told her to hand it to Pearse or Clarke personally.

  Both Nadolny’s telegram B No 6080 as well as Devoy’s acceptance of its terms relayed by Bernstorff on 12 March to Berlin were intercepted by Room 40 and put on Hall’s desk.

  ‘Pretty small beer,’ he murmured. ‘Still, I suppose we’d better do something.’

  A depressed Monteith went to see Casement in his Munich sanatorium and told him what Haughwitz had said.

  Casement was even more appalled at the German contribution.

  ‘A few obsolete arms and no men at all,’ he said, his hands trembling badly. ‘We need a force of at least 50,000.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The damned Germans prefer an unsuccessful rising to none at all. Cheap Irish blood, that’s what they want.’

  Having something to do at least gave Casement a new lease of life. He worked for hours with Monteith on how to get the arms ashore. He also outlined his plan of going in advance to Ireland by submarine, whatever Devoy said.

  ‘Meanwhile, my dear chap, you stay on at Zossen. You’ll have to train the machine-gunners who will travel with you on the boat.’

  Monteith took the plan to Berlin.

  The Admiral Staff’s reply was blunt. ‘We have not a single U-boat to spare.’

  Monteith, increasingly agitated, went to see Nadolny at the General Staff.

  He began, ‘Sir Roger thinks—’

  Nadolny cut across him. ‘I am not the slightest bit interested in what your Sir Roger thinks.’

  Monteith had to stifle a strong impulse to punch him on the nose.

  ‘Besides why does he want to go to Ireland three weeks beforehand unless—’

  ‘Are you suggesting,’ Monteith growled, ‘that he would betray the cause to the British?’

  ‘I am not suggesting anything, my old china,’ said Nadolny, who liked to indulge in quaint English phrases. ‘New York, not I, made the decision that Sir Roger should stay in Germany. As honoured Ambassador, naturally, of a country now in the throes of rebellion.’

  *

  In Dublin, having to keep MacNeill in the dark was the one weak link in their preparations. At any moment, he might twig what was happening and take counter-measures.

  Plunkett’s plan, which had aroused Connolly’s admiration, was now put into effect.

  For weeks, Joe had been forging a document purporting to come from the Castle. The Administration, it said, intended rounding up key men among the paramilitaries, including MacNeill, Pearse and Connolly. It was also about to search buildings where arms might be hidden, such as the Volunteer HQ, St Enda’s School and Liberty Hall. This type of government action was the one thing that MacNeill had sworn would lead him to resist by force.

  Plunkett’s ruse was clever in that there was a sound basis for such a document. The Castle was edgy and undoubtedly kept files on all potential troublemakers in case mass-arrests were necessary at short notice.

  Plunkett started the rumour that an employee sympathetic to the Volunteers had access to plans in the Castle. He was copying and deciphering them slowly and at great personal risk.

  Plunkett’s assistant, Rory O’Connor, first broke the news to the Editor of New Ireland, Mr Patrick J. Little. He called a meeting of a few pacifists and some friends of MacNeill at the home of Dr Seamus O’Kelly on the Rathgar Road.

  Skeffy was among those invited.

  ‘Doesn’t it prove,’ he said, in his shrill, thin voice, ‘that the Castle wants to stir things up? Wants a pretext for suppressing a rebellion which they themselves have caused?’

  As the days passed, more of the document was leaked. Things went so well that Plunkett was left with only one decision: when to publish the document in its entirety. That would cause quite a stir.

  Back to Ireland at this time came a character who had caused many a stir in his time.

  Fifty-three-year-old Major Francis Fletcher Vane, Baronet, of the 8th Munster Fusiliers was one of the most colourful officers in the British army.

  He wore at a rakish angle a peaked cap, beaten beyond all reason. His face was a glorious sunset red, his mouth heavy, almost sensual. He walked with shoulders sloping forward, his swagger stick under his arm and his hands joined behind his back. With the features of a Silenus, he had an unerring eye for pretty women. They found him irresistible, though what his secret was no one knew.

  Among his equals, he was reckoned an eccentric. In the Boer War, he had made unpatriotic protests against the internment of Boer women and children in concentration camps.

  To his men, he was a hero. In battle, oblivious of bullets, he spent his time encouraging others. And his sayings were legendary. One of them was, ‘Brutality, like measles, is catching.’

  As soon as war broke out, he enlisted and was sent to recruit in Ireland. He had been born there and, though already a Home Ruler, command of Irish troops made him realize just how Irish he was.

  He had not endeared himself to his superiors. Too often, he was a gentleman among men who only pretended to be. They often mistook his honesty for pride.

  When he recruited in Cork he was amazed to find the walls plastered with Union Jacks and, underneath, ‘Come and Fight for Your Flag’. He immediately pasted an Irish harp over the Union Jack.

  When his CO reprimanded him for allowing his men to wear a shamrock in their caps, he was frankly puzzled. Was the Home Rule Bill on the statute book or wasn’t it? Sometimes military logic was like the peace of God: it surpassed understanding.

  He had recruited thousands of men; they loved his relaxed, unorthodox ways. In spite of his blimpish looks and exaggerated English public school accent, he hated bullies and had a passionate love for an underdog.

  He had been in Aldershot, attached to an Irish division which he had helped to recruit, and was ready to leave for France when his Divisional Commander called him in and roasted him for encouraging his men to think of themselves as Irish instead of British. Vane had not heard such filthy language since he was an eleven-year-old at Charterhouse. />
  The odd thing was, on the CO’s desk was a notice which Vane himself had written: ‘It is cowardly to swear at your men for they cannot swear back. Besides, you will want all your big swear words for really great occasions.’

  At the end of a long tirade, the General demanded his resignation.

  ‘Terribly sorry to disappoint you, sir,’ Vane said amiably. ‘No member of my family in 400 years has resigned his commission in wartime.’

  ‘Very well,’ the General said darkly. ‘But you will not be going with the Division to France.’

  By March 1916, Vane had one thing to thank the General for: his life. Almost the entire division, including his own Irish lads, had been wiped out in France.

  Vane had quite enjoyed himself since in the flesh-pots of London. He could afford it, never having been short of money. Though he had never had a settled job, apart from the Army, he was loosely attached to Lloyd’s of London.

  Now, with the approval of his old Chief from South African days, Sir John French, and his friend Harold Tennant, Kitchener’s Under-Secretary for War, he had been given the job of recruiting in County Longford.

  He was shocked to find how attitudes had changed since he was last in Ireland. It was very difficult to drum up any interest in the Army. Putting Home Rule on ice was one reason.

  Another was Kitchener’s distrust of the Irish.

  Kitchener was not alone in questioning their loyalty. The Viceroy was becoming more and more agitated by the growing number of dissidents and Nathan’s apparent indifference towards them. He demanded briefings by the DMP and General Friend. He also wanted more deportations of troublemakers, especially any with German connections. Nathan agreed to him being briefed, though he told his aides not to let him see anything sensitive.

  On 16 March, an informer told Nathan that Thomas MacDonagh had said at a Volunteer parade that it would be ‘sheer madness’ to attempt a rising without help from Germany.

  It struck Nathan as obvious. What on earth was Wimborne worried about? Without massive support from abroad, how would a tiny badly armed force dare take on the might of the British army? And, with Room 40 unwilling to risk giving their secrets away, nothing had been heard of Casement for ages.

  Friday 17 March, St Patrick’s Day, seemed appropriate for the German Admiral Staff to run through the expedition to Ireland.

  Haughwitz explained that a steamer of 1,400 tons would depart on 8 April and arrive in Tralee Bay between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. A pilot boat would guide it in.

  They studied the charts. Fenit Pier was clearly a good landing site.

  As to the ship’s cargo: 20,000 captured Russian rifles, a million rounds of ammunition and 400 kilograms of explosives. The Army had guaranteed delivery on time.

  The Admiralty had before them another in the latest of Casement’s requests to go to Ireland in advance in a U-boat. The General Staff had ordered them to turn it down, which they did only too gladly.

  Casement, like Devoy, was still under the illusion that MacNeill was in charge in Ireland. Unknown even to Monteith, he now wanted a U-boat in order to get back early and try to persuade MacNeill to call the rising off.

  Captain Heydell raised the question of whether the arms boat would be equipped with a radio.

  ‘Depends,’ Haughwitz replied, ‘on whether the steamer has an electric plant or not. We have not selected one yet.’

  ‘What are the rising’s chances of success, Herr Kapitän?’

  Haughwitz shrugged. ‘Even if it flops, the effect on British morale will make this small expenditure worthwhile.’

  Still hoping for a U-boat, Casement wrote in his diary:

  ‘St Patrick’s Day. In three weeks from today I shall probably be at sea in the most ill-planned enterprise that the history of Irish revolutionary efforts offers.’

  One thing he could do: stop the Irish Brigade from travelling to Ireland. So scrappy was the planning and so poor the equipment, they would either be killed on landing or taken prisoner and shot as traitors.

  He re-read his ‘treaty’ with Herr Zimmermann. It said that the Brigade would return to Ireland only if there was some prospect of success. That implied effective troop-support which the Germans were refusing to give.

  Tension was high in Dublin city centre on St Patrick’s Day.

  The Irish Volunteers and the Citizen Army paraded with rifles and fixed bayonets. Some of them had six-foot long pikes which they stacked outside church during Mass.

  The marchers held up traffic for two hours in the city centre where MacNeill took the salute on a podium. Beside him was The O’Rahilly, next to whom was Patrick Pearse who was thinking that within a month all these men and thousands like them across the country would be fighting for a Republic.

  That evening, the Superintendent of the Dublin Metropolitan Police reported to Nathan.

  ‘There were 4,555 Sinn Feiners taking part in the parade, sir, of whom only 1,817 were armed. Half had rifles, the other half shot-guns.’

  Nathan was impressed at the exactness of the figures.

  ‘How did the ordinary citizens react?’

  ‘Jeered and complained like hell about the traffic jams.’

  That evening Nathan received the RIC report on a monster turn-out of Sinn Feiners in Tralee led by a noted trouble-maker, Austin Stack.

  Wimborne was furious at this open defiance of authority. When Nathan called on him at his lodge, he said, ‘Can’t you see that this is all brewing up into something ghastly?’

  Nathan, who frankly thought him a fool, did his best to calm him. He pointed to the enormous disparity in fire-power between the Sinn Feiners and the British army as well as the reaction of decent ordinary citizens who looked on Sinn Feiners as cranks. He did promise to give serious thought to deporting troublemakers like a young man called Mellowes.

  ‘And,’ Wimborne asked, ‘what about that old chap, the one who runs a tobacconist shop in Great Britain Street?’

  ‘Clarke.’

  ‘Yes, him. All that coming and going in his place proves he’s up to no good. Why not deport him, too?’

  Nathan said, guardedly, ‘I’ll have the Attorney-General look into it. But, as I recall, there’s no record of him actually saying anything treasonable.’

  Nathan, having reassured the Viceroy, now tried to reassure himself. Could this big parade possibly be the prelude to a rising?

  He went over the facts and figures again before concluding, Impossible. Not even Sinn Feiners like Tom Clarke could be that stupid.

  Tom Clarke, with trembling hands, received Nadolny’s message which Mimi Plunkett had just brought back from the States.

  Clarke had waited years for this. Those weapons would help the west to rise and not just Dublin.

  In New York, John Devoy called McGarrity in Philadelphia.

  ‘Happy St Pat’s Day to you, Joe.’

  ‘You, too, John. I just can’t wait for Easter Sunday.’

  ‘Not another word,’ Devoy barked. ‘You never know if this damned phone is tapped.’

  McGarrity laughed. With their contacts in the German Embassy and the secret codes Papen was always boasting about, there was just no way any outsider could guess from such a remark what was happening in Ireland.

  In Room 40 of the Admiralty, Hall was working late.

  His team now had the German naval code, VB 718, their military code and the one for naval attachés which had been fished out of the sea. They had also obtained from Brussels the German consular or diplomatic code No 13040, one of the two used between Berlin and all German missions in the western hemisphere including Washington.

  His secretary brought in the latest telegram. It was from the German General Staff to Bernstorff:

  Instead of three trawlers, a small steamer of 1,400 tons cargo will come. Lighters will have to be in readiness. Anticipated that from 8 April onwards at 12 midnight there will be sent from Nauen, as introduction to the news, the word ‘Finn’ as sign that expedition has started. The wor
d ‘Bran’ will be given if a hitch occurs; a date after ‘Bran’ signifies that arrival of steamer has been postponed to this day. Wavelength 4,800 metres.

  Hall read it, blinking furiously, then called Thomson at Scotland Yard.

  ‘BT, just to let you know things are hotting up.’

  PART TWO

  COUNT-DOWN TO THE BATTLE

  21 March–23 April 1916

  And I say to my people’s masters:

  Beware,

  Beware of the thing that is coming,

  beware of the risen people.

  Patrick Pearse

  On 21 March, at the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven, on the northern seaboard, low grey-black clouds chased each other across a sullen sea.

  Lieutenant Karl Spindler, the tall, handsome young skipper of the small outpost-boat Polar Star received a note from his flotilla Chief, Commander Forstmann.

  ‘Come and see me at 5 p.m. Urgent.’

  As he tramped through pelting rain, he sensed that this was important. He walked with determination. His motto was: ‘What seems impossible becomes possible if you want it enough.’

  ‘Yes, Karl, a top-secret assignment for you.’

  As Spindler shook the rain off his greatcoat and cap and smoothed his brilliantined black hair, Forstmann went on:

  ‘I want you to pick a crew of twenty-one. See that each of our six boats is represented.’

  Spindler awaited an explanation but none was forthcoming.

  ‘Choose unmarried men, preferably without any family commitments.’

  Spindler’s keen eyes lit up. ‘You mean—’

  ‘Sorry I can’t say more at this stage.’

  That night, Spindler slept little. At 5 a.m., he left on a four-day patrol. As soon as they were at sea, he told his crew of a dangerous expedition ahead.

  ‘I’m asking for volunteers. Bachelors have preference.’

  As he expected, every bachelor aboard put up his hand.

  While Spindler was telling his men about a top-secret operation of which he himself knew no details, General French, at the Horse Guards, London, received in his office the Director of Military Intelligence, Major-General G. M. W. MacDonagh.