Roger Casement | |
|---|---|
 Casement bySarah Purser, 1914 | |
| Born | Roger David Casement (1864-09-01)1 September 1864 Sandycove,County Dublin, Ireland |
| Died | 3 August 1916(1916-08-03) (aged 51) Pentonville Prison, London, England |
| Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
| Monuments |
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| Occupations | Diplomat, poet, humanitarian activist |
| Organisation(s) | British Foreign Office,Irish Volunteers |
| Title | a knighthood for his efforts on behalf of the Amazonian Indians, having been appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1905 for his Congo work. |
| Movement | |
| Parents |
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Roger David Casement (Irish:Ruairí Dáithí Mac Easmainn;[1] 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known asSir Roger Casement,CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat andIrishnationalist executed by theUnited Kingdom for treason duringWorld War I. He worked for theBritish Foreign Office as a diplomat, becoming known as a humanitarian activist, and later as a poet andEaster Rising leader.[2] Described as the "father of twentieth-century human rights investigations",[3] he was honoured in 1905 for theCasement Report on theCongo Free State and knighted in 1911 for his important investigations of human rights abuses in the rubber industry inPeru.[4]
In Africa as a young man, Casement first worked for commercial interests before joining the British Colonial Service. In 1891 he was appointed as a Britishconsul, a profession he followed for more than 20 years. Influenced by theSecond Boer War and his investigation into colonial atrocities against indigenous peoples, Casement grew to mistrustimperialism. After retiring from consular service in 1913, he became more involved withIrish republicanism and other separatist movements.
DuringWorld War I, he made efforts to gain German military aid for the 1916Easter Rising that sought to gain Irish independence.[5] He was arrested, convicted and executed for high treason. He was stripped of his knighthood and other honours. Before, during and after the trial, British security agents and police showed typescripts prepared by the Metropolitan police to influential persons. These were said to be official copies of his private journals which detailedhomosexual activities. Given prevailing views and existing laws on homosexuality, this material undermined support for clemency. Disputes have continued about these diaries; a private handwriting comparison study in 2002 concluded that Casement had written the diaries, but this was contested by several scholars.[6]
Casement was born inDublin and lived in very early childhood at Doyle's Cottage, Lawson Terrace,Sandycove,[7] a terrace that no longer exists, but that was on Sandycove Road between what is now Fitzgerald's pub and The Butler's Pantry delicatessen.
His father, Captain Roger Casement of the(King's Own) Regiment of Dragoons, was the son of Hugh Casement, aBelfastshipping merchant who went bankrupt and later moved to Australia. Captain Casement had served in the1842 Afghan campaign. He travelled to Europe to fight as a volunteer in theHungarian Revolution of 1848 but arrived after theSurrender at Világos.[8] After the family moved to England, Roger's mother, Anne Jephson (or Jepson), had him secretly baptised at the age of three as aCatholic inRhyl,Wales.[why?][9][10] However, the priest who arranged his baptism in 1916 clearly stated that the baptism had been inAberystwyth, 80 miles (130 km) from Rhyl.[11] Confusion over the location of his baptism can be explained by Casement mistaking the placename after 48 years.[8] Casement was later raised as a Protestant and remained such throughout his adult life.
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According to an 1892 letter, Casement believed his mother was descended from theJephson family ofMallow, County Cork[12] but the Jephson family's historian provides no evidence of this.[13] The family lived in England in genteel poverty; Roger's mother died when he was nine. His father took the family back to Ireland toCounty Antrim to live near paternal relatives. When Casement was 13 years old, his father died inBallymena, and he was left dependent on the charity of relatives, the Youngs and the Casements. He was educated at the Diocesan School, Ballymena (later theBallymena Academy). He left school at 16 and went to England to work as a clerk withElder Dempster, aLiverpool shipping company headed byAlfred Lewis Jones.[14]
Roger Casement's brother, Thomas Hugh Jephson Casement (1863–1939), had a roving life at sea and as a soldier, and later helped establish theIrish Coastguard Service.[15] He was the inspiration for a character inDenis Johnston's playThe Moon in the Yellow River. He drowned inDublin's Grand Canal on 6 March 1939, having threatened suicide.[15][16]
In a 1938 comment on Casement, which may have been coloured by knowledge of his subsequent fate,[17] and timed to follow Maloney's allegations of forgery, diplomat Ernest Hambloch, who knew Casement for three weeks in 1910, describes an "unexpected" figure: tall, ungainly; "elaborately courteous" but with "a good deal of pose about him, as though he was afraid of being caught off his guard". "An easy talker and a fluent writer", he could "expound a case, but not argue it". “His greatest charm was his voice, which was very musical". The eyes were "kindly", but not given to laughter: "a sense of humour might have saved him from many things".[18]
Joseph Conrad's first impressions of Casement, from an encounter in the Congo in 1890 he judged "a positive piece of good luck", were that he "thinks, speaks well, [and is] most intelligent and very sympathetic". Later,after Casement's arrest and trial, Conrad—by then a naturalized British subject—revoked and contradicted his original judgment of a quarter century earlier: "Already in Africa, I judged he was a man, properly speaking, of no mind at all. I don't mean stupid. I mean that he was all emotion. By emotional force (Putumayo, Congo report, etc.) he made his way, and sheer temperament—a truly tragic personality: all but the greatness of which he had not a trace. Only vanity. But in the Congo it was not yet visible."[19]
Casement worked in the Congo forHenry Morton Stanley and theAfrican International Association from 1884; this association became known as a front for KingLeopold II of Belgium in his takeover of what became the so-calledCongo Free State.[20] Casement worked on a survey to improve communication and recruited and supervised workmen in building a railroad to bypass the lower 220 miles (350 km) of theCongo River, which is made unnavigable by cataracts, in order to improve transportation and trade to the Upper Congo. During his commercial work, he learned African languages.[21]
In 1890 Casement metJoseph Conrad, who had come to the Congo to pilot a merchant ship,Le Roi des Belges ('King of the Belgians'). Both were inspired by the idea that "European colonisation would bring moral and social progress to the continent and free its inhabitants 'from slavery, paganism and other barbarities.' Each would soon learn the gravity of his error."[22] Conrad published his short novelHeart of Darkness in 1899, exploring the colonial ills. Casement later exposed the conditions he found in the Congo during an official investigation for the British government. In these formative years, he also metHerbert Ward, and they became longtime friends. Ward left Africa in 1889, and devoted himself to a career in art and sculpture, producing works that centered on Congolese subjects and culture.[23]
Casement joined theColonial Service, under the authority of theColonial Office, first serving overseas as a clerk inBritish West Africa.[24] In August 1901 he transferred to theForeign Office service as British consul in the eastern part of theFrench Congo.[25] In 1903 theBalfour Government commissioned Casement, then its consul atBoma in theCongo Free State, to investigate the human rights situation in that colony of the Belgian king,Leopold II. Setting up a private army known as theForce Publique, Leopold had squeezed revenue out of the people of the territory througha reign of terror in the harvesting and export of rubber and other resources. In trade, Belgium shipped guns and other materials to the Congo, used chiefly to suppress the local people.[8]
Casement travelled for weeks in the upperCongo Basin to interview people throughout the region, including workers, overseers and mercenaries. He delivered a long, detailed eyewitness report tothe Crown that exposed abuses: "the enslavement, mutilation, and torture of natives on the rubber plantations".[24] It became known as theCasement Report of 1904. King Leopold had held the Congo Free State since 1885, when theBerlin Conference of European powers and the United States effectively gave him free rein in the area.[27]
Leopold had exploited the territory's natural resources (mostly rubber) as a private entrepreneur, not as king of the Belgians. Using violence and murder against men and their families, Leopold's privateForce Publique had decimated many native villages in the course of forcing the men to gather rubber and abusing them to increase productivity. Casement's report provoked controversy, and some companies with a business interest in the Congo rejected its findings, as did Casement's former boss, Alfred Lewis Jones.[14]
When the report was made public, opponents of Congolese conditions formed interest groups, such as theCongo Reform Association, founded byE. D. Morel with Casement's support, and demanded action to relieve the situation of the Congolese. Other European nations followed suit, as did the United States. The British Parliament demanded a meeting of the 14 signatory powers to review the 1885 Berlin Agreement defining interests in Africa. The Belgian Parliament, pushed by Socialist leaderEmile Vandervelde and other critics of the king's Congolese policy, forced Léopold to set up an independent commission of inquiry. In 1905, despite Leopold's efforts, it confirmed the essentials of Casement's report. On 15 November 1908, the parliament of Belgium took over the Congo Free State from Leopold and organised its administration as theBelgian Congo.
In July 1904 Casement was appointed as Consul in Lisbon. This was seen in London as a comfortable and better paid promotion after his arduous service in Africa. Casement had responded that while he would take up the assignment, "it might relieve the Foreign Office of some embarrassment were I to resign from the Service".[28]
In the event Casement found the undemanding and routine nature of consular work in a European capital to lack the challenge and satisfaction of his earlier postings. Poor health gave grounds for his returning to Britain after only a few months.[29]
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In 1906 the Foreign Office sent Casement to Brazil: first as consul inSantos, then transferred toPará,[30] and lastly promoted to consul-general inRio de Janeiro.[31] He was attached as a consular representative to a commission investigating reports about an enslaved workforce collecting rubber for thePeruvian Amazon Company (PAC), which had been registered in Britain in 1907 and had a British board of directors and numerous stockholders.[32] In September 1909, a journalist named Sidney Paternoster wrote inTruth, a British magazine, of abuses against PAC workers as well as Peruvians competing against Colombians in the disputed region of thePeruvian Amazon. The article was titled "The Devil's Paradise: A British-Owned Congo".[33]
In addition, the British consul atIquitos had said thatBarbadians, considered British subjects as part of the empire, had been ill-treated while working for PAC, which gave the government a reason to intervene (ordinarily it could not investigate the internal affairs of another country). These Barbadians were exploited into indebtedness to the Company, and used as enforcers against the Company's enslaved indigenous workforce.[a] American civil engineer Walter Hardenburg had told Paternoster of witnessing a joint PAC and Peruvian military action against a Colombian rubber station, which they destroyed, stealing the rubber. He also saw Peruvian Indians whose backs were marked by severe whipping, in a pattern called the "Mark of Arana" (the head of the rubber company), and reported other abuses.[35]
PAC, with its operational headquarters in Iquitos, dominated the city and the region. The area was separated from the main population of Peru by the Andes,[36] and it was 1,900 miles (3,100 km) from the Amazon's mouth at Pará.[37] The British-registered company was effectively controlled by the archetypalrubber baronJulio César Arana and his brother. Born inRioja, Arana had climbed out of poverty to own and operate a company harvesting great quantities of rubber in thePeruvian Amazon, which was much in demand on the world market.[38] The rubber boom had led to expansion inIquitos as a trading centre, as all the company rubber was shipped down the Amazon River from there to the Atlantic port. Numerous foreigners had flocked to the area seeking their fortunes in the rubber boom, or at least some piece of the business.[39] The rough frontier city, including both respectable businesses and the vice district, was highly influenced by the PAC and Arana.[40]
Casement travelled to thePutumayo District, where the rubber was harvested deep in the Amazon Basin, and explored the treatment of the localIndians ofPeru.[41] The isolated area was outside the reach of the national government and near the border with Colombia, which periodically made incursions in competition for the rubber. For years, the Indians had been forced into unpaid labour by field staff of the PAC, who exerted absolute power over them and subjected them to near starvation,[b] severe physical abuse, rape of women and girls by the managers and overseers, terrorization and casual murder.[43] Casement found conditions as inhumane as those in theCongo. On 23 October 1910, regarding those conditions, he wrote that "It far exceeds in depravity and demoralisation the Congo regime at its worst". With "the only redeeming feature" he could identify with being that the Putumayo genocide affected thousands, whereas Leopold's state affected millions.[44]
Casement made two lengthy visits to the region, first in 1910 with a commission of commercial investigators. During his first journey in the Putumayo, he met several people connected to the company's most infamous actions, includingArmando Normand andVictor Macedo.[45] Casement wrote in his journal that Normand and Macedo actively tried to discredit his investigation and bribe the Barbadian employees. Casement believed that Macedo and Normand would do anything to save themselves and thought that they might have the Barbadians arrested in Iquitos for libel.[c] Casement even speculated that if he went to Matanzas alone, which was Normand's station, he might have "died of fever" and no one would have known. This alludes to previous suggestions that if Casement had not come to the Putumayo on an official mission, he might have been murdered.[47] On his return to Iquitos, a French trader Casement had previously met, told Casement that if he hadn't come in an official manner, the Company "would have got away with" him up there and his death would be blamed on the Natives.[48] Casement interviewed both (some of) the Putumayo natives and men who had abused them, including thirty Barbadians, three of whom had also suffered from inhumane conditions imposed by the company. When the report was publicised, there was public outrage in Britain over the abuses.
Casement's report has been described as a "brilliant piece of journalism", as he wove together first-person accounts by both "victims and perpetrators of atrocities ... Never before had distant colonial subjects been given such personal voices in an official document."[24] After his report was made to the British government, some wealthy board members of the PAC were horrified by what they learned. Arana and the Peruvian government promised to make changes. In 1911, the British government asked Casement to return to Iquitos and Putumayo to see if promised changes in treatment had occurred. In a report to the British foreign secretary, dated 17 March 1911, Casement detailed the rubber company's continued use ofpillories to punish the Indians:
Men, women, and children were confined in them for days, weeks, and often months. ... Whole families ... were imprisoned—fathers, mothers, and children, and many cases were reported of parents dying thus, either from starvation or from wounds caused by flogging, while their offspring were attached alongside them to watch in misery themselves the dying agonies of their parents.[49]
Some of the company men exposed as killers in his 1910 report were charged by Peru, while most fled the region and were never captured. In 1911, Casement tried to have one man in particular arrested,Andrés O'Donnell, after he was discovered living comfortably in Barbados. O'Donnell had worked for Arana as the manager of Entre Rios for seven years, and hundreds of natives died under his administration. Casement noted that he was the "least criminal of the chief agents" and "I don't think he killed Indians for pleasure or sport—but only to terrorize for rubber".[50] An extradition order was issued by Peru however it was found to be faulty, so O'Donnell was released on a legal technicality. He later escaped to Panama, and then the United States.[51] Others, such as Armando Normand andAugusto Jiménez Seminario, were arrested but escaped from jail before the conclusion of trials in court.
Between September and November 1911, Casement attempted to secure the arrest ofAlfredo Montt andJosé Inocente Fonseca, which Casement referred to as two of the "worst Criminals on the Putumayo".[52][53] At the time, the pair were working for a Brazilian firm namedEdwards & Serra at the settlement of Santa Theresa, around 40 miles fromBenjamin Constant on theJavary River's confluence with theSolimões River. They also had around ten Boras people with them, trafficked from the rubber station of La Sabana, part of La Chorrera's agency.[54][d] Casement managed to get Brazilian authorities to issue an arrest warrant and order of expulsion from Brazilian territory; however, Casement wrote this was "not put into execution by the police officer dispatched for that purpose from Manaos".[56] The instructions delivered to local authorities detailed that they would accompany Casement, detain Montt and Fonseca, then travel to the Peruvian port of Nazareth, located on Peru's border with Brazil, where Peruvian authorities could arrest the pair.[57] Casement observed that on the day of his arrival at Benjamin Constant, the officer sent from Manaos, José P. de Campos, gathered with the commander of the local police and señor Serra of the Edwards & Serra firm. Casement became convinced that Serra bribed these two figures of authority, as Campos left four days after his arrival at Benjamin Constant instead of beginning his pursuit immediately while Montt and Fonseca were warned that authorities were actively seeking them.[58] Montt and Fonseca managed to evade further attempts to secure their arrest by Peruvian and Brazilian authorities.[55]
After his return to Britain, Casement repeated his extra-consular campaigning work by organising interventions by theAnti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society and Catholic missions in the region. Some entrepreneurs had smuggled out cuttings from rubber plants and began cultivation in southeast Asia in colonies of the British Empire. The scandal of the PAC caused major losses in business to the company, and rubber demand began to be met by farmed rubber in other parts of the world. With the collapse of business for PAC, most foreigners left Iquitos and it quickly returned to its former status as an isolated backwater. For a period, the rubber patrons that depended on the Putumayo Indians for their workforce, were largely left alone. Arana was never prosecuted as head of the company. He lived in London for years, then returned to Peru. Despite the scandal associated with Casement's report and international pressure on the Peruvian government to change conditions, Arana later had a successful political career. He was elected a senator and died inLima, Peru in 1952, aged 88.[59]
Casement wrote extensively both for his private record and for the Foreign Office and the anti-slavery cause. In 1910 he wrote a long and detailed personal account of his day-to-day experience in the Putumayo investigation. This is known today as "The Amazon Journal" as edited and published by Angus Mitchell. The original manuscript is kept in the National Library of Ireland; it contains no sexual references whatsoever. The Black Diaries have seven conflicting versions of their provenance furnished by British officials. In 1911 Casement received aknighthood for his efforts on behalf of the Amazonian Indians[e] having been appointedCompanion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1905 for his Congo work.[61]
In Ireland in 1904, on leave from Africa from that year until 1905, Casement joined theGaelic League, an organisation established in 1893 to preserve and revive the spoken and literary use of theIrish language. He met the leaders of the powerfulIrish Parliamentary Party (IPP) to lobby for his work in the Congo. He did not support those, like the IPP, who proposedHome Rule, as he believed that theHouse of Lords would veto such efforts. Casement was more impressed byArthur Griffith's newSinn Féin party (founded 1905), which called for an independent Ireland (through a non-violent series of strikes and boycotts). Its sole imperial tie would be adual monarchy between Britain and Ireland, modelled on the policy example ofFerenc Deák in Hungary. Casement joined the party in 1905.[62]
In a letter to Mrs. J. R. Green, (the Irish historian Alice Stopford Green) dated 20 April 1906 Casement reflected on his conversion to the national cause as someone who had "accepted imperialism" and had been close to an "ideal" Englishman:[63]
It is a mistake for an Irishman to mix himself up with the English. He is bound to do one of two things—either to go to the wall if he remains Irish or to become an Englishman himself. You see I very nearly did become one once. At the Boer War time, I had been away from Ireland for years, out of touch with everything native to my heart and mind, trying hard to do my duty, and every fresh act of duty made me appreciably nearer the ideal of the Englishman. I had accepted Imperialism. British rule was to be accepted at all costs, because it was the best for everyone under the sun, and those who opposed that extension ought rightly to be 'smashed.' I was on the high road to being a regular Imperialist jingo—although at heart underneath all, and unsuspected almost by myself, I had remained an Irishman. Well, the war, [i.e.,the Boer War] gave me qualms at the end—theconcentration camps bigger ones—and finally, when up in those lonely Congo forests where I foundLeopold I found also myself, the incorrigible Irishman.
In the north, through his sister, Nina, inPortrush, and his close friends in London,Robert Lynd andSylvia Dryhurst, Casement was drawn into the orbit ofFrancis Joseph Bigger.[64] A wealthy Presbyterian solicitor, at his house on the northern shore of Belfast Lough,Ard Righ, Bigger hosted not only the poets and writers of the "Northern Revival",[65] but also, and critically for Casement,Ulster Protestants committed to taking the case for an Irish Ireland to their co-religionists. These included Ada McNeil, with whom Casement helped organise the firstFeis na nGleann ('Festival of the Glens') atWaterfoot (County Antrim) in 1904,[64]Bulmer Hobson (later of the IRB), the Nationalist MPStephen Gwynn, and the Gaelic League activistAlice Milligan.[66][67]
On the Irish interplay between religious factions and independence, Casement wrote to Bulmer Hobson in 1909: "The Irish Catholic, man for man, is a poor crawling coward as a rule. Afraid of his miserable soul and fearing the priest like the Devil". Freedom could come to Ireland ".. only through Irish Protestants, because they are not afraid of any Bogey".[68]
Casement retired from the British consular service in the summer of 1913.[69] In October he spoke at a Protestant assembly atBallymoney Town Hall organised by CaptainJack White (who, in the midst of theDublin lock-out, withJames Connolly had begun organising a workers' militia, theIrish Citizen Army).[70][71] On a platform with Ada McNeill, the historianAlice Stopford Green, and the veterantenant-right activistJ. B. Armour, he spoke to the motion disputing the claim ofEdward Carson and his unionists "to represent the Protestant community of North East Ulster", and condemning the prospect of "lawless resistance" to Home Rule.[72][66]
Enthused by the meeting, which had been covered by all the London and Irish papers, Casement resolved to replicate the Ballymoney meeting across Ulster, starting withColeraine. But the Unionist-controlled council refused to allow the group access to the local Town Hall, and nothing came of it.[72] Meanwhile, an anti-Home Rule meeting addressed by Carson's lieutenantSir James Craig, then organising theUlster Volunteers, not only filled the Ballymoney Town Hall but had the crowd spilling out into the surrounding streets.[73] In the event, the Ballymoney Protestant "Protest Against the Lawles Policy of Carsonism" proved to be the only meeting of its kind held anywhere in Ulster.[72]
Already in November 1913, Casement had begun focussing on responding to "Carsonism" in kind: he became a Gaelic League member of the Provisional Committee of theIrish Volunteers launched at a meeting in theRotunda in Dublin.[74] At the same time White and Connolly at the ITGWU formed theIrish Citizen Army.[75] In April 1914, he had been together with Alice Milligan inLarne shortly after Craig had hadGerman guns run through the port, a feat Casement told her nationalists would have to match.[76]
In July 1914, Casement journeyed to the United States to promote and raise money for the Volunteers among the large and numerous Irish communities there. Through his friendship with men such asBulmer Hobson, a member both of the Volunteers and of the secretIrish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), Casement established connections with exiled Irish nationalists, particularlyClan na Gael.[77]
Elements of the suspiciousClan did not trust Casement completely, as he was not a member of the IRB and held views that they considered too moderate but others, such asJohn Quinn, regarded him as extreme. Devoy, initially hostile to Casement for his part in conceding control of the Irish Volunteers toJohn Redmond, was won over in June, andJoseph McGarrity, anotherClan leader, became devoted to Casement and remained so from then on.[78] TheHowth gun-running in late July 1914, which Casement had helped to organise and (with a loan from Alice Stopford Green)[79] finance, further enhanced his reputation.
In August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Casement and John Devoy arranged a meeting in New York with the western hemisphere's top-ranking German diplomat,Count Bernstorff, to propose a mutually beneficial plan: if Germany would sell guns to the Irish revolutionaries and provide military leaders, the Irish would revolt against England, diverting troops and attention from the war with Germany. Bernstorff appeared sympathetic. Casement and Devoy sent an envoy,Clan na Gael presidentJohn Kenny, to present their plan personally. Kenny, while unable to meet theGerman Emperor, did receive a warm reception from the German ambassador to ItalyHans von Flotow, and fromPrince von Bülow.[80]
In October 1914, Casement sailed from New York for Germany via Norway, travelling in disguise with a false passport and seeing himself as an ambassador of the Irish people. While the journey was his idea,Clan na Gael financed the expedition. Casement was carrying a large sum of money and sensitive documents. As a precaution he was accompanied by Adler Christensen, a young Norwegian immigrant returning to visit his family. The ship was boarded by the Royal Navy, detained and searched during which time Christensen concealed the money and documents entrusted to him. Casement was undetected. During their brief stop inChristiania, Adler Christensen,[81] was taken to the British legation, where he was questioned about his travelling companion. He gave no information. Later he made a second visit this time on Casement's instructions and was informed that he would be rewarded if Casement were "knocked on the head".[82] British diplomatMansfeldt Findlay, sent a top secret memorandum to the Foreign Office alleging that Christensen had intimated a homosexual relationship with Casement. He continued to advise London that Christensen had, "implied that their relations were of an unnatural nature and that consequently he had great power over this man".[83] On Casement's instructions, Christensen set about the entrapment of Findlay which he finally achieved in December 1914 when Findlay handwrote the authorized bribe of £5,000 on official notepaper (equivalent to £606,100 in 2023) also guaranteeing immunity and free passage to the US in return for information leading to the capture of Roger Casement. Christensen returned to Berlin soon after with the original document which he delivered to a German official.
Findlay's handwritten letter of 1914 is kept inUniversity College Dublin, and is viewable online.[84]
In November 1914,[85] Casement negotiated a declaration by Germany which stated:
The Imperial Government formally declares that under no circumstances would Germany invade Ireland with a view to its conquest or the overthrow of any native institutions in that country. Should the fortune of this Great War, which was not of Germany's seeking, ever bring in its course German troops to the shores of Ireland, they would land there not as an army of invaders to pillage and destroy but as the forces of a Government that is inspired by goodwill towards a country and people for whom Germany desires only national prosperity and national freedom.[86]
Casement spent most of his time in Germany seeking to recruit anIrish Brigade from among more than 2,000 Irishprisoners-of-war taken in the early months of the war and held in the prison camp ofLimburg an der Lahn.[5] His plan was that they would be trained to fight against Britain in the cause of Irish independence. Fifty-two of the 2,000 prisoners volunteered for the Brigade. Contrary to German promises, they received no training in the use of machine guns, which at the time were relatively new and unfamiliar weapons.[citation needed] An anonymous but detailed account of Casement's unwelcoming reception at the camp appears inThe Literary Digest.[87] American Ambassador to GermanyJames W. Gerard mentioned the effort in his memoir "Four Years in Germany":
The Germans collected all the soldier prisoners of Irish nationality in one camp at Limburg not far from Frankfurt a[m]. M[ain]. There efforts were made to induce them to join the German army. The men were well treated and were often visited by Sir Roger Casement who, working with the German authorities, tried to get these Irishmen to desert their flag and join the Germans. A few weaklings were persuaded by Sir Roger who finally discontinued his visits, after obtaining about thirty recruits, because the remaining Irishmen chased him out of the camp.
On 27 December 1914, Casement signed an agreement in Berlin withArthur Zimmermann in the German Foreign Office, renouncing all his titles in a letter to the British Foreign Secretary dated 1 February 1915.
During World War I, Casement is known to have been involved in the German-backed plan by Indians to win their freedom from theBritish Raj, the "Hindu–German Conspiracy", recommending Joseph McGarrity toFranz von Papen as an intermediary. The Indian nationalists may also have followed Casement's strategy of trying to recruit prisoners of war to fight for Indian independence.[89]
Both efforts proved unsuccessful. In addition to finding it difficult to ally with the Germans while held as prisoners, potential recruits to Casement's brigade knew they would be liable to the death penalty as traitors if Britain won the war. In April 1916, Germany offered the Irish 20,000Mosin–Nagant 1891 rifles, tenmachine guns and accompanying ammunition, but no German officers; it was a fraction of the quantity of the arms Casement had hoped for, with no military expertise on offer.[90]
The German weapons never reached Ireland. The British had intercepted German communications coming from Washington and suspected that there was going to be an attempt to land arms at Ireland, although they were not aware of the precise location. The ship transporting the arms—the German cargo vesselLibau, disguised as a Norwegian vessel,Aud-Norge, under CaptainKarl Spindler—was apprehended byHMSBluebell on the late afternoon of Good Friday. About to be escorted into Queenstown (present-dayCobh),County Cork, on the morning of 22 April, Captain Spindler scuttled the ship by pre-set explosive charges. All of the crew were German sailors, though their clothes and effects, plus charts and books, were Norwegian,[91] and the surviving crew became prisoners of war.[92][93]
AsJohn Devoy had either misunderstood or disobeyed Pearse's instructions[citation needed] that the arms were under no circumstances to land before Easter Sunday, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) members set to unload the arms under the command ofIrish Citizen Army officer and trade unionistWilliam Partridge were not ready. The IRB men sent to meet the boat drove off a pier and drowned.[citation needed]
Casement confided his personal papers to Dr Charles Curry, with whom he had stayed atRiederau on theAmmersee, before he left Germany. He departed with Robert Monteith and Sergeant Daniel Beverley (Bailey) of the Irish Brigade in asubmarine, initiallySM U-20, which developed engine trouble, and thenSM U-19, shortly after theAud sailed. According to Monteith, Casement believed the Germans were toying with him from the start and providing inadequate aid that would doom a rising to failure.
Casement did not learn about theEaster Rising until after the plan had been fully developed. He wanted to reach Ireland before the shipment of arms and convinceEoin MacNeill (who he believed was still in control) to cancel the rising.[94] Casement sent John McGoey, a recently arrived Irish-American, through Denmark to Dublin, ostensibly to advise what military aid was coming from Germany and when, but with Casement's orders "to get the Heads in Ireland to call off the rising and merely try to land the arms and distribute them".[95] McGoey did not reach Dublin, nor did his message. His fate was unknown until recently. Evidently abandoning the Irish Nationalist cause, he joined theRoyal Navy in 1916, survived the war, and later returned to the United States, where he died in an accident on a building site in 1925.[96]
In the early hours of 21 April 1916, three days before the rising began, the German submarine put Casement and his two companions ashore atBanna Strand inTralee Bay,County Kerry – the boat used is now in theImperial War Museum in London.[97] Suffering from a recurrence of the malaria that had plagued him since his days in the Congo, and too weak to keep up with Monteith and Bailey, Casement was discovered by a sergeant of theRoyal Irish Constabulary[98] at McKenna's Fort, an ancient ring fort inRahoneen,Ardfert now known as Casement's Fort. When three pistols were discovered hidden nearby, the RIC arrested Casement on a charge of illegally bringing weapons into the country.[99]
Casement was eventually to face charges ofhigh treason,sabotage andespionage against the Crown. He sent word to Dublin about the inadequate German assistance. The Kerry Brigade of theIrish Volunteers might have tried to rescue him over the next three days, but its leadership in Dublin held that not a shot was to be fired in Ireland before theEaster Rising was in train and therefore ordered the Brigade to "do nothing"[100] – a subsequent internal inquiry attached "no blame whatsoever" to the local Volunteers for failing to attempt a rescue.[101] "He was taken toBrixton Prison to be placed under special observation for fear of an attempt of suicide. There were no staff at theTower [of London] to guard suicidal cases."[102][f]
Casement'strial at bar opened at theRoyal Courts of Justice on 26 June 1916 before theLord Chief Justice (Viscount Reading),Mr Justice Avory, andMr Justice Horridge. The prosecution had trouble arguing its case. Casement's crimes had been carried out in Germany and theTreason Act 1351 seemed to apply only to activities carried out on English (or arguably British) soil. A close reading of the Act allowed for a broader interpretation: the court decided that a comma should be read into the unpunctuated originalNorman-French text, crucially altering the sense so that "in the realm or elsewhere" referred to where acts were done and not just to where the "King's enemies" might be.[103][104] Afterwards, Casement himself wrote that he was to be "hanged on a comma", leading to the well-usedepigram.[105]
During his trial, the prosecution (F. E. Smith), who had admired Casement's work while he was a British consul, informally suggested to the defence barrister (A. M. Sullivan) that they should jointly offer the typescripts produced by the Metropolitan Police in evidence; these were said to be official copies of Casement's secret diaries. The prosecution assumed that Sullivan hoped to save Casement's life with a verdict of"guilty but insane". However, Sullivan refused to agree and Casement was subsequently found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Before, during and after the trial and appeal, British intelligence showed the police typescripts to the press and to influential persons. These portrayed Casement as a "sexual deviant" with numerous explicit accounts of homosexual activity. Scandalous rumours aroused public opinion against him and influenced those notables who might otherwise have tried to intervene. Given societal norms and the illegality of homosexuality at the time, support for Casement's reprieve declined in some quarters. The typescripts remained secret until published in 1959 as theBlack Diaries. Bound diaries said to be the originals are kept in the BritishNational Archives,[106] whilst most of the other exhibits from the trial are in theCrime Museum in London.[107]
Casement unsuccessfully appealed against his conviction and death sentence. Those who pleaded for clemency for Casement includedSir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was acquainted with Casement through the work of the Congo Reform Association, poetW. B. Yeats, and playwrightGeorge Bernard Shaw.Joseph Conrad could not forgive Casement, nor could Casement's longtime friend, the sculptorHerbert Ward, whose son Charles had been killed on the Western Front that January, and who would change the name of Casement's godson, who had been named after him. Members of the Casement family in Antrim contributed discreetly to the defence fund, although they had sons in the British Army and Navy.[citation needed] AUnited States Senate appeal against the death sentence was rejected by the British cabinet on the insistence of prosecutor F. E. Smith, an opponent of Irish independence.[108]
Casement's knighthood was forfeited on 29 June 1916.[109] On the day of his execution byhanging atPentonville Prison, 3 August 1916, Casement was received back into the Catholic Church at his request. He was attended by two Catholic priests, Dean Timothy Ring and Father James Carey, from the East London parish ofSS Mary and Michael.[110][111] The latter, also known as James McCarroll,[clarification needed] said of Casement that he was "a saint ... we should be praying to him [Casement] instead of for him".[112] At the time of his death he was 51 years old.
Casement's body was buried inquicklime in the prison cemetery at the rear of Pentonville Prison, where he had been hanged, though his last wish was to be buried atMurlough Bay on the north coast ofCounty Antrim, in present-dayNorthern Ireland. During the decades after his execution, successive British governments refused many formal requests for repatriation of Casement's remains. For example, in September 1953,TaoiseachÉamon de Valera, on a visit toPrime MinisterWinston Churchill in Downing Street, requested the return of the remains.[113][page needed] Churchill said he was not personally opposed to the idea but would consult with his colleagues and take legal advice. He ultimately turned down the Irish request, citing "specific and binding" legal obligations that the remains of executed prisoners could not be exhumed. De Valera disputed the legal advice and responded:[114]
So long as Roger Casement's remains remain within British prison walls, when he himself expressed the wish that it should be transferred to his native land, so long there will be public resentment here at what must appear to be, at least, the unseemly obduracy of the British Government.
De Valera received no reply.[113][page needed] Finally, in 1965, Casement's remains were repatriated toIreland. Despite the annulment, or withdrawal, of his knighthood in 1916, the 1965UK Cabinet record of the repatriation decision refers to him as "Sir Roger Casement".[115] Contrary to Casement's wishes, Prime MinisterHarold Wilson's government had released the remains only on condition that they couldnot be brought into Northern Ireland, as "the government feared that a reburial there could provoke Catholic celebrations and Protestant reactions."[24]
Casement's remains lay in state at the Church of the Sacred Heart (nearArbour Hill Prison) in Dublin city for five days, close to the graves of other leaders of the 1916Easter Rising, but would not be buried beside them. After astate funeral, the remains were buried with full military honours in theRepublican plot inGlasnevin Cemetery inDublin,[116] alongside other Irish republicans and nationalists. ThePresident of Ireland, Éamon de Valera, who was then 82 years old and the last surviving leader of the Easter Rising, attended the ceremony, along with an estimated 30,000 others.
British officials have claimed that Casement kept theBlack Diaries, a set of diaries covering the years 1903, 1910 and 1911 (twice).Jeffrey Dudgeon, who published an edition of all the diaries said, "His homosexual life was almost entirely out of sight and disconnected from his career and political work".[117] If genuine, the diaries reveal Casement was ahomosexual who had many partners, had a fondness for young men and mostly paid for sex.[118]
In 1916, before Casement's conviction for high treason, British intelligence showed police typescripts (alleged copies of Casement's diaries allegedly in police possession) to influential individuals in a campaign to destroy his reputation and to undermine sympathy for him. At a time of strong conservatism, not least among Irish Catholics, publicising the typescripts and Casement's alleged homosexuality undermined support for him. The question of whether the diaries are genuine or forgeries has been much disputed. The diaries were declassified for limited inspection (by persons approved by the Home Office) in August 1959. The manuscript diaries which were not shown in 1916 may today be seen at the BritishNational Archives inKew. Historians and biographers of Casement's life have taken opposing views. Roger McHugh (in 1976) and Angus Mitchell (since the 1990s) regard the diaries as forged. Mitchell has published several articles in theField Day Review of theUniversity of Notre Dame.[117] In 2019 Paul R. Hyde published Anatomy of a lie; Decoding Casement, a controversial investigation of the diaries which cited much official evidence and concluded that the bound diaries were forged after Casement's death. Hyde's central argument is that there is no independent witness evidence that the manuscript diaries physically existed in 1916. This argument has two sources; none of the studies and biographies pleading authenticity cite any names of independent persons who saw manuscript diaries in 1916; official UK government files also fail to cite such names but do verify that many named persons were shown the police typescripts.[citation needed]
A private investigation of theBlack Diaries was commissioned by Professor William J. McCormack of Goldsmiths College, jointly funded by theBBC andRTÉ, and carried out by Dr. Audrey Giles. The results of this handwriting investigation were announced by McCormack at a London press conference on March 12, 2002. He stated that the diaries were authentic "without any reason to suspect either forgery or interpolation by any other hand".[119]
Two US document examiners independently reviewed the Giles Report; both were critical of it. James Horan stated, "As editor of theJournal of Forensic Sciences andThe Journal of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners, I would NOT recommend publication of the Giles Report because the report does not show HOW its conclusion was reached." and "To the question, 'Is the writing Roger Casement's?' on the basis of the Giles Report as it stands, my answer would have to be I cannot tell."[120][121] Document examiner Marcel Matley wrote, "Even if every document examined were the authentic writing of Casement, this report does nothing to establish the fact".[122]
The Giles investigation was not intended for legal purposes and does not comply with recognised forensic standards.[citation needed] Giles reputedly made two errors;[according to whom?] the first was in accepting a biased instruction from McCormack that she verify the diaries as Casement's work and the second was in alleging that Michael Collins had authenticated the diaries.[citation needed] Almost certainly Giles was manipulated.[original research?]
A very brief expert opinion in 1959 by a Home Office employee failed to identify Casement as the author of the diaries.[citation needed] This opinion is almost unknown and does not appear in the Casement literature. As late as July 2015 the UK National Archives ambiguously described theBlack Diaries as "attributed to Roger Casement", while at the same time unambiguously declaring their satisfaction with the result of the private Giles Report.[123]
Mario Vargas Llosa presented a mixed account of Casement's sexuality in his 2010 novel,The Dream of the Celt, suggesting that Casement wrote partially fictional diaries of what he wished had taken place in homosexual encounters. Dudgeon proclaimed in a 2013 article that Casement needed to be "sexless" to fit his role as a Catholic martyr in the nationalist movement of the time.[117] Dudgeon writes, "The evidence that Casement was a busy homosexual is in his own words and handwriting in the diaries, and is colossally convincing because of its detail and extent."[117][124]
Casement has been the subject of ballads, poetry, novels, and TV series since his death, including:
By Roger Casement:
Secondary Literature, and other materials cited in this entry:
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