goodwill, had asked Germany to send them some arms. I wish to make
it plain that Germany never made an offer to the men in Ireland, that
she gave nothing to them, not even the expression of goodwill, till
she was asked, and that when a request for aid came from Ireland, it
was not for money (England has kept us so poor that we have almost
learned to do without money), nor was it for men, but for arms, guns,
and ammunition. All that Germany promised in return to the request,
was that she would make the attempt to send us a certain amount of
arms, but as the ship would have to run the gauntlet of the British
fleet, she would promise nothing.
This answer was satisfactory to the revolutionary leaders. A date
was set for the ship to arrive, and a place designated.
After setting the date and sending it on to Germany, the leaders
found that it was necessary to change the date. Word was sent to
{200} Germany, but only arrived there after the shipload of arms had
set out.
About this time Roger Casement heard that a revolution was about to
take place. He asked that he be sent over to Ireland. There was
some demur at this, but finally they consented and gave him a
submarine. With him on the submarine went two followers of Casement.
The shipload of arms arrived on the first appointed date but the men
in Ireland, not knowing that their final message had been too late,
had no one there to meet it. Consequently, the ship had to hang
about for a number of hours, and finally attracted the suspicion of
the fleet which was in Queenstown Harbor. When challenged by the
fleet, knowing that subterfuge was hopeless, the Captain ran up the
German flag, and sunk the vessel with all the arms and ammunition.
Shortly after this, the submarine with Casement and the two other men
arrived off the Irish coast. They were landed with the aid of a
collapsible boat belonging to the submarine. Casement, after sending
a message to MacNeill advising against the Rising, and saying in the
message that Germany had failed {201} us, sought shelter in an old
ruin. One of the men managed to make his way into the country and so
escaped. Casement was arrested.
Before he was hanged he said that his whole object in coming to
Ireland was to prevent the Revolution. He did not do so, but was,
perhaps, the primary cause of its failure.
Acting on Casement's message and believing it, MacNeill sent out the
demobilizing orders. He had sent out many of them before the other
leaders became aware of it. He also gave instructions to the
Secretary of the Irish Volunteers to send out more. Then Pearse and
MacDonagh had a conference with him. After the conference he said to
the Secretary that although the thing was hopeless, he was afraid it
must go on.
He knew that the revolutionary leaders had decided that the
revolution must take place, even though the loss of the arms had
seriously crippled their plans. He knew that a disarmament of the
Irish Volunteers had been threatened, also the imprisonment of the
leaders. He knew that the Volunteers would resist the disarming, and
that the leaders still thought that they would have a good fighting
chance.
When he knew that the fight would go on in {202} Dublin, in spite of
his order, he began to weigh up the consequences, and saw nothing
before the Irish Volunteers save death and imprisonment. The
responsibility of allowing these men to go out to meet these, weighed
too heavily on him, and he thought that he might save the Irish
Volunteers in the country from them. He then had a message inserted
in the Sunday _Independent_, a paper that went to all the nooks and
corners of the country, to the effect that:
"All Volunteer maneuvers for Sunday are canceled. Volunteers
everywhere will obey this order.
(Signed) EOIN MACNEILL.
It was not until Sunday morning that the other leaders knew of this
demobilization order in the paper.
The consequences of this order in the paper, and the orders that were
sent out before it, I have already told.