1916 Read Online Free PDF Page B

Berlin, explaining that he had been approached by Irish-American leaders who wanted support for a new rising. On 11 June the general staff answered: ‘Fundamentally willing to give further support to the Irish by all means. Request for speedy information concerning nature, timeframe and size of needed help.’ 74 It was not surprising that the Germans showed so much eagerness. The Rising had failed but it had shown that the Irish republicans meant business. During the following months the admiralty and the general staff put together a plan codenamed Aufgabe P . The support envisaged was three times more important than the one for the Easter Rising: 60,000 rifles, 20 machine guns and 12,000,000 rounds of ammunition. The sending of soldiers was initially planned but was eventually abandoned. Two steamers would deliver the arms in Galway and Tralee harbours. They would be accompanied by submarines to prevent the royal navy from approaching. The date set for the landing was 21 February 1917. Despite the naval battle of Jutland, which had taken place on 31 May 1916 and which had shown that the German navy would not be able to break the blockade of the royal navy in the North Sea, the German admiralty was convinced that the steamers could reach Ireland undetected during the long winter nights, under cover of fog and with the help of storms. 75 Of course Captain Spindler’s Aud had shown that such a voyage was feasible after all. The Germans, moreover, still did not know that room 40 was busy decoding their messages.
    On 24 December 1916 Ambassador Bernstorff and John Devoy were informed of Aufgabe P . 76 Interestingly, this new German departure was once again associated with a renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare, which was to begin on 1 February 1917. 77 The Germans were ready to go when, on 16 January 1917, Bernstorff sent a message cancelling the whole operation. 78 What had happened? After the Easter Rising, John Devoy was corresponding with an Irish Volunteer called Liam Clarke, who was trying to re-organise the Volunteer movement. In one of his messages Clarke emphatically stated that, if a second rising was to take place, the Germans had to send not only arms but also men. Clarke also wrote that some republicans had been dissatisfied with the German help during the Easter Rising. 79 Since the general staff had decided not to send soldiers, Devoy sent a coded message to Berlin outlining the reasons why Aufgabe P had to be cancelled. 80
    But it was not the end of the story yet. As the archives in the Public Record Office in London show, room 40 had intercepted and decoded the messages regarding Aufgabe P , including the one that cancelled the operation. Once again, this was a golden opportunity to get rid of disloyal elements in Ireland and keep the republican movement decapitated. On 17 February 1917 Dublin Castle was warned and a list of about thirty republicans and republican sympathisers was drawn up. These men were arrested on 21 February, the night the Germans were supposed to come. Among them were Terence MacSwiney, Dr Patrick McCartan, Darrel Figgis, Seán T. O’Kelly and J.J. O’Kelly. There was nothing that proved their involvement in Aufgabe P and Liam Clarke was not on the list. 81 As Dr Brian Murphy has written: ‘[The men] … were given a sharp reminder that ultimate power lay with the British government.’ 82 But, above all, what the Aufgabe P episode does prove, beyond any doubt, is the truth of the theory put forward by Professor Eunan O’Halpin in 1984, namely that Captain Reginald Hall intentionally let the Easter Rising happen. 83 Indeed, the British approach to the Easter Rising and to Aufgabe P is essentially the same.
    The saga had a last, somehow amusing, twist. On 21 March, in the House of Commons in London, the independent nationalist parliamentarian Laurence Ginnell asked the home secretary under what conditions the arrested Irishmen were detained. What Ginnell ignored, however, was that