Imperial Germany and Irish-American contacts, 1900–17
Sabotage in the USA !
In 1892 France signed a military convention with Russia: in the event of war, the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary, would have to fight on two fronts. As for the United Kingdom, it worried about Kaiser Wilhelm II’s decision to massively develop the German navy. When in 1901 Anglo-German talks eventually failed to reach a compromise, Frank Hugh O’Donnell, a maverick nationalist politician, paid a visit to the German embassy in London. He had come to offer an alliance between Irish nationalists and Germany. Unfortunately for him, the very anti-Home Rule ambassador Paul von Wolff Metternich zur Gracht rejected the offer out of hand. 

Triple Entente: strategic encirclement of Central Powers
But O’Donnell bided his time. In April 1904 the French and the British signed the Entente Cordiale, to the German government’s great consternation. O’Donnell grasped this opportunity and travelled to Berlin, where he met Secretary of State Oswald von Richthofen and explained that as president of the National Democratic League he would oppose British imperial policy that threatened German interests. Von Richthofen informed Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow of his visit. Von Bülow was at once smitten and went as far as to offer 60,000 marks to O’Donnell if his plan was successful! But once again Ambassador von Wolff thought otherwise and warned the chancellor that the affair could be seriously compromising if exposed. The deal was called off, but O’Donnell had not said his last word.
The Entente Cordiale marked a dramatic turning point in Irish nationalist attitudes to France, traditionally Ireland’s potential or actual ally against Britain: Irish republicans now turned to Germany and Austria-Hungary. We don’t know what, if anything, Wilhelm II knew about Frank Hugh O’Donnell’s various approaches, but he soon found his own source of information through Dr Theodor Schiemann, a professor of Eastern European history, who corresponded with the Irish republican George Freeman. Freeman originally came from County Mayo and was now a journalist specialising in foreign affairs for the Gaelic American in New York. He was in touch with John Devoy’s Clan na Gael and had a vast network of anti-British nationalist contacts, ranging from Scotland to Afghanistan. 
In 1906 the German editor of the Eastern World in Yokohama, Japan, advised Freeman to contact Schiemann. In May he sent his first letter, in which he proposed collaboration against Britain. Schiemann accepted immediately and their correspondence would last until 1921. Freeman gave information about nationalists and republicans in the United States and Ireland. He entrusted his letters to the crews of German ships in New York, as he did not trust the local post office. Schiemann in turn informed the foreign ministry in Berlin and also the kaiser. The activities of this anti-British network were essentially propagandist but on occasion they could be of a cloak-and-dagger nature. For example, in May 1907 Schiemann asked how many Irishmen were serving in the Royal Navy, the implication being that they could be relied upon to foment trouble when needed. (Freeman had ‘not been able to ascertain the approximate number’.)
There was another bad year for the Central Powers in 1907, as the United Kingdom and Russia signed an entente: the strategic encirclement of
	
Maverick nationalist politician Frank Hugh O’Donnell—first offered an alliance with the Germans in 1901.	
Germany and Austria-Hungary was now complete. In 1908, in London, Frank Hugh O’Donnell had a meeting with Austro-Hungarian ambassador Albert von Mensdorff, to whom he offered a plan of alliance. Mensdorff thought that his visitor was a man of wide historical and political knowledge but that ‘his views were a little exaggerated and eccentric’. Nonetheless, he sent a report on his meeting to Vienna. The Austro-Hungarian government was not interested, as Ireland was not in its direct geostrategic sphere, but it did forward the report to the Germans, who were definitely interested. The matter was entrusted to Schiemann, who contacted Freeman. The latter strongly advised him to have nothing to do with O’Donnell, as he was ‘an imposter and a dangerous one’. This was the end of O’Donnell’s Central European ventures. But Schiemann cannot have failed to notice the rather divisive nature of Irish nationalism—not a good sign. There was further bad news for Irish republicans. In 1909 Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg became chancellor and, unlike his predecessor, Bernhard von Bülow, he was not interested in the Irish question: no concerted German approach to nationalist Ireland could be expected in the immediate term. 

First World War
When the First World War broke out in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the United States would be neutral. The war, however, meant big business for American trade, and this greatly favoured Britain, France and Russia. German merchant ships had little chance of crossing the Atlantic without being intercepted by the Royal Navy. The Triple Entente countries bought vast supplies of ammunition and food, which increased as the war went on. From the beginning the Germans were at a huge disadvantage, and understandably it upset them. Tensions with the Americans gradually built up.
In August 1914 the German ambassador, Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, travelled back to the United States. In one of his suitcases were $150 million in German treasury notes, to buy as much American ammunition as possible before the British, French and Russians could lay their hands on it, and also to finance propaganda and sabotage operations. From Washington, the military attaché Franz von Papen (who would later become chancellor of Weimer Germany in 1932) reported about the huge quantities of ammunition in the harbours of New York, Boston, etc. General Erich von Falkenhayn, chief of the general staff, said that something had to be done to stop its arrival in Europe. Von Bernstorff and von Papen met John Devoy and Roger Casement in New York and it was agreed that Casement would travel to Germany to recruit Irish prisoners-of-war to fight alongside the German army for the liberation of Ireland. 
	
Franz von Papen (later chancellor in 1932), German military attaché in Washington DC in 1914, claimed in 1952 that sabotage in the United States was 
Roger Casement’s idea.
	
Eventually the Germans opted for sabotage operations, in which the fiery and clumsy von Papen was involved, using their own agents, German-Americans and Irish-Americans. Bridges were blown up, ammunition factories sabotaged, strikes organised, etc. In 1952 von Papen claimed that ‘it was [Casement], then in Berlin, who put forward to disrupt as much as possible America’s increasing supplies to our enemies with acts of sabotage’. Whether true or not, it put Ambassador von Bernstorff in a very tricky position: these covert activities, if exposed, would compromise his embassy and provoke the American administration into adopting a harsher attitude towards Germany. But Berlin would not listen to von Bernstorff’s warnings. In March 1915 Captain Franz von Rintelen was sent to the United States for further sabotage activities. He arrived in April and soon was at loggerheads with von Papen, whom he rightly believed to be a bungler. Von Rintelen’s stay in the country was short but it made a big impact as he did much damage. He carefully observed the situation on the docks of New York and recruited German sailors and also Irish-Americans, thanks to cooperation with George Freeman, of whom he had a high opinion. Soon a clandestine laboratory was set up aboard a German ship, the Friedrich der Grosse, moored in the harbour, to manufacture small, cigar-shaped incendiary bombs.

Irish dockers ‘swarmed about . . . with detonators in their pockets’
The dockers under von Rintelen’s command would place ‘cigars’ in between the boxes of ammunition while loading a ship. Their first success was the Phoebus, which was bound for Archangel in Russia but which ‘caught fire at sea’ and was obliged to dock at Liverpool. Von Rintelen held his Irish-Americans in high regard: ‘My most fanatical helpers in this way were the Irish. They swarmed about the various ports with detonators in their pockets and lost no opportunity of having a smack at an English ship’. There were other saboteurs who were not members of von Rintelen’s team, such as Captain Hans Boehm, who had set up his headquarters at the so-called ‘Pan American Trading Company’ in Liberty Street, New York. True to form, George Freeman kept Dr Theodor Schiemann fully informed of their activities. 
The Deuxième Bureau, France’s military intelligence service, was perfectly aware of these acts of sabotage and knew some of those who were behind them, notably Boehm. One ‘cigar’ that failed to detonate was found by the French aboard the Barkdale in Le Havre in Normandy (see drawing, p. 33). French, British and Russian agents were sent to New York and elsewhere, but von Rintelen remained elusive. Unfortunately for him, his recall to Berlin was orchestrated by a jealous von Papen. On his way back, passing as a Swiss citizen, he was arrested by the British secret service in August 1915 and spent the rest of the war in prison. As for von Papen, he was eventually expelled from the United States, as he was not particularly discreet. In fact, German sabotage and other covert operations were rather clumsy. In July 1915, for example, the American secret service got hold of Dr Heinrich Albert’s briefcase. Albert was working in the German embassy. The Americans found extremely compromising documents, including information that von Papen was investing c. $2 million dollars a week in disrupting ammunition shipments. 

Unsolvable problem for Germany 

	
Kaiser Wilhelm II was kept informed on Irish affairs by Dr Theodor Schiemann, who corresponded with Mayoman George Freeman. The latter maintained a vast network of anti-British nationalist contacts, ranging from Scotland to Afghanistan.	
War eventually broke out between the United States and Germany in April 1917, and sabotage operations stopped almost overnight as most German agents fled to Mexico. America’s hardly neutral trade was partly to blame for her entry into the conflict. In any case, German/Irish-American attempts to stop arms shipments had little chance of success because American factories were too efficient in their production. Moreover, at the beginning of the war there were not enough German U-boats to make a difference. Between February and September 1915, the 27 available submarines managed to sink only 21 of the c. 5,000 ships crossing the Atlantic. Sabotage operations were a desperate measure, but they did inflict some damage. American Captain Henry Landau, who investigated German activities, estimated that, between January 1915 and April 1917, 94 acts of sabotage or attempts at sabotage took place, including 46 on infrastructure and 48 on ships. His list may not be complete. For 1916 alone, the New York Times claimed that the ‘incendiary loss ... was easily twenty-five million dollars’. There was also a definite German clumsiness regarding Ireland and Irish America. Contacts with Irish-Americans were only established once the war had started, when it was too late. In 1915 George Freeman bitterly wrote to Dr Theodor Schiemann: ‘As I look back on things I never cease to regret that a properly organized campaign was not begun in British India and French Indo-China three years ago’. He was right and it must have dawned upon Schiemann, as he underlined this passage in Freeman’s letter. In the end, the problem of American shipment of ammunition was simply unsolvable for Imperial Germany.  HI

Jérôme aan de Wiel is a Visiting Professor in the History Department of University College Cork.

Further reading:

J. aan de Wiel, The Irish factor, 1899–1919: Ireland’s strategic and diplomatic importance for foreign powers (Dublin, 2008).
R. R. Doerries (ed.), Prelude to the Easter Rising (London, 2000).
H. H. Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914–1918 (London, 1997).   
Captain von Rintelen, The dark invader: wartime reminiscences of a German naval intelligence officer (with introduction by R. R. Doerries) (London, 1998).
http://www.historyireland.com///volumes/Issue%201/?id=114656

History Ireland 
Vol 18, Issue 1
Jan/Feb 2010
by Jérôme aan de Wiel
Jim Larkin in the USA
	
Jim Larkin—his circle of ‘brothers’ in the United States was riddled with informers.	
Sir,
—The sidebar on Jim Larkin in Jerome aan de Wiel’s article on ‘Sabotage in the USA’ (HI 18.1, Jan./Feb. 2010) is interesting in that it raises associated issues about Larkin’s stay in America between late 1914 and early 1923. Over the years there has been much speculation as to why Larkin spent so long in America. Pádraig Yeates raises the question in his Lockout—Dublin 1913 by suggesting that ‘It may be that Larkin preferred America to Ireland, at least until he landed in Sing Sing (in 1920)’. Others have speculated that although Larkin desperately wished to return to Ireland, the British government prevented him from doing so.
A detailed search of the secret Dublin Castle Special Branch Files on ‘Sinn Féin and Republican Suspects, 1899–1921’ (Colonial Office Record Series), released on DVD by Eneclann, reveals the reason for Larkin’s longer-than-intended stay in the United States—a reason that has plagued many an Irish cause in history. Yes, the British government did prevent him from doing so—with the active assistance of a number of informers within Larkin’s own circle of ‘brothers’. Two examples will suffice. According to the files, two individuals in particular were supplying detailed information to the Colonial Office in London and thence Dublin Castle. These two were Frederick Marsden and Charles Scaffa (of the Iron Workers’ Union). Another informer was Daniel D. Ryer, who swore an affidavit in which he detailed Larkin’s anti-British comments at a gathering in New York City. One of the informers provided information to the New York Police Department.
All of the information supplied by the range of informers was transmitted to and collated in the British embassy in Washington. Even Scotland Yard was kept abreast of the secret information supplied to the embassy. On one occasion (August 1917) this led the ambassador to issue a circular to all of ‘His Majesty’s Consular Officers’ to ‘refuse to viser [Larkin’s] passport’, thereby preventing him leaving the United States for Australia or any of the Dominions. It appears that Larkin (described in the file by the ambassador, Cecil Spring Rice, as ‘the Irish agitator’) was aware that he would be prevented from leaving the US for travel directly to England or Ireland. So, according to one informer, Larkin was planning to get to one of the Dominions and from there continue his journey to Ireland.
Frustrated in his desire to get back to Ireland, Larkin became more and more outspoken in his criticism of the ‘Wars of Kings and Kapitalists’, winding up in Sing Sing for his troubles. The previously secret Dublin Castle file on Larkin (CO 904/206/233A), consisting of over 200 pages, deserves deep mining.—Yours etc.,
KIERAN McGOVERN
Dublin 16
History Ireland
Vol 10 Issue 2 
March-April 2010

The Irish factor 1899–1919: Ireland’s strategic and diplomatic importance for foreign powers Jérôme aan de Wiel (Irish Academic Press, €24.95) ISBN 978 0 7165 2864 7 

In Ulysses, James Joyce, always acutely sensitive to the zeitgeist of nationalist Ireland in the early twentieth century, has John Wyse voice disenchantment about the lack of support from European countries in recompense for the efforts of the Wild Geese at Fontenoy and elsewhere. ‘What did we ever get for it?’ asked Wyse. The ‘Citizen’ responds by condemning the French for making an Entente Cordiale with ‘perfidious Albion’. 
This is where Jérôme aan de Wiel begins his fascinating account of Ireland’s place in the strategic calculations of Paris, Berlin and Vienna in the run-up to the First World War. His first chapter, ‘France: Adieu Fontenoy’, shows advanced Irish nationalists, who in 1902 were busy urging a French invasion and being taken seriously in Paris, falling out with France and turning their attentions to Germany after the signing of the Entente Cordiale in 1904.  
There are accounts of mysterious Continental visitors to Ireland, of contacts between a motley band of Irish activists and the main European powers, culminating in Roger Casement’s efforts to drum up support for Ireland in wartime Germany, and of not particularly successful attempts to forge common ground between Irish-Americans and German-Americans in a bid to sway US policy. Religious differences bred suspicions between the two expatriate communities. The book also argues that elements within the British administration knew in advance about the Easter Rising but saw it as a welcome pretext for a crackdown on Irish nationalism.  
The book points out that ‘in the summer of 1914, there were two hotspots in Europe. One was in the centre, Serbia, the other in the West, Ireland.’ Drawing on a rich vein of European sources, aan de Wiel poses some intriguing questions. He asks whether their assessment of the situation in Ireland encouraged the Central Powers to adopt an aggressive policy towards Serbia in the belief that Britain would be incapable of intervening in a war in Europe. Churchill and Lloyd George are quoted in support of this thesis.   
He also wonders whether the war might have turned out differently had Britain, on account of trouble in Ireland, been unable to commit itself wholeheartedly to the defence of Belgium and France in the opening days of the war. This would turn John Redmond’s speech in the House of Commons in August 1914, when he committed nationalist Ireland to support the war, into a seminal moment in European history. The German historian Michael Stürmer has a different take on Ireland’s significance, seeing a divided British cabinet as ‘almost paralysed’ by the spectre of civil war in Ireland and thus failing to play a more active, conciliatory role in July 1914.   
The book is dense but consistently engaging, although it could have done with a few photographs or illustrations to lighten the presentation for the general reader. It shows that Kaiser Wilhelm II was a keen reader of reports suggesting that England’s difficulties in Ireland might be Germany’s opportunity. He relished the prospect of ‘cruelties’ in Ireland arising out of the failure of Home Rule on the basis that this would weaken his British foe.   
What is one to make of all this diplomatic interest in Ireland? Although many interesting nuggets of information are unearthed, this does not prove the existence of a grand strategy with regard to Ireland. It is clearly the case, however, that quite a number of the practitioners of high politics in the fifteen years before the war eyed Ireland with considerable interest as they vied for advantage in an increasingly fraught international atmosphere, as the belle époque gradually soured into what Ezra Pound termed a ‘botched civilisation’. Britain’s enemies naturally saw Ireland as a factor potentially in their favour. For their part, Irish nationalists and unionists (Edward Carson met the Kaiser in 1913) were keen to use to their advantage any European leverage that might be available to them.      
The intriguing thesis about the extent of Ireland’s role in precipitating the Great War remains unproven. In fairness to the author, he does not pretend otherwise. He argues that Ireland was ‘taken into account’ by the German authorities on the eve of the war, which represents a fair assessment. F.S.L. Lyons’s judgement in A new history of Ireland that the Germans were prone to regard Ireland as ‘a remote and improbable sideshow in which it would be folly to make a major investment of men and materials at a critical moment in the war’ probably holds true for the pre-war period as well.    
It is interesting to read analyses of Irish affairs by talented French and German officials as seen through the prism of their own country’s interests. Inevitably, they maintained an entirely selfish, strategic interest in Ireland. This book ends in 1919, a year when Ireland took its first steps in diplomacy at the peace negotiations in Paris. Two years later, Nancy Wyse Power, daughter of the John Wyse who fulminated in Ulysses about Continental ingratitude, arrived in Berlin to establish the first Irish diplomatic presence in Germany. This book is a reminder that, challenging as it always is for small countries to make a mark internationally, it is far better to be able to play your own cards than to be a pawn in the games of others. 

Daniel Mulhall is Ireland’s ambassador in Berlin.

The ‘Irish factor’ in the outbreak of war in 1914
	
The heir to the Austro-Hungarian imperial throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his family. The assassination of the archduke and his wife in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by a young Serbian nationalist provoked the ‘July crisis’, which coincided with the failure of the Buckingham Palace conference on Home Rule.	
After the signing of the Entente Cordiale in 1904 between the French and the British, Irish separatists quickly turned towards the Germans as potential allies. Kaiser Wilhelm II was in fact closely following the Irish crisis. He was personally kept informed by Dr Theodor Schiemann, a historian, who was secretly corresponding with George Freeman. Freeman was a journalist specialising in foreign affairs working for the Gaelic American in New York, the newspaper owned by the Irish republican and Clan na Gael leader John Devoy. Most of their correspondence concerned anti-British propaganda and occasionally work of a cloak-and-dagger nature. It remains difficult to know to what extent Schiemann influenced the Kaiser or German foreign policy but there is a hint. Former chancellor and secretary of state Bernhard von Bülow hated Schiemann and believed that his influence was fatal. As for the Kaiser, he became increasingly frustrated by Britain’s attitude towards Germany and increasingly aggressive in his comments regarding Ireland. He was being kept up to date about the latest developments by reports from his embassy in London. His marginalia show his interest in the Irish crisis. It must be emphasised, though, that these early contacts between Irish nationalists and Germans did not result in concrete measures. After all, when the war broke out in 1914 there was no rising in Ireland. Not even contingency plans had been made, something bitterly regretted by Freeman in 1915. Deep down the Germans probably still believed that they could reach an agreement with the British and make sure that they did not interfere in a general war on the Continent. 
Ireland and the ‘July crisis’
The Home Rule crisis intensified when, in 1913, the unionists set up the Ulster Volunteer Force and the nationalists retorted by establishing the Irish Volunteers. It now looked as if a large-scale civil war was only a matter of time. King George V told the Austro-Hungarian ambassador, Count Albert von Mensdorff, that he was seriously concerned.Interestingly, the Germans got wind of this information through their embassy in Turkey. When the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by a young Serbian 
	
Kaiser Wilhelm II—his marginalia show his interest in the Irish crisis.	
nationalist, tensions escalated between rivals Austria-Hungary and Serbia. This was the pretext for war that the Germans had been awaiting. Historians have named it the ‘July crisis’, during which politicians, diplomats and military men were wondering who was going to do what. As the Austrian historian Manfried Rauchensteiner has put it, it was clear that the Germans were using the July crisis for their own purposes, as the Austro-Hungarians were using the Germans to support them. 
What was the role of the Irish crisis in the unfolding events that would lead to the war? There can be no doubt that the combination of the Serbian and Irish crises was a lethal cocktail. On 12 July the Austro-Hungarian ambassador in Berlin, Count Ladislaus Szögyény, informed Vienna that the Germans were of the opinion that the British were not itching for a fight. It seems certain that Szögyény had the Irish crisis in mind. Indeed, on 18 July, just five days before Austria-Hungary would issue her fateful ultimatum to Serbia, demanding humiliating terms and being in fact only a ploy to invade Serbia, the German under-secretary of state, Arthur Zimmermann, privately declared that Britain did not want the crisis to degenerate into a full-scale war on the Continent because of the situation in Ireland. On 21 July the German secretary of state, Gottlieb von Jagow, told Admiral Behnke that the British would not enter a war. In Berlin, the Irish Home Rule crisis seemed like a godsend.  

Failure of Buckingham Palace conference on Home Rule
But in London Mensdorff was genuinely working for peace and feared that things could get seriously out of control. In two telegrams, sent on 23and 24 July, he warned Foreign Minister Leopold von Berchtold in Vienna that it was not clear what 
	
West Belfast Ulster Volunteers training at Fernhill House, Glencairn, in 1914. The Home Rule crisis intensified when, in 1913, the unionists set up the Ulster Volunteer Force and nationalists retorted by establishing the Irish Volunteers.	
Britain’s attitude would be in the crisis. The warning fell on deaf ears. On 24 July the Buckingham Palace conference in London failed to find a last-minute compromise between Irish nationalists and unionists: civil war in Ireland seemed a step closer. On 25 July Belgrade rejected Vienna’s ultimatum. On 26 July British soldiers in Dublin opened fire on a nationalist crowd on Bachelor’s Walk after agunrunning operation for the Irish Volunteers. The rifles had beenbought in Germany by Roger Casement. Four people died and 40were wounded. The long-awaited civil war now looked to be on its way. 
Albert Ballin, a ship-owner and personal friend of the Kaiser, had been sent to London to ascertain the political situation. On 27 July, the day after the shooting in Dublin, he reported to Berlin that Britain’s reactionto Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia had been very ‘mild’.He related itto the ‘present situation’. Undoubtedly Ballin had the Irish crisis in 
	
Count Albert von Mensdorff, Austro-Hungarian ambassador in London—King George V told him that he was seriously concerned about the Irish situation.	
mind. The same day, Germany advised Austria-Hungary to reject a British offer of mediation emanating from the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey. The Austro-Hungarians took this piece of advice. Why should they accept the offer from a disunited United Kingdom? Eventually, on 28 July, Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia. It was the first act of the First World War. Now all the great Continental powers became involved one after the other. But what would Britain do? 
On 30 July, Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was examining a map of Ulster in the cabinet room when he received a telephone message from the leader of the opposition, the Conservative Andrew Bonar Law. He asked Asquith to meet him and Sir Edward Carson, the unionist leader, at his Kensington abode. Intrigued, the prime minister accepted. Once there, he was told by Bonar Law that for the time being the second reading of the amending bill regarding Home Rule should be postponed ‘in the interest of the international situation’, as he was of the opinion that it was not good to expose the United Kingdom’s weaknesses at this precisemoment. According to Asquith, ‘I agreed and read to them the latest telegrams from Berlin which, in my judgement, assume that the German government are calculating upon internal weaknesses to affect our foreign policy’. So Asquith knew that there was a correlation between the Serbian and Irish crises. Nevertheless, he did nothing much or, at least, he was not firm enough. The problem for him was not only the Irish crisis but also his cabinet, which was divided over the prospect of being involved in a Continental war. Even though theGerman naval menace had been seen as a threat for several years now, would a war be in Britain’s interest? 

British indecision
The British showed indecision just at a crucial moment. On 30 July the Russian army mobilised to assist Serbia. Berlin immediately demandedthat the Russian government demobilise and asked Britain to remain neutral in the escalating conflict. 
	
Count Ladislaus Szögyény, Austro-Hungarian ambassador in Berlin—on 12 July he informed Vienna that the Germans were of the opinion that the British were not itching for a fight.	
Grey’s attitude was one of ‘wait and see’. On 31 July Paul Cambon, the French ambassador in London, got a phone call from Paris. Prime Minister René Viviani wanted to know what the British would do. He got no definite answer simply because there was none that could be given. On 1 August Germany declared waron Russia. In London, Grey was telling a dismayed Count Alexander Benckendorff, the Russian ambassador, that British assistance could not be guaranteed. Benckendorff reported to Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov in St Petersburg: ‘Grey said that certain circumstances could cause the English to intervene but that the presentdifficulties made it hard to send a force of even only 100,000 men to the continent, a forcewhich the government could use for possible inner troubles in the kingdom’. The ‘present difficulties’ was an obvious allusion to the Irish crisis. The same day, Grey told an equally dismayed Cambon that a British expeditionary force (BEF) would not leave for the Continent. On 2 August a dispatch reached the British government that German troops had entered Luxembourg. The British cabinet decided to meet at once, as it was clear that the next German objective would be Belgium. In fact, it met twice that day. In the morning it was decided that the French coast would be protected by the Royal Navy. In the evening it was decided that if the German army violated Belgian territory the United Kingdom would declare war. 
On 3 August Germany declared war on France, and Belgian territory was violated. King Albert I of the Belgians appealed for British assistance, as London was bound to defend Belgian neutrality under a treaty signed in 1839. At 3pm, Grey entered a packed and tense House of Commons. In his speech, he stated that the 
	
The British prime minister, Herbert H. Asquith—at a meeting on 30 July he informed unionist leaders Andrew Bonar Law and Sir Edward Carson that ‘. . . the German government are calculating upon internal weaknesses to affect our foreign policy’. (George Morrison) 	
crushing of France and the violation of Belgium’s neutrality would not be tolerated. He then suddenly lifted his voice and said: ‘One thing I would say: the one bright spot in the very dreadful situation is Ireland. The position in Ireland—and this I should like to be clearly understood abroad—is not a consideration among the things we have to take into account now.’ This confirmed that Germany and Austria-Hungary were relying on Ireland’s paralysing influence. That same day, Field Marshal Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, the Austro-Hungarian commander-in-chief, wrote in his diary: ‘England’s attitude proves to be unfriendly and doubtful. To [our] Military Attaché [in London], it seems, however, that there is no desire for war for the time being, taking into account the Ulster crisis and the civil war.’ To point out that Conrad and his military attaché were wrong, as there was no civil war in Ireland, is to miss the point. What matters here is their interpretation, and this interpretation must have encouraged Conrad and others in persevering in their offensive against Serbia. 

Redmond’s intervention
That there was no civil war was largely due to John Redmond’s crucial intervention, just after Grey’s speech,when he declared that the Irish Volunteers would stand shoulder to shoulder with the Ulster Volunteers to defend Ireland together against a foreign invasion—in other words, a German invasion. It can safely be said that the nationalist leader spoiled the expectations of Berlin and Vienna, and also very likely altered the course of European history. After all, what would have happened if hehad demanded the immediate implementation of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland? After Redmond’s speech, Mensdorff cabled Berchtold that the British were united, stressing that nationalists and unionists were too. But it was now too late. On 4 August a united United Kingdom declared war on Germany, and on 12 August on Austria-Hungary. The First World War was in full swing.
A.T.Q. Stewart’s assertion that the Irish Home Rule crisis played an important role in Germany’s policy is well founded. It was that crisis, coupled with the fact that the cabinet was divided, that explained why it took 
	
John Redmond addressing Irish Volunteers. That there was no civil war in Ireland was largely due to his crucial intervention, just after Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey’s speech to the House of Commons on 3 August, when he declared that the Irish Volunteers would stand shoulder to shoulder with the Ulster Volunteers to defend Ireland against a foreign invasion—in other words, a German invasion. (George Morrison)	
theBritish so long to commit themselves to supporting the French and the Russians. Baron Eugène Beyens, the Belgian minister in Berlin at the time, suggested that the outcome of the July crisis might have been different if the British government had been firmer in its attitude towards Germany. This, however, will always remain in the realm of hypothesis. But Beyens also explained that the Irish question was like a sword of Damocles for Asquith’s cabinet and here he was definitely right. What is amazing is that it took so long to relate it to the July crisis. Published books dealing with the outbreak of the war rarely take the Irish crisis into account and, when they do, it is only in avery superficial way, disconnected from Continental events. Archival research proves that there was an important ‘Irish factor’ in that summer of 1914.  HI

Jérôme aan de Wiel lectures in history at University College Cork.

Further reading:
J. aan de Wiel, The Irish factor, 1899–1919: Ireland’s strategic and diplomatic importance for foreign powers (Dublin, 2010).