Some 11,000 revolutionists were in a state of mental if not martial mobilization in Ireland by this time. There were in Dublin some 825 rifles. But so cleverly were the volunteers' orders passed from member to member, that Sir Matthew Nathan, Under-secretary of State for Ireland, testified later that he did not know until three days before the outbreak occurred that German interests were coöperating. Evidently, however, sympathizers in America knew it full well, for in the von Igel papers captured in von Papen's office in New York was found the following message to von Bernstorff:
"New York, April 17, 1916.
"Judge Cohalan requests the transmission of the following remarks:
"The revolution in Ireland can only be successful if supported from Germany, otherwise England will be able to suppress it, even though it be only after hard struggles. Therefore, help is necessary. This should consist primarily of aerial attacks in England and a diversion of the fleet, simultaneously with Irish revolution. Then, if possible, a landing of troops, arms, and ammunition in Ireland, and possibly some officers from Zeppelins. This would enable the Irish ports to be closed against England and the establishment of stations for submarines on the Irish coast and the cutting off of the supply of food for England. The services of the revolution may therefore decide the war.
"He asks that a telegram to this effect be sent to Berlin."
Presumably such a telegram was sent, although on April 17 Sir Roger, with his recruits, was at Kiel. Three days before the Berlin press bureau had authorized the issuance of a despatch through the semi-official Overseas News Agency that "political rioting in Ireland is increasing." On the same day a news item was published in Copenhagen stating that Sir Roger had been arrested in Germany to allay any suggestion that he was engaged in any other enterprise. On the afternoon of Thursday, April 20, a German submarine stuck its conning tower out of water off Tralee, on the Irish coast. Three men presently emerged, unfolded a collapsible boat, and rowed ashore in it. The three were Casement and two of his henchmen, come home to Ireland to spread the news that German arms and German aid were at hand. Off the southwest coast the patrol ship Bluebell of the British Navy sighted, on Good Friday morning, a ship flying the Norwegian flag, and calling herself, in answer to the Bluebell's hail, the Aud, out of Bergen for Genoa. Under the persuasive effect of a warning shot from the Bluebell the Aud followed her as far as Daunt's Rock, where her crew of German sailors set fire to her, hoisted the German naval ensign, abandoned ship, and then surrendered under fire. The Aud sank, carrying the arms for Irish revolution with her. Sir Roger was arrested in hiding, and on Easter Sunday Dublin broke out in revolt. On Monday a cipher message reached O'Leary, telling him of the uprising hours before the British censor permitted the news story to cross the ocean. John Devoy burst out in a heated charge in the Gaelic American that—
"The sinking of the German ship loaded with arms and ammunition ... was the direct result of information treacherously given to the British Government by a member of the Washington Administration ... Wilson's officials obtained the information by an act of lawlessness, a violation of international law and of American law, committed with the deliberate purpose of helping England, and it was promptly put at the disposal of the British Government...."
This charge was denied at once from Washington. The specific "violation of international law and of American law" to which Devoy referred was generally supposed to be the seizure of the von Igel papers, for the accusation is the same as that which von Igel made when his office was raided. How Devoy knew that the von Igel papers contained information of the proposed expedition from Kiel to Ireland is a question which Devoy has no doubt had to answer to the Government of the United States since then. He and O'Leary, with Dennis Spellisy, who had collected large sums of money for the Sinn Fein cause, were loud in their protests against the execution of the ringleaders of the revolt on May 3rd, which put a sharp end to the endeavors of the revolutionists. That O'Leary was known to the German system of secret agents in America needs no further substantiation. To credit him with generalship, however, would be doing him too great honor and the Irish-American population injustice; O'Leary was bitterly pro-German, but so were hundreds of more prominent and influential Irish-Americans: one could find the names of several New York Justices upon the roster of the Friends of Peace. Sir Roger Casement petitioned for a Philadelphia lawyer at his trial for treason, and Sir Roger's sister attempted unsuccessfully to reach President Wilson, through his secretary, Joseph P. Tumulty, in an effort to bring about intercession in the doomed knight's favor. (Mr. Tumulty was approached more than once by persons whom he had reason to suspect of alloyed motives who desired to "set forth a case to the President.") The link between the old country and the new is close, the future of Ireland is one of more than usual interest and concern to the United States, and the fact that the great majority of Irish-Americans have subordinated their insular convictions to the greater conviction of loyalty to their adopted land is at once a fine augury of ultimate solution of the Irish question, and a dignified rebuke to the efforts which Germany has made through America to exploit Ireland.
On Washington's Birthday, 1916, there came to New York one who posed as a French publisher and publicist. He brought excellent letters of recommendation, and was well supplied with money. He was personable, and well sponsored, and he was correspondingly well received. Within a month he left the United States for France, with appropriate expressions of his appreciation of American hospitality.
In April, 1918, that same man faced a French firing squad, guilty of having attempted to betray his country, and of having traded with the enemy.
He was Paul Bolo Pacha, Paul Bolo by common usage, Pacha by whatever right is vested in a deposed Khedive to confer titles. Born somewhere in the obscurity of the Levant, he came as a boy to Marseilles. He was successively barber's-boy, lobster-monger, husband of a rich woman who left him her estate, then café-owner and wine-agent. Then he drifted to Cairo, and into the good graces of Abbas Hilmi, the Khedive. Abbas was deposed by the British in 1914 as pro-German, and went to Geneva; Bolo followed.
Charles F. Bertelli, the correspondent in Paris of the Hearst newspapers, naïvely related before Captain Bouchardon, a French prosecutor, the circumstances of his acquaintanceship with Bolo, which led to the latter's cordial reception at the hands of Hearst when he arrived in New York. " ... Jean Finot, Directeur of La Revue, ... had sent him a letter of introduction to Mr. Hearst and had requested me to accredit him with Mr. Hearst. He had said to me: 'Occupy yourself with the matter, Bolo has very great political power; he is the proprietor of Le Journal and it would be well that Hearst should know him.' ... I made the voyage with Bolo.... I spoke of Bolo to Hearst and the latter said to me, 'If he is a great proprietor of French newspapers, I should be very glad to....' As a compliment to Hearst, Bolo gave a grand dinner at Sherry's.... Bolo had two personal guests: Jules Bois and the German, Pavenstedt...." We need draw on Bertelli no further than to introduce the same Adolph Pavenstedt in whose offices Papen and Boy-Ed had sought refuge at the outbreak of war in 1914; Adolph Pavenstedt, head of the banking house of G. Amsinck & Co., through which the attachés paid their henchmen for attempts at the Welland Canal, the Vanceboro bridge, and at America's peace in general. Bolo had made Pavenstedt's acquaintance in Havana in 1913.
Four days after he landed in New York, and before the Hearst dinner (which was incidental to the plot) Bolo had progressed with his negotiations to betray France to a point where von Bernstorff sent the following message to the Foreign Office in Berlin: