This idée fixe began to appear at once upon his return to Ireland in the year 1913, when he found politics in a chaos of ferment, and seeing Sir Edward Carson preparing to appeal to arms and his supporters to Germany, he too "began to indulge in treason in the same spirit as Carson and the Curragh crew," as he himself described his attitude of that time.
Possibly Germany was equally willing to sell her old rifles to both parties, but the war precipitated matters.
Autumn 1914 found Sir Roger (who, as we have already seen, had founded a body of volunteers in Ireland) in Berlin, where he was not only received at the German Foreign Office, but, in answer to an inquiry regarding the Kaiser's attitude to Ireland, was assured by the Foreign Department and the Imperial Chancellor that "Germany would never invade Ireland with the object of conquering it," and that, "supposing the fortune of war should ever bring German troops to Ireland's coasts, they would land as the forces of a Government inspired by goodwill towards a land and a people for whom Germany only wishes national welfare and national freedom." That he was not acting in any way as the representative of the nation whose ambassador he was supposed to be was amply proved by his repudiation after this adventure by the Irish leaders at home and such bodies as the Council of the United Irish League in America.
Such was the dream or delusion, however, which changed one of the most respected of British Consuls into a rebel traitor to the Empire. There is no need to insinuate selfishness or vilify his character, for he must have known his effort was bound to fail and counted the cost beforehand. The great point to remember is that the Irish people were free to make their choice and use their judgment, and they decided against him, not personally, but on the merits of the case he put before them, and there was nothing to do but to pay the penalty; and it is better on the whole for Englishmen to accept Ireland's own verdict upon Sir Roger Casement than to place him in the same rank as those who really represented Ireland against England, failed, and paid the price only too willingly.
The same might apply equally well to P. H. Pearse and James Connolly, neither of whom was by nature militant nor, indeed, "Separatist," save as a protest against not so much the theory as the reality of what went by the name of "Unionism." There seems a certain tendency among the middle classes and the mediocrities of mind in Ireland to class, ever since the days of Jim Larkin, the whole Labour Movement in Ireland as a species of hooliganism, though, strange to say, no one ever appealed more successfully or was received with more genuine enthusiasm in England than the socialist leader when he was pleading the cause of the children of the Dublin slums.
When Jim Larkin went to America, his mantle fell upon his right-hand man, James Connolly, and it is impossible to understand the rebellion without understanding the man who was a far more important, and will be a far more lasting, factor in the movement than Sir Roger Casement.
Casement used the magic hope of German help, but it was Connolly who pointed to the concrete grievances that would make any rebellion welcome to the workers.
Yet there was nothing of the wild dreamer or the hysterical patriot about James Connolly, the Ulster organizer of the Transport Union, much less anything of the hooligan.
His proper place should have been within the ranks of the Parliamentary Party, like so many of the other leaders, especially the Sinn Feiners; and it is a very significant fact that, in spite of their national claims, two of the greatest economic movements Ireland has seen since Parnell should have failed to be assimilated by the politicians—but it reflects as much upon one as the other.