"In the midst of world-wide carnage, bloodshed in our little island may seem a trivial thing. The wiping out of all the Irish Nationalist and Labour Volunteers would hardly involve as much slaughter as the single battle of Loos. Doubtless that is the military calculation—that their crime may be overlooked in a world of criminals. Accordingly, the nearer peace comes, the more eager will they be to force a conflict before their chance vanishes. Is there in Great Britain enough real sympathy with Small Nationalities, enough real hatred of militarism, to frustrate this Pogrom Plot of British Militarist Junkerdom?
"Yours, etc.,
"F. Sheehy Skeffington."
Personally, I think I can diagnose the rebellion into ten perfectly distinct factors, but by far the least of them all is Germany. Germany was the personal note which Sir Roger Casement brought in, and which left it with his failure. It was accidental and extraneous both to the Sinn Fein Volunteers and the Citizen Army, though both were willing to make use of it.
Anyone who has taken the trouble to peruse the literature which fed the movement will recognize these diverse elements under various forms which appear in different places, but they are perfectly distinct.
The most immediate cause was the undoubted intention of the authorities to disarm them—a threat which had been overhanging them for some time, and which, in view of the well-known leniency of the Government with regard both to Sir Edward Carson and John Redmond in the same matter, struck them as particularly unjust, the more so perhaps because both Sinn Feiners and Larkinites thought that the Nationalists and the Orangemen would be only too glad to combine with the Government against them if need be.
Thus, if we take the issue of the Workers' Republic of April 22, 1916, we find an account, quoted from the Liverpool Courier, of how Connolly, the Commandant of the Citizens' Army, stopped the police raid, in search of papers, on the shop of the Workers' Co-operative Society at 31, Eden Quay, having been informed of their intention.
"Connolly," says the account, "arrived on the scene just as one of the police got in behind the counter. Inquiring if the police had any search warrant, they answered that they had not. On hearing this, Mr. Connolly, turning to the policeman behind the counter as he had lifted up a bundle of papers, covered him with an automatic pistol, and quietly said: 'Then drop those papers, or I'll drop you.' He dropped the papers. Then he was ordered out from behind the counter, and he cleared. His fellow-burglar tried to be insolent, and was quickly told that as they had no search warrant they were doing an illegal act, and the first one who ventured to touch a paper would be shot like a dog. After some parley, they slunk away, vowing vengeance."
The story runs on for a column or more, and ends with further discomfiture for the police. Then one reads:—
"In an hour from the first issue of the summons Liberty Hall was garrisoned by a hundred and fifty determined armed men, and more were trooping in every few minutes. It was splendid to see the enthusiasm of the men, and when in the course of the evening all the Women's Ambulance Corps trooped in, closely followed by the Boy Scouts, excitement and longing for battle was running high in all our veins. The Irish Volunteers were also on the alert, and stood, we are informed, until after 2 a.m. on Saturday morning. Since then the hall has been guarded day and night."