Dividing Ireland: World War I and Partition

128 THE EASTER RISING AND AFTERMATH
throwing Ireland’s destiny on the chances of war. If Germany lost,
Ireland would be defenceless from England. If however, Germany
won, political independence for Ireland might be obtainable with a
European guarantee, Ireland having secured a German guarantee
before giving her support. If Germany attempted to retain Ireland
herself, then England would be helpful in expelling Germany; it
was, therefore, in Germany’s interests for Ireland to be
independent. 26
Hobson sought to develop this treatise, and in 1913 he asked Sir
Roger Casement, an Irish Protestant with a distinguished
diplomatic career, to write a memorandum on the position Ireland
might adopt in a war between Germany and Britain. Hobson, at the
beginning of 1914, took this memorandum to New York, and with
the help of John Devoy, leader of the extreme Clann na Gael
organisation there, gave it to the German Ambassador, Count von
Bernstorff. Both Hobson and Casement believed an Anglo-German
war was imminent, and wanted to secure a commitment that a
German victory would result in an independent Ireland. The IRB
approved of the general purport of the document. 27 Casement
developed the arguments of the strategic importance of Ireland in
a series of articles which he wrote between 1911 and 1915. He
considered that the Pax Britannica had been achieved, not by the
ethical superiority of the English race but by the favourable
geographical position from which the English had been able to
develop and direct their expansionist policies, by barring the
seaways and closing the tideways of central and north-eastern
Europe. Without Ireland, Casement argued, there would be no
British Empire.
The vital importance of Ireland was understood by British
statesmen, claimed Casement, because the policy of subduing and
exploiting Ireland had been the aim of every English government,
from King Henry VIII onwards, whereas Ireland’s vital importance
to Europe had not been understood by European statesmen.
Casement did not rule out a military defeat of Britain by Germany,
but argued that in order for this to be realised Ireland had to be
detached from the British Empire, for to leave a defeated England
in possession of Ireland would not be to settle the question of
equal German rights at sea, or in world policy, but to postpone the
settlement to a second and possibly greater encounter. If Germany
were to profit permanently from victory she would have to ensure
that the seas would not be closed again. Casement, assuming for
the sake of argument that Germany annexed Ireland, maintained
that it was not at all clear that she would, or even could, injure
Ireland more than Britain had done—for to what purpose and with