1916 Read Free Page A

O’Donnell met the Austro-Hungarian ambassador, Count Albert von Mensdorff, in London. He had come to offer a plan of alliance between nationalist Ireland and Austria-Hungary designed to break the strategic encirclement imposed by the Triple Entente. Mensdorff thought that O’Donnell was ‘a little … eccentric’ but was sufficiently impressed to send a full report to Aehrenthal in Vienna. Interestingly, although the report was marked ‘secret’, the Austro-Hungarians passed it on to their German allies. 12 The matter was entrusted to Dr Schiemann, who lost no time in contacting George Freeman in New York. Freeman, however, advised the Germans to have nothing to do with O’Donnell as he was not reliable. 13
    It must be emphasised here that these early contacts between the Irish republicans and the Germans did not result in concrete measures. After all, when the war broke out in 1914 there were no risings in Ireland nor anywhere else in the British empire, except a short rebellion led by Christiaan de Wet in South Africa. Not even contingency plans had been thought out, something bitterly regretted by Freeman in 1915. 14 The explanation of this lies probably in the fact that deep down the Germans still believed they could reach an agreement with the British and make sure that they would not interfere in a general war on the continent.
    The home rule crisis intensified when, in 1913, the unionists set up the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) 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. The Ulster crisis attracted the foreign press, but not only journalists arrived in Ireland. Baron Georg von Franckenstein, from the Austro-Hungarian embassy in London, was among them, and his stay in the country became controversial. 15 It should not be forgotten that the 25,000 rifles delivered to the UVF on the night of 24–5 April 1914 came from the Steyr armament factory in Upper Austria. 16 The archives in Vienna reveal that Franckenstein wrote a report precisely on 24 April. 17 This was a most striking coincidence to say the least and prompts the question as to what he was really doing in Ireland all the more since the report has since gone missing. It is unlikely to be ever recovered as vast amounts of secret files were destroyed in Vienna after the war. 18 In 1939 Franckenstein published his memoirs in which he categorically denied any wrong-doing. The problem is that he seemed to have contradicted himself. In February 1913 he had been in India, and as he himself stated in his memoirs: ‘The purpose of my travels and stay in India was to study the general political situation and to ascertain what attitude the natives would adopt in a world war.’ 19 This was exactly what people accused Franckenstein of having done in Ireland. Similar accusations were levelled at Richard von Kühlmann of the German embassy, who was suspected of having gone on a secret mission to Ulster in the summer of 1914. Like Franckenstein, Kühlmann denied everything. The plot thickens here, however, as Margot Asquith, wife of the British Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, clearly remembered Kühlmann telling her that he had gone to Ulster. 20 Both men’s roles remain cloaked in mystery.
    When the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by a young Serbian nationalist, serious tensions developed between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, involving the major European powers. Historians have named this the ‘July crisis’ during which politicians, diplomats and militaries were wondering who was going to do what. What was Ireland’s role in the unfolding events that would lead to the outbreak of the First World War? As seen, Germany was essentially obsessed by the position of the United Kingdom. As Professor A.T.Q. Stewart wrote in 1967: ‘The influence of the Irish crisis on German policy has generally been underestimated.’ 21