Casement, Roger

Casement was born near Dublin, spent his childhood in Sandikovo . His father was Roger Casement, a Protestant captain of the Light Dragoons Regiment, and his grandfather was a bankrupt businessman from Belfast, Hugh Casement, who later moved to Australia. Captain Casement participated in the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838-1842). Casement's mother was Ann Jeffson from Dublin. Casement was left without parents early: his mother died when he was nine, and his father when he was thirteen. Kayment went to school in Ballymena. He left school at sixteen and took the position of clerk at the Liverpool shipping company Elder Dempster.

In 1882, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was consul in Mozambique (1895-1898), Angola (1898-1900) and Congo (1901-1904).

In 1903, Casement, then the British consul in Beaumont , was sent by the British government to the Free State of Congo , which was the personal possession of the Belgian King Leopold II , to investigate the human rights situation in this territory. An eyewitness report of abuse, known as the Casement Report, was sent in 1904.

Following the publication of the report, the Congo Reform Society , led by journalist Edmund Dean Morel , demanded action. The British Parliament demanded to reconsider the decision of the Berlin Conference of 1884 , according to which the Free State of Congo arose. Other European states, as well as the United States, sent diplomatic notes. The Belgian parliament, at the initiative of socialist leader Emil Vandervelde, forced Leopold II to create an independent commission. In 1905, the commission confirmed the findings of the Casement Report. On November 15, 1908, the Free State of Congo ceased to be Leopold's personal possession and the Belgian Congo was created.

In 1905, Casement was awarded the Order of St. Michael and St. George for his work in the Congo.

In 1906, Casement was appointed consul to Brazil, first to Paro , then to Santos . Finally, he became consul general in Rio de Janeiro . He joined the commission investigating the crimes of the slave traders of the Peruvian Amazonian company, whose head was Julio Cesar Arana. He found in Putumayo in Peru the same violations as in Congo. Casement was twice in this region: in 1910 and 1911. Some of those Casement called murderers went to trial in Peru, others fled. Arana himself was not charged with anything; he made a successful political career and died in Lima in 1952.

In 1911, Casement received the title of Knight-Bachelor for the activities of protecting the Indians.

Casement left service in the summer of 1913. In November of that year, he participated in the creation of the Irish Volunteer military organization and, together with Owen McNeil, wrote the manifesto of the Volunteers. In November 1914, Casement traveled to the United States to raise money for the organization. He managed to establish relations with the Irish nationalist organizations of the United States, in particular with Clan na Gael.

In August 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, Casement and John Devois met in New York with the German diplomat Earl von Bernstorff and proposed a mutually beneficial plan: if Germany sells weapons to the Irish and provides officers, they will raise a rebellion and divert the attention of British troops.

In October, Casement arrived in Germany through Norway. He introduced himself as the ambassador of the Irish people. In November, he negotiated in Berlin with diplomat Arthur Zimmermann and Chancellor Theobald von Betman-Hollweg . He spent most of his time campaigning for Irish prisoners of war from a camp in Limburg an der Lahn to volunteer for the Irish Brigade. During the war, he also participated in the development of plans for the Indian rebellion against Britain (Hindu-German Conspiracy).

Work in Germany was unsuccessful. In April 1916, Germany, which was skeptical of Keysman, but believed that it could benefit from the Irish uprising, provided only part of the required weapons (twenty thousand rifles, ten machine guns) and not a single officer.

German weapons never reached Ireland. The German cargo ship "Liebau" transporting it was intercepted, although it impersonated the Norwegian vessel "Aud Norge". The whole team consisted of Germans dressed in Norwegian uniforms, and even the books were in Norwegian. The British had previously intercepted German communications from Washington and knew that weapons were being prepared. The team, along with Captain Karl Spindler, was detained by the Bluebell on Friday during Easter Week. A German ship was escorted to Quintown (now Cove ) on April 22.

Casement knew nothing about the Easter rebellion when a rebellion plan was being developed. The Irish Republican Brotherhood kept him in the dark. Casement might not have known at all that the plans were not developed by the Volunteers, but by the members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Casement entrusted personal papers to Charles Curry, with whom he stayed at Diessen am Ammersee in Germany. He left the country in a submarine with Robert Monteith immediately after sending weapons. On April 21, 1916, three days before the uprising, Casement landed in Ireland, in the Bann Strand area. Sick after traveling, he stayed at Fort Mackeny (now known as Fort Casement) near the village of Ardfert and was subsequently arrested on charges of treason , sabotage and espionage against the British crown. Casement managed to send a message to Dublin that German help was not enough. Irish volunteers could help him, but received orders from the Dublin leadership not to do anything.

Casement was landed in the Tower . During the widely discussed Casement trial, the prosecution had problems because the crime was committed in Germany, and the medieval Treason Act was only valid on British soil. Nevertheless, the court took advantage of a broader interpretation of the Act. The appeal after the death sentence was unsuccessful. On August 3, 1916, at the age of fifty-one, Casement was hanged at Pentonville Prison in London.

Among the many people asking for leniency were writers Arthur Conan Doyle , who met Casement while working for the Congo Reform Society, William Butler Yates, and George Bernard Shaw . Edmund Dean Morel, condemned for pacifist views, could not visit Casement in prison. On the other hand, the writer Joseph Conrad , whose son was at the front, could not forgive Keysmant for betrayal. Casement family members donated money to the defense fund, although some family members served in the army.

Casement was not married and is now considered a proven fact that he was homosexual . At the time of his arrest, his so-called “Black Notebooks” - personal diaries, where he openly described his homosexual love affairs - received a huge response. Attitudes toward homosexuality were equally hostile at that time in England and Ireland, and this document greatly undermined Casement's reputation in the homeland. Later, some researchers expressed the opinion that the diaries were fakes created by British intelligence, others insisted on their authenticity. In 2002, a thorough forensic examination revealed that the diaries were indeed written by Casement ^[1] .

Casement's body was buried at Pentonville Prison Cemetery. In 1965, the remains were transported to Ireland and, with all military honors, were buried in the Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin. The President of Ireland, Eamon de Valera, ignored the advice of his doctors and attended a ceremony attended by 30 thousand people.

• An anonymous Irish rebel song, Lonely Banna Strand, talks about Casement's role in the uprising, his arrest and execution.
• Casement became the prototype of Lord John Roxton - the character of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel "The Lost World " (1912).
• Casement appears in the novel by Pierre Benois “The Road of the Giants” (1922), where he appears as a noble martyr.
• William Butler Yeats wrote a poem demanding the return of Casement’s remains to his homeland. Brendan Biane mentions this poem in the autobiographical book Borstal Boy (1958).
• Casement is a character in the play “Prisoner of the Crown” by Richard Heard and Richard Stockton, which premiered on February 15, 1972 in Dublin.
• In 1973, BBC hosted a production of David Radkin’s Casement play Cries from Casement as His Bones are Brought to Dublin.
• In November 2010, an artistic biography of Roger Casement was published, written by Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa - “The Celt's Dream” (“El sueño del celta”). In a Russian translation, the book was published in January 2012 by the Foreigner Publishing House.

• 1910. Roger Casement's diaries: 1910. The Black and the White . Sawyer, Roger, ed. London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-7375-X
• 1911. The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement . Mitchell, Angus, ed. Anaconda Editions.
• 1914. The Crime against Ireland, and how the War may right it . Berlin: no publisher.
• 1914. Ireland, Germany and freedom of the seas: a possible outcome of the War of 1914 . New York & Philadelphia: The Irish Press Bureau. Reprinted 2005: ISBN 1-4219-4433-2
• 1915. The Crime against Europe. The causes of the War and the foundations of Peace . Berlin: The Continental Times.
• 1916. Gesammelte Schriften. Irland, Deutschland und die Freiheit der Meere und andere Aufsätze . Diessen vor München: Joseph Huber Verlag. Second expanded edition, 1917.
• 1918. Some Poems . London: The Talbot Press / T. Fisher Unwin.

• A Brief Biography of Roger Casement
• The work of Roger Casement in the Gutenberg Project