Around noon on Easter Monday of 1916, some 1,600 Irish
nationalists (members of the Irish Volunteers) launch what came to be known as
the Easter Rising in Dublin, seizing a number of official buildings and calling
on all Irish patriots to resist the bonds of British control.
Since the outbreak of World War I, the leading Irish
nationalist, Sir Roger Casement, had pressed the German government to see the
potential benefit of an Irish rebellion against British rule. Consequently, on
April 2, the German merchant ship Aud was sent to the Atlantic coast of
Ireland, loaded with some 20,000 rifles and 1 million rounds of ammunition
bound for the hands of the Easter rebels. Before the Aud reached its
destination, however, a British ship intercepted it, and the crew members of
the Aud scuttled the ship with all its cargo. When Casement himself traveled
from Germany to Tralee Bay, also on the Atlantic coast, three weeks later, he
was put ashore by the Germans on an inflatable raft. He was subsequently arrested,
tried and executed for treason by the British authorities.
Meanwhile, plans for the Easter Rising had gone ahead
without Casement or German help. Due to last-minute uncertainty, however, one
of its leaders canceled the orders for mobilization on the Saturday before the
planned uprising. Because of this only 1,600 of an expected 5,000 participants
gathered at Liberty Hall on April 24 to march towards the center of Dublin.
There, they seized the post office, several court buildings, St. Stephen's Green
and several other locations. From the steps of the post office, the rebels
declared Ireland an independent republic, stating that “We declare the right of
the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered
control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible".Despite the
rebels' hopes, the public did not rise to support them, and they were quickly
crushed by the police and government forces sent against them, among them some
newly recruited troops bound for service in World War I. Sixty-four rebels were
killed during the struggle, along with 134 troops and policeman, and at least
200 civilians were injured in the crossfire. Fifteen of the uprising's leaders
were eventually executed; a sixteenth, Eamon de Valera, was saved from a death
sentence because he was an American citizen.
Even in its failure, the Easter Rising and the
continued volatility of the so-called Irish question demonstrated the thwarted
desires for self-determination that still bubbled beneath the surface in Great
Britain, as in many countries in Europe, even as the larger matter of
international warfare superseded them for the moment.
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