SOME  PUBLICATIONS

Casement—First World War—Further reading

Blockading The Germans! With an overview of 19th century maritime law

The evolution of Britain’s strategy during the First World War, 

Volume 1 

This is the first volume of a Trilogy examining overlooked aspects of the First World War and its aftermath from a European perspective. Comprehensively sourced with scholarly research, it explains how Britain used a continental blockade to force the capitulation of the Kaiser’s Germany by targeting not just military, but also civilian, imports, particularly imported food supplies, upon which Germany had become dependent since its industrial revolution. 

After joining the European War of August 1914—and elevating it into a World War—Britain cast aside the two maritime codes agreed by the world’s maritime powers over the previous almost 60 years — the Declaration of Paris in 1856 and the Declaration of London in 1909. In defiance of these internationally agreed codes, Britain aggressively expanded its blockade with the object of disrupting not only the legitimate trade between neutral countries and Germany but trade between neutral countries themselves. 

Britain’s policy of civilian starvation during the First World War was unprecedented in history. Whereas it had used the weapon of starvation against civilians in the past, in such instances this was either through the exploitation of a natural disaster to bring about famine (Ireland and India) or the result of pre-conceived policy against a non-industrial society (France during the Revolutionary Wars). Its use against Germany was the first time in history where a policy of deliberate starvation was directed against the civilian population of an advanced industrial economy. 

This volume traces the evolution of Britain’s relationship with international naval blockade strategies from the Crimean War through the American Civil War and the Boer War culminating in its maturity during the Great War. It also draws out how the United States—the leading neutral country—was made complicit in Blockading The Germans during the war and brings the story up to America’s entry into the War. 

Eamon Dyas is a former head of The Times newspaper archive, was on the Executive Committee of the Business Archives Council in England for a number of years, and was Information Officer of the Newspaper Department of the British Library for many years.

Eamon Dyas 

Belfast Historical and Educational Society 2018

Starving the Germans 

The Evolution of Britain’s Strategy During The First World War Volume 2 

This is the second volume of a Trilogy that examines the manner in which the First World War was fought by Britain and its Allies against the civilians of Germany and the Central Powers and the way in which the outcome of that war distorted the prevailing trajectory of European history. 

The first volume ‘Blockading the Germans’ explored the way in which Britain as the world’s primary naval power shaped the use of the naval blockade as a weapon against civilians from the time of the Napoleonic Wars to the advent of the First World War. It also dealt with the way in which United States’ actions as the main supplier of munitions and financial credits to the Allies compromised its neutrality and made the British pursuit of that war possible. 

This current volume begins at the point when the United States formally joined the war in April 1917. It shows how, through the use of food embargoes on the northern neutral countries, the United States completed Britain’s food strangulation of Germany and brought misery and death to the civilian populations of those countries in the process. 

It explains the way in which the terms of the November 1918 Armistice were arbitrarily expanded by the Allies to ensure that Germany was made malleable to the British demand that it accept total responsibility for the war and at the same time hampered its chances of a post-war recovery. 

It further explains the impact of the Armistice on the food supply mechanism that had been established in the United States to supply its own troops and the Allies during the war. In addition it reveals the way in which the post-Armistice attempts by Herbert Hoover and the American Food Administration to use the American food surplus to feed Europe were thwarted by obstacles placed in its path by France and Britain. 

Finally, the volume reveals Britain’s role in formulating the reparations demanded of Germany in the face of initial American opposition. The volume ends with an examination of the way in which the powers of the Reparations Commission undermined the incipient democratic institutions established in Weimar Germany. 

All books available from   http://www.atholbooks.org

“England’s Care for the Truth – by one who knows both”  

by Roger Casement, 

These articles by Sir Roger Casement, originally published in The Continental Times of Berlin, have lain forgotten for over a century. Now, for the first time, they are published as a collection by Athol Books to bring the authentic Casement to the general public. They take up the theme of his only published book, The Crime Against Europe: British Foreign Policy and how it brought about the First World War. They reveal Casement as a consistent Liberal when English Liberalism failed its great test in the ultimate moment of truth in August 1914. They show Sir Roger as a consistent Irish Nationalist when the Home Rulers collapsed into Imperialism. The ground shifted under his feet but he remained solid. For Casement action was consequent upon thought and knowledge. Remaining true to his principles he attempted to forge an Irish-German alliance. Not for Casement “My country right or wrong” but who was right and who was wrong. This collection explains why Casement did what he did and how it led him to Easter 1916. It shatters the British narrative of the Great War by “one who knew”. It shows why Casement was the most dangerous Irishman who ever faced up to Britain and why they had to hang him and attempt to foul his memory. In the latter, they have not succeeded.

Edited by Jack Lane

Published by Athol Books 2018

The Crime Against  Europe – A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914

The Crime Against Europe is Roger Casement’s only published book.  It is a book about British foreign policy and, because of what followed from its publication, it is a book of Irish foreign policy.  It states the definite view that British foreign policy was the cause of the World War that began in August 1914 and that the most desirable outcome of that war was the defeat of Britain by Germany.  It represents the British declaration of war as an act of aggression which gave effect to the foreign policy of the preceding years.

John Redmond on August 3rd gave support in Parliament to the British Declaration of War on Germany without consulting the Home Rule Party in Parliament or in the country.  Six weeks later, following the simultaneous enactment and suspension of the Home Rule Act, he directed the Irish Volunteers to join the British Army for the purpose of making war on Germany.

Also published by Athol Books.

The Great Fraud of  1914                                                                                Pat Walsh

Ireland’s Great War on Turkey                                                                        Pat Walsh

Ireland in The Great War, The Insurrection Of 1916 Set In Its Context Of The World War by Charles James O’Donnell (1849-1934) and Brendan Clifford (1992) 

An extract from the account of the Great War given by Charles James O’Donnell in The Irish Futurewith The Lordship Of The World (1929). With Introduction by Brendan Clifford 

The Christian Brothers’ History Of The Great War. Reprint of the monthly comment on the War between 1914 and 1918 in the Christian Brothers magazine, Our Boys (2007) 

Connolly And German Socialism by Brendan Clifford (2004) 

Roger Casement: The Crime Against Europe. With The Crime Against Ireland. 1914 (2003) 

Traitor-Patriots In The Great War: Casement & Masaryk by Brendan Clifford (2004) 

Casement, Alsace-Lorraine And The Great Irredentist War by Brendan Clifford (2006) 

Britain’s Great War, Pope Benedict’s Lost Peace: How Britain Blocked The Pope’s Peace Efforts Between 1915 And 1918 by Dr. Pat Walsh (2006) 

1914: England’s Darwinist War On Germany by Hans Grimm and Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell(2001) 

The Fighting Irish and The Great War, “Lest We Forget” by Brendan Clifford (2008)

Lord Hankey: How We Planned The Great War    by Pat Walsh  2015

Full Catalogue can be viewed, and books ordered at https://www.atholbooks-sales.org 

Email: athol-st@atholbooks.org