Book Review
Famous Trials 9: Roger Casement, Penguin Books, 1964, by H. Montgomery Hyde
H. Montgomery Hyde (1907-1989) was an Ulster Unionist MP and officer of Military Intelligence, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. With that background, it is perhaps not surprising that the book is biased against Casement. But there are no rants or denunciations. Indeed, the unwary reader might be under the impression that Hyde was sympathetic towards his subject. But nothing could be further from the truth!
Casement’s Arrest
At the beginning of the book Hyde describes the arrest and then interrogation of Roger Casement. The following extract is worth quoting:
“Towards the end of the first day of his interrogation, Superintendent Quinn entered the room carrying two large thin volumes which looked like notebooks or diaries. According to Thomson, he ‘peered round the door with the expression of Mephistopheles’, and tiptoeing across the room, he laid the books without a word on the Assistant Commissioner’s desk. ‘I found these in one of the trunks’, he whispered to his chief; ‘they may be interesting’. They were in fact two of several diaries and account books, beginning in the year 1903, kept by Casement and discovered in his trunks, which had been brought to Scotland Yard from his lodgings, as we have seen. Thomson asked the prisoner if the volumes were his. ‘Yes’, said Casement ‘They are my personal diaries’.
“After Casement had finally gone, Thomson looked through the pages of the two books on his desk and also examined the other three volumes which were brought to him. He professed to be horrified by what he read. Afterwards he wrote: ‘It is enough to say of the diaries that they could not be printed in any age or language’”.
This is a master class in Intelligence tradecraft. Not unlike the Black Diaries themselves, he is inter-weaving the truth with lies. The purpose of the lies is to buttress the shaky foundations of the Black Diaries narrative.
The problem that Hyde had is that, in 1964 when his book was published, it was known that the Black Diary collection consisted of three diaries, a cash ledger and an army notebook. But, in 1916, at most only a diary and a cash ledger were “found” according to the various accounts of Basil Thomson (Head of C.I.D., and Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police).
What Hyde is doing is cherry-picking from the accounts written by Basil Thomson and then adding his own invented bits.
So, the quotation: “peered round the door with the expression of Mephistopheles” is from Thomson’s autobiography, The Scene Changes, which was published in 1939, the year Thomson died. But in this book Quinn is not carrying “two large thin volumes”; only one volume!
So, Hyde has to reach for a previous version of Thomson’s to make one volume into two.
Then we have Hyde saying:
“Thomson asked the prisoner if the volumes were his. ‘Yes’, said Casement ‘They are my personal diaries’.”
But there is no record of Thomson asking Casement about the diary or diaries. Neither is there a record of Casement confirming that the diary or diaries were his! The nearest we have to even a sighting of the diary or diaries by Casement is the following passage from Thomson’s 1939 version:
“Whether Casement recognised the volume [in the singular—JM] or not I am unable to say. At any rate it did not appear to confuse him.”
So, Hyde is telling lies. But, even in the imaginary world that Hyde has constructed, there is no record of Thomson or any other official asking Casement about the illegal activities contained in the diary or diaries.
The following is pure invention by Hyde:
“After Casement had finally gone, Thomson looked through the pages of the two books on his desk and also examined the other three volumes which were brought to him.”
There is no record of Thomson examining “the other three volumes which were brought to him”. Thomson only ever said that he saw a diary from 1903 and a cash book!
Preparation For Trial
Hyde has an interesting account of the preparations for the trial. The solicitor for the defence, George Gavan Duffy, was forced to leave his firm of solicitors in London as a consequence of defending Casement.
It was with great difficulty that that they could find a senior barrister. Numerous requests were rebuffed. Eventually, Serjeant Sullivan was appointed the Senior Counsel. Sullivan was a brother-in-law of Gavan Duffy.
Sullivan was certainly not an ideal choice since he was more familiar with Irish law than English law. The following response from Sullivan to the request for his services suggests strongly that his heart wasn’t in it:
“… if the profession would sanction it, I would reluctantly go into the business, provided I was handsomely paid. I suppose the trial would certainly run to three days on which basis I would want 150 guineas… I do hope the worry will not kill me”.
Prior to Sullivan’s arrival in London the Senior Prosecuting Counsel, F. E. Smith (later known as Lord Birkenhead), instructed his junior counsel, Travers Humphreys, to give typescripts of what became known as the ‘Black Diaries’ to Artemis Jones, the Defence Junior Counsel. Smith conveyed the message that they could be used for a plea of insanity. But he didn’t indicate whether he would accept such a plea.
Sullivan refused to look at them and they were returned to the Prosecutor on the opening day of the Trial.
Apparently, Casement was completely unaware of this and Hyde makes no comment. As has been asked on numerous occasions in this magazine, why couldn’t the Prosecutor produce the original of the diary in what was one of the ‘trials of the century’?
But, also, why didn’t Sullivan read the typescripts? If the reason was they were irrelevant, how could he know without reading them? And, even if he thought they were irrelevant, would it not be prudent to prepare for the possibility that the Prosecution might use them at the trial? Finally, did not Sullivan have an obligation to show them to his client (Casement) to prepare him for what the Prosecution might throw at him?
As indicated, one of the most remarkable features of this story is the refusal of the authorities to question Casement himself about the diaries. Sullivan’s behaviour was in accordance with this.
Forty years later (1956), there was a debate in The Irish Times in which Sullivan claimed that Casement was a megalomaniac and that he (Casement) never denied that the so called Black Diaries were authentic. Hyde mentions this in his book but does not mention that, as the debate developed, Sullivan had to admit that Casement told him “nothing about the diaries or himself”.
The Trial
At the trial itself the defence team put forward an interesting Defence. Casement had been indicted on the law of Treason from the year 1351 which was formulated as being—
“… adherent to the King’s enemies in his realm giving them comfort in the realm and elsewhere”.
The meaning of the above seems clear. The defendant was guilty of treason if he made an alliance with the King’s enemies within the King’s realm, but Casement made an alliance with the King’s enemies outside the King’s realm (i.e. in Germany). Therefore, he was innocent of the charge as formulated in this statute.
But the judges in the case stood the meaning on its head. Justice Darling argued:
“We think the meaning of the words is this, ‘giving aid and comfort to the King’s enemies’ are words of apposition; they are words to explain what is meant by being adherent to, and we think that if a man be adherent to the King’s enemies elsewhere, that is by giving them aid or comfort elsewhere, he is equally adherent to the King’s enemies, then he commits the treason which the Statute of Edward iii defines”.
The learned judges decided that there must have been a comma after the words “in his realm” and another comma before the words “and elsewhere”.
That formulation, of course, changes the meaning of the sentence. The judges have created a subordinate clause with the words, “giving them comfort in the realm”. So, the sentence has, in effect, been transformed into:
“adherent to the King’s enemies in his realm and elsewhere”.
By creating a subordinate clause, the words “giving them comfort in the realm” have been neutralised.
When they failed to find the commas in the original legal document, the learned judges decided to insert them anyway! As Casement remarked in a letter to his friend Dick Morten, he was to be “hanged by a comma”. But he was realistic enough to know that that the political imperative of executing him would override all legal niceties.
The trial lasted four days. On the third day Sergeant Sullivan claimed to have a breakdown. This meant that on the final day the Junior Counsel, Artemis Jones, made the closing speech for the Defence.
It is interesting to note that F.E. Smith telegrammed his closing speech to the American media the night before he was due to make it. This ensured that it would be published in America on the same day as Smith delivered it, which shows how sensitive the British Establishment was to American opinion.
Appeal
There were two grounds for appeal. The point of law regarding the 1351 Act; and the misdirection of the presiding judge in his speech to the jury. Much to the chagrin of Gavan Duffy, Sullivan dropped the “misdirection” argument. This was in keeping with Sullivan’s extreme reluctance to upset the British Establishment. The Appeal failed.
The verdict of Guilty did not end the matter. The campaign to destroy Casement’s reputation was only beginning!
The campaign was not just waged by Naval Intelligence or by Scotland Yard, but was approved at the highest level of the British State. That campaign was largely focused on America in order to clear any obstacles to its participation in the War.
Hyde describes a conversation between the British Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, and the American Ambassador, Walter Page, on 1st August 1916. Asquith asked if he had “heard about the diary” (singular). Page responded:
“I have seen photographs of some of it.”
To which Asquith replied:
“You need not be particular about keeping it to yourself”.
News of the “Diary” reached Casement. He denied that that the rumours were true and instructed Gavan Duffy to gain access to the diary. The various Departments of State refused this request.
Catholic Church
In the final months of his life, Casement applied to be admitted in to the Catholic Church. It seems that the Church was not immune from British State pressure! The Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Bourne, required that Casement should first sign an apology “expressing sorrow for any scandal he might have caused by his acts, public or private”.
Casement declined “in all humility” to betray his principles and remarked: “they are trying to make me betray my soul”.
Aftermath
There is no doubt that the “Diary” plot had done its job. Support for Casement’s reprieve was diminished, and he was executed on 3rd August 1916. But the vindictiveness of the British State was not assuaged. Casement’s family wanted him “buried in consecrated ground subject to the funeral being kept private and any other restrictions that the Home Secretary might think it necessary to impose“.
Ernley Blackwell replied on behalf of the Home Secretary as follows:
“The law requires that it [the body. JM] shall be buried within the walls of the prison.”
He further insisted that this law applied to any sentence of death. But Gavan Duffy contradicted this by saying it only applied to murder. Nevertheless, the State remained unmoved.
Casement was buried in quicklime among murderers such as the notorious Crippen. Father Carey conducted the burial service, and the sole mourner was Father McCarroll.
Aftermath
Following Casement’s execution the campaign against him ceased in Britain, but continued for a brief period in America. Thereafter, the official position of the British State was neither to confirm nor deny the existence of the disputed ‘diary’ until 1959.
On 10th August1959 restricted access was granted. What emerged was not quite what was expected from the information that was circulating in 1916!
Most of the people involved in the controversy in 1916 were dead by 1959. But there was one person that was very much alive in 1959. Ben Allen of the Associated Press was adamant that what he saw in 1916 was not what was displayed in 1959.
Hyde quotes from what Allen wrote in the 1930s, describing what he saw in 1916:
“It was a rolled up manuscript which Hall took from a pigeonhole in his desk… The paper was buff in colour, with blue lines and the sheets ragged at the top as if they had been torn from what, in my school days, we called a composition book… The paper was not quite legal size.”.
Hyde remarks that, when he was given privileged access to the Diaries, he noticed that, in the 1903 Diary, all entries from 1/1/1903 to 13/2/1903 were detached. He suggests that these were the pages that Allen was shown in 1916.
Here is Hyde’s attempt to sustain his theory:
“The description fits the 1903 diary exactly as to the blue lines and the size, whilst it also explains why the sheets should have appeared ragged. The only difference is that personally I should describe the colour of the paper as being off-white rather than buff. The slight difference does not seem to have much substance, when we recall that Mr Allen was describing what he remembered more than twenty years after the event.”
As usual Hyde is cherry-picking the evidence when he is not actually distorting it!
So, he says the sheets “appeared ragged” in both the 1903 diary and the description of what Allen saw in 1916. But, even in the quotation that he reproduces from Allen in his own book, Hyde neglects the detail that what Allen said in the 1930s (long before the diaries were released) was that they were “ragged at the top”.
In an Irish Times article (4.8.1960), Allen repeats the point. He says that what he saw in 1916 had pages torn out horizontally (as from a flip chart —JM).
But the Diaries in the Public Records Office (PRO), which were released in 1959 had missing pages that had been torn out “vertically” (as from a book, JM).
He described the diaries in the PRO as “tiny white coloured notebooks”. Not “off white” as Hyde suggests. Hyde helpfully gives the dimensions of the 1903 Diary as 4” x 6”. But Allen estimates that what he saw in 1916 was 10” x 12” (i.e. five times the area of the 1903 ‘diary’ !).
In The Irish Times article Allen says Captain Hall:
“…showed me the rolled manuscript which, he said, were the diaries of Sir Roger Casement, who was then in Pentonville Prison. I asked for permission to interview Sir Roger in prison so that I could confirm the details in the diaries. Captain Hall evaded the question and said the diaries would be of tremendous news value to my news agency. I still refused to use them unless I could interview Casement.
“He never acceded to my request to let me go to Pentonville to see Casement to confirm or deny the details”.
Regarding the PRO documents Allen went on to say:
“I have no doubt at all that these were not the documents shown to me by Captain Hall as the original Casement diaries.”
Conclusion
All the evidence suggests that in 1916 the project to destroy Casement’s reputation was a work-in-progress. The forged documents had not been completed. It is also possible that some of the forgeries that had been completed were not of sufficiently high a standard to avoid detection and would later be discarded.
The Intelligence service decided in 1916 that their project could not withstand the scrutiny of a professional journalist such as Ben Allen; as distinct from mere functionaries of the British State such as H. Montgomery Hyde and others up to the present time.
John Martin
