The Dream of the Celt: A Novel

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “Sir Roger, you don’t have an accurate idea of proportions. Examine a map objectively and you will see how little Ireland represents in geopolitical terms. No matter how much sympathy the Reich may have for your cause, other countries and regions are more important to German interests.”

  “Does this mean we won’t receive the weapons, Count? Germany flatly rejects an invasion?”

  “Both matters are still under study. If it were up to me, I’d reject the invasion, of course, in the near future. But the specialists will decide. You’ll have a definitive answer anytime now.”

  Roger wrote a long letter to John Devoy and Joseph McGarrity, giving them his reasons for opposing an uprising that did not count on a German action. He urged them to use their influence with the Volunteers and the IRB to dissuade them from rash action. At the same time, he assured them he was still making every effort to obtain the weapons. But his conclusion was dramatic: “I have failed. I’m useless here. Let me return to the United States.”

  During this time his ailments flared up. Nothing had any effect on his arthritis pains. Constant colds with high fevers frequently obliged him to stay in bed. He had lost weight and suffered from insomnia. To make matters worse, in this condition he learned that The New York World had published an article, surely filtered through British counterespionage, according to which Sir Roger Casement was in Berlin receiving large sums of money from the Reich to foment a rebellion in Ireland. He sent a letter of protest—“I work for Ireland, not Germany”—that wasn’t published. His friends in New York dissuaded him from the idea of a lawsuit: he would lose, and Clan na Gael was not prepared to waste money on judicial litigation.

  In May 1915, the German authorities acceded to an insistent demand of Roger’s: that the volunteers in the Irish Brigade be separated from the other prisoners in Limburg. On May 20, the fifty Brigade members, harassed by their companions, were transferred to the small camp in Zossen, near Berlin. They celebrated the occasion with a Mass officiated by Father Crotty, and there were toasts and Irish songs in an atmosphere of camaraderie that helped to raise Roger’s spirits. He announced to Brigade members that within a few days they would receive the uniforms he had designed himself, and a handful of Irish officers would arrive soon to direct their training. They, who constituted the first company of the Irish Brigade, would pass into history as the pioneers of a great exploit.

  Immediately after this meeting, he wrote another letter to Joseph McGarrity, telling him about the opening of the Zossen camp and apologizing for the catastrophic tone of his previous letter. He had written it in a moment of discouragement but now felt less pessimistic. The arrival of Joseph Plunkett and the camp at Zossen were a stimulus. He would continue working for the Irish Brigade. Though small, it was an important symbol in the big picture of the European war.

  Early in the summer of 1915, he left for Munich. He stayed in the Basler Hof, a modest but pleasant hotel. The Bavarian capital depressed him less than Berlin, though here he led an even more solitary life than in the capital. His health continued to deteriorate, and pains and chills obliged him to stay in his room. His monkish life consisted of intense intellectual work. He drank many cups of coffee and constantly drew on black tobacco cigarettes that filled his room with smoke. He wrote endless letters to his contacts in the chancellery and the admiralty and maintained a daily spiritual and religious correspondence with Father Crotty. He reread the priest’s letters and guarded them like a treasure. One day he attempted to pray. He hadn’t for a long time, at least not in this way, concentrating, trying to open to God his heart, his doubts, his anguish, his fear of having been wrong, asking for mercy and guidance in his future conduct. At the same time he wrote short essays about the errors an independent Ireland ought to avoid, using the experience of other nations, in order not to fall into corruption, exploitation, the astronomical distances that everywhere separated the poor and the rich, the powerful and the weak. But at times he became discouraged: what was he going to do with these texts? It made no sense to distract his friends in Ireland with essays about the future when they found themselves submerged in an overwhelming present.

  When the summer was over, feeling somewhat better, he traveled to the camp at Zossen. The men in the Brigade had received the uniforms he had designed, and all of them looked good with the Irish insignia on their visors. The camp seemed well ordered and functioning. But inactivity and confinement were undermining the morale of the fifty Brigade members in spite of Father Crotty’s efforts to raise their spirits. He organized athletic competitions, meetings, classes and debates on a variety of subjects. Roger thought it a good time to flash before them the incentive of action.

  He gathered them in a circle and explained a possible strategy that would get them out of Zossen and give them back their freedom. If at this moment it was impossible for them to fight in Ireland, why not do it under other skies where the same battle for which the Brigade was created was being fought? The world war had spread to the Middle East. Germany and Turkey were fighting to expel the British from their Egyptian colony. Why couldn’t they participate in the struggle against colonization and for the independence of Egypt? Since the Brigade was still small, it would have to join another unit of the army, but they would do it preserving their Irish identity.

  The proposal had been discussed by Roger with the German authorities and accepted. Devoy and McGarrity agreed. Turkey would take the Brigade into its army, under the conditions Roger described. There was a long discussion. In the end, thirty-seven members declared they were prepared to fight in Egypt. The rest needed to think about it. But what concerned all the Brigade members now was something more urgent: the prisoners at Limburg had threatened to denounce them to the British authorities so their families in Ireland would stop receiving combatant pensions from the British Army. If this happened, their parents, wives, and children would starve to death. What was Roger going to do about that?

  It was obvious the British government would impose this kind of reprisal and it hadn’t even occurred to him. Seeing the anxious faces of the Brigade members, he managed only to assure them that their families would never be unprotected. If they stopped receiving the pensions, patriotic organizations would help them. That same day he wrote to Clan na Gael asking that a fund be established to compensate the families of Brigade members who were victims of this reprisal. But Roger had no illusions: the way things were going, the money that came into the coffers of the Volunteers, the IRB, and Clan na Gael was for buying weapons, the first priority. In anguish he told himself that because of him, fifty humble Irish families would go hungry and perhaps be ravaged by tuberculosis next winter. Father Crotty tried to calm him, but this time his words brought him no tranquility. A new subject for concern had been added to those tormenting him, and his health suffered another relapse. Not only his physical but his mental health as well, as had happened during his most difficult times in the Congo and Amazonia. He felt himself losing his mental equilibrium. At times his head seemed like an erupting volcano. Would he lose his mind?

  He returned to Munich and from there continued sending messages to the United States and Ireland regarding financial support for the families of the Brigade members. Since his letters, in order to mislead British Intelligence, passed through several countries where envelopes and addresses were changed, replies took one or two months to arrive. His anxiety was at its height when Robert Monteith finally appeared to take military command of the Brigade. The officer brought not only his impetuous optimism, decency, and adventurous spirit, but also a formal promise that the families of Brigade members, if they were the object of reprisals, would receive immediate assistance from the Irish revolutionaries.

  Captain Monteith, who traveled to see Roger as soon as he arrived in Germany, was disconcerted to find him so ill. He admired him, treated him with enormous respect, and told him no one in the Irish movement suspected he was in so precarious a state. Roger forbade him to tell anyone about his health and traveled
with him back to Berlin. He introduced Monteith at the chancellery and the admiralty. The young officer was burning with impatience to begin work and displayed an unshakeable optimism regarding the future of the Brigade that Roger, deep inside, had lost. During the six months he remained in Germany, Robert Monteith was, like Father Crotty, a blessing for Roger. Both kept him from sinking into a discouragement that perhaps might have pushed him to madness. The cleric and the soldier were very different and yet, Roger told himself many times, they were incarnations of two prototypes of Irishmen: the saint and the warrior. Alternating with them, he recalled some conversations with Patrick Pearse, when he combined the altar with arms and stated that the result of the fusion of these two traditions, martyrs and mystics and heroes and warriors, would be the spiritual and physical strength to break the chains that bound Ireland.

  They were different but both had a natural integrity, generosity, and devotion to the ideal, which, seeing that Father Crotty and Captain Monteith did not waste time in changes of mood and periods of demoralization, as he did, often made Roger ashamed of his doubts and fluctuations. Both men had laid out a path and followed it without deviation, without being intimidated by obstacles, convinced that in the end victory awaited them: of God over evil and of Ireland over her oppressors. Learn from them, Roger, be like them, he repeated to himself, like a short, fervent prayer.

  Robert Monteith was a man very close to Tom Clarke, for whom he also professed a religious devotion. He spoke of his tobacco shop—his clandestine general headquarters—at the corner of Great Britain Street and Sackville Street as a “sacred place.” According to the captain, the old fox, survivor of many British prisons, was the one who directed from the shadows all the revolutionary strategy. Wasn’t he deserving of admiration? From his small shop on a poor street in the center of Dublin, this veteran whose body was small, thin, spare, worn by suffering and the years, who had devoted his life to fighting for Ireland, spending fifteen years in prison because of it, had managed to lead the IRB, a secret military and political organization that reached every corner of the country, and not be captured by the British police. Roger asked if the organization was really as successful as he said. The captain’s enthusiasm was overflowing:

  “We have companies, sections, platoons with their officers, weapons depots, messengers, codes, slogans,” he affirmed, gesturing euphorically. “I doubt there’s an army in Europe more efficient and motivated than ours, Sir Roger. I’m not exaggerating in the least.”

  According to Monteith, preparations had reached their high point. German weapons were all that was missing for the insurrection to break out.

  Monteith began working immediately, instructing and organizing the fifty recruits at Zossen. He went frequently to the Limburg camp to try to overcome resistance to the Brigade among the other prisoners. He persuaded a few, but the immense majority continued to show him complete hostility. Nothing could demoralize him. His letters to Roger, who had returned to Munich, swelled with enthusiasm and gave him encouraging news about the tiny brigade.

  The next time they saw each other in Berlin, a few weeks later, they had supper alone in a small restaurant in Charlottenburg filled with Romanian refugees. Captain Monteith, arming himself with valor and choosing his words very carefully in order not to offend him, said suddenly:

  “Sir Roger, don’t think of me as meddling or insolent. But you cannot go on in this condition. You’re too important to Ireland, to our struggle. For the sake of the ideals you have done so much for, I beg you to consult a physician. You have a nervous ailment. It’s not uncommon. Responsibility and worries take their toll. It was inevitable that this would happen. You need help.”

  Roger stammered a few evasive words and changed the subject. But the captain’s recommendation alarmed him. Was his mental state so evident that this officer, always so respectful and discreet, had found the courage to tell him something like this? He heeded what he said. After some inquiries, he decided to visit Dr. Oppenheim, who lived outside the city among the trees and streams of Grunewald. He was an elderly man who inspired confidence, for he seemed experienced and reliable. They had two long sessions in which Roger told him about his condition, his problems, insomnia, and fears. He had to submit to mnemotechnical tests and very detailed questions. Finally, Dr. Oppenheim assured him he needed to go to a sanatorium and receive treatment. If he didn’t, his mental state would continue the process of destabilization that had already begun. The doctor called Munich himself and arranged an appointment for him with a colleague and disciple, Dr. Rudolf von Hoesslin.

  Roger did not become a patient in Dr. von Hoesslin’s clinic but saw him several times a week for several months. The treatment was helpful.

  “I’m not surprised, with the things you have seen in the Congo and the Amazon and what you are doing now, that you suffer from these problems,” the psychiatrist said. “What’s noteworthy is that you’re not a raving madman and haven’t committed suicide.”

  He was still a young man, passionate about music, a vegetarian, and a pacifist. He was opposed to this war and all wars and dreamed that one day universal brotherhood—“a Kantian peace,” he called it—would be established all over the world, borders would disappear, and men would acknowledge one another as brothers. Roger would leave his sessions with Dr. von Hoesslin calmed and encouraged. But he wasn’t sure he was getting better. He’d always had this sense of well-being when he chanced to meet a healthy, good, idealistic person.

  He made several trips to Zossen, where, as was to be expected, Robert Monteith had won over all the recruits in the Brigade. Thanks to his intense efforts, there were ten more volunteers. The marches and training were going wonderfully. But Brigade members continued to be treated like prisoners by German soldiers and officers, and at times mistreated. Captain Monteith took steps at the admiralty so that the volunteers would have a margin of freedom, as Roger had been promised, be allowed to go into town and have a beer in a tavern from time to time. Weren’t they allies? Why were they still treated as enemies? So far these efforts had not produced the slightest result.

  Roger lodged a protest. He had a violent scene with General Schneider, commander of the garrison in Zossen, who told him he could not give more freedom to men who lacked discipline, had a propensity for fighting, and even committed robberies in the camp. According to Monteith, the accusations were false. The only incidents were the result of German sentries insulting Brigade members.

  Roger’s final months in Germany were filled with constant arguments and moments of great tension with the authorities. The sense of having been deceived only grew until he left Berlin. The Reich had no interest in the liberation of Ireland. It never took seriously the idea of a joint action with the Irish revolutionaries. The chancellery and the admiralty had made use of his naïveté and good faith, making him believe things they had no intention of doing. The project of the Irish Brigade fighting with the Turkish army against the British in Egypt, studied in every detail, was frustrated when it seemed about to be realized, with absolutely no explanation. Zimmermann, von Wedel, Nadolny, and all the officials who took part in the planning suddenly became shifty and evasive. They refused to receive him on trivial pretexts. When he did succeed in speaking to them, they were always extremely busy, could grant him only a few minutes; the matter of Egypt was not their responsibility. Roger became resigned: his dream of the Brigade as a small symbolic force in the Irish struggle against colonialism had gone up in smoke.

  Then, with the same ardor he had brought to his admiration of Germany, he began to feel toward that country a dislike that was turning into hatred similar to, or perhaps greater than, the hatred Britain inspired in him. He said as much in a letter to the lawyer John Quinn, after telling him about the mistreatment he was receiving from the authorities. “And so it is, my friend, that I have come to hate the Germans so much that, rather than die here, I prefer a British gallows.”

  His state of irritation and physical indisposition obliged
him to return to Munich. Dr. von Hoesslin insisted he become a patient in a rest home in Bavaria, using a categorical argument: “You’re on the brink of a crisis from which you will never recover unless you rest and forget about everything else. The alternative is that you will lose your reason or suffer a psychic break that will incapacitate you for the rest of your days.”

  Roger obeyed. For some days his life entered a period of so much peace he felt disembodied. Pills made him sleep ten and twelve hours a day. Then he would take long walks, on the cold mornings of a winter that refused to leave, through a nearby wood of maple and ash trees. He was denied tobacco and alcohol and ate frugal vegetarian meals. He had no desire to read or write. He would spend hours with his mind blank, feeling like a ghost.

  Robert Monteith violently pulled him out of this lethargy one sunny morning early in March 1916. Because of the importance of the matter, the captain had obtained leave from the German government to come to see him. Still under the influence of what had happened, he spoke in a rush:

  “An escort came to take me out of the camp at Zossen and to Berlin, to the admiralty. A large group of officers, including two generals, was waiting for me. This is what they told me: ‘The Irish Provisional Committee has decided the uprising will take place on April 23.’ In other words, in a month and a half.”