Ireland was of interest to foreign powers between the turn of the century and the end of the first World War because it was believed the British would have to surrender if Ireland were occupied, a leading academic claimed at a conference on the Easter 1916 Rising at the weekend.
Speaking at UCC, Dr Jérôme van de Wiel of the University of Rheims said that even Imperial Russia seemed to have some military interest in Ireland - a document in the French military archives shows that a "Franco-Russian landing in Ireland" might have been contemplated in 1902 just after the Boer War.
"As various diplomatic and military archives located in Berlin, Brussels, Freiburg, Paris, Rome and Vienna reveal, continental Europe was much interested in Ireland. By occupying her they believed that the British would have to surrender. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was closely following the Irish crisis. He became more and more frustrated by Britain's attitude towards Germany and more and more aggressive in his comments regarding Ireland."
The Kaiser was personally informed of events in Ireland by Dr Theodor Schiemann, a historian with Irish-American contacts.
When, in September 1912, the chargé d'affaires of the German embassy in London suggested that the Home Rule crisis "would weaken England as a world power because of the influence the Irish exercise in America", the Kaiser wrote in the margin: "That would be a great boon".