''Danger! And Other Stories'' is a collection of short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published in 1918.

*" Danger! Being the Log of Captain John Sirius" *"One Crowded Hour" *"A Point of View" *"The Fall of Lord Barrymore" *" The Horror of the Heights" *"Borrowed Scenes" *"The Surgeon of Gaster Fell" *" How It Happened" *"The Prisoner's Defence" *"Three of Them"

"Danger! Being the Log of Captain John Sirius"

The collection's title story, " Danger! Being the Log of Captain John Sirius", was (the preface notes) written 18 months before the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, and first published in the ''

Strand Magazine ''The Strand Magazine'' was a monthly British magazine founded by George Newnes, composed of short fiction and general interest articles. It was published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950, running to 711 issues, though the ...

'' in July 1914. It depicts a hypothetical scenario in which a small, fictional European country manages to defeat the United Kingdom by innovative naval strategy using a new technology, the practical combat submarine. The story is a late example of the genre of

invasion literature Invasion literature (also the invasion novel or the future war genre) is a literary genre that was popular in the period between 1871 and the World War I, First World War (1914–1918). The invasion novel was first recognised as a literary genr ...

, cautionary tales in which the British are caught unprepared by a continental enemy, often a stand-in for Germany (notable examples being Erskine Childers' '' The Riddle of the Sands'' and

Saki Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 – 14 November 1916), popularly known by his pen name Saki and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirise Edwardian society and ...

's '' When William Came''.)

Plot

The small nation of Norland has been somewhat reluctantly drawn into war with Britain by a violent colonial incident. The Norland navy - while professional - is quite small, and wholly inadequate for a confrontation with the might of the Royal Navy. However, Norland possesses a flotilla of eight modern submarines, which captain John Sirius requests be placed under his command. Sirius uses the submarines to mount a naval blockade around the

British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...

, destroying incoming food-laden freighters. The British experience rapid, enormous increases in the cost of basic staples, which soon turn into famine and massive social unrest. In the climax of the story, Sirius demonstrates that the British navy is unable to stop him by torpedoing the RMS ''Olympic'' off Liverpool. The humiliated British are forced to sue for terms.

Analysis

Norland is depicted as a North European country, with a shore on the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

. While linguistically Germanic - "

Norrland Norrland (, , originally ''Norrlanden'', meaning 'the Northlands') is the northernmost, largest and least populated of the three traditional lands of Sweden, consisting of nine provinces. Although Norrland does not serve any administrative p ...

" and "

Nordland Nordland (; , , , ) is one of the three northernmost Counties of Norway, counties in Norway in the Northern Norway region, bordering Troms in the north, Trøndelag in the south, Norrbotten County in Sweden to the east, Västerbotten County to t ...

" are the names of a region in Sweden and a county in Norway, respectively, and Norland's main port is Blankenberg, the name of several actual German cities - it is however explicitly ''not'' Germany, which remains neutral in the war (though Germans are depicted as sympathetic to Norland's cause.) Norland has a colonial empire; and a border dispute with a British colony - exacerbated by the deaths of two missionaries, and the desecration of a British flag - is the direct cause of the war. It is also a monarchy, whose monarch seems to retain actual executive power; the crucial policy meeting in which it is resolved to defy a British ultimatum and embark on submarine warfare is attended by the king, the foreign secretary, an admiral, and Captain Sirius; a prime minister is conspicuously absent. The story correctly anticipates the

U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...

strategy, which Germany would use in both World Wars to target foodstuffs Britain was unable to produce domestically. It also forecast that attackers would have to target American ships bringing supplies to Britain, and that the British would have to introduce

rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution (marketing), distribution of scarcity, scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resourc ...

. Unusually in the invasion literature genre, the story is narrated in first person by Captain Sirius, the victorious enemy commander; while he is portrayed as a professional soldier who does not delight in killing, his chauvinism and veiled contempt for the UK were clearly intended to evoke a patriotic reaction from British readers. Ironically, the work may have led to the thing it was warning against. The work was read by naval officers in Germany, including

Alfred von Tirpitz Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz (; born Alfred Peter Friedrich Tirpitz; 19 March 1849 – 6 March 1930) was a German grand admiral and State Secretary of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperi ...

, who cited it as influential on his thinking. Admiral Eduard von Capelle testified before the Reichstag that

Gentlemen, it is well known that there was published in England before the war a pamphlet which described U-boat warfare in an absolutely masterly manner and which attracted a great deal of attention. This was a pamphlet written by Conan Doyle. According to this pamphlet, a successful U-boat war was carried on against England, by eight U-boats.

"The Horror of the Heights"

The collection also includes the pioneering science fiction story " The Horror of the Heights", one of Doyle's most frequently anthologized short pieces, in which an aviator discovers an invisible ecosystem of translucent lifeforms floating in the upper atmosphere, including bizarre and terrible predators.

References

External links