Enchantment and Disenchantment in Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands

Frayn, Andrew

Abstract

Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands (1903) negotiates early twentieth century fears of war in fiction. The danger derives from the potential to traverse and shift national boundaries, particularly by naval warfare. The novel was written as a warning, but uses the structures and techniques of adventure stories. I argue that the form both draws attention to and contains the threat. Its kinship with the adventure novel meant that although the novel was not aimed at children, it was read by ‘boys of all ages’, and it promotes a militaristic ethos.

The novel is an early work to combine adventure and espionage, which genres are closely linked with the growth of empire as Joseph Bristow points out in Empire Boys (1991). It is one of a number of popular, widely-read ‘fear of invasion’ novels published around the time.. The Riddle of the Sands claims it is an edited narrative of true events, and the claim to realism is heightened by the use of maps and navigational charts, along with the Preface which asserts that it is told ‘under a provisional pledge of secrecy’ (11). The secrecy heightens the appeal of confidence to young minds, and the protagonists embody the ideal Englishness of the public school ethos. The novel is a tale of derring-do which draws on the language of the Boy’s Own Paper (1879-1967) and its derivatives, and the corresponding creation of the proto-militarist, muscular Christian Boys’ Brigade (1883).

The constant possibility of crossing borders is both the danger and the method by which it is defeated. The titular sands are themselves a form of shifting border, drawing attention to the importance of sea warfare as Britain and Germany embarked on ambitious naval defence programs which developed the available technology. Britain is marginalized on the maps in the volume, which I argue heighten the threat by both their presence and the careful construction of the image. They show European national boundaries trailing threateningly into the North Sea, compared with the lack of equivalent British boundaries. Davies and Carruthers traverse the ever-changing inlets and channels of Frisia and discover a huge fleet poised to invade England. The story of England’s work to forestall the expansion of another major power, as the German empire is ‘stretching half over central Europe – an empire growing like wildfire, I believe, in people, wealth, and everything’ (80), is familiar. The traditional narrative of might against right is made modern by apparently pitting the gifted amateur against the tide of professionalism, and the individual against the industrial and social machine. However, this is not a novel of individualism and small-scale endeavour preventing mass action; it is a novel of Imperial Britain against Imperial Germany, which upholds conservative values of chivalry in enmity, and maintains the possibility of individual agency. Carruthers is part of a beneficent machine which allows him to remain in employment whilst taking time out to pursue personal matters on the flimsy pretext of having ‘important business to transact in Germany’ (93). Davies also implicitly claims Britain’s racial superiority and demonstrates the patriotism which could sanction mass deaths in war alongside a faith in modern organisation and efficiency.

The Riddle of the Sands is a genre fiction which plays on fears about the European political and military situation, but implicitly offers the reassurance that the story will end with English success. It ultimately reasserts conservative masculine values, and inculcates the romantic ideas about heroic action in a generation which would soon be disenchanted in a major industrial war.

Citation

Frayn, A. (2013, March). Enchantment and Disenchantment in Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands. Paper presented at Approaching War: Europe, Newcastle University

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Approaching War: Europe
• Start Date: Mar 15, 2013
• End Date: Mar 17, 2013
• Deposit Date: Apr 27, 2023
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/3085281