Stolen Blockade Plan
Stolen Blockade Plan is an article published in the Weekly Dispatch on 21 february 1915.
Stolen Blockade Plan
Germans Adopt Sir A. Conan Doyle's Plot.
WHAT EXPERTS SAID.
How the Prophecy in a Short Story Has Been Fulfilled.
An attack by submarine upon our commerce has seemed to me to be a danger to which in the future we might be exposed, and I wrote a story last spring, which was published in the "Strand Magazine" in July, to point it out. In it I tried to indicate various methods of meeting it — submarine merchantmen, the Channel Tunnel, and the encouragement of home supplies being the chief ones. My story was a forecast of the future, and I still think that if the war had been delayed for five years there would have been real danger — for the submarine is constantly developing. As it is I am of opinion that the German blockade will have no real effect upon the war. It is murderous and unscrupulous but futile. — A. Conan Doyle.
The idea of a submarine blockade of our coasts and the torpedoing of food ships is not German at all. Sir A. Conan Doyle famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, is the real author. The Germans themselves say so.
In the pages of the Strand Magazine only a month before war broke out there appeared a story by Sir Arthur in which the idea of a submarine blockade was elaborately worked out. The hero is a Captain John Sirius, of the navy of the imaginary State of Noorland. Captain Sirius persuades the King to lay up his fleet and to give him command of the eight submarines which the country possessed. These Sirius placed outside the leading British ports and torpedoed vessels by the score.
A SHAMEFUL PEACE.
Food prices rose steadily, panic reigned at Lloyds, and at last the British Government, powerless to help the help that paraded the streets clamouring for bread, was forced to make peace. Such was the story which has provided Germany with a plan for her submarine blockade.
As Sir Arthur points out, the object of the story was to draw the attention of Parliament and the British public to the danger to which Britain would be exposed during a great was of submission by starvation. He advocated the establishment of national granaries and the construction of a Channel tunnel which would give us access to the great markets of the Continent.
But what do the experts think of it? Here are opinions, published is the Strand concurrently with the article:
Admiral Sir William Kennedy.
The story is very ingeniously worked up, and although I cannot believe that the whole import trade of Great Britain could be destroyed by so small a force, it is quite likely that a few submarines, commanded by daring me, might do a lot of damage before they were wiped out.
Mr. Arnold White.'
Sir A. Conan Doyle has placed his finger on neuralgic nerve-centre of the British Empire — namely, the precarious arrival of our food supply, since Super Dreadnoughts were superseded by super-submarines. The little Powers being friendly to England, the danger, when it comes, will probably come from a great Power with over-sea trade of its own to guard.
Admiral Sir Edward Seymour.
The submarines are described as doing what, no doubt with very good fortune, they might do.
Mr. Frank Bullen, the well-known writer at sea stories.
You ask me if this could come true. I should say certainly yes — not only could it, but it is eminently probable.
Admiral Sir Compton Domvile.
I think it most improbable that a submarine could keep the sea alone for the length of time mentioned in the story without replenishing the oil fuel and other necessaries. Submarines have no doubt been much improved in recent years, and their radius of action is moth greater then formerly. but I am afraid they are not yet capable of the wonderful performances ascribed to them in this article.
Admiral Sir C. Penrose-Fitzgerald.
I do not myself think that any civilised nation will torpedo unarmed and defenceless merchant ships. I think that the danger will be further afield.
Admiral W. H. Henderson.
Much greater numbers of submarines will be required to effect even a part of the destruction indicated. Big ships do not sink quickly. I do not think that territorial waters will be violated or neutral vessels sunk. No nation would permit it, and the officers who did it could be shot.
Mr. F. T. Jane, Editor of "Fighting Ships,"
I do not think that the submarine is yet capable of such damage as Sir Conan Doyle ascribes to it in his article. The captains and crews of enemy vessels guilty of such acts of piracy as the sinking of neutral vessels should be hanged without trial.
