- Danger! and Other Stories
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Danger! And Other Stories (1918) was a collection of short stories published by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The collection's title story, "Danger!", was written eighteen months before the outbreak of World War I. First published in the Strand Magazine in July 1914,[1] it was based on an imaginary country in Europe fighting Britain and intended to direct public attention to the great danger (submarines) which threatened the country. The story describes how Britain is in need of getting up to date in its naval preparations. A small country in Europe (Norland) has been fighting England, and is now invaded by an English army. However the small country has a naval flotilla of submarines under Captain John Sirius. Sirius uses his submarines to lay a naval blockade around the British Isles, so that no supplies can be landed. The result is that the British start suffering famine. However some of the submarines are sunk. The British are congratulating themselves, when Sirius, waiting outside of Liverpool, purposely torpedoes a large White Star liner. The British end up surrendering.
At the time there were plenty of popular writings about England facing Germany in an upcoming war. The best remembered are The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, and When William Came by "Saki". Doyle's story is another example of this genre of invasion literature.[1] Ironically, its conclusion was to mirror the fate of the Cunard liner Lusitania two years later.
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