By God, I’ll give you five minutes to be off to England and be damned to you,or else to be locked up for spies!

~ Erskine Childers, Riddle of the Sands, 1903

Modern espionage fiction emerged near the turn of the century, during the 1890s and 1900s, and, with it, one observes a marked shift in British popular fiction. This shift is part and parcel of the profound transformation in the culture of the popular classes which occurs between the 1880s and the 1920s, a period of what might be called the social imperialist crisis.
         Most succinctly, social imperialism was Britain’s attempt to expand the empire’s material holdings in South Africa, India and elsewhere to generate revenues that could then be applied to diminish domestic discontent through economic improvements and social reforms back in England. But it was a critical time because in this period lies the matrix of factors and problems from which our present history and our present dilemmas arise. Everything changes—not just a shift in the relations of forces but a reconstitution of the terrain of the geopolitical-economic struggle itself—and many of the characteristic forms of what we now think of as “traditional” popular culture either emerge from, or emerge in their distinctive modern form, during that period. The impact on espionage fiction was also significant for it was this same reconstruction of geopolitical-economic terrain—particularly in relation to Britain’s history of imperialism and empire—that facilitates the emergence of espionage as a viable fictional premise.
         To preserve the financial wherewithal to continue economic and social programs at home, the empire, of course, had to be preserved, particularly with respect to its holdings abroad. This sense of protectionism manifested itself in a society-wide notion of “the enemy outside” and became one of the fundamental themes of British imperialist culture at the time, linking youth organizations, schools, the Empire Day movement and numerous other organizations into a cohesive, passionately Anglophile culture. As the spy novel reflects the times in which it was written, the “enemy outside” theme concurrently served to facilitate the transition from the assertive, confident, and expansionist themes of adventure fiction to the increasingly insular, even paranoid, espionage genre that stressed vigilance and protection against invasion. Imperialism and imperialist culture was central to the genre’s successful evolution and the spy novel found a fertile ground in the public fears of invasion and of managing and resolving the invasion “crisis” in the popular imagination. In reality, the public fears were not totally unfounded for, at the turn of century, there was indeed a decline of British imperialism and this, as could be expected, spawned the perception of Britain’s waning political, economic and military preeminence both at home and abroad.
         In the period leading up to World War I there existed a complex series of strategic alliances among most European countries, as well as major economic and territorial rivalries among Great Britain, France and Germany resulting from the empire building in the last half of the nineteenth century. It was a period marked by technological advances evidenced by the appearance of the internal combustion engine and the sharp upward curve of the destructiveness of improved weaponry. These new technologies and imperial rivalries brought about a quickening of tempo in international relations with an increased capacity and willingness to wage war.
         While most major European powers accepted these technological advancements with some reluctance, the Germans embraced them and their professional general staff integrated technology into a military doctrine centered around scholarly research, meticulously detailed planning, and a thorough indoctrination in a logical concept of war. Further, this integration had, by the late nineteenth century, successfully manifested itself in the Prussian victories over Austria (1866) and France (1871) that caused Prussia to be acknowledged as the leading land military power of the world, a position that Prussia still held at the beginning of the twentieth century.
         In marked contrast to Prussian doctrine, Britain had long resisted the introduction of a general staff system and other military reforms, because to many people in Britain this appeared to be a step toward militarism. But embarrassing evidence of military inefficiency drawn from Britain’s efforts in the second Boer War (1902) clearly indicated that the British military was unprepared to counter any national security threat. To deal with this lack of preparation, numerous agencies within the British military establishment, as well as special inquiries—those of the Esher Committee and Lord Richard Haldane held particular influence—moved to resolve the problem. Yet even as these formal evaluations were proceeding, Erskine Childers, a previously unknown writer and Boer War veteran, published the Riddle of the Sands (1903). While it would be his solitary contribution to the genre of espionage fiction, its publication held twofold significance: primarily it brought to the attention of the general public the troubles of Britain’s dwindling military capability; but, secondly, it marked the advent of the modern spy novel by embracing the proposal of plots and themes being set astride existing geopolitical scenarios.
         Erskine Childers (1870-1922) was born in England and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He worked as a clerk in the House of Commons and was one of the first volunteers accepted for service in the Boer War. In 1903, Childers published The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service Recently Achieved, a narrative of yachting and espionage off the northwest coast of Germany. Cooper and Kipling aside, Riddle of the Sands is generally considered to be the first work of modern spy fiction, drawn primarily from Childers’ experimentation with the deceptive blending of fact and fiction.
         Written in 1902, the story concerns two young Englishmen who make a trip to the Frisian Islands and discover the Germans rehearsing plans for an invasion of Britain. Carruthers, a Foreign Office man with foppish mannerisms, is in the best tradition of the English amateur confronted with a difficult and dangerous situation, and his friend, Davies, is the foil. Perhaps some of the best narrative is that concerning the navigation of their seven-ton yacht in a fog through the waters of Memmert Balje.
         The villain is a former British naval lieutenant named Dollmann who has turned traitor and is working for the Germans. The story’s factual basis was the result of Childers’ own sailing experiences in the yacht Vixen off the coasts of Germany, Holland and elsewhere. It was fiction based on fact, but fiction with a set purpose: that of arousing public opinion in support of a stronger British navy. The Riddle of the Sands immediately became famous because, apart from being a rousing story, it drew attention to German militarism at a time when nobody else had taken up the theme. It was undoubtedly a patriotic gesture on the part of Childers, for his whole career suggests that he was as devoted to protecting England. Paul Johnson, author and former editor of the New Statesman, commented on the novel’s significance:

What strikes me about this book are both the resemblances and the huge differences, when it is compared to modern spy fiction. The resemblances are in the stress on technical details: Childers describes the philosophy, theory and practice of inshore sailing with loving care … the areas he describes, the Baltic coast of Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, and the low-lying sandy coast between the Elbe and the Ems, he knew intimately. In fact, the geographical structure around which the novel is built is not invented at all, the course taken by the two English heroes could be followed by any skilled yachtsman, and Childers even included maps to help the reader, together with timetables of tides. Writers of modern spy fiction follow this pattern of providing expert technical background, though rarely with the degree of knowledge and skill Childers commanded.

        The book also precipitated significant changes in the somewhat dilatory British Naval Intelligence Division. After being alerted to shortcomings in their naval charts, naval intelligence gave permission to two officers to be sent on a tour of the German seacoast defenses and the Frisian Islands. The officers found that the existing Admiralty charts of this area—as well as any general intelligence information on the locale—were out of date and, in fact, their only real knowledge of the area was that obtained from The Riddle of the Sands. The two officers were both detected and arrested by the Germans, finally being sentenced to a term of imprisonment in Germany.
         Aside from being a rousing tale for the times, The Riddle of the Sands went straight to the heart of the British public’s fear of invasion. Too, it is a remarkable example of the power of propaganda in fictional form—not only did the novel provide entertainment, but it also made members of the public and the British Government aware of a problem which was rectified as a result. After Childers’ death, the literary impact of The Riddle of the Sands, particularly the experiment of blending fact and fiction, continued to gain popularity, with “faction”—as the deceptive blending of fact and fiction has come to be known—becoming the most significant trend in twentieth century espionage fiction.
         With the widespread acceptance of Kim and Riddle of the Sands, the political and imaginative work of espionage fiction had begun on two principal fronts: Kipling equated espionage with imperial security, while Childers made the link between espionage and individual and national regeneration. In England, two writers saw the potential of what Kipling and Childers had begun and moved quickly to further refine the genre with respect to both its commercial potential, as well as its reliance upon world military and political events. Edward Phillips Oppenheim and William Le Queux were men of similar and arguably modest literary talent; but, together, their influence upon the evolution of the genre was significant: Oppenheim and Le Queux became the first writers of mass-produced espionage fiction, and, without them, perhaps the single espionage novels of Kipling and Childers would have never captured such a wide audience.

[Ed: This essay was excerpted from Mr. Woods’ forthcoming book, The Spy Novel (Wind River Press, 2003).]

Featured Contributor BRETT F. WOODS was born in Houston, Texas and received his Ph.D. in literature from the University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, England, where his principal research was directed to geopolitics and the evolution of British espionage fiction. A Senior Executive Fellow of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, he has authored two novels The Britannia Obsession (1986) and Autley House (2002), and three nonfiction books. He has also written literary criticism and historical essays for such publications as The Early America Review, The Richmond Review (London) and Critique. His most recent nonfiction book, The Spy Novel: A History of Espionage Fiction, will be published by Wind River Press in 2003. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.