ABSTRACT
In the preface to his story of England’s peril, Spencer Campbell took his bearings from the apologia in the introduction to The Riddle of the Sands. There, Erskine Childers had ventured ‘to express the hope that nobody will read into this story of adventure any intention of provoking feelings of hostility to Germany’. He then went on to present ‘A Record of Secret Service’ - close on 400 octavo pages that could not fail to moderate any enthusiasm a reader might have felt for Kaiser Wilhelm II and the citizens of the First Reich. In like manner Spencer Campbell felt that he had to defend himself against the charge of needless aggression: ‘I may be - in all probability shall be - accused of bad taste and bad policy in portraying Germany as the protagonist in the struggle, and here I admit frankly an apology is necessary’. His apology is to tell the truth as he sees it:
Germany has reached development too late…She is faced with a rapidly growing population and its inevitable demand for land expansion; yet she is forced to rest content with a few barren tracts in the Dark Continent, while other races without a tenth part of her vitality are in possession of provinces flowing with milk and honey. 1
That was the main argument in the eighth chapter of The Riddle of the Sands, which Erskine Childers called ‘The Theory’, because he wished to present his suppositions about the secret German scheme for invasion and conquest. So, Davies rattles on in his racy way about the Germans and…their sea-power. It’s a new thing with them, but it’s going strong, and that Emperor of theirs is running it for all its worth.. .He’s a splendid chap, and anyone can see he’s right. They’ve got no colonies to speak of, and must have them, like us. They can’t get them and keep them, and they can’t protect their huge commerce without naval strength. The command of the sea is the thing nowadays, isn’t it? 2
