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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
place upon it. I pondered the matter, and could only see three
palliatives, and no cure.
The fi rst was to encourage home growth by a bonus or by
a tariff. But here our accursed party politics barred the way,
as I had learned only too clearly after spending a thousand
pounds in fi ghting the Hawick Burghs in order to get some
form of agricultural protection.
The second was to meet submarines by submarine foodcarriers. I think that this may prove the fi nal solution, but the
ships were not yet planned, far less launched.
The third and most obvious was the Channel Tunnel, or
tunnels for preference. I had supported this scheme for years,
and felt that as a nation we had made fools of ourselves over
it, exactly as we did over the Suez Canal. If we were an island
the size of the Wight such timidity would be intelligible, but
the idea of a great country being invaded through a hole in
the ground twenty-seven miles long seemed to me the most
fantastic possible, while the practical use of the tunnel both
for trade and for tourists was obvious. But now I saw that far
more serious issues were at stake, for if we were held up by
submarines, and if France was either neutral or our ally, we
could land all the Eastern portion of our supplies, which is not
inconsiderable, at Marseilles and so run them safely to London without breaking bulk. When I put this forward in the
press some military critic said: “But if the submarines could
hold up the Channel they could hold up the Mediterranean
also.” This did not seem a good argument, because Germany
was the possible enemy and it had no port in the Mediterranean, while the radius of submarine action at that time was
411
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
not great enough to allow them to come so far. So strongly
did I feel about the need for a Channel Tunnel in view of the
coming war that I remember writing three memoranda and
sending one to the Army, one to the Navy, and one to the
Council of Imperial Defence. Of course I got no satisfaction
of any kind, but Captain – now General – Swinton, who was
acting as secretary to the latter body, told me that he had read
my paper and that it had “set him furiously thinking.” I wrote
to Lord Northcliffe also, without avail. I felt as if, like Solomon
Eagle, I could go through London with a burning brazier on
my head, if I could only get people to understand the need of
the tunnel. The whole discussion had taken the utterly impossible and useless turn towards compulsory service, and the
things which were practical and vital were being missed.
I spoke in public about the tunnel when I could, and on
one occasion, just a year before the war, I raised a discussion
in “The Times,” Mr. Ronald McNeill giving me an opening by
declaring in the House that the project was a crazy one. There
was also about that time a meeting in the City at the Cannon
Street Hotel, where a very infl uential body of men supported
the scheme. My speech, as reported next day in “The Times” in
a very condensed form, ran thus:
“Sir A. Conan Doyle said there were possibilities in a future war that rendered it a matter of vital national importance
that the tunnel should be constructed without delay. The danger was that we were getting fi ve-sixths of our food supplies
from abroad, and submarine craft were developing remarkable qualities which were not generally realized. They were
able to avoid a blockade squadron, and to pass under a patrol
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
line of torpedo-boats without their existence being even suspected. If they were sent to the line of our commerce and told
to sink a ship, they would torpedo that ship for a certainty.
What would be the condition of our food supplies if there were
twenty-fi ve hostile submarines off the Kent coast and twentyfi ve in the Irish Channel? The price of food would reach an
almost prohibitive fi gure. The Military Correspondent of ‘The
Times’ was a great opponent of the Channel Tunnel and was
always running it down and mocking at it. But the other day
he wrote an article on the Mediterranean, and, forgetting the
Channel Tunnel, he said: ‘We must remember that more than
half the food supply of this country now comes from the Mediterranean.’ If it came through the Mediterranean, and if it got
to Marseilles and we had the Channel Tunnel, it was only
a matter of management to get it through to London.”
The Military Correspondent of “The Times,” who was presumably Colonel Repington, had an article next day deriding
the scheme, and making light of my picture of submarines
in the Channel. Well, we have lived to see them, and I wish
my argument had proved less sound. Colonel Repington has
proved himself so clear-sighted an observer and commentator in the last war that he can be forgiven if, for once, he was
on the wrong side; but if the Channel Tunnel had been put
in hand at once after that meeting and rushed to completion,
I wonder if it would be an exaggeration to say that a hundred
million pounds would have been saved, while what it would
have meant in evacuating wounded and in communications
in stormy weather could not be represented in words. Imagine the convenience and saving of time and labour when mu-
413
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
nitions could be started at Woolwich and landed at Amiens
without a break.
It has been argued that if the tunnel had been built the
fi rst swoop of the Germans would have brought them to the
end of it and it would have been destroyed. But this will not
bear examination, for it is based on the idea that we should
have left the end unprotected. It would as a matter of fact have
been the most natural fortress in the world, the strongest and
the strangest, for it would be the only fortress where you could
increase or withdraw your garrison at will, and introduce any
supplies at any time you might desire. A very few forts and
trenches o n those convenient chalk slopes with their wide,
smooth fi elds of fi re, would hold the tunnel. In stretching
their right wing as far as Amiens the Germans were very nearly cut off, and it was by a very great effort that Von Kluck saved
it. If instead of Amiens he had reached Calais with suffi cient
forces for a siege he would have been unable to get away. An
argument based upon the supposition that we should leave the
mouth of the tunnel in Picardy as unprotected as the mouth of
a coal mine in Kent is surely an unsound one. Now, in 1924,
they are talking of building the tunnel. I wonder what our descendants will think of the whole business – probably what
we think of the men who opposed the Suez Canal.
It is a most singular thing that our Navy, with so many practical and clever men in it, with a genius like Winston Churchill
at the head, and another genius like Lord Fisher in continual
touch, did not realize, until faced with actual results, some of
the most important and surely most obvious points in connection with naval warfare. It came, I suppose, from the iron bonds
414
MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
of tradition, and that there were so many things to supervise,
but the fact remains that a perfectly overwhelming case could
be made out against the higher brain department of our senior
service. A war with Germany was anticipated, and, as the public
imagined, was prepared for, but save for the ship-building programme, which left us a narrow margin of safety, and for the
concentration of our distant squadrons into British waters and
the elimination of many useless craft which consumed good
crews, what evidence is there of foresight? It was known, for
example, that Scapa Flow and Cromarty were the two possible
anchorages of the Fleet in a long-distance blockade, and yet no
attempt had been made to mount guns or to net the entrances,
so that for months there was a possibility of a shattering disaster; and Jellicoe, with the prudence which always distinguished
him, had to put to sea every night lest his fl eet should present
a sitter to a torpedo attack. We showed intelligence in sticking always to the heavier guns, but our mines were wretchedly
ineffi cient, our range-fi nders were very inferior, and our shells
proved to have less penetrating and explosive force.
But the worst thing of all was the utter want of imagination
shown in picturing the conditions of modern naval warfare,
which must surely be done before just preparation can be made.
It was clear that the effect of armour protection on one side,
and of the mine and the torpedo on the other, would mean that
if the ship fl oated there would be little loss of life, but that she
was very likely to sink, in which case the whole crew would go.
Therefore provision must be made for the saving of every one
on board. The authorities, however, seem to have completely
underrated the dangers of the mine and torpedo, and centred
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
their attention upon the surface naval action, where boats, being infl ammable, would be a danger and where in any case they
would probably be shot to pieces before the end of the fi ght.
The pre-war idea was to throw the boats and every other wooden object overboard before the action began.
The very fi rst day of naval warfare showed the importance
of the mine, as on August 5 the Germans laid a minefi eld outside the mouth of the Thames which nearly blew up their own
returning Ambassador, Prince Lichnowsky, and did actually
cause the destruction of one of our light vessels, the Amphion. It was clear that one of the great dangers of the sea lay
in this direction, and it soon became equally clear that nothing had been done to think out some defence. Foresight would
have anticipated this situation and would have set the brains
of the younger naval offi cers at work devising some remedy.
As a matter of fact the real solution had been roughly indicated by Colonel Repington in “Blackwood’s Magazine” some
four years before, in which he spoke of a device called “the
otter” used by poachers for gathering up lines, and suggested
that something of the sort would gather up the lines to which
mines are attached. After three years of war, and very many
preventable losses, including the great battleship Audacious,
the splendid auxiliary cruiser Laurentic with six millions in
gold on board, and many other fi ne vessels, the cure was found
in the paravane, which was an adaptation of “the otter.” After
its adoption ships could cruise over a minefi eld with little fear
of injury, and our squadrons were no longer confi ned to the
narrow lanes which had been swept clear.
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
I was from the beginning greatly impressed by this danger, and I wrote early in the war both to the papers and the
Admiralty, but my device was crude and clumsy compared to
what was actually done. My idea was something like a huge trident or toasting fork which could be hauled up on the bows
when the waters were safe, but could be pushed forward and
dip down in front when there was danger, so as to explode any
mine before the ship could actually reach it. Such an apparatus
would be better than nothing, but still I quite admit that it was
an inadequate solution of the problem. But at least it was an attempt – and no other attempt was visible for years afterwards.
But the particular instance of mines was a small consideration beside the huge permanent incredible fact that while it
was clear that a battleship could suddenly go down like a kettle
with a hole in it, dragging a thousand men down with it, there
was no provision by which the lives of these men could be
saved. It was really unbelievable until there came the terrible
example when the three cruisers, Hogue, Aboukir, and Cressy,
were all put down in a single day. A young German lieutenant
with twenty men had caused us more loss than we suffered
at Trafalgar. To learn how the helpless men had nowhere to
turn, and how they clung on to fl oating petrol tins as their
only safety, should have been terrible reading to those whose
want of foresight had brought about such a situation. It was
a dreadful object-lesson, and there seemed no reason why it
should not be often repeated. I had already commented in the
press upon the situation which would arise in a general action,
with ships sinking all round and no boats. I suggested that it
might be possible to drop the boats before battle and to have
417
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
them in tow of a steam launch which could bring them up
if needed. Of course I saw all the diffi culties and dangers of
such a course, but if one took the word of the sailors that the
boats were a danger on board then I could think of no other
way of working it. When I wrote about it, several naval critics,
notably Commander Jane, rapped me hard over the knuckles,
and deplored the intrusion of landsmen into matters of which
they knew nothing. But when this great catastrophe occurred,
I realized that the protection must be individual rather than
collective, and that one must ventilate the thing in public with
such warmth that the authorities would be compelled to do
something. If wooden boats were impossible, what about indiarubber collars which would at least hold the poor fellows
above the waves until some help could reach them? I opened
an agitation in several papers, notably the “Daily Mail” and
the “Daily Chronicle,” and within a very few days – either post
hoc or propter hoc – there was a rush order for a quarter of
a million collars which could be blown out by the men themselves, and which were henceforth to be part of their vital
equipment. The “Hampshire Telegraph,” the best informed of
naval papers, said:
“The Navy has to thank Sir Conan Doyle for the new lifesaving apparatus the Admiralty are supplying. Some weeks
ago he asked if it was not possible to manufacture a simple
and easily infl atable life-belt, and, thanks to the enterprise of
a rubber-manufacturing fi rm, a swimming collar is now being supplied to the men of the fl eet in the North Sea as fast as
they can be turned out. The apparatus is exceedingly simple. It
is made of rubber, enclosed in a stout web casing, and weighs
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
complete under three ounces. It can be carried in the pocket
and can be infl ated in position round a man’s neck in about
ten seconds. Its effect is to keep the man’s head above water indefi nitely. There is little doubt that this swimming collar will
result in the saving of many lives, and the Admiralty are to
be congratulated upon the promptitude with which they have
adopted the suggestion of Sir Conan Doyle.”
I was by no means satisfi ed with this, however; for, however
useful in calm water on a summer day, it was clear that men
would soon perish by exhaustion in a rough winter sea, and
the collars would only prolong their agony. If wooden boats
took up too much room and were infl ammable, how about indiarubber collapsible boats? I wrote in the “Daily Mail”:
“We can spare and replace the ships. We cannot spare the
men. They must be saved, and this is how to save them. There is
nothing so urgent as this. We can view all future disasters with
equanimity if the ship’s company has only a fair chance for
its life.” Of course one recognized that there were some situations where nothing would avail. The Formidable was a case
in point, which was torpedoed near Plymouth on January 1,
1915. Captain Miller, of the Brixham trawler which rescued
seventy men, said to the “Daily Mail” representative that I was
doing a national work in my efforts to get better life-saving
appliances for the men of the Navy. He remarked that in calm
weather collapsible boats would be of use, but they could
not possibly have lived in the seas which were breaking over
the Formidable’swhaler. The weather here was exceptional,
and one cannot hope to provide for every case.
419
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
The fi nal result of the agitation was the provision of collars, of safety waistcoats, and (as I believe) of a better supply
of boats. I need hardly say that I never received a word of acknowledgment or thanks from the Admiralty. One is not likely
to be thanked by a Government department for supplementing its work. But it may be that some poor seaman struggling
in the water sent me his good wish, and those are the thanks
that I desired. There was nothing in the war which moved me
more than the thought of the helpless plight of these gallant
men who were sacrifi ced when they could so easily have been
saved.
Like every man with Irish blood in his veins, I was deeply
moved by the tragedy of Ireland during the war – her fi ne
start, the want of tact with which it was met, her sad relapse,
and fi nally her failure to rise to the great world crisis.
A letter which I value very much is one which I received
from Major William Redmond just before his lamented death.
What an abyss of evil Ireland would have been saved from had
the spirit of this letter been the inspiration upon which she
acted!
18.12.16.
DEAR SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, – It was very good
of you to write to me and I value very much the expression
of your opinion. There are a great many Irishmen to-day who
feel that out of this War we should try and build up a new
Ireland. The trouble is men are so timid about meeting each
other half-way. It would be a fi ne memorial to the men who
have died so splendidly, if we could over their graves build up
a bridge between the North and South. I have been thinking
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