By James Aitchison

Long before Ian Fleming, John Buchan, Graham Greene, Eric Ambler, Len Deighton and John le Carré, there was Erskine Childers.  His book, The Riddle of the Sands, published in May 1903, is arguably the first spy novel of all time.  It has never been out of print. 

Not that the author had much time to enjoy his royalties; he was executed in 1922. Published just eleven years before the First World War (1914-1918), the book was prophetic.

In it, two friends go sailing off the German coast and discover plans for a secret invasion of Britain.  The book became an instant bestseller.  

Robert Erskine Childers was an enigmatic figure.  Born in 1870 in London’s Mayfair, his father was an Oriental scholar and his mother a member of the rich land-owning Anglo-Irish Barton family of Glendalough House, County Wicklow.  Given his privileged background, Childers was a firm believer in the British Empire. 

When tuberculosis claimed both his parents, Childers and his siblings were sent to live with the Bartons in Ireland.  There, Childers developed a strong affection for Ireland on one hand, while still believing in British superiority on the other.  While attending Trinity College Cambridge, Childers often spoke out against Irish nationalism, as being “incompatible with our own safety”.

Not surprisingly, Childers served in the Boer War, defending Britain’s Empire against Dutch settlers in a volunteer regiment known as the Honourable Artillery Company.  Evacuated to a hospital in Pretoria, Childers was impressed by wounded Irish infantrymen from Cork and their cheerful loyalty to Britain.  This attitude would change in the years that followed.

Slightly lame, Childers was encouraged to take up sailing.  He mastered the fundamentals of seamanship and taught himself navigation.  In August 1897 he embarked on the adventures he would fictionalise in The Riddle of the Sands — he sailed the 30-foot cutter Vixen to the Frisian Islands, off the North Sea coast of Germany, and into the Baltic.  The low-lying Frisians, buffeted by storms and sea surges, with treacherous shoals and shifting sands, are strategically located near the mouth of Germany’s Elbe River and the port of Hamburg.  The potential menace of the German Navy and its easy access to the North Sea and Britain got the author’s imagination working.

Childers started writing his novel in 1901.  It was published in May 1903 to critical acclaim; The Observer included the book on its list of “The 100 Greatest Novels of All Time”, while the Telegraph hailed it as the third best spy novel of all time.  Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was spurred by its prediction of war with Germany, and credited the book for the establishment of a string of new naval bases.  Churchill was so impressed with Childers that he called the author to serve in the Royal Navy, where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.  Years later, though, Churchill’s opinion of Childers would change dramatically, condemning his “deadly and malignant hatred for the land of his birth”.  Why?

By the time the First World War did break out, Childers was experiencing a sharp change of heart towards Britain and her Empire.  He grew increasingly disillusioned with Britain’s policies towards Ireland.  He believed the Irish should govern themselves as a dominion within the British Empire, quoting Canada as an appropriate model. 

Events soon took a more serious turn.  After marrying Molly Osgood of Boston, the couple received a 28-ton yacht Asgard as a wedding gift from Molly’s father.  Molly, who could trace her ancestry back to the Mayflower, also questioned Britain’s right to rule other countries.  In July 1914, further dismayed by Britain’s refusal to grant Ireland independence, Childers used his yacht to smuggle 900 Mauser rifles and 29,000 black powder cartridges to the Irish volunteers at the fishing village of Howth near Dublin.  Despite his previous outspoken loyalty to Britain, Childers had no regrets that his smuggled rifles were used to kill British soldiers. 

By the end of the Great War, he opposed conscription of Irish soldiers into the British army; they were, he attested, “young men anxious to die in Ireland for Irish liberty”.

In 1921, Ireland was torn by civil war.  A treaty with Britain, negotiated and agreed to by Irish hero Michael Collins, saw 26 Irish counties granted status as the Irish Free State, but still subservient to the British crown.  The treaty stoked violent division.  Some believed it was the best they could expect; others said it still kept Ireland under the British yoke.  Irishmen who had fought shoulder-to-shoulder against the British now fought one another.  Michael Collins led the pro-Treaty Free State Government, while his former comrade-in-arms Éamon de Valera led the anti-Treaty Republican forces.  Childers, fatefully, sided with de Valera.

Childers was captured by the pro-Treaty forces when he visited his home at Glendalough House in November 1922.  He was taken to Wicklow Gaol and shot by an Irish Army firing squad in Beggar’s Bush Barracks, Dublin, on 24 November 1922.  Ironically, his son Erskine junior would one day become a future President of Ireland.

In a final letter to Molly, Childers wrote: “I die loving England and passionately praying that she may change completely and finally towards Ireland.”

And while Churchill despised Childers, Éamon de Valera wrote: “He [Childers] died the Prince he was.  Of all the men I ever met, I would say he was the noblest.”