Prewar Prophesy Literature, Part I—A Publishing Boom In Invasion Lit

From 1871 to 1914 a lucrative international publishing genre developed featuring fictional invasions by  foreign powers attacking (usually by surprise) and  then  conquering one another. Some of these anticipated the rivalries that led to the events of 1914, some  explicitly, others using surrogate, sometimes imaginary  nations. In Britain such speculative fiction dated back at least to the Napoleonic threat to invade England. But the Prussian success in the war of 1870–71 and the resulting German unification that caught the world's attention happened to coincide with one of  those unanticipated publishing phenomena that today are called "mega-hits."   

The seminal work of pre-Great War imaginative invasion  fiction was  first  published  in 1871 as a short story in Blackwood's Magazine, “The Battle of Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer," by General  Sir George Tomkyns Chesney.  

In  General Chesney's very well written yarn the Royal  Navy is destroyed by a wonder weapon, an invasion is  quickly mounted, and the half-trained defenders of  Britain are defeated in a decisive battle at Dorking in Surrey by vastly superior German troops. The British  Empire is subsequently dismantled.  Its publication  caused an incredible uproar that led to Prime Minister Gladstone to publicly criticize its "alarmism." Most  important for our purposes here, “The Battle of Dorking” fixed attention for the first time on a potential German invasion of England.    

"Dorking" revitalized the English publishing industry,  setting off an avalanche of such cataclysmically titled  best sellers as The  Doom of the Great City (1880), The  Taking of Dover (1888), and The Wreck of a World  (1889). The English phenomenon was paralleled in  other nations, where writers frequently targeted the  British or other rivals as villains of the piece. 

In English-language works Germany did not remain the  sole perpetrator for long. Napoleon was too recent in  memories. The French  at times returned to center  stage, ambushing the Royal Navy in a reverse Trafalgar or invading the British Isles by a secret Channel tunnel that foresaw the more peaceful Chunnel of our days.  Also, this was the age of the "Yellow Peril," a term  extracted from the title of Jack London's Yellow Peril: The Unparalleled Invasion. 

One work from before the turn of the century stands  out as a particularly astute forecast of the war of 1914–1918. In 1892 British admiral Philip Colomb and a supporting committee were asked for a contribution  incorporating the latest strategic thinking. What they  came up with was a gem of premonition, starting with  the title  The  Great War of 189_: A Forecast. In  Colomb's and friends' imaginative treatment, the war  is triggered by the assassination—in a highly volatile   Balkans—of a crown prince (Bulgarian) by a Serb  (actually a Russian). Interlocking treaties (an excellent  extrapolation) lead to mobilizations in which the tsar and kaiser are personally involved, eventually drawing  all the powers of Europe into a war.

Better yet,  The  Great War of  189_ gets both  warring coalitions almost correct. France, Russia, and  Serbia are on one side, while Germany, Austria Hungary, and Bulgaria are against them. On the negative scorecard, Belgium is assigned to the wrong team, while Great Britain stands away from the French/German conflict but fights a naval battle with the  Russians. Like almost the entire future invasion genre,  though, the war the authors see on the battlefield is a short one.  

Still in Print

In the new century, Germany again became almost the  sole candidate for mounting a future invasion of the British Isles. The new tilt was marked by  another  immensely popular work, The Riddle of the Sands (1903)  by Erskine Childers. It is a somewhat low-key description of the discovery of a rehearsal of a German  invasion of England. Riddle was supremely well written, combining mystery and spy adventure with a  love story. Furthermore, it was endorsed (most  tactlessly) by notable British politicians and First Sea Lord Admiral John Fisher. From the moment of this  book's publication to 1914, in English-language works,  Germany was the designated villain.

As the real Great War drew near, though, accurate  prophecy became more elusive for the authors of  Invasion Lit. Like the modern mystery novel, Invasion  Lit had scribblers who regularly returned to the genre. One prolific purveyor of Invasion Lit from this period, deserving particular attention, was the panic-monger  William Le Queux, author of over 100 works. His books  in the run-up to the war were singular in their chauvinism and scaremongering. Especially inflammatory were The Spies of the Kaiser and his masterwork, The  Invasion of 1910 (1906). To the degree the public of 1914 simply accepted that war was necessary,  Invasion Lit authors like Le Queux must bear some of the responsibility. 

From the 1880s on, another literary genre was  dealing with the future and with war. Early science fiction had begun making forecasts about the character  of warfare, and—as we shall see—as the Great War drew closer, its writers' premonitions became closer and  closer to what would soon come to pass. 

Tomorrow: Part II—Sci Fi Goes to War