During a conversation yesterday my wife asked me how much longer I thought that it would take me to complete my current project of renovating, varnishing, and basing my collection of 25/28mm Napoleonic figures. When I replied that I expected to be finished in a couple of months, she commented that I seemed to have been working on it for ages, and wasn’t I getting a bit bored. The truth of the matter is that she is right. I am getting a bit bored … and probably do need to take a break in the near future.

Looking back at my blog entries, I found that the project had its beginnings back in February 2014 (over two and a half years ago!) but that I didn’t begin doing any serious work on it until a year later. Since then I have renovated, varnished, and based over 700 figures … and I probably have another 200 to do. I would like to finish the remaining French infantry before I take a break, and that is the goal I have now set myself.

Once I have done achieved that goal I would like to do switch my attention to my PORTABLE WARGAME book, a project that I seem to have been ignoring of late. I might also be able to spend some time thinking about the BARBAROSSA campaign I want to tackle once the Napoleonic project is finished, and about which I still have to make some crucial decisions. I can then return to my Napoleonic project with renewed vigour … I hope!

That’s my plan … and it will be interesting to see if I can stick to it.

In a recent blog entry I wrote about the book IF IT HAD HAPPENED OTHERWISE. In reply to one comment I mentioned that I had several examples of late nineteenth/early twentieth century ‘invasion literature’ on my Kindle, and as I thought that some of my regular blog readers would like some information about these stories.

My collection includes the following:

• THE BATTLE OF DORKING (1871) by George Tomkyns Chesney. This story describes the successful invasion of England by an unnamed – but German-speaking – enemy and the aftermath of the war.
• THE GREAT WAR IN ENGLAND IN 1897 (1894) by William Le Quex. In this book Britain is taken by surprise and invaded by France and Russia. The invasion is at first successful, and reaches London, but eventually the British – with the aid of the Germans who come to their aid – utterly defeat the invaders. The end result is the degradation of the French and Russians, who lose territory in Europe, North Africa, and Central Asia to the victors.
• THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS (1903) by Erskine Childers. Although this is more a spy story and not about an actual invasion, it does describe the preparations for a ‘sudden descent’ invasion by Germany on England’s East Coast.
• THE INVASION OF 1910 (1906) by William Le Queux and H W Wilson. Although it was written only twelve years after his earlier book, the enemy has changed and it is the Germans who mount an invasion on the East Coast of England. Despite attempts to stop their advance – which culminates with a battle near Royston on the border of Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire – the unprepared British are pushed back and the Germans are able to reach London. The repressive measures they use to try to maintain peace in the capital, coupled with resistance by the so-called ‘League of Defenders’, culminates in a popular uprising. The newly re-organised and enlarge British Army, which has been raised in the unoccupied part of Britain, advances on London and the Germans are forced to retreat.
• WHEN WILLIAM CAME: A STORY OF LONDON UNDER THE HOHENZOLLERNS (1913) by Saki (the pseudonym of Hector Hugh Munro). This story is narrated by someone who was abroad at the time of a successful German invasion, and who has returned home. In a number of interesting vignettes (including being fined by a policeman for walking on the grass in Hyde Park), it describes how British society has had to accept Germanic laws and practices, and with it a gradually integration into the German Empire. The latter includes compulsory military service, something that was actually being hotly discussed in Britain when the book was written.

I first read some of these stories in the mid to late 1970s when they were included in two anthologies that were edited by Michael Moorcock. These were BEFORE ARMAGEDDON: AN ANTHOLOGY OF VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN IMAGINATIVE FICTION PUBLISHED BEFORE 1914 (1975) and ENGLAND INVADED (1977).