The theme of this anthology is war—with a difference. There is nothing here about past wars: no looking back at old alliances and battles long ago. Although the accounts of naval engagements, land campaigns, and invasions presented in this selection belong to time past, all their authors began by looking into the future. The result was a series of prophetic tales about the conflict-to-come between the British and the Germans which had immense influence in the quarter-century before the First World War.¹ The projected order-of-battle in these stories assigned a place and a role to Everyman and toJedermann...

During the 1890s the editors of the illustrated magazines and the new mass newspapers discovered that the tale of ‘the Next Great War’ allowed them to combine patriotism with profit. A new publishing industry began in January 1891, when the editor of the illustrated weeklyBlack and Whiteintroduced his readers toThe Great War of 189–,the first full-length, illustrated account of the war they all expected in the near fu’ture. His formula for success was eminent writers and maximum realism.

The narrative is an action replay of contemporary assumptions and expectations. Admiral Colomb and his distinguished collaborators...

By the first year of the twentieth century, the new myth of the coming war between the British and the Germans was in the making. As early as 1900 the authors ofDie Abrechnung mit EnglandandWehrlos zur Seehad shown their German readers that the United Kingdom would be the primary target in the Great War of the future. On the other side of the North Sea, however, there were uncertainties about the naming of the enemy. Although Germany had first appeared as the future foe inSpies of the Wight(1899) and inHow the Germans took...

The first German tale of theZukunftskriegto attract European attention in the new century wasDer Weltkrieg—Deutsche Träume(‘World War—German Dreams’) by August Niemann, as Carl Siwinna noted in his survey of future-war fiction (p. 298). WhenDer Weltkriegfirst appeared in 1904, the all-too-evident signs ofSchadenfreudewere read as an indication of German intentions. SoDer Weltkriegwas immediately translated into English and given a title that said what the author had in mind:The Coming Conquest of England.The publishers (G. Routledge—a solid, reputable firm) were evidently confident that the book would speak...

By 1906 the German invasion story had grown into a new publishing industry which went on expanding in response to an apparently insatiable demand for large doses of instant terror. As the success ofThe Invasion of 1910shows, the tale of the war-to-come had become a marketable commodity. It was a necessary, patriotic fiction for the many. For those, however, who could perceive the golden nexus between book sales and a sometimes frantic nationalism, the tale of ‘the Next Great War’ was a subject for ridicule. It seemed as if an undeclared consensus worked to sort out the reprehensible...

From 1900 onwards, as relationships between Great Britain and Imperial Germany went from bad to worse, the non-stop production of future-war stories rapidly created a composite myth of the conflict-to-come. Both sides were agreed that their ‘Next Great War’ would begin with a naval engagement or a sudden German landing. The authors then rang up the curtain of the future to reveal how, phase by phase, their nations would reap what they had sown. victory went, with appropriate observations, to the more powerful navy. Either defeat was absolute—total destruction for theHochseeflotte;surrender and conquest for the British—or...

Ten months after the outbreak of the First World War, it seemed to some Americans that a German victory in Europe could lead to the establishment of a great world power across the Atlantic. Suppose that superpower were to assemble a great navy and sail westwards to the United States. What then? This was the Chesney syndrome of 1871 transferred to Manhattan. One response to that nightmare came from the greatest American publisher of the time, George Haven Putnam: the United States had to increase its armed forces. His introduction toAmerica Fallen,an invasion-of-America story, held up Chesney’sBattle...