What if German forces landed on the east coast of England and advanced on London while the British were struggling to mount a counter-attack? That’s premise of William Le Queux’s The Invasion of 1910, one of the most popular “invasion fiction” novels of all time. The novel revolves around Germany’s rising naval power and its threat to a weak Britain, unprepared for war politically, physically and psychologically. As the Germans occupy half of London, a junior Parliamentarian declares “Britain is not defeated.” A newly formed Army liberates London, but the war is far from over. “The Invasion” was serialised in the Daily Mail in 1906 as tension of battleship construction threatened to erupt into military conflict between Germany and Britain. (Goodreads)
William Tufnell Le Queux (2 July 1864 – 13 October 1927) was an Anglo-French journalist and writer. He was also a diplomat (honorary consul for San Marino), a traveller (in Europe, the Balkans and North Africa), a flying buff who officiated at the first British air meeting at Doncaster in 1909, and a wireless pioneer who broadcast music from his own station long before radio was generally available; his claims regarding his own abilities and exploits, however, were usually exaggerated. His best-known works are the anti-French and anti-Russian invasion fantasy The Great War in England in 1897 (1894) and the anti-German invasion fantasy The Invasion of 1910 (1906), the latter becoming a bestseller.