George Tomkyns Chesney's novella The Battle of Dorking (1871) was written in reaction to the German army's swift invasion of France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Chesney's alarmist story imagines a successful German invasion of England via the east coast town of Harwich, with the final battle inland at Dorking leading to the capitulation of the British government, and the disbanding of the Empire. Chesney's immediate goal was to alert...