The Fall of England?: The Battle of Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer

George Tomkyns Chesney

New York : G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1871

[A founding work in the genre of invasion literature: Edmund / Truman Smith Family Copy.] Bound in publisher's red cloth. Hardcover.  Good binding and cover. Scuff on outer cover edge. Army Navy Club bookplate.  Minor shelf wear. 66 pages ; 19 cm.  Written for Blackwood's magazine, May 1871.  The author wrote about the disaster of the Franco-Prussian war and the unreadiness of British forces to face a newly empowered German military.  An interesting imaginary battle recounting the future battle where England falls to German might. A warning on the dangers of Germanic invasion of England after the destruction of the British fleet. 

Interesting provenance: This volume was from the library of Truman Smith.  Colonel Truman Smith (1893-1970), was personal advisor to General George C. Marshall.  Yale class of 1915.  Awarded the Silver Star and Distinguished Service Medal.  The volume was owned by his father, Captain Edmund Dickinson Smith.  E.D. Smith (1857-1900), was killed in the Spanish American War in Sogod Island, Cebu, Philippines.  Smith was the son of Senator Truman Smith of CT.    Captain Smith's hand written tag, "E.D. Smith, 2 Lieut 19" Inf."