More invasion literature, this time a long short story or novella by a writer more traditionally associated with humour, albeit of the more biting kind. I originally read ‘When William Came‘ many years ago, and it is one of those stories that sticks in your head, particularly the final vivid image of resistance and rebellion. 
Let me explain. In the years running up to the First World War, there was a common understanding that a global conflict was coming. Initially this was a speculative idea – “what if there is a global war?” – but after much repetition it become more a question of “When there is a global war…” This idea in other words became part of the political and cultural landscape, accepted as a truism. Novels were written about how the conflict might start and pan out, and a particular focus was on the UK’s lack of preparation. There was also a fashion for novels that saw the country quickly defeated by a technologically and militarily superior alien force (‘War of the Worlds’ for example) with the bulldog spirit emerging at the end to fight back. Other perspectives focussed on the precise nature of our enemies’ preparations – see ‘The Riddle of the Sands’ by Erskine Childers for example.
‘When William Came’ (William, in this context, being Kaiser Wilhelm) opens with the return to the UK of Murray Yeovil, a wandering aristocratic Englishman. He has been very unwell on his travels, and thus isolated from the catastrophic news from home. This provides an opening for a recount of the story of the UK’s recent conquest. A swift and decisive land invasion and an equally destructive naval battle, in which the dispersed British fleet was destroyed by superior German technology, followed by the flight of the royal family and much of the upper classes to imperial India, left the UK defeated and conquered. A few months has passed, and London is slowly accommodating the German victors. Society is divided between those prepared to put up with the demands made by the Germans – new street signs, higher taxes, new currency, German culture, etc – and those who either retreat to the country or emigrate.
Resistance has not entirely faded from the conquered British spirit, and there are several discussions about how the UK could throw off the German oppressor, possibly using the forces of the Empire. These are given short shrift – the German stranglehold on the UK is overwhelming and any resistance by Australia or Canada for example would see their swift defeat in turn. Munro is arguing that there will be no second chances – defeat is the end of the Empire. Yeovil despairs at the decadence of British society that has led to this situation – the novel is a thinly disguised plea for rearmament and the introduction of national service.
Anti-semitism is a feature of far too many novels of this period, and Saki’s portrait of Jewish characters and society in this novel is hard to stomach at times. He goes far beyond the casual anti-semitism of everyday Edwardian language and perpetuates many of the classic anti-semitic tropes that were widely accepted at the time but no less distressing and damaging for all that. I still haven’t worked out whether this damages the novel overall for me sufficiently to detract from the value of Munro’s writing – it is not an integral part of the novel, but it is sufficiently pervasive to be pretty damaging, not something that can be skipped over as ‘just the way people spoke back then’. This is also not a question of Munro giving anti-semitic ideas to a character as part of their portrayal – this is a much more didactic novel than that. I am not a proponent of censorship of novels featuring language or ideas we no longer find acceptable, but there are some novels that should be left to gather dust.
Which is a pity, because ‘When William Came’ is otherwise a powerful portrait of a conquered and cowed Britain, emasculated by defeat. (Yeovil’s wife openly flirts with other men in front of her husband, who seems untroubled by her disloyalty.) The closing scene in which the youth of the country defy the invaders has been criticised (on Goodreads) as being ridiculous or anti-climatic, but I found it powerful and vivid. The fact that Munro went on to die in the imminent Great War gives the novel a greater poignancy.
This is undoubtedly a literary curiosity, and unrepresentative of Saki’s oeuvre, his waspish short stories. It is I think an important representative of the invasion literature genre – one that accepts war as inevitable, and expresses fear for Britain’s preparedness. It is however unlike many other examples in that the war is not described, and avoids any reference to the physical destruction many other novels anticipate (London seems barely touched). I can’t honestly recommend it unless you have a particular interest in these topics and a strong stomach for anti-Semitism.
The Reading Bug 