Poem Envisages Invasion

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21971, 24 May 1941, Page 12

Poem Envisages Invasion

DOUGHTY’S WARNING Air War Forseen PHARLES M. DOUGHTY, famous for his Travels in Arabia Deserla, was a prophet of present German designs and dreams as long ago as 1909, when his poetic drama, The Cliffs, was written to warn his countrymen. In its structure and in the use of supernatural machinery The Cliffs resembles Hardy’s The Dynasts, but in little else, says a writer in John o’ London’s Weekly. The subject deals with the supposed decadence of England and a threatened German invasion by air. The poem opens with a monologue by John Hobbe. a Crimean veteran, now a shepherd on the East Anglian cliffs. His soliloquy is interrupted by the sudden landing of a Prussian airship, containing officers who have come to spy the land for an immediate invasion One of the German airmen, a baron, discussing the English, says:— They're governed now, by loosebrained demagogues; The dusty feet rule England, not the head. , „ All carries now the irrational Parliament vote, Of a brain-addled crooked populace. . . . Being so themselves degenerate and decayed. In mind and manhood, they are good for naught. Poltroons, but games; they cease to handle arms. His engineer questions the justice of making war on Britain. In the baron’s reply he uses the words “Persania” and “Persanian” for Germany and German. He says:— That have those too much; And we Persanians not enough. Ursurp Faint Englanders the World! An old saw saitli, Force is God’s law of Nations on the Earth. German Benefits Then when the engineer further asks, what about the German treaties? the baron pooh-poohs the idea and counters it by drawing for his friend’s benefit an alluring picture of all that would accrue to Germany if they should be able to conquer Britain. Old Hobbe, who has been hiding, springs out upon them and challenges them, but they kill him and depart hastily, leaving maps and documents on the grass. At the end we are given a picture of Clayboume village, guarded and patrolled by sentries; we hear of one or two English successes; and then, in conclusion, the vicar reads a patriotic song, in which he is joined by soldiers and others as they stand round the regimental flag hoisted over the village green. Three years later Doughty produced The Clouds, a series of 15 blank-verse rms. Whereas in The Cliffs there the prospect of invasion, in The Clouds the calamity actually takes place. In a “Proeme” Britain is again sharply criticised for her somnolence and blindness. This is followed by visions of various parts of England which have been stricken by German invasion. We are given a grim picture of the havoc wrought by the burning of Easthampton; poor folk have been cast out of their homes; fiery flakes have fallen on house-tops and streets; the town hall has caught fire; the gasometers are blown up; the enemy’s shells have wrecked the railway station, where, having sought shelter, fugitives met their death. At Ely “the enemy’s air-flyers" cut the telegraph wires. In Stamford the church bells peal as a warning, and we hear of homeless and starved refugees. Later we read how the Eastlanders (the Germans) occupy manor houses and destroy their contents; everywhere foreign fashions prevail “with iron severity,” and patrols cry out: “Halt, Englander! Show thy pass!"

We next hear that airships by night have ruined Rosyth with bombs; that naval fights have occurred near the Orkneys and off the Foreland; and that Portsmouth has been bombarded day and night from sea and shore. But

Britain begins, in airmanship, to excell: The Island-flyers be more adventurous. Are fearful daily conflicts, in the Element. Can those the fleetest winds outstrip in flight. . . . Or, for their air-flying enemies, in await, Lurk in cloud thickets of the baseless height. . . . They hover over fleets; To fling destruction on them down; terrific New explosive; which being hurled from height, Can shiver huge warships’ iron sides, as glass.

The last poem depicts Britain’s help from overseas, and here Doughty repeats his maxim that “Only through virtue can be saved a nation!"

The enigma of Rasputin is the theme of a forthcoming book, this time from the pen of George Sava, and based on his knowledge of Russia and the Russian temperament, as well as on his own professional experience. The book not only gives the biographical part of the story but also evokes the spirit of Rasputin himself through the mediumship of an old Russian peasant woman. It is being published by Faber and Faber.

The urgent need of books for the fighting forces and the hard conditions so many reprints have to face have induced Chatto and Windus to launch a half-crown cloth-bound “Services Library,” to include travel and popular biography as well as thrillers, sea stories, satire and romance. Among the first ten volumes are Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Crosble Carstin’s China Seas, and Houp-La! George A. Birmingham’s Famous Murders. Adrian Alington’s Mr Jubenka and C. E. Montague’s Rough Justice.

With his new book. Prophet at Heme, which Jonathan Cape is publishing, Douglas Reed completes the trilogy which he began with Insanity Fair, and continued with Disgrace Abounding. Just as in each of his former books he recorded the European scene and the imminence of war as a background to a narrative of persbnal adventure so he describes Impressions and experiences on returning to this country after his eventful years abroad In this way he presents a picture of England as he saw her; saved as by a miracle from the full calamity which threatened her in the summer of 1940, and facing the ordeal of the enemy’s air-raids during the succeeding autumn and winter. “He now believes,” we are told, “her decisive victory to be within her grasp, but again he sacrifices those things in the English way of life which he thinks likely to delay that victory, or to lose the next peace as the last one was lost.”