Futures Volume 1 Issue 6 1969 [Doi 10.1016%2Fs0016-3287%2869%2980046-7] I.F. Clarke -- The Pattern of Prediction 1763–1973 Forecasts of Future Wars, 1871–1914

8/11/2019 Futures Volume 1 Issue 6 1969 [Doi 10.1016%2Fs0016-3287%2869%2980046-7] I.F. Clarke -- The Pattern of Pred

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The Pattern Prediction 55

The Pattern of Prediction

1763-1973

FORECASTS OF FUTURE WARS

1871-1914

1. F. Clarke

By

the

1810 s predictive fiction

had

become a most popular and

effective means

of

warning

people

of

the

likely outcome

of

visible trends.

This

article continues the historical analysis of

forecasting and its influence from previous issues

of FUTURES

and shows how aspects of

the

new kind of warfare were used in

the construction of cautionary scenarios of the future.

The

sixties

and

seventies

of

the

last

century were a distinct stage

in the

general realisation that the

rate

of

change was accelerating and that

the

great industrial nations had to learn

new techniques

of adaptation.

The

future-that

is

the

potential

of the

applied sciences-had begun to invade

the

present with questions promises and

threats

about the s ta te

of mankind in

ten fifty or one

hundred

years. By

the

end

of the seventies the tale of

the future became firmly established

especially in Br it ai n and

France-as

the most effective means of describing

the pattern of probabilities for the

entertainment

or instruction

of

readers.

A

new race of

prophets had arisen

who

made i t

their business to r eve al

what had to be done in order to bring

mankind to the level of civilisation

they

predicted

or to preserve

the

nation

from the disasters

they

antici

pated.

In

this

rapid

development

of

pre

dictive fiction two decisive factors

were

the extraordinary

demonstration

of

a new

kind of

warfare in 1870

and

the

publication

of

a

new

kind

of

political forecast Chesney s Battle

Dorking in 1871.

The

swift German

victories in

the

war

with

France had

shown

how technology-railways

tele

graphic

communications breech

loading guns-could change the con

duct

of war

and

could in a few mont hs

alter the

balance of power

in Europe.

The speed

and

scale

of the German

campaign seemed so

unprecedented

that the Annual Register for 1870 was

almost lost for words: Only by

becoming in

imagination the

readers

of

some future historical work

and

comparing

it

with any

or all of

the

Professor F. Clarke isHead of the English Studies Department University ofStrathclyde UK.

FUTUR S ecember

9 9


2/5

55 The

ttern

rediction

histories that now stand upon our

shelves,

can

we form. an idea

o

the

place

that

must be found in the

world s annals for the catastrophe of

Sedan and the Si ege

of Paris.

There

was widespread

alarm

in the

United Kingdom.

flood

of

articles

and commentaries in the press

created

a

nightmare

vision of

the

disaster that

might

follow,

if the German

conscript

masses ever

managed

to establish a

bridgehead on the Channel coast.

And so, one month after the pro

clamation of

the

new German Reich

in the

Hall of

Mirrors at Versailles,

an officer of the Royal Engineers sent

Blackwood s .Magazine

the

outline

of

a short story: He wished, he wrote,

to

demonstrate

the

urgent

need for

securing the defence of the nation by

the

enforced arming of the people ;

and he proposed to do this by des

cribing a successful invasion of Eng

land, and the collapse of our

power

and

commerce in consequence :

The would-be

author

was Sir George

Tomkyns

Chesney-a plain

colonel

in

1871-who had

begun as

n

officer

of the Bengal Engineers and after distin

guished service in

India

had been

appointed the first Principal of

the

Royal Indian

Civil Engineering College

at

Staines

in

Middlesex. Chesney was

one of the new breed of educated

soldiers to be found in a specialist

branch

like the Royal Engineers. He

had

understood

the

factors working for

military change; and in writing the

Battle

Dorking

he showed a shrewd

appreciation

of the

ways in

which

he

could use

an

influential middle-Class

journal

in

order

to direct attention to

the question

of

national defence:

a

self-appointed military spokesman,

Chesney opened the first public

re

lations

campaign

on

behalf of-the

British Army. His method of presenting

the

case for conscription by describing

the fearful consequences of national

unpreparedness

depended

on a highly

effective

technique-a

political

parable,

or war scenario,

that

could project

any lesson for any

nation

into any kind

of

feasible future.

The

tale

of the

coming victory---or defeat---of

the

nation

was essentially a communica

tions device. Propagandists could

in

volve their readers in

the

arguments

for a bigger

navy

or

better

weapons,

since the fiction of

imaginary

warfare

enabled them to convert

the

latest

figures for naval tonnage or

the

com

parative

statistics of the continental

armies into compelling images of a

nation fighting to survive.

Although

the

techniques of futuristic

fiction were

not

new in 1871, Chesney s

narrative

was most original. In

describing the imaginary German in

vasion

of

the British Isles, he combined

precise details with carefully observed

episodes that told their own sad story

of

military incompetence and

the

failure to

prepare

for

the

new methods

of warfare. Granted Chesney s one

hypothesis-the absence of the Royal

Navy

overseas---on

which the

story

depended, then everything else was

sound strategy and good propaganda.

At

the

chosen

moment

German

troops

hurry aboard

their waiting transports

in all the ports from the Baltic to

Ostend. Chesney pointed out,

everything

had been arranged before

hand;

nor

ought we to have been

surprised, for we

had seen- the

same

Power, only a few months before, move

down

half a million men on a few

days notice to

conquer

the greatest

military nation

in Europe,

with

no

more

fuss

than

our

War

Office used to

make over the transport

of

a brigade

from Aldershot to

Brighton .

The

Germans hind

without

any

serious

opposition,

and

the rest of the story is

an

admonitory

tale

of

defeat and

despair.

The episodes in the Battle Dorking

depend on a skilfully contrived sense of

inevitability

that

leads

the unhappy

reader

from one disaster after another

to

the

final catastrophe

of

military

defeat and the occupation of London.

Chesney

spared

no one. The

German

UTUR S December 9 9


3/5


4/5

G

The Pal em Prediction

Figure 3. Cover

illustration

f rom one of the earliest

mericanforecasts of future

warfare

The Stricken

Nation published in 1890by

the

minor political

writer

Henry Grattan Donnelly.

The story was intended to

warn the

US that

i t was

imperative to build a large

navy in order to keep pace

with the growth of foreign

navies. The

British

are of

course presented as the

enemy.

The Royal Navy

bombards all

ports

on the

East Coast. Total surrender

follows as

humiliating

as a

patriotic propagandist can

make it.

Figure

4

By

the

eighteen-

nineties the description

of future wars had become

a minor publishing industry.

In

89

the

editor

of the

weekly illustrated magazine

Black and White com-

missioned eminent experts

dmiralColomb Colonel

Maurice Captain

Maude

to give thei r version of the

next war. The result was

The Great War 189 in

which the strategy and

tactics of 1870are projected

into

the future.

The i llu-

stration shows an old style

battle with the German

cavalry charging the squares

of French infantry at the

imagined Battle of Machault.

The experts believed that

this

kind of battle would

last

about two hours.

UTUR S ecem er 1969


5/5

troops

are

always expert and enter

prising; the British

are brave

but

hopelessly inexperienced. The penalty

for

national

unpreparedness is, there

fore, a humiliating peace; and the

story ends

with

Chesney s bleak fore

cast

of

the future before

the

British

people

if

they do

not prepare

for

the

new conditions that lie ahead: When

I look

at

my country as. it is now-its

trade

gone, its factories silent, its

harbours empty, a prey to pauperism

and decay-I ask myself whether I

have really a

heart

or

any

sense of

patriotism

that

I should

have

witnessed

such degradation and still care to live.

Chesney hadwritten themost success

ful poli tical

tract

in the history of

nineteenth-century Britain;

and at

the

same t ime the Battle Dorking was the

first forecast in fiction that gained a

world audience. Within one month of

publication in the May

number

of

Blackwood s Magazine the

story

had

become notorious. Some twenty authors

rushed

into print

with their

own anti

Chesney versions of what would really

happen

to

German

invaders. Overseas

there were special editions in Australia,

Canada

New Zealand

and the United

States. There were six translations

within the year on the Continent; and

Gladstone,

the Prime

Minister, de

nounced the Battle Dorking

in a

public speech as a dangerous exercise

The Pattern Prediction 557

in alarmism . The story was reprinted

in June as a sixpenny

pamphlet and at

once it sold by tens of thousands.

The European

recollection of the

Battle Dorking remained very vivid

up to

the end

of

the

last

century, for

Chesney gave

Europe

a model

of

predictive fiction that was copied

everywhere. Between 1871 and 1914

there were only two years in which tales

of the next Great War the < uklmftskrieg

and la guerre imaginaire

did

not appear.

The

frequent changes in military

equipment and

the

constant advance

in

the

design

of naval

vessels posed

serious questions

about the

conduct

of

a

future war. The answers came from

admirals and generals, army and navy

correspondents, who described

the

shape of the next war in the Chesney

manner of

rapid

narratives, accurate

details

and

instructive episodes. Techno

logical forecasters should note that all

the experts failed miserably as watchers

of the future; they were too close to ~

problem

and

their knowledge was

limited to the problem.

The

few

accurate forecasts that

appeared

before

World

War I came from intelligent

and

imaginative

ousiders-SirArthur

Conan

Doyle, H. G. Wells,

Albert

Robida,

and Ivan Bloch. Can the expert be the

natural

enemy

of accurate

extra

polation?

S IEN E JOURN L

Science Journal records progress across the complete

range

of

science

and

technology. Its 60 or

moreshort

news items ensure topicality

and

its eight

main

features

provide penetrating coverage of major developments

every month. Science Journal is designed

fo r

readers

who demand authority, who appreciate quality, depth

of coverage and superb presentation.

Monthly

One yearsubscription

UK

Overseas

4155.

Od

S12

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Dorset House Stamford Street London SEI

UTUR S

December 1969

Documents

Futures Volume 1 Issue 6 1969 [Doi 10.1016%2Fs0016-3287%2869%2980046-7] I.F. Clarke -- The Pattern of Prediction 1763–1973 Forecasts of Future Wars, 1871–1914