The Invasion

The Invasion

The Invasion is set in Sydney and details a Russian invasion on 18 May in an unspecified year in the 1870s. Despite its sombre subject matter, it is a surprisingly engaging and readable book full of opinions on a variety of matters including women, family life, wealth, status, pedigree, charity, honour, prostitution, education and volunteerism. It contains quite clever turns of phrase, interesting descriptions and an occasional glimpse of humour. While being light to hold and quick to read (with a full page advertisement for guns, ammunition and shooting paraphernalia on the back cover!), its pages contain an interesting mix of story-telling and social commentary. The author, George Ranken (1827-1895) – using the pseudonym W. H. Walker – wrote this work of fiction to raise awareness about what many people of the time believed to be the perilous state of Australia’s defences.

Ranken exposes the virtual non-existence of effective defence when he describes how spies spread throughout Australia had easily been able to gather maps, plans of roads, soundings, surveys and details of armament, and they sent what pleased them [to their employers] (p. 12).

This material gathered by the spies provided confirmation of a fact that would have been otherwise quite incredible to a Continental government, namely, that we had no secrets of State, and no plans of defence; that everything was open, unprepared, and unguarded; in fact that there was a throat ready and bare for anyone who had a knife (p. 12).

Ranken’s concerns about the ineptitude and inadequacies of parliamentarians and defence personnel, in both Australia and England, is evident when he writes: We were becoming a nation of pawnbrokers and publicans. But of all our fields of action the political was the busiest, the most useless, and the most corrupt (p. 28).

The first few pages of the book are devoted to a description of how news of the invasion unfolded for those living just a few miles out of Sydney, but most of the first thirty pages are used to inform the reader of the author’s opinions on a variety of matters including what contributes to a happy family, clairvoyance and behaviours of those who are generally considered socially superior. More importantly however, he devotes most of those pages to expressing his views on many aspects of war and defence and the possibility of invasion. In that regard, The Invasion serves a similar purpose to The Battle of Dorking.

Due to this social and military commentary, the ‘story’ takes some time to unfold. Once it does however, the author provides us with concise but descriptive glimpses of the impact of the invasion on Sydney’s inhabitants, such as his description of travelling towards Sydney on horseback from his home nine miles from the city: As I got on to the main line at Burwood I saw that a panic had set in. Carts, carriages of all kinds, omnibuses, and buggies, crowded the western thoroughfare. The Railway Station was blockaded by a crowd waiting, hampered with every conceivable description of baggage and furniture, and the same was to be seen at every other station on the line (p. 40).