<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>When the war started in Europe in 1914, the United States military was desperately undermanned and underequipped. Prior to the country’s entry into the conflict, there was a pervading fear of a German invasion of the United States. The paranoia was further fed by what is now called “invasion literature.” Between 1914 and 1917, dozens of works appeared that raised the spectre of a German invasion. In these long-forgotten novels, millions of German soldiers are storming the beaches of the Atlantic coast and capturing New York, Boston, and Washington. This paper examines invasion literature and brings to light such examples of the genre as John Bernard Walker’s <italic>America Fallen!</italic> (1915), Cleveland Moffett’s <italic>The Conquest of America</italic> (1916), and Thomas Dixon’s <italic>The Fall of a Nation</italic> (1916).</p>
</abstract>

When the war started in Europe in 1914, the United States military was desperately undermanned and underequipped. Prior to the country’s entry into the conflict, there was a pervading fear of a German invasion of the United States. The paranoia was further fed by what is now called “invasion literature.” Between 1914 and 1917, dozens of works appeared that raised the spectre of a German invasion. In these long-forgotten novels, millions of German soldiers are storming the beaches of the Atlantic coast and capturing New York, Boston, and Washington. This paper examines invasion literature and brings to light such examples of the genre as John Bernard Walker’s America Fallen! (1915), Cleveland Moffett’s The Conquest of America (1916), and Thomas Dixon’s The Fall of a Nation (1916).

America Under Fire: Imagined Invasions of the United States during World War I

Journal of Language and Cultural Education

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":"America Under Fire: Imagined Invasions of the United States during World War I"}

When the war started in Europe in 1914, the United States military was desperately undermanned and underequipped. Prior to the country’s entry into the...

America Under Fire: Imagined Invasions of the United States during World War I

Published Online: Mar 01, 2023

Page range: 56 - 62

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jolace-2022-0010

Keywords
World War I, invasion fiction, preparedness, New York, Thomas Dixon

© 2022 Jozef Pecina, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

America Under Fire: Imagined Invasions of the United States during World War I

Published Online: Mar 01, 2023

Page range: 56 - 62

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jolace-2022-0010

KeywordsWorld War I, invasion fiction, preparedness, New York, Thomas Dixon

© 2022 Jozef Pecina, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
World War I, invasion fiction, preparedness, New York, Thomas Dixon