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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 July 2016
The First World War is often alluded to as “the war to end all wars,” a phrase credited to H. G. Wells at the outbreak of the conflict. Rather than a self-proclaimed product of war enthusiasm in 1914, his declaration represented a consistent vision of warfare that Wells circulated in much of his work: that a major war would cause the collapse of the nation state and facilitate the rise of a utopian, technocratic world state. Although partly a cultural product of his own times, Wells mythologized himself as a misfit in all times: a sociopolitical critic antithetical to the madness of his own society. This study asserts that rather than an attempt at prophecy, it is this misfit image that informed his declaration in 1914 and societal responses to it.
* I would like to thank Andrea Lynn for suggesting source material on H. G. Wells that helped begin this project; Professor Jane Garnett at Wadham College, University of Oxford; and Professors Kathleen Clark, John Morrow, and James McClung at the University of Georgia. I would also like to acknowledge my fellow graduate students at the University of Georgia who provided invaluable feedback in the early stages of this project, particularly Nicole Gallucci, Kate Dahlstrand, Liz Busquets, Monica Blair, Michele Johnson, Aleck Stephens, and Kiersten Rom.
1 Wells, H. G., The War That Will End War (London, 1914), 12Google Scholar, 19.
2 Wells, H. G., Experiment in Autobiography: Discoveries and Conclusions of a Very Ordinary Brain (since 1866), vol. 1, (London, 1934), 668Google Scholar.
3 Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modern Memory: Illustrated Edition (New York, 2009; first published 1975), 41Google Scholar; for historical criticism of Fussell see Prior, Robin and Wilson, Trevor, “Paul Fussell at War,” War in History, 1/63 (1994), 63–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Smith, Leonard V., “Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory: Twenty-Five Years Later,” History and Theory, 40/2 (2001), 241–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 This narrative of the war has come under intense criticism from historians of the war, but it nevertheless remains strong within popular history and memory. See Bond, Brian, The Unquiet Western Front: Britain's Role in Literature and History (Cambridge, 2002CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Todman, Dan, The Great War: Myth and Memory (London, 2011Google Scholar).
5 See I. Clarke, F., Voices Prophesying War: Future Wars, 1763–3749 (Oxford, 1992Google Scholar); Eby, Cecil D, The Road to Armageddon: The Martial Spirit in English Popular Literature, 1870–1914 (Durham, 1987Google Scholar); Echevarria II, Antulio J, Imagining Future War: The West's Technological Revolution and Visions of Wars to Come, 1880–1914 (Westport, 2007Google Scholar); Hynes, Samuel, The Edwardian Turn of Mind (London, 1991), 43–5Google Scholar.
6 See Bloch, Ivan S, The Future of War in Its Technical, Economic, and Political Relations: Is War Now Impossible?, trans. Long, R. C. (New York, 1899Google Scholar); and Angell, Norman, The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power in Nations to Their Economic and Social Advantage (London, 1910Google Scholar). It is perhaps important to note that, despite some shared areas of focus, the sociopolitical visions of Wells, Angell, and Bloch were profoundly distinct from each other.
7 Wells does not figure heavily in the work of Fussell, but he has received attention in other works. See Hynes, Edwardian Turn of Mind; Hynes, Samuel, A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture (London, 1992Google Scholar). For more recent literary criticism, see Stevenson, Randall, Literature and the Great War, 1914–1918 (Oxford, 2013Google Scholar).
8 See Strachan, Hew, The Outbreak of the First World War (Oxford, 2004), 131–40Google Scholar; Neiberg, Michael, Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I (Cambridge, MA, 2013Google Scholar); Gregory, Adrian, The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War (Cambridge 2008), 9–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 For historical criticism of this cultural watershed approach see Winter, Jay, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, 2010Google Scholar; first published 1995).
10 Wells, H. G., Italy, France and Britain at War (a.k.a. War and the Future) (New York, 1917), 5Google Scholar.
11 “H. G. Wells,” Manchester Guardian, 14 Aug. 1946, 4.
12 John Partington has remarked similarly on the consistency of Wells's political thought throughout his career. See Partington, John S, Building Cosmopolis: The Political Thought of H. G. Wells (Burlington, 2003), 1–2Google Scholar.
13 Warren Wagar, W, H. G. Wells: Traversing Time (Middletown, 2004), 4Google Scholar. See also James, Simon J, Maps of Utopia: H. G. Wells, Modernity, and the End of Culture (Oxford, 2012CrossRefGoogle Scholar).
14 Clarke, Voices Prophesying War, 27–56.
15 Ibid., pp. 93–130; In addition to Battle of Dorking, other notable works included Philip Colomb et al., The Great War of 189– (1892); Erskine Childers, The Riddle of the Sands (1903); H. H. Munro (pseud. Saki), When William Came (1913); William Le Queux, The Great War in England in 1897 (1894) and The Invasion of 1906 (1910); and Arthur Conan Doyle, Danger! (1914). The genre was also not without its parodies, the most notable being P. G. Wodehouse, The Swoop!, or How Clarence Saved England (1909).
16 “The Scientific Novel,” Daily News, 26 Jan. 1898, 6.
17 Wells, H. G., The War of the Worlds (Leipzig, 1898), 14Google Scholar.
18 Ibid., 285.
19 Wagar, Traversing Time, 136.
20 “Recent Fiction: Machinery in Motion,” Morning Post, 25 May 1899, 2; L.F.A., “Reviews: The Prophet Wells,” The Observer, 28 May 1899, 7.
21 Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, vol. 2, 645.
22 Bellamy, Edward, Looking Backward, 2000–1887 (Boston, 1889), 70–81Google Scholar. It seems necessary to note that while Looking Backward provoked many literary responses, When the Sleeper Wakes was not part of this literature. Since When the Sleeper Wakes shares a similar plot device, Looking Backward deserves at least some acknowledgement.
23 Wells, When the Sleeper Wakes (London, 1899), 171–2.
24 See Bloch, The Future of War; for historical criticism of this work see Echevarria, Antulio J, After Clausewitz: German Military Thinkers before the Great War (Lawrence, 2000), 65–93Google Scholar, Howard, Michael, “Men against Fire: The Doctrine of the Offensive in 1914,” in Paret, Peter, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, 1986), 510–26Google Scholar.
25 Wells, “The Land Ironclads,” Strand Magazine, 26 (July–Dec. 1903), 751–64.
26 Smith, David C., ed., The Correspondence of H. G. Wells, 4 vols. (London, 1998), 1: 378–9Google Scholar, 383.
27 Ibid., 457.
28 Wells, H. G., Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought (New York 1902), 230–31Google Scholar.
29 Wells, H. G., An Englishman Looks at the World: Being a Series of Unrestrained Remarks upon Contemporary Matters (London, 1914), 143Google Scholar; this is a collection of journalist articles written by Wells from 1909 to 1914.
30 Wells, H. G., The War in the Air (New York, 1917), 101–2Google Scholar.
31 Ibid., 107–8.
32 Ibid., 248.
33 Ibid., 351–2.
34 Glick, Stephen and Ian Charters, L., “War, Games, and Military History,” Journal of Contemporary History, 18/4 (Oct. 1983), 569–70Google Scholar.
35 Brown, Kenneth, “Modelling for War? Toy Soldiers in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain,” Journal of Social History, 24/2 (1990), 237–54, at 241CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Wells, H. G., Little Wars: A Game for Boys from Twelve Years of Age to One Hundred and Fifty and for That More Intelligent Sort of Girls who Like Boys’ Games and Books (London 1913), 99–101Google Scholar.
37 “Little Wars by H. G. Wells” (book review), The Spectator, 16 Aug. 1913, 252.
38 Smith, The Correspondence of H. G. Wells, 2: 375.
39 Wells, H. G., The World Set Free: A Story of Mankind (New York, 1914), 89–148Google Scholar.
40 Ibid., 147.
41 Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, vol. 2, 666.
42 “The World Set Free” (review), The Times, 8 May 1914, 6; “Novels of the Month,” Illustrated London News—Literary Supplement, 6 June 1914.
43 “World Set Free” (book review), The Athenaeum, 9 May 1914, 652.
44 “The World Set Free” (book review), The Spectator, 16 May 1914, 836–7.
45 “The Severity of Mr. H. G. Wells,” Manchester Guardian, 26 Feb. 1914, 6.
46 Wells, War That Will End War, 11.
47 Partington, Building Cosmopolis, 65–83.
48 Wells, War That Will End War, 11.
49 James, Maps of Utopia, 131.
50 Wells, War That Will End War, 91–3.
51 “The War That Will End War, H. G. Wells” (book review), Academy and Literature, 17 Oct. 1914, 380–81.
52 “The New Books: The Latest War Literature,” The Independent, 21 Dec. 1914, 476; “A War against Militarism,” Times Literary Supplement, 669 (12 Nov. 1914), 501.
53 Walter Shaw Sparrow, “Political Novelists and Their New Humanity,” Saturday Review, 27 March 1915, 326–7. The “defensive” war interpretation has received increased attention in studies of motivation during the war. See Watson, Alexander, Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 2008), 44–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also note 8 above on “war enthusiasm” literature.
54 See Smith, The Correspondence of H. G. Wells, 2: 379–401, 406–12.
55 This does not intend to identify “socialist” or “British left” as a monolith. For more on liberal attitudes to war leading up to the First World War see Matthew Johnson, Militarism and the British Left, 1902–1914 (New York, 2013).
56 Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, vol. 2, 667.
57 Hynes, A War Imagined, 24.
58 Smith, David C., Wells, H. G., Desperately Mortal: A Biography (New Haven, 1986) 168–70Google Scholar.
59 Reginald Bliss (pseud. Wells, H. G.), Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and the Last Trump (New York, 1915), 113Google Scholar.
60 Ibid., 272.
61 James, Maps of Utopia, 161.
62 Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, vol. 2, 679–81.
63 Wells, H. G., What Is Coming? A European Forecast (New York, 1916), 19–20Google Scholar.
64 A Sophist (pseud.), “‘War to End War’: A Few Sophistries,” The Bystander, 18 Oct. 1916, 118. The article as a whole is representative of the thesis put forth by Jay Winter that despite the carnage experienced by soldiers during the war, British society at home actually benefited as a whole during the war. See Winter, Jay, The Great War and the British People (New York, 2003Google Scholar).
65 Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, vol. 2, 692.
66 “War and the Future” (book review), English Review (April 1917), 382–83.
67 Wells, H. G., Italy, France and Britain at War (New York, 1917), 178–82Google Scholar.
68 Ibid., 263–7, 283–4.
69 “War Supplement: A Selected Critical Bibliography of the War,” History Teacher's Magazine, 1 March 1918, 160.
70 “A Literary Letter: Mr. H. G. Wells on the War,” The Sphere, 30 Sept. 1916, 298.
71 Wells, H. G., Mr. Britling Sees It Through (New York, 1916), 359Google Scholar; also cited in Hynes, A War Imagined, 132.
72 Wells, Britling, 196, 417.
73 Hynes, A War Imagined, 130–35.
74 For more on Wells and the impact of religion on his ideas see MacKenzie, Norman and MacKenzie, Jeanne, The Life of H. G. Wells: The Time Traveller (London 1987), 312Google Scholar; and Glover, Willis, “Religious Orientations of H. G. Wells: A Case Study in Scientific Humanism,” Harvard Theological Review, 65/1 (1972), 117–35Google Scholar.
75 “Mr. Britling Sees It Through” (book review), The Observer, 24 Sept. 1916, 4.
76 Wagar, Traversing Time, 157–8.
77 Wells, Anticipations, 305–10.
78 Wells, H. G., Joan and Peter: The Story of an Education (New York, 1918), 506–10Google Scholar, 579–80.
79 Wells, H. G., In the Fourth Year: Anticipations of a World Peace (New York, 1918), v–viiGoogle Scholar.
80 Ibid., 79–80.
81 Ibid., 109–10.
82 Wells, H. G., Men Like Gods (New York, 1923), 5Google Scholar, 310.
83 Ibid., 5.
84 Ibid., 66–8.
85 Wells, H. G., The Outline of History, Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind (New York, 1921), 1092Google Scholar.
86 Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, vol. 2, 667–8.
87 Hynes, A War Imagined, 260–61.
88 James, Maps of Utopia, x.