When William Came

by Saki

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Genres: Fiction, Classics, Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, War, British Literature

152 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1913

About the author

British writer Hector Hugh Munro under pen name Saki published his witty and sometimes bitter short stories in collections, such as The Chronicles of Clovis (1911).

His sometimes macabre satirized Edwardian society and culture. People consider him a master and often compare him to William Sydney Porter and Dorothy Rothschild Parker. His tales feature delicately drawn characters and finely judged narratives. "The Open Window," perhaps his most famous, closes with the line, "Romance at short notice was her specialty," which thus entered the lexicon. Newspapers first and then several volumes published him as the custom of the time.

His works include
* a full-length play, The Watched Pot , in collaboration with Charles Maude;
* two one-act plays;
* a historical study, The Rise of the Russian Empire , the only book under his own name;
* a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington ;
* the episodic The Westminster Alice , a parliamentary parody of Alice in Wonderland ;
* and When William Came: A Story of London under the Hohenzollerns , an early alternate history.

Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Joseph Rudyard Kipling, influenced Munro, who in turn influenced A. A. Milne, and Pelham Grenville Wodehouse.

Reviews

[Eleanor · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting idea for an alternative history, but not really convincing. I got the impression that Saki didn't know how to finish the book so it ends with a whimper rather than a bang. Stick to his short stories and you can't go wrong!

[Nora · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t enjoy Saki’s 1911 offering, so I was going to skip this one, until I read the plot description and realized it was speculative fiction. This novel is set in a world where Germany has conquered Britain! This fascinated me, and it was clear that Saki was the only writer who saw World War I coming, so I had to read it.

Saki’s prose is witty and crisp; here’s an example: “Plarsey had never been able to relinquish the idea that a youthful charm and comeliness still centered in his person, and labored daily at his toilet with the devotion that a hopelessly lost cause is so often able to inspire. He babbled incessantly about himself in short, neat, complacent sentences, and in a voice that Ronald Storre said reminded one of a fat bishop blessing a butter-making competition.” It’s Saki’s usual satire of high society, except this time his aim is to roast England for being insufficiently militaristic. The idea is that soft Britain was completely caught off guard and was unable to defend itself against a German invasion.

All the spec fic elements are great, especially his descriptions of how the German overlords changed the public parks in London. (They spruce up Hyde Park but add tacky public art, like a statue of Alice in Wonderland, just like what we have in NYC.) Saki foresaw the Hitler Youth phenomenon by a couple of decades with his description of Germany’s attempt to win over the young people via the Boy Scouts. You have to read the book to find out if this works or not. All the British aristocrats are lazy and muddle-headed and just want to go on with their lives as usual even though their country has been annexed. There are two main characters, a husband and wife. The wife, Cicely, is a beautiful woman who only cares about her own pleasure, very similar to many other female characters in the books of 1913. Her husband, Yeovil, is very worked up about the fait accompli, which is what they call the take-over, but may be lulled into apathy by the delights of upper class British country life (hunting and riding and other outdoorsy things.)

The downfall of this book is the same as last time: anti-Semitism. Cecily is going to have a piano player visit, and her husband asks, “Not long-haired and Semitic or Tcheque or anything of that sort?” “There are even more [Jews] now than there used to be,” says another character. “I am to a great extent a disliker of Jews. . .” It’s very hard to picture German society as a haven for Jews, but that is how Saki imagines it. There aren’t really a lot of charcters in this story that I could sympathize with.

Weirdly, the book that this one most reminded me of is Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, because they both have the same wacky message that the key to civic virtue is military service.

Also, this is the book of 1913 that has the second-most porn-y name, after Wet Magic.

[Allen McDonnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is interesting as a historical viewpoint. It strikes me as a cautionary tale written to caution the Great Britain of the late Victorian era against complacency. The novel is based around a character named Yovil who is of the moneyed leisure class of the British society. While he was engaged on a hunting trip to wild regions of Siberia a brief war broke out between Kaiser Wilhelm of the German Empire and the United Kingdom. The war was very brief because the methodical Germans had spent the period after the Franco-Prussian war refining their military skills and developing advanced weapons while the British upper classes focused on enjoying the riches brought to them by the Empire they ruled. As a result before the story begins German conquered Great Britain and Ireland, but allowed the surviving ships of the Royal Navy to escape along with a number of high nobility and many of the Royal Family, who relocated themselves to India. The bulk of the British Empire still recognizes the Royal Family and now deals with them in India instead of the UK which is occupied territory.
Yovil caught a disease that appears to be Malaria from the brief description while on his hunting trip and because of the extended recovery period that resulted he returns to the UK where his wife and property are located stunned by all the changes that have come into existence in his six month absence from his birthplace. The bulk of the novel is about how Yovil has to adapt to the changes to his homeland which is no longer a free country but now an appendage of the still growing German Empire.
The language of the novel is not much like we are used to in the 21st century, just as an example the term 'race' is used where we would use the term 'nationality', as in the "English race" or "German race", and the word choices took a bit of getting used to.
I recommend this book for people interested in the outlooks British people held in the first decade of the 20th Century, the events in the novel are set in 1914 and were written before the outbreak of World War I, which at this much later date makes the novel into a kind of alternate history written with a period accurate style.
Because of the writing style I first began this book over two years ago but only got about 10% through it before I put it down again to move on to more exciting things on my list. I set a goal a few months ago to finish all the novels in my partially read category and this one came up last week, so I finished it. The biggest issue I had immersing myself in the novel is the very different world view expressed by the upper class English people whom the novel focuses upon nearly exclusively. their lifestyle and goals are so completely foreign to my own experience it was difficult for me to sympathize with their expressed angst while at the same time enjoying all the pleasures and lifestyle that being landed gentry in the 19th century afforded their class of society.

[K.N. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really don't know what to feel about this one. Saki certainly has a way with words, but an out-dated (and very incorrect) imagined-future novella was not for me.

[remarkably]

fascinating museum piece replete with sentimental rubbish and prejudice of all stripes. what if the Germans take over England and corrupt the noble race of England into their appalling Teutonic lifestyles, including filling in forms and obeying 'keep off the grass' signs, and what if the Jews caused all of it. there is a bilious paragraph railing against the very concept of bilingualism. could not possibly rate this as a work of art — Saki should have stuck to bons mots, of which there are a few sorely-needed exemplars in here — but it is tremendously interesting as a depiction of pre-WWI racial and civilisational anxieties.

[Steffen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unterhaltsames, oft lehrreiches und überraschendes (“Das so etwas 1914 geschrieben wurde!”) Buch, was durch das lesenswerte, das Buch gut einordnende Nachwort von Karl Michael Armer nochmal einen Rating-Punkt dazu gewinnt.

Die meisten der englischsprachigen Reviews kritisieren Punkte, die mir in diesem Nachwort gut erklärt bzw. näher gebracht wurden. Vielleicht würde eine englische Edition mit einem modernen Nachwort auch bessere Kritiken ernten.

[Marth · Rating 2 out of 5]

When William Came - 2/5

London, unner the jackboot've the Second Reich, is explared be ah returned English son, Murrey Yeovil, whoase disgusted be wit he finds. All the while his wife, Cicely, plots tae ingratiate hersel wae the inner circle've the 'Teuton conquering race' and rebuild England fae the inside.

'When William Came' is a veery funny beuk, baeth intentionally n noe. H. H. Munro, gaein be his pen-name Saki, mixes his witty 'comedy of manners' (or maybe wae the sci-fi unnerpinnings a proto-Mannerpunk novel) wae his raether... interestin ideas oan race n wit does n doesnae coont is colonialism. Course, the beuk wis written in 1913 sae its no unexpectit thit its positions seemed ootdated tae me in current year bit it wis funny, in ah 'tis doesnae affect me sae ah kin laugh aboot it' sorta wae.

Wan serious problem wae tis novel is thit Saki neever seems tae ken where he's gaein wae it, weavin scenes the gither thit, weel booncin awf wan another weel, nuffin really progresses in. Yeah kin tell Saki mainly wrote shart stories is he seems mair it hame wae the vignettes where he shows life unner German rule, n wan hilarious wan set in India with British colonisers lamentin the faw've the hameland.

O'eraw, interestin tae see wit wis gaein awn in the mind've folken jest afore the ootbreak've WW1 n hoo the attitudes've the time informed em bit still doesnae resolve the faults've the story structure itself, or the colonial n racist attitudes of the author, nae matter when it wis written.

Read is part've the 'England Invaded' collection edited be Michael Moorcock.

[Shoshi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have wrestled with how I feel about this book. Undoubtedly it has many fine points to recommend it - Saki could turn a phrase. However I was expecting Wodehousian humor and got something in the order of a literary Thomas Paine.

I could forgive the warmongering to a degree - clearly Saki is trying to force people he sees as too easy going regarding the military, particularly naval, threat posed by the German empire. If he limited his imagery to German mixed with English, a profusion of seemingly overdone bureaucracy, it would have been one thing. But, especially early on, he goes after Jews seemingly for no reason. He doesn't go full anti-semite/Orders of Zion by blaming Jews for England's plight. He does spaz about how many European Jews have decended on London, seeing them like an advancing mass of locusts. As much as lossing a naval war almost overnight and German occupation imagined with prohibtions up to no walking on the grass in Hyde Park, he uses the notion that the void left by fleeing patriots is filled in London/London society by Continental Jews that just seem to be everywhere. Like a racist ignorant of his condition, which really made me squirm.
He also takes the view that India ("Hindustan") is some sort of brown arid countryside which suggested he had never been.
Putting aside his xenophobia, he does provide very succinctly a view on how Edwardians perceived their world, and why they so eagerly joined up to battle Kaiser Wilhelm. Also noteworthy is how a modern invasion and occupation could play out on city and country society.

[Rafael L. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Em alguma época pré-Guerra, o Império Alemão invade a Grã-Bretanha e o rei inglês foge para a Índia, assim como muitos aristocratas que também abandonam a ilha para tentar viver em liberdade nas colônias do além-mar (alô, D. João VI). Era melhor ter ficado em Londres mesmo, já que, com exceção das placas que agora são bilíngues e mostram o nome da rua também em alemão, a vida continuava praticamente a mesma - as protagonistas continuam indo ao teatro, vão caçar, viajam para o interior etc. Acho difícil que isso tenha sido uma falha intencional dada a magnitude do escritor, e o final confirmou minha suspeita - quando a vida é boa e todas as necessidades são atendidas, não tem fogo patriótico que não se apague. Saki sempre vale a pena, mas melhor continuar nos contos.

[Jemma · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's fair to say that a century passing has not done the title of this book any favours and a review should begin with, "it's not crude erotica". Rather its a satire on society through a prism of a Britain conquered by the Kaiser. In this its good but not great, in that it has a believable take on what life would've been like. It is however too short to really do the subject justice, not terribly funny and there is a long antisemitic passage which is just wrong. Even by contemporary standards it goes too far, this is not Orwell's lazy pawnbroker stereotype, this is a passage of vitriol.

[Ralph Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

When William Came was written by Saki, in which it is the pseudonym of the British author, Hector Hugh Munro. The story takes place several years after the war between Germany and Great Britain—Germany took the victory.

The plot is mostly an argument for compulsory military service where at that time was a major controversy. Even today, some countries still have this rule such as South Korea.

Other than that, it just tells how life in London is like under German occupation.

[Garry Hoffmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

England has fallen to Kaiser Wilhelm and is being absorbed by the Prussian Empire. Saki skewers his usual foils among the complacent social climbers whose priority is the continuation of their comfort and ease untroubled by any pangs of conscience. No author I've read matches Saki's withering characterizations.

[J Grimsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book showing what would Saki thought would happen if Britain had lost the first world war. It also contains some anti-Semitism and classism but that's Saki for you. He was killed in the 1st world war and was very Edwardian and right-wing. His prose is very sharp.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Third-rate Saki. Slow boring, and no upper-class young men standing around issuing bon mots. The second star is for reminding me that, contrary to what pop historians may claim about WWI coming as a shock to everyone, war between the UK and Germany, at least, was on people's minds and had already been the theme of several British novels. But as it so often is, truth was more interesting than fiction. More interesting than this fiction, anyway.

[LRKK · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is 1913 and, after a lightning invasion, Germany has conquered the UK. While the arch satire begins to grate long before one is halfway through this short novel, the audacity of the premise and psychological insight will keep you going and reward time spent.

[T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A satirical fantasy about an invasion of Great Britain by Germany, written before WWI as kind of a warning to complaisant Brits.

[Gordon Howard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very interesting alternate history of Germany conquering Britain before WW 1. In addition the book is snobbily anti-semitic.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A prescient commentary on the British culture as it leans into WWI. Like most wry observations on political and cultural foibles, I felt many a reverberation in the current American atmosphere.

[Joe Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. It is a slow moving piece, but it had an interesting ending with a serious warning to be prepared for a coming war against Germany prior to WW1.

[Anna Bogdanova · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, so I don't know why I keep trying to understand Britain and all things British. Considering the fact, that I don't live there any longer, it seems illogical. Yet here I am.
Saki's precision and conciseness is lost in this longer work. He takes on the huge theme of being British without there being a Britain, but any analysis, any development is lost in the amount of propaganda he is trying to squeeze into this work. At the same time, the characters and their laments seem to be too overblown. They are amusing, they have the typical Saki tongue-in-cheek air, but there isn't enough in them to make them interesting for a longer work.
Overall, it's fairly disappointing, but I suppose it's a fair example of invasion literature. It does contain the post-WWI unease and fear towards appeasement and a certain loss of national self-identification. Perhaps it should be read as a historic example of that period, but it doesn't quite make it as a work of fiction in itself. Which is sad, since I generally like Saki.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to a very well read audiobook of "When William Came" while on my morning walks. Disovered, sadly, that Saki wasn't intending to amuse. Kept listening in the hope of hearing something good.

For a novel that turned out to have grand political ambitions, "When William Came" was curiously underpopulated with thin characters devised (it seemed to me) simply to support an argument or even to score points off personal enemies. The snobbish, conservative campiness which is artful and amusing from the pens of elegant stylists (Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh, Saki himself) lacked grace here. The scenario of an invasion of Britain by Germany was more than inadequate to describe the horrific reality of the upcoming Great War - it couldn't have been otherwise - but the final scene in which brave boy scouts spearhead a British resistance need not have been so, unintentionally this time, risible.

Apparently "When William Came" was part of a genre which P.G.Wodehouse was inspired to parody.

When war did come, Saki seems to have deliberately gone to his death in the trenches.

[for-much-deliberation ... · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another wonderful tale by Saki, not as amusing as the others I've read, but this is a sort of 'what if' tale, like Saki's way of preparing England for just in case they went to war with Germany and lost, and the related consequences of such occupation.
The main character is Yeovil who has just returned home in England after being in Russia for a rather long time...
At varying points in the tale Yeovil's thoughts and discussions with those he meets highlight varying ideas on the country's current situation.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Saki ‘s novella, When William Came, was written in 1914. It is a cautionary, what-if tale warning the British upper classes what might happen if they play golf instead of preparing for war. Britain will be conquered by Germany and buried under taxes, red tape and keep off the grass signs. Vile Germans will seek to seduce their young people to the Teutonic way. And it is a tragedy. Naturally, it is stuffed to the brim with British patriotism and sentiment. It is interesting as a museum piece, and as relic of Edwardian fears.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cautionary tale, written in 1913, about what might happen to typically heartless Saki characters in German-occupied Britain. It's an interesting read given what actually happened: war broke out; H.H. Munro himself was a casualty; Britain wasn't annexed by Germany. It's not a must-read, but the writing is fine and it's a refreshingly engaged change from the likes of Clovis.

[Madeline Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not that I didn't like this book, the reason for the three stars is that it didn't really move me one way or another. The premise and the characters were interesting, as was the way in which Saki allowed his readers to infer the situation rather than spelling it out. I must have merely been caught up in the languid indifference of the characters.

[Keeko · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's the sign of a great writer, I wanted to stay with his characters a little longer.

He has some great lines, the kind that you want to remember or write down, and they fit well as part of the story. A true good read.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could go 3.5 stars for this short novel written prior to World War One. Subject is life in London after the conquest of England by Germany. Satire, but much true about a country not paying the price for what is important. Some prophecy here!!

[Jochelle Mendonca · Rating 1 out of 5]

I loved the writing. Saki was brilliant, as always, but the book is stuffed with anti-Semitic paragraphs that were very hard to read.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

More balanced than some of his other works (Reginald comes to mind), though less funny as well (Beasts and Super Beasts still wins there).

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing by Saki should be missed. This is brilliant.