The Swoop
Encyclopedia
The Swoop!, or How Clarence Saved England is a short comic novel
by P G Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom
by Alston Rivers Ltd
, London
, on 16 April 1909. Its subtitle is A Tale of the Great Invasion.
An adapted and much abbreviated version, set in the United States
, appeared in the July and August 1915 issues of Vanity Fair
under the title The Military Invasion of America and with the subtitle A Remarkable Tale of the German-Japanese Invasion of 1916.
The original story was not published in the United States until 1979, four years after Wodehouse's death, when it was included in the collection The Swoop! and Other Stories
.
by several armies — "England was not merely beneath the heel of the invader. It was beneath the heels of nine invaders. There was barely standing-room." — and features references to many well-known figures of the day, among them the politician Herbert Gladstone, novelist Edgar Wallace
, actor-managers Seymour Hicks
and George Edwardes
, and boxer Bob Fitzsimmons
.
The invaders are the Russians under Grand Duke Vodkakoff, the Germans under Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig — the reigning British monarch of the day was Edward VII
of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha — the Swiss Navy, the Monegasques
, a band of Moroccan brigands under Raisuli, the Young Turks
, the Mad Mullah from Somaliland
, the Chinese under Prince Ping Pong Pang, and the Bollygollans in war canoes.
The initial reaction to the invasion is muted. "It was inevitable, in the height of the Silly Season, that such a topic as the simultaneous invasion of Great Britain by nine foreign powers should be seized upon by the press", but the English are far more interested in cricket and one newspaper placard announces "Surrey Doing Badly" (at cricket
), ahead of "German Army Lands in England". And when the Germans begin shelling London — "Fortunately it was August, and there was nobody in town." — the destruction of nearly all the capital's statues, the reduction of the Albert Hall
to a heap of picturesque ruins, and the burning of the Royal Academy
, earn Prince Otto a hearty vote of thanks from the grateful populace.
The European parties form an alliance and expel the other invaders, but the Swiss soon leave, to be home in time for the winter hotel season, and when Prince Otto and Grand Duke Vodkakoff are offered music hall
engagements and the leader of the army of Monaco is not, he takes offence and withdraws his troops.
The two remaining armies are overcome thanks to the stratagems of the indomitable Clarence Chugwater, leader of the Boy Scouts
. By causing each commander to become jealous of the other's music hall fees, he succeeds in breaking up the alliance and, in the ensuing chaos, Clarence and his Boy Scouts are able to overcome the invaders.
In The Military Invasion of America, the United States is invaded by armies from Germany, under Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig, and Japan
, led by General Owoki. Once again it is Clarence Chugwater who saves the day.
on the then-popular genre of invasion literature
. Six years before The Swoop, Wodehouse (under the pseudonym Henry William-Jones) contributed a humorous article to Punch
magazine in which he outlined, in a mock-serious tone, the plot of an "Inspired-Prophecy kind of novel, in which England is overrun by invaders until the last few chapters". While it differs in many details from the earlier outline, The Swoop was that novel.
In writing The Swoop, Wodehouse was responding to an upsurge in the popularity of the invasion genre: 1909 marked "the year of greatest suppuration" of the genre. William Le Queux
's The Invasion of 1910
had been serialised in the Daily Mail
and was a best-seller, while Guy du Maurier
's play, An Englishman's Home
, which had opened at Wyndham's Theatre
on 27 January, was a theatrical sensation, playing in three London theatres simultaneously.
Many writers of invasion-scare stories took as their starting point an assumed unpreparedness on the part of Britain's armed forces to counter the threat of invasion. They wrote with the aim of raising public awareness of this deficiency. Du Maurier, for example, was a serving army officer, while Le Queux was assisted by Field Marshal Earl Roberts
, who had resigned from active duty a few years earlier in order to devote himself to the National Service League
, which promoted universal military training. For these, and similar, writers, Britain's safety depended on building up its armed forces. Du Maurier's play was described in the Annual Register
as "a forcible and cleverly-written argument in favour of universal military training". (quoted in )
Wodehouse "transforms the established pattern by reversing all expectations". Not only is Britain unprepared for invasion, the public shows a complete disregard for the invasion — except as a source of entertainment. And the invading armies are defeated not by the might of Britain's military, but by the cunning stratagems of an unknown "Man of Destiny", the 14-year-old Clarence Chugwater, assisted by his band of Boy Scouts. "Wodehouse concocted a preposterous plot which, unlike his models, was preposterous by intent."
Comic novel
A comic novel is a work of fiction in which the writer not only seeks to amuse the reader, but also to make the reader think about controversial issues, sometimes with subtlety and as part of a carefully woven narrative; sometimes, above all other considerations...
by P G Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by Alston Rivers Ltd
Alston Rivers
Alston Rivers Ltd. was a London publishing firm. The firm originally consisted of the Hon L.J. Bathurst and R.B. Byles and had brought out the novels of Whyte Melville and the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. In 1904 it was reconstituted, with Bathurst and Archibald Marshall putting up the money and...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, on 16 April 1909. Its subtitle is A Tale of the Great Invasion.
An adapted and much abbreviated version, set in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, appeared in the July and August 1915 issues of Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
under the title The Military Invasion of America and with the subtitle A Remarkable Tale of the German-Japanese Invasion of 1916.
The original story was not published in the United States until 1979, four years after Wodehouse's death, when it was included in the collection The Swoop! and Other Stories
The Swoop! and Other Stories
The Swoop! and Other Stories is a collection of early short stories and a novella by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on April 11, 1979 by The Seabury Press, New York, four years after Wodehouse's death....
.
Plot summary
The Swoop! tells of the simultaneous invasion of EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
by several armies — "England was not merely beneath the heel of the invader. It was beneath the heels of nine invaders. There was barely standing-room." — and features references to many well-known figures of the day, among them the politician Herbert Gladstone, novelist Edgar Wallace
Edgar Wallace
Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was an English crime writer, journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and numerous articles in newspapers and journals....
, actor-managers Seymour Hicks
Seymour Hicks
Sir Arthur Seymour Hicks , better known as Seymour Hicks, was a British actor, music hall performer, playwright, screenwriter, theatre manager and producer. He married the actress Ellaline Terriss in 1893...
and George Edwardes
George Edwardes
George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond....
, and boxer Bob Fitzsimmons
Bob Fitzsimmons
Robert James "Bob" Fitzsimmons , was a British boxer who made boxing history as the sport's first three-division world champion. He also achieved fame for beating Gentleman Jim Corbett, the man who beat John L. Sullivan, and is in The Guinness Book of World Records as the Lightest heavyweight...
.
The invaders are the Russians under Grand Duke Vodkakoff, the Germans under Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig — the reigning British monarch of the day was Edward VII
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha — the Swiss Navy, the Monegasques
Monaco
Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
, a band of Moroccan brigands under Raisuli, the Young Turks
Young Turks
The Young Turks , from French: Les Jeunes Turcs) were a coalition of various groups favouring reformation of the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The movement was against the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Sultan and favoured a re-installation of the short-lived Kanûn-ı Esâsî constitution...
, the Mad Mullah from Somaliland
Somaliland
Somaliland is an unrecognised self-declared sovereign state that is internationally recognised as an autonomous region of Somalia. The government of Somaliland regards itself as the successor state to the British Somaliland protectorate, which was independent for a few days in 1960 as the State of...
, the Chinese under Prince Ping Pong Pang, and the Bollygollans in war canoes.
The initial reaction to the invasion is muted. "It was inevitable, in the height of the Silly Season, that such a topic as the simultaneous invasion of Great Britain by nine foreign powers should be seized upon by the press", but the English are far more interested in cricket and one newspaper placard announces "Surrey Doing Badly" (at cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
), ahead of "German Army Lands in England". And when the Germans begin shelling London — "Fortunately it was August, and there was nobody in town." — the destruction of nearly all the capital's statues, the reduction of the Albert Hall
Albert Hall
Albert P. Hall is an American actor.Born in Brighton, Alabama, Hall graduated from the Columbia University School of the Arts in 1971. That same year he appeared Off-Broadway in The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and on Broadway in the Melvin Van Peebles musical Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death...
to a heap of picturesque ruins, and the burning of the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
, earn Prince Otto a hearty vote of thanks from the grateful populace.
The European parties form an alliance and expel the other invaders, but the Swiss soon leave, to be home in time for the winter hotel season, and when Prince Otto and Grand Duke Vodkakoff are offered music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
engagements and the leader of the army of Monaco is not, he takes offence and withdraws his troops.
The two remaining armies are overcome thanks to the stratagems of the indomitable Clarence Chugwater, leader of the Boy Scouts
The Scout Association
The Scout Association is the World Organization of the Scout Movement recognised Scouting association in the United Kingdom. Scouting began in 1907 through the efforts of Robert Baden-Powell. The Scout Association was formed under its previous name, The Boy Scout Association, in 1910 by the grant...
. By causing each commander to become jealous of the other's music hall fees, he succeeds in breaking up the alliance and, in the ensuing chaos, Clarence and his Boy Scouts are able to overcome the invaders.
In The Military Invasion of America, the United States is invaded by armies from Germany, under Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig, and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, led by General Owoki. Once again it is Clarence Chugwater who saves the day.
Explanation of the title
The title alludes to The Swoop of the Vulture a novel by James Blyth, that describes a surprise attack by forces of the "Imperial German Vulture". Complaining about the difficulties caused by so many simultaneous and surprise invasions, the leader of the German forces, Prince Otto, refers explicitly to Blyth's novel: "'It all comes of this dashed Swoop of the Vulture business', he grumbled."Major themes
The Swoop! is a comical satireSatire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
on the then-popular genre of invasion literature
Invasion literature
Invasion literature was a historical literary genre most notable between 1871 and the First World War . The genre first became recognizable starting in Britain in 1871 with The Battle of Dorking, a fictional account of an invasion of England by Germany...
. Six years before The Swoop, Wodehouse (under the pseudonym Henry William-Jones) contributed a humorous article to Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
magazine in which he outlined, in a mock-serious tone, the plot of an "Inspired-Prophecy kind of novel, in which England is overrun by invaders until the last few chapters". While it differs in many details from the earlier outline, The Swoop was that novel.
In writing The Swoop, Wodehouse was responding to an upsurge in the popularity of the invasion genre: 1909 marked "the year of greatest suppuration" of the genre. William Le Queux
William Le Queux
William Tufnell Le Queux was an Anglo-French journalist and writer. He was also a diplomat , a traveller , a flying buff who officiated at the first British air meeting at Doncaster in 1909, and a wireless pioneer who broadcast music from his own station long...
's The Invasion of 1910
The Invasion of 1910
The Invasion of 1910 is a 1906 novel written mainly by William Le Queux . It is one of the more famous examples of Invasion literature and is an example of pre-World War I Germanophobia, as it preached the need to prepare for war with Germany.-Background:The novel was originally commissioned by...
had been serialised in the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
and was a best-seller, while Guy du Maurier
Guy du Maurier
Guy Louis Busson du Maurier, D.S.O. was an English army officer and playwright. He was the son of the writer George du Maurier and brother of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies and the actor Gerald du Maurier. He was educated at Marlborough and Sandhurst, and became an officer in the Royal Fusiliers in 1885...
's play, An Englishman's Home
An Englishman's Home
An Englishman's Home is a threat-of-invasion play by Guy du Maurier, first produced in 1909. The title is a reference to the expression "an Englishman's home is his castle".-Play:...
, which had opened at Wyndham's Theatre
Wyndham's Theatre
Wyndham's Theatre is a West End theatre, one of two opened by the actor/manager Charles Wyndham . Located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster, it was designed by W.G.R. Sprague about 1898, the architect of six other London theatres between then and 1916...
on 27 January, was a theatrical sensation, playing in three London theatres simultaneously.
Many writers of invasion-scare stories took as their starting point an assumed unpreparedness on the part of Britain's armed forces to counter the threat of invasion. They wrote with the aim of raising public awareness of this deficiency. Du Maurier, for example, was a serving army officer, while Le Queux was assisted by Field Marshal Earl Roberts
Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts
Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts, Bt, VC, KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, KStJ, PC was a distinguished Indian born British soldier who regarded himself as Anglo-Irish and one of the most successful British commanders of the 19th century.-Early life:Born at Cawnpore, India, on...
, who had resigned from active duty a few years earlier in order to devote himself to the National Service League
National Service League
The National Service League was a British pressure group founded in February 1902 to alert the country to the inadequacy of the British Army to fight a major war and to propose the solution of national service....
, which promoted universal military training. For these, and similar, writers, Britain's safety depended on building up its armed forces. Du Maurier's play was described in the Annual Register
Annual Register
The Annual Register is a long-established reference work, written and published each year, which records and analyses the year’s major events, developments and trends throughout the world...
as "a forcible and cleverly-written argument in favour of universal military training". (quoted in )
Wodehouse "transforms the established pattern by reversing all expectations". Not only is Britain unprepared for invasion, the public shows a complete disregard for the invasion — except as a source of entertainment. And the invading armies are defeated not by the might of Britain's military, but by the cunning stratagems of an unknown "Man of Destiny", the 14-year-old Clarence Chugwater, assisted by his band of Boy Scouts. "Wodehouse concocted a preposterous plot which, unlike his models, was preposterous by intent."
External links
- The Russian Wodehouse Society's page, with photos of book covers and a list of characters
- Free eBook of The Swoop at Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...