Such a reflection, cast by the late Prime Minister upon the British nation was, to say the least, curious, yet it only confirmed the truth that the Government are strenuously seeking to conceal from our people the appalling military weakness and the consequent danger to which the country is constantly open. To be weak is to invite war: to be strong is to prevent it. To arouse our country to a sense of its own lamentable insecurity is the object of this volume, which is somewhat compressed from the form in which it originally appeared, and that other nations besides ourselves are interested in England's grave peril is proved by the fact that it has already been published in the German, French, Spanish, Danish, Russian, Italian, and even Japanese languages. WILLIAM LE QUEUX. Speaking in the House of Lords on the 10th July 1905, I said:--"It is to the people of the country I appeal to take up the question of the Army in a sensible practical manner. For the sake of all they hold dear, let them bring home to themselves what would be the condition of Great Britain if it were to lose its wealth, its power, its position." The catastrophe that may happen if we still remain in our present state of unpreparedness is visibly and forcibly illustrated in Mr. Le Queux's new book which I recommend to the perusal of every one who has the welfare of the British Empire at heart. 29. Nov. 1905 Roberts, FM THE INVASION. BOOK I. THE ATTACK. CHAPTER I. THE SURPRISE. Two of the myriad of London's nightworkers were walking down Fleet Street together soon after dawn on Sunday morning, 2nd September. The sun had not yet risen. That main artery of London traffic, with its irregular rows of closed shops and newspaper offices, was quiet and pleasant in the calm, mystic light before the falling of the smoke-pall. Only at early morning does the dear old City look its best; in that one quiet, sweet hour when the night's toil has ended and the day's has not yet begun. Only in that brief interval at the birth of day, when the rose tints of the sky glow slowly into gold, does the giant metropolis repose--at least, as far as its business streets are concerned--for at five o'clock the toiling millions begin to again pour in from all points of the compass, and the stress and storm of London at once recommences. And in that hour of silent charm the two grey-bearded sub-editors, though engaged in offices of rival newspapers were making their way homeward to Dulwich to spend Sunday in a well-earned rest, and were chatting "shop," as Press men do. "I suppose you had the same trouble to get that Yarmouth story through?" asked Fergusson, the news-editor of the "Dispatch," as they crossed Whitefriars Street. "We got about half a column, and then the wire shut down." "Telegraph or telephone?" inquired Baines, who was four or five years younger than his friend. "We were using both--to make sure."