Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2010 June 09 • 2010

Perhaps that story sounds familiar. The next and last line of that preface, however, is "Beginning a powerful novel of Fascism tomorrow".

The story is Frederick C. Painton's The Invasion of America, a novel that was serialized in six issues of Argosy magazine ("Adventure—Romance—Mystery") in 1938. The first installment appeared in the July 16 number.

Spoiler alert! Dozens of spoilers ahead!

The "one man" with the "ruthless ambition" is a wealthy American named John Hannibal, a veteran of World War I whose "head always ached; it had never stopped since that moment in 1918 in the Argonne Forest when, leading an attack on a machine gun, the world had blown up in his face. It would never stop until he died; the doctors said that". The more painful Hannibal's head aches, the more clearly he thinks.

World War I was, I thought, known in 1938 as The Great War or The War To End All Wars, but its sequel was apparently anticipated. "'Hannibal fought the last World War as a captain,'" says popular American radio journalist Spike Brenn. '"He'll probably be a general in the next.'"

The name Hannibal is suggestive, as is the fact that Hannibal's house in Belgium is "where once Madame Sévigny had entertained Napoleon". In the first part of the novel, we learn of Hannibal's international organization, the Steel Fists. Spike Brenn and milionaire David Farnham, president of American Motors, deduce that Hannibal's goal is to establish a fascist dictatorship in South America.

Since the United States is bound by the Monroe Doctrine to protect the South American countries, the Steel Fists must get the US out of the way somehow. "It's just another Fascist pipe dream," declares Brenn. "We've got the Atlantic Ocean. No European power or combination of powers excepting England could fight our fleet."

What if the American navy concentrates all of its forces in the west, and then a European coalition attacks from the east? This appears to be the plan, with a third blow struck from within, in the form of a workers' revolt. (The "League of Unemployed" is the Steel Fists' American cell.)

Hannibal's first move is a false flag operation in which a bomber with American air-force insignia destroys a Japanese battleship in Manila harbor. The Japanese Crown Prince and his new wife, arriving on the battleship as part of a friendly diplomatic visit to an American official in the Philippines, are among those killed.

Hitler's reaction is that "'Japan has no recourse but to wipe out this stigma by blood, and any policy she pursues will have our ardent sympathy'". Mussolini declares that "'The upstart of the west should be punished and a bitter lesson administered. Now is the time for the Japanese to prove their world power'".

As for the American reaction, Farnham notes that "'The president wants a second term. With a war on he'll be voted back into office.'".

Kay Carstairs is the other major character besides Brenn, Farnham and Hannibal. Hannibal is in love with her and wants to marry her. Intending to discover not only Hannibal's plans but also if he murdered her brother, she encourages his attentions. The end of the first part finds her with Hannibal on his yacht departing for an unknown destination; at the same time Japanese battleships seize Manila, destroying the naval defenses there.

Spike Brenn speaks the last words of the first installment: "'It's here—Hannibal's war'".

The second part begins with declarations of neutrality in the American-Japanese war from England, Turkey, France, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Norway and Sweden. Ominously there is no statement at all from Germany and Italy.

America and Japan begin to fight a naval war in the Pacific. A shock comes when the Panama Canal is destroyed, presumably by the Japanese. Spike Brenn realizes that Japan didn't do it, "'for two reasons. First, she's not interested in our Atlantic coast. Second, under the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, Japan had the right to use the Canal even if we were at war with her'".

Brenn guesses that Hannibal is responsible for the attack on the Canal, with the purpose of cutting off the American Pacific fleet as a prelude to an Italo-German attack on the East Coast.

Pearl Harbor is mentioned a few times, but no attack takes place there. One eerie detail is that the first US naval victory mentioned is "the destruction of the Nagasaki Maru". There is a reference to "the fog of war".

In Italy the Steel Fists assassinate Mussolini. In Germany they deliver a coup d'etat in which thousands are killed, including Hitler and Goering. Hannibal's men take over in both countries.

We learn more about Hannibal from Kay Carstairs, still with him on his yacht. He speaks to her of his plan for a new world order, growing more and more excited as he does so. He appears to be an atheist and a firm believer in eugenics.

At the end of part two, Italian submarines flying no flag attack US ships in the Atlantic, then kill more than 200 people in Connecticut while shelling an airplane factory. Kay Carstairs escapes from Hannibal, who was last seen in New York City, and reaches Spike Brenn with news that the invasion is coming. "'There'll be between two hundred and fifty thousand and a half million soldiers.'"

Italy and Germany declare war on the United States.

Part three begins with the American Pacific fleet retreating to Pearl Harbor, the bombing of Boston by an Italian plane and Spike Brenn's "laying the groundwork for what must come—suspension of civil rights, declaration of a state of emergency, and the adjournment of Congress with all its powers passed into the hands of the president".

Painton demonstrates his talent for exciting action writing when the American Atlantic flight engages the Italo-German fleet in combat. "Yes, here was the Atlantic battle force, six battleships against nine. They were ready and trained, these battleships and battle cruisers. The wood had been ripped from the steel decks to prevent flying splinters…."

Rear Admiral Dunning must make the most important decision of the war.

The battle is very exciting. Dunning "fought as a wolf in a trap might fight; desperately, cunningly". It's not enough. His attempt to get command of the air failed. Italian suicide torpedo boats destroy the aircraft carrier Lexington. Thirty thousand men die.

Lieutenant Buron Miles, whose plane was almost immediately shot down, watches the battle while floating in the water. After witnessing its conclusion "he got out his automatic pistol and looked at it. Then, swiftly, he put the muzzle to his temple and pulled the trigger once—twice—without result. But the third shell was good".

That's a "Railroad Map showing how Steel Fists seizure of Railroad Centers of Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Duluth cut off West Coast Mobilization from Aiding Eastern Areas".

The Steel Fists take over New York City and other important areas, as well as communications centers. The Steel Fists uniform is in the style of World War I military issue. Hannibal, referred to now as Seneschal, calls his new regime the "New Era".

Part three ends with the arrest of Spike Brenn, who was just saying to Kay Carstairs that "History is full of the disciplined efficient few who have conquered a nation. Take Franco's march through three-quarters of Spain. Take Napoleon's whiff of grape shot against the Prussians. … He's recruited behind him youth. Youth who came into a depression world to find no place for them, no work. Youth with an empty belly will listen even to this insanity if it promises food, work, a future".

Part four begins with Hannibal admonishing his lieutenant, the bloodthirsty Dorsey, who's desperate for mass executions of all who resist.

There's another railroad map, this one "Showing how Steel Fist seizure of Railroads cut off main mobilized American forces from aid in Eastern invasion".

There's also a "Map showing breaching of coast line".

The Italo-German forces prepare to land on the Jersey Shore, but first "Eighty warship with guns ranging from sixteen-inch broadsides to three-inch rapid fire, pound the shores inland, the waves of shells moving forward and backward like a comb through the hair".

The American military, what's left of it, doesn't have much of a chance. Hannibal has too much of everything. An American gunner remarks that "the sky was lousy full" with Hannibal's planes. "You couldn't see the sun sometimes, there were so many of them."

Bombers drop their loads over Manhattan and "lower Manhattan between the Battery and Fourteenth Street … suffered most. Five fires had raged from thermite bombs, and something like three hundred were thought to be dead, another five hundred injured".

Washington, D.C., is bombed and gutted with fire. We're told that "The Americans had fled without burying their dead", so I suppose there are corpses all over the place. Hannibal moves into the White House with Kay Carstairs.

Part five begins with "Chapter XIX: THE STREETS ARE CRIMSON". A group of seven Steel Fists beat a starving man "until he lay silent, his blood spreading on the pavement".

Dorsey is preparing to overthrow Hannibal and take his place. To get the help of the Steel Fists's German and Italian allies, he makes it clear that if he "were raised to Seneschal, there would be no question about interfering with Germany's and Italy's manifest destiny in South America". Of course, the co-commanders of he Italo-German Expeditionary Force plan to take North America as well.

Unknown to Hannibal, troop transports from Italy and Germany begin bringing more soldiers, twenty thousand so far, with hundreds of thousands more to come.

There's a map of the Second Battle of Gettysburg.

Spike and Kay make plans to go to Washington, D.C., and kill Hannibal and Dorsey. Refreshingly, there's no arguing about whether Kay will go. Farnham challenges Spike, asking, "Would you make her run such a risk? This would mean her death".

The sixth and final part has a memorable subtitle in the Table of Contents of the August 20, 1938, issue of Argosy: "The King of the United States catches an eternal glimpse of his maniac image".

Chapter XXIV is "BULL-WHIP RULE".

Kay sees a young man she once danced with being beaten, so badly that the man throws himself into a concrete mixer.

She wonders if Hannibal will win the upcoming plebiscite and is told that "Using Hitler's methods … he ought to get eighty percent—and the other twenty will be liquidated or placed in concentration camps".

Kay ends up in a women's prison cell, in a remarkable sleazy passage of the story. She's discovered there by Dorsey, who does not tell Hannibal, knowing that her mistreatment would drive Hannibal mad and possibly ruin everything. When Spike is arrested and brought to Hannibal, though, Hannibal finds out and begins to realize that Dorsey is a traitor.

Significantly, Hannibal's headaces are worse "because he had cut down on his morphine injections".

The ending wraps things up very quickly, but ends on an interesting and melancholy note.