"The Britons are stirred up by it as they have been by no one magazine article of this generation. 'The Fight at Dame Europa's School' did not hit the bull's eye of English feeling more squarely than this clever shot from old Maga…… The verisimilitude is wonderful. We have read nothing like it outside of 'Robinson Crusoe.'"—Journal of Commerce (New York).
"The tale is most circumstantially told , and is painfully interesting to read."—The Graphic (London).
"Such is the substance of this remarkable article. Fiercer and yet more quiet satire has been rarely penned. It draws blood at every touch, and yet so keen is the weapon that for the second the victim does not know how badly he is hurt. As a mere piece of story-telling it has been seldom equalled."—Evening Telegraph (Philadelphia).
"It is a powerful satire on the military helplessness of England and the incompetency of her military authorities, which is exercising an influenceover the British mind almost of a political panic. It is attributed to Colonel Hamley, a well-known writer, and who has won distinction also as a soldier in the regular army. The author, speaking as an old man in 1925, tells his grandchildren of the arrival of a German armada in 1875, of the destruction of the British fleet, the landing of the enemy, the defeat of the ill-organized and unprepared defenders in a battle at Dorking (37 miles from London), the loss of the capital, and the final and lasting subjugation of the English people. Of all this, he speaks with a minuteness of detail and a wonderful verisimilitude as if he were an eye-witness of and an actor in the scenes he relates, and with a charm of style and narration which are sustained in every word and line from beginning to end. As a work of literary art it is as perfect as anything of the kind in the language, and as a picture of what might be, it is no wonder that it has excited the liveliest interest throughout England."—Tribune (Chicago).
