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BOOK REVIEW
Gillian Bickley (2201), Hong Kong Invaded! A '97 Nightmare, with a foreword by Arthur Gomes, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 303 pages.
A97NIGHTMARE
In 1897, a series of anonymous articles appeared in the China Mail. Together they constituted a story entitled The Back Door. This was a fictional account of a successful invasion of Hong Kong by the combined forces of fin-de-siècle aggressors, France and Russia. The inference is that the author was perturbed that Hong Kong's defences at the time were inadequate and so, in an attempt to galvanise the authorities, wrote this "wake up call." Copies of the story ultimately found their way to Whitehall in London.
Gillian Bickley
As the title of the story infers, the superior invading forces entered Hong Kong by way of the south side of Hong Kong Island. There was the bloody Battle of Deepwater Bay, fought in "the jungle" around the Golf Club and on the beach. There was shelling of the Peak from the sea and the sea battle of Sulphur Channel. Matters neared their end when the enemy captured the Kowloon Forts and the dynamite and gunpowder stored on Stonecutters' Island were fired. At the last stand, on Stonecutters', the defenders were ultimately annihilated.
The Back Door evidently arose from the same anxiety that drove Britain's negotiations with China; concluded in 1898 when China granted the ninety-nine year lease of the New Territories, which Britain had requested as a protective buffer against attack.
Gillian Bickley discovered a copy of this story some years ago and it evidently fired her imagination, probably because as we all know, Hong Kong was invaded on 8th December, 1941, by the Japanese - also by superior forces - and ultimately capitulated on Christmas day. The Japanese, however, entered Hong Kong from the north, through the New Territories. Had the Japanese, she wonders, read The Back Door?