The first novel in this slim volume is the probably-not-actually-a-novel The Battle of Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer, which tells the invasion of England by the Germans from the perspective of a random volunteer.  The English response is pretty pitiful and England is conquered, because Lieutenant Colonel Chesney (an Army engineer) feared that the English really were unprepared for a potential invasion.  The book proved massively popular, spawning an entire genre, which was eventually merged with stories of fantastic inventions by those such as George Griffith in Angel of the Revolution, deconstructed by H. G. Wells in The War of the Worlds, parodied by P. G. Wodehouse in The Swoop!, and killed outright by World War I, which showed that war was perhaps not as jolly as everyone thought.  You see, the problem was that people didn't really take The Battle of Dorking as a warning, or at least not entirely, since there's a certain visceral thrill in seeing your homeland invaded (as evidenced by any number of alien invasion films these days), and that was what interested everyone else.

All this is a very long way of saying that The Battle of Dorking is a very important book... but it's also an incredibly dull one.

What surprised me about this volume was Hector Hugh "Saki" Monro's When William Came: A Story of London Under the Hohenzollerns, which isn't a very important book, but is a very enjoyable one, which I suppose is why it was picked to pad out this volume.  I wouldn't've read it had it not been included here, and that would have been a shame.

If you squinted, When William Came could be a sequel to The Battle of Dorking. It tells the tale of a Arctic explorer kept away from his home in Britain by an injury, who when he finally returns discovers that the country has lost a war with Germany-- and rather than extract concessions, the Germans have just decided to incorporate Britain into their empire.  He can't stand it, of course, but lots of people tell him he really ought to just make the best of it, including his own wife.  It's a fascinating and very real look at the ways people react to occupation.  You might hate the Germans... but what if you still want to go to the theatre and throw dinner parties?  You might think it's wrong to serve in a German-run police force... but you have kids to feed, and if you don't take that job, a German will.  There are a lot of cutting little compromises-- not to mention big ones-- made throughout, and it convinces me, at least.  Also, Saki writes very good sub-Wildean witty dialogue.