The fear of a cross-Channel invasion had been a recurrent worry to England's naval, military and political leaders for many centuries. By 1908 the likely invader had changed but the British public, alarmed by lurid tales of a bestial, rampaging German army protected by the might of the Kaiser's provocative new fleet, demanded greater security. Although the War Office and Government were confident that full-scale invasion was unlikely, they continued to assume that vulnerable and strategically important sites might be raided by up to 150,000 troops..
Defending Albion analyses the responses of the British military and civil authorities to the perceived threat. It is the first published work to explore the schemes designed to confront an enemy landing and to examine the difficulties faced by the derided Territorial Force in trying to meet the challenge. It also investigates the long-neglected political and military problems posed by the unwanted spontaneous creation of what is today the largely unknown existence of the 'Dad's Army' of the Great War, the Volunteer Force.

List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: The Invasion Issue
Supplementing the Home Army
Planning for Defence
Mobilization and New Auxiliaries
Protection Companies and Invasion Scares
The Home Army in 1915
Reforming and Expanding the Home Army
Restructuring and Compulsion
'A Sham or a Real Thing?': The Volunteer Force in 1917
The Diminishing Threat
Epilogue
Appendix I: Extra Reserve Battalions
Appendix II: Home Defence Scheme, July 1914
Appendix III: Provisional Units
Appendix IV: The Home Army in 1918
Appendix V: Coastal Fortresses and Garrisons
Notes
Bibliography
Index

BILL MITCHINSON has written prolifically on the Great War. His books include Cotton Town Town Comrades (1993), Gentlemen and Officers: The Impact and Experience of War on a Territorial Regiment (1995), Pioneer Battalions in the Great War (1997) and Amateur Soldiers (1999). He is an authority on the battlefields of the Western Front and is the author of three volumes in the Battleground Europe series. He is a member of the Centre for World War One Studies at the University of Birmingham and is employed as a freelance editorial consultant by a major publishing house.