The Back Door was an anonymous work of
invasion literature serialised in
Hong Kong newspaper The China Mail from 30 September through 8 October 1897. The work, written in the form of a
historical account, describes an imagined
Russian and French landing at
Hong Kong's
Deep Water Bay, followed by
shelling of
Victoria Peak, a sea battle in the
Sulphur Channel between
Hong Kong Island and
Green Island, and a
last stand at
Stonecutters Island in which
British forces were decisively defeated. The story was intended as a criticism of the lack of
British funding for the defence of Hong Kong; fears of invasion were driven by
French expansionism in Southeast Asia and increasing Russian influence in
Manchuria. It was speculated, but never proven, that members of the
Imperial Japanese Army read the book in preparation for the 1941
Battle of Hong Kong, in which Japanese forces overran Hong Kong (via the
New Territories, rather than
Hong Kong Island) in just 18 days. In terms of its style, it follows the model laid out by
George Tomkyns Chesney's
The Battle of Dorking, but is noteworthy for its attention to detail, even giving real names of individual soldiers and ships; one reviewer described it as "unique" in its verisimilitude, stating that only
William Le Queux's
The Invasion of 1910 and
Cleveland Moffett's
The Conquest of America could compare to it.