When did it happen?

[Commandingtripod]

Sorry if I'm treading on old ground but I'm starting to get a little confused as to when the invasion took place.

I know in the book that in 1894 the first green flares (I think that was it) were seen on Mars and then he says something about 'six years later' or something along those lines.

But when did the invasion take place?
1902 like many sources say?

[Anim8tr]

I believe latter 1902 to early 1903. Just an estimate...

[Lensman]

I've posted this before, but the question keeps coming up. So here it is again:
.

The Date of the Setting for H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds

Most of the clues for the date are given in the first chapter.

"And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment."

In context, the "disillusionment" refers to mankind fancying itself superior to any life on Mars. Hence this refers to the date of the invasion. The 20th century began in the year 1901, hence the date cannot be before that time.

"During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen... English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2."

Presumably the "great light" was the casting of the huge space cannon.

Some WotW fans have mistakenly advocated August as the month the Martians launched their cylinders because of this reference. However, as we shall shortly see, the opposition of 1894 was *not* when the invasion was launched.

"Peculiar markings, as yet unexplained, were seen... during the next two oppositions. [paragraph] The storm burst upon us six years ago now. As Mars approached opposition..."

The "six years ago" is confusing until we realize (upon reading the final chapter) that the Narrator is recording this story six years after the events. So we can ignore that remark. The pertinent data here is that the events of the story begin no earlier than the third opposition following 1894. Consulting the historic records for Mars oppositions:

1894 October 20......22:16
1896 December 11...05:42
1899 January 18......23:32
1901 February 22 ....06:11
1903 March 29.........07:31
1905 May 08...........20:07
1907 July 06...........15:28

Presuming the opposition referred to is the third following 1894, and not a later one, the year of the beginning of The War of the Worlds is 1901. And indeed this is the best year from an esthetic point of view to present a story of world-changing events. Arthur C. Clarke set "2001: A Space Odyssey" in the first year of a new millennium, and I believe Wells set his story in the first year of a new century.

"...a huge outbreak of incandescent gas... had occurred towards midnight of the twelfth..."

This is of absolutely no help, as it does not specify a month. Some readers have conflated this with the "August" referred to above... which again referred to an earlier opposition and thus has nothing to do with the date in question.

"Forty millions of miles it [Mars] was from us--more than forty millions of miles of void."

Now this presents a problem when trying to reconcile it with the historical data. The opposition of 1896 was indeed the minimum distance of about 40 million miles, but the oppositions of 1901 and 1903 were at over 60 million. Someone on the "Eve of the War" forum advocated a date of 1907 because that was also a distance of around 40 million miles. My guess is that Wells took the data from the 1896 opposition and didn't realize that other oppositions might be farther away.

"...flying swiftly and steadily towards me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer every minute by so many thousands of miles, came the Thing they were sending us..."

This addresses the question of how long it took the Martians to travel to earth. Of course, we don't have any idea of just how *many* thousands of miles per minute they were traveling. Let's assume a reasonable minimum: 1000 miles per minute. This yields 40,000,000 / 1000 = 40,000 minutes of travel time, or about 27.8 days. Of course, they may have been coming somewhat faster. I believe Charles has stated it took them about 2 weeks to arrive. I'm not sure what he's basing that on, but if we assume 2000 miles per minute then indeed we get two weeks.

If the opposition instead was at a distance of about 60 million miles, then these times must be increased by about 50%, yielding about three to six weeks.

Some readers have suggested that altho the Martians launched their invasion during 1901 it did not arrive until the next year (presumably because current NASA plans to send a manned flight to Mars would require a trip of 6-12 months). But if what the Narrator says is even remotely close to the truth then this is impossible, and not just because of the rapid speed indicated. Keep in mind that for the shortest distance traveled (and hence the quickest journey), the opposition should coincide with the *landing*, not the *launching* of a spacecraft. The fact the Martians launched their invasion shortly before opposition strongly indicates a short travel time. Otherwise we have to assume it was mere coincidence.

"The night was warm... [paragraph] That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth from Mars, just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the first one."

Clearly this takes place during the same period leading up to the opposition. Presumably the Martians' space cannon is buried in the ground, as was Verne's space cannon in From the Earth to the Moon. Since the cannon cannot be moved, the Martians must fire it at the instant it's aimed in precisely the right direction, which would happen only once each Martian day. So the cylinders were launched (and presumably arrive) almost exactly one day apart.

The fact that the night was "warm" is not reconcilable with the historical date of the 1901 opposition. A late February night in England is not going to be "warm". In fact, some have given this as a reason to suggest the opposition in question was the next one, in 1903. That only changes the time of year by a month, but some have suggested that it's at least possible to have a warm night on March 29. That's a reasonable argument, but it fails to explain the discrepancy between the opposition distance-- 40 million miles as Wells says versus over 60 million miles as the historical data shows.

If we choose the next opposition close to 40 million miles we get 1907. This seems quite unlikely, first of all because of the extended period of time between the observations early in the book and the later events-- a delay not mentioned and which doesn't appear to fit the narrative. But much stronger evidence against it is the July date of the opposition. The invasion happened during June, and it seems unlikely the Martians would have chosen to land *before* the closest approach to Earth.

Instead, it seems likely that Wells ignored the actual historical date when writing the novel. Authors do this quite commonly. In fact, authors have a saying: "Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story." Trying to use historic data to fix the date of a fictional story is rarely successful. See, for instance, The Annotated Sherlock Holmes for various articles by the Baker Street Irregulars showing the difficulty of finding the "real" date of various Sherlock Holmes stories from dates and descriptions given in the stories. Philip Jose Farmer had similar problems in trying to fix the "real" dates of the Doc Savage stories in his Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life.

Later in WotW, the month of the invasion is given as June (chapters I-17 and II-3 both specify "June" without giving any more specific date). If we ignore the historical data indicating the 1901 opposition happened during February, and assume it happened in June-- the time of the invasion-- then we can reconcile the "warm" night with events later in the novel.

In this case, the observation in question-- which happened "as Mars approached opposition"-- was likely no more than six weeks before the cylinders started landing, and quite possibly a lot less. If indeed it took only two to six weeks for the Martians to travel to earth, then the launch of their capsules happened somewhere between mid-April and early June. This is entirely reconcilable with a warm night in southern England.

The truth is that no historic date matches well with the facts given in WotW. In my opinion the strongest argument for a 1901 date is the fact that the narrator specifically mentions the opposition of 1894, then mentions the next two oppositions (which historically happened in 1896 and 1899), and then goes on to describe the invasion. This suggests to me that the opposition was the one right after 1899, which would have been 1901. Admittedly this is a weak argument-- as they say, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"-- but since *no* date fits all the historical facts, it seems best to pick the one that the greatest number of clues point to.

However, there remain a number of WotW fans who prefer a 1903 date because it fits better with the "warm night" description.

[Commandingtripod]

Thanks.

Sorry that I brought it up again.

[Lensman]

More than you wanted to know, right?

[Commandingtripod]

Just might be.