War with the Newts did not spring out of nowhere either in intellectual or literary terms. Its themes and narrative treatment have prefigured in other works almost from the beginning of Capek's career. One early story which must be mentioned in this context is "The System" (1908), authored jointly by Karel and Josef. A link in the literary chain which culminated in War with the Newts, it is a thrilling story of mass apathy, revolt, carnage and violence, and a parable on the dehumanization of people as the price of modern technological civilization.

A more immediate source for the principal narrative vehicle—a species of intelligent and talking animals—may be Pierre Mac Orlan's "La Bete conquerante" (1920).

The story begins with a farmer who, intending to slaughter a pig, unwittingly affects its brain in a way that allows the animal to acquire the power of...