THE INVASION OF 1910

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WITH   A   FULL   ACCOUNT   OF
THE   SIEGE   OF   LONDON

BY
WILLIAM   LE   QUEUX

NAVAL CHAPTERS BY H. W. WILSON

INTRODUCTORY LETTER BY
FIELD-MARSHAL EARL ROBERTS, K.G., K.P., ETC.

Toronto
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, Limited
1906

All rights reserved

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“I sometimes despair of the country ever becoming alive to the danger of the unpreparedness of our present position until too late to prevent some fatal catastrophe.”

This was the keynote of a solemn warning made in the House of Lords on July 10th of the present year by Earl Roberts. His lordship, while drawing attention to our present inadequate forces, strongly urged that action should be taken in accordance with the recommendations of the Elgin Commission that “no military system could be considered satisfactory which did not contain powers of expansion outside the limit of the regular forces of the Crown.”

“The lessons of the late war appear to have been completely forgotten. The one prevailing idea seems to be,” said Earl Roberts, “to cut down our military expenditure without reference to our increased responsibilities and our largely augmented revenue. History tells us in the plainest terms that an Empire which cannot defend its own possessions must inevitably perish.” And with this view both Lord Milner and the Marquis of Lansdowne concurred. But surely{vi} this is not enough. If we are to retain our position as the first nation in the world we must be prepared to defend any raid made upon our shores.

The object of this book is to illustrate our utter unpreparedness for war, to show how, under certain conditions which may easily occur, England can be successfully invaded by Germany, and to present a picture of the ruin which must inevitably fall upon us on the evening of that not far-distant day.

Ever since Lord Roberts formulated his plans for the establishment of rifle-clubs I have been deeply interested in the movement; and after a conversation with that distinguished soldier the idea occurred to me to write a forecast, based upon all the available military and naval knowledge—which would bring home to the British public vividly and forcibly what really would occur were an enemy suddenly to appear in our midst. At the outset it was declared by the strategists I consulted to be impossible. No such book could ever be written, for, according to them, the mass of technical detail was far too great to digest and present in an intelligible manner to the public.

Lord Roberts, however, gave me encouragement. The skeleton scheme of the manner in which England could be invaded by Germany was submitted to a number of the highest authorities on strategy, whose names, however, I am not permitted to divulge, and after many consultations, much criticism, and considerable difference of opinion, the “general idea,” with amendment after amendment, was finally adopted.{vii}

That, however, was only a mere preliminary. Upon questions of tactics each tactician consulted held a different view, and each criticised adversely the other’s suggestions. With the invaluable assistance of my friend Mr. H. W. Wilson, we had decided upon the naval portion of the campaign; but when it came to the operations on land, I found a wide divergence of opinion everywhere.

One way alone remained open—namely, to take the facts exactly as they stood, add the additional strength of the opposing nations as they will be in 1910, and then draw logical conclusions. This, aided by experts, was done; and after many days of argument with the various authorities, we succeeded at last in getting them in accord as to the general practicability of an invasion.

Before putting pen to paper it was necessary to reconnoitre carefully the whole of England from the Thames to the Tyne. This I did by means of a motor-car, travelling 10,000 miles of all kinds of roads, and making a tour extending over four months. Each town, all the points of vantage, military positions, all the available landing-places on the coast, all railway connections, and telephone and telegraph communications, were carefully noted for future reference. With the assistance of certain well-known military experts, the battlefields were carefully gone over and the positions marked upon the Ordnance map. Thus, through four months we pushed on day by day collecting information and material, sometimes in the big cities, sometimes{viii} in the quietest and remotest hamlets, all of which was carefully tabulated for use.

Whatever critics may say, and however their opinions may differ, it can only be pointed out, first, that the “general idea” of the scheme is in accordance with the expressed and published opinions of the first strategists of to-day, and that, as far as the forecast of events is concerned, it has been written from a first-hand knowledge of the local colour of each of the scenes described. The enemy’s Proclamations reproduced are practically copies of those issued by the Germans during the war of 1870.

That the experts and myself will probably be condemned as alarmists and denounced for revealing information likely to be of assistance to an enemy goes without saying. Indeed, on March 15th last, an attempt was made in the House of Commons to suppress its publication altogether. Mr. R. C. Lehmann, who asked a question of the Prime Minister, declared that it was “calculated to prejudice our relations with the other Powers,” while Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, in a subsequent letter apologising to me for condemning in the House a work he had not read, repeated that it was likely to “produce irritation abroad and might conceivably alarm the more ignorant public at home.”

Such a reflection, cast by the Prime Minister upon the British nation, is, to say the least, curious, yet it only confirms the truth that the Government are strenuously seeking to conceal from our people the appalling military weakness and the consequent danger to which the country is constantly open.{ix}

Mr. Haldane’s new scheme has a number of points about it which, at first sight, will perhaps commend themselves to the general public, and in some cases to a proportion of military men. Foremost among these are the provision made for training the Militia Artillery in the use of comparatively modern field-guns, and the institution of the County Associations for the administration of the Volunteers and the encouragement of the local military spirit. Could an ideal Association of this kind be evolved there is little doubt that it would be capable of doing an immense amount of good, since administration by a central staff, ignorant of the widely differing local conditions which affect the several Volunteer corps, has already militated against getting the best work possible out of their members. But under our twentieth-century social system, which has unfortunately displaced so many influential and respected county families—every one of which had military or naval members, relations or ancestors—by wealthy tradesmen, speculators, and the like, any efficient County Association will be very hard to create. Mr. Haldane’s scheme is a bold and masterly sketch, but he will find it very hard to fill in the details satisfactorily. Unfortunately, the losses the Army must sustain by the reduction of so many fine battalions are very real and tangible, while the promised gains in efficiency would appear to be somewhat shadowy and uncertain.

To be weak is to invite war; to be strong is to prevent it.

To arouse our country to a sense of its own lamentable{x} insecurity is the object of this volume, and that other nations besides ourselves are interested in England’s grave peril is proved by the fact that it has already been published in the German, French, Spanish, Danish, Russian, Italian, and even Japanese languages.

William Le Queux.

London, July 26, 1906.

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Two of the myriad of London’s night-workers were walking down Fleet Street together soon after dawn on Sunday morning, 2nd September.

The sun had not yet risen. That main artery of London traffic, with its irregular rows of closed shops and newspaper offices, was quiet and pleasant in the calm, mystic light before the falling of the smoke-pall.

Only at early morning does the dear old City look its best; in that one quiet, sweet hour when the night’s toil has ended and the day’s has not yet begun. Only in that brief interval at the birth of day, when the rose tints of the sky glow slowly into gold, does the giant metropolis repose—at least, as far as its business streets are concerned—for at five o’clock the toiling millions begin to again pour in from all points of the compass, and the stress and storm of London life at once recommences.

And in that hour of silent charm the two grey-bearded sub-editors, though engaged in offices of rival newspapers, were making their way homeward to Dulwich to spend Sunday in a well-earned rest, and were chatting “shop” as Press men do.

“I suppose you had the same trouble to get that Yarmouth story through?” asked Fergusson, the news-editor of the Weekly Dispatch, as they crossed Whitefriars Street. “We got about half a column, and then the wire shut down.”{4}

“Telegraph or telephone?” inquired Baines, who was four or five years younger than his friend.

“We were using both—to make sure.”

“So were we. It was a rattling good story—the robbery was mysterious, to say the least—but we didn’t get more than half of it. Something’s wrong with the line, evidently,” Baines said. “If it were not such a perfect autumn morning, I should be inclined to think there’d been a storm somewhere.”

“Yes—funny, wasn’t it?” remarked the other. “A shame we haven’t the whole story, for it was a first-class one, and we wanted something. Did you put it on the contents-bill?”

“No, because we couldn’t get the finish. I tried in every way—rang up the Central News, P.A., Exchange Telegraph Company, tried to get through to Yarmouth on the trunk, and spent half an hour or so pottering about, but the reply from all the agencies, from everywhere in fact, was the same—the line was interrupted.”

“Just our case. I telephoned to the Post Office, but the reply came back that the lines were evidently down.”

“Well, it certainly looks as though there’d been a storm, but——” and Baines glanced at the bright, clear sky overhead, just flushed by the bursting sun—“there are certainly no traces of it.”

“There’s often a storm on the coast when it’s quite still in London, my dear fellow,” remarked his friend wisely.

“That’s all very well. But when all communication with a big place like Yarmouth is suddenly cut off, as it has been, I can’t help suspecting that something has happened which we ought to know.”

“You’re perhaps right after all,” Fergusson said. “I wonder if anything has happened. We don’t want to be called back to the office, either of us. My assistant, Henderson, whom I’ve left in charge, rings me up over any mare’s nest. The trunk telephones all come into the Post Office exchange up in Carter Lane. Why not look{5} in there before we go home? It won’t take us a quarter of an hour, and we have several trains home from Ludgate Hill.”

Baines looked at his watch. Like his companion, he had no desire to be called back to his office after getting out to Dulwich, and yet he was in no mood to go making reporter’s inquiries.

“I don’t think I’ll go. It’s sure to be nothing, my dear fellow,” he said. “Besides, I have a beastly headache. I had a heavy night’s work. One of my men is away ill.”

“Well, at any rate, I think I’ll go,” Fergusson said. “Don’t blame me if you get called back for a special edition with a terrible storm, great loss of life, and all that sort of thing. So long.” And, smiling, he waved his hand and parted from his friend in the booking-office of Ludgate Hill Station.

Quickening his pace, he hurried through the office and, passing out by the back, ascended the steep, narrow street until he reached the Post Office telephone exchange in Carter Lane, where, presenting his card, he asked to see the superintendent-in-charge.

Without much delay he was shown upstairs into a small private office, into which came a short, dapper, fair-moustached man with the bustle of a person in a great hurry.

“I’ve called,” the sub-editor explained, “to know whether you can tell me anything regarding the cause of the interruption of the line to Yarmouth a short time ago. We had some important news coming through, but were cut off just in the midst of it, and then we received information that all the telephone and telegraph lines to Yarmouth were interrupted.”

“Well, that’s just the very point which is puzzling us at this moment,” was the night-superintendent’s reply. “It is quite unaccountable. Our trunk going to Yarmouth seems to be down, as well as the telegraphs. Yarmouth, Lowestoft, and beyond Beccles seem all to have been suddenly cut off. About eighteen minutes{6} to four the operators noticed something wrong, switched the trunks through to the testers, and the latter reported to me in due course.”

“That’s strange! Did they all break down together?”

“No. The first that failed was the one that runs through Chelmsford, Colchester, and Ipswich up to Lowestoft and Yarmouth. The operator found that he could get through to Ipswich and Beccles. Ipswich knew nothing, except that something was wrong. They could still ring up Beccles, but not beyond.”

As they were speaking, there was a tap at the door, and the assistant night-superintendent entered, saying—

“The Norwich line through Scole and Long Stratton has now failed, sir. About half-past four Norwich reported a fault somewhere north, between there and Cromer. But the operator now says that the line is apparently broken, and so are all the telegraphs from there to Cromer, Sheringham, and Holt.”

“Another line has gone, then!” exclaimed the superintendent-in-charge, utterly astounded. “Have you tried to get on to Cromer by the other routes—through Nottingham and King’s Lynn, or through Cambridge?”

“The testers have tried every route, but there’s no response.”

“You could get through to some of the places—Yarmouth, for instance—by telegraphing to the Continent, I suppose?” asked Fergusson.

“We are already trying,” responded the assistant superintendent.

“What cables run out from the east coast in that neighbourhood?” inquired the sub-editor quickly.

“There are five between Southwold and Cromer—three run to Germany, and two to Holland,” replied the assistant. “There’s the cable from Yarmouth to Barkum, in the Frisian Islands; from Happisburg, near Mundesley, to Barkum; from Yarmouth to Emden; from Lowestoft to Haarlem, and from Kessingland, near Southwold, to Zandyport.”{7}

“And you are trying all the routes?” asked his superior.

“I spoke to Paris myself an hour ago and asked them to cable by all five routes to Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Kessingland, and Happisburg,” was the assistant’s reply. “I also asked Liverpool Street Station and King’s Cross to wire down to some of their stations on the coast, but the reply was that they were in the same predicament as ourselves—their lines were down north of Beccles, Wymondham, East Dereham, and also south of Lynn. I’ll just run along and see if there’s any reply from Paris. They ought to be through by this time, as it’s Sunday morning, and no traffic.” And he went out hurriedly.

“There’s certainly something very peculiar,” remarked the superintendent-in-charge to the sub-editor. “If there’s been an earthquake or an electrical disturbance, then it is a most extraordinary one. Every single line reaching to the coast seems interrupted.”

“Yes. It’s uncommonly funny,” Fergusson remarked. “I wonder what could have happened. You’ve never had a complete breakdown like this before?”

“Never. But I think——”

The sentence remained unfinished, for his assistant returned with a slip of paper in his hand, saying—

“This message has just come in from Paris. I’ll read it. ‘Superintendent Telephones, Paris, to Superintendent Telephones, London.—Have obtained direct telegraphic communication with operators of all five cables to England. Haarlem, Zandyport, Barkum, and Emden all report that cables are interrupted. They can get no reply from England, and tests show that cables are damaged somewhere near English shore.’ ”

“Is that all?” asked Fergusson.

“That’s all. Paris knows no more than we do,” was the assistant’s response.

“Then the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts are completely{8} isolated—cut off from post office, railways, telephones, and cables!” exclaimed the superintendent. “It’s mysterious—most mysterious!” And, taking up the instrument upon his table, he placed a plug in one of the holes down the front of the table itself, and a moment later was in conversation with the official in charge of the traffic at Liverpool Street, repeating the report from Paris, and urging him to send light engines north from Wymondham or Beccles into the zone of mystery.

The reply came back that he had already done so, but a telegram had reached him from Wymondham to the effect that the road-bridges between Kimberley and Hardingham had apparently fallen in, and the line was blocked by débris. Interruption was also reported beyond Swaffham, at a place called Little Dunham.

“Then even the railways themselves are broken!” cried Fergusson. “Is it possible that there’s been a great earthquake?”

“An earthquake couldn’t very well destroy all five cables from the Continent,” remarked the superintendent gravely.

The latter had scarcely placed the receiver upon the hook when a third man entered—an operator who, addressing him, said—

“Will you please come to the switchboard, sir? There’s a man in the Ipswich call office who has just told me a most extraordinary story. He says that he started in his motor-car alone from Lowestoft to London at half-past three this morning, and just as it was getting light he was passing along the edge of Henham Park, between Wangford village and Blythburgh, when he saw three men apparently repairing the telegraph wires. One was up the pole, and the other two were standing below. As he passed he saw a flash, for, to his surprise, one of the men fired point-blank at him with a revolver. Fortunately, the shot went wide, and he at once put on a move and got down into Blythburgh village, even though one of his tyres went{9} down. It had probably been pierced by the bullet fired at him, as the puncture was unlike any he had ever had before. At Blythburgh he informed the police of the outrage, and the constable, in turn, woke up the postmaster, who tried to telegraph back to the police at Wrentham, but found that the line was interrupted. Was it possible that the men were cutting the wires, instead of repairing them? He says that after repairing the puncture he took the village constable and three other men on his car and went back to the spot, where, although the trio had escaped, they saw that wholesale havoc had been wrought with the telegraphs. The lines had been severed in four or five places, and whole lengths tangled up into great masses. A number of poles had been sawn down, and were lying about the roadside. Seeing that nothing could be done, the gentleman remounted his car, came on to Ipswich, and reported the damage at our call office.”

“And is he still there?” exclaimed the superintendent quickly, amazed at the motorist’s statement.

“Yes. I asked him to wait for a few moments in order to speak to you, sir.”

“Good. I’ll go at once. Perhaps you’d like to come also, Mr. Fergusson?”

And all four ran up to the gallery, where the huge switchboards were ranged around, and where the night operators, with the receivers attached to one ear, were still at work.

In a moment the superintendent had taken the operator’s seat, adjusted the ear-piece, and was in conversation with Ipswich. A second later he was speaking with the man who had actually witnessed the cutting of the trunk line.

While he was thus engaged an operator at the farther end of the switchboard suddenly gave vent to a cry of surprise and disbelief.

“What do you say, Beccles? Repeat it,” he asked excitedly.

Then a moment later he shouted aloud—{10}

“Beccles says that German soldiers—hundreds of them—are pouring into the place! The Germans have landed at Lowestoft, they think.”

All who heard those ominous words sprang up dumbfounded, staring at each other.

The assistant-superintendent dashed to the operator’s side and seized his apparatus.

“Halloa—halloa, Beccles! Halloa—halloa—halloa!”

The response was some gruff words in German, and the sound of scuffling could distinctly be heard. Then all was silent.

Time after time he rang up the small Suffolk town, but in vain. Then he switched through to the testers, and quickly the truth was plain.

The second trunk line to Norwich, running from Ipswich by Harleston and Beccles, had been cut farther towards London.

But what held everyone breathless in the trunk telephone headquarters was that the Germans had actually effected the surprise landing that had so often in recent years been predicted by military critics; that England on that quiet September Sunday morning had been attacked. England was actually invaded. It was incredible!

Yet London’s millions in their Sunday morning lethargy were in utter ignorance of the grim disaster that had suddenly fallen upon the land.

Fergusson was for rushing at once back to the Weekly Dispatch office to get out an extraordinary edition, but the superintendent, who was still in conversation with the motorist, urged judicious forethought.

“For the present, let us wait. Don’t let us alarm the public unnecessarily. We want corroboration. Let us have the motorist up here,” he suggested.

“Yes,” cried the sub-editor. “Let me speak to him.”

Over the wire Fergusson begged the stranger to come at once to London and give his story, declaring{11} that the military authorities would require it. Then, just as the man who had been shot at by German advance spies—for such they had undoubtedly been—in order to prevent the truth leaking out, gave his promise to come to town at once, there came over the line from the coastguard at Southwold a vague, incoherent telephone message regarding strange ships having been seen to the northward, and asking for connection with Harwich; while King’s Cross and Liverpool Street Stations both rang up almost simultaneously, reporting the receipt of extraordinary messages from King’s Lynn, Diss, Harleston, Halesworth, and other places. All declared that German soldiers were swarming over the north, that Lowestoft and Beccles had been seized, and that Yarmouth and Cromer were isolated.

Various stationmasters reported that the enemy had blown up bridges, taken up rails, and effectually blocked all communication with the coast. Certain important junctions were already held by the enemy’s outposts.

Such was the amazing news received in that high-up room in Carter Lane, City, on that sweet, sunny morning when all the great world of London was at peace, either still slumbering or week-ending.

Fergusson remained for a full hour and a half at the Telephone Exchange, anxiously awaiting any further corroboration. Many wild stories came over the wires telling how panic-stricken people were fleeing inland away from the enemy’s outposts. Then he took a hansom to the Weekly Dispatch office, and proceeded to prepare a special edition of his paper—an edition containing surely the most amazing news that had ever startled London.

Fearing to create undue panic, he decided not to go to press until the arrival of the motorist from Ipswich. He wanted the story of the man who had actually seen the cutting of the wires. He paced his room excitedly, wondering what effect the news would have upon the world. In the rival newspaper offices the{12} report was, as yet, unknown. With journalistic forethought he had arranged that at present the bewildering truth should not leak out to his rivals, either from the railway termini or from the telephone exchange. His only fear was that some local correspondent might telegraph from some village or town nearer the metropolis which was still in communication with the central office.

Time passed very slowly. Each moment increased his anxiety. He had sent out the one reporter who remained on duty to the house of Colonel Sir James Taylor, the Permanent Under-Secretary for War. Halting before the open window, he looked up and down the street for the arriving motor-car. But all was quiet.

Eight o’clock had just boomed from Big Ben, and London still remained in her Sunday morning peace. The street, bright in the warm sunshine, was quite empty, save for a couple of motor-omnibuses and a sprinkling of gaily dressed holiday-makers on their way to the day excursion trains.

In that centre of London—the hub of the world—all was comparatively silent, the welcome rest after the busy turmoil that through six days in the week is unceasing, that fevered throbbing of the heart of the world’s great capital.

Of a sudden, however, came the whirr-r of an approaching car, as a thin-faced, travel-stained man tore along from the direction of the Strand and pulled up before the office. The fine car, a six-cylinder “Napier,” was grey with the mud of country roads, while the motorist himself was smothered until his goggles had been almost entirely covered.

Fergusson rushed out to him, and a few moments later the pair were in the upstairs room, the sub-editor swiftly taking down the motorist’s story, which differed very little from what he had already spoken over the telephone.

Then, just as Big Ben chimed the half-hour, the echoes of the half-deserted Strand were suddenly{13} awakened by the loud, strident voices of the newsboys shouting—

“Weekly Dispatch, spe-shall! Invasion of England this morning! Germans in Suffolk! Terrible panic! Spe-shall! Weekly Dispatch, Spe-shall!”

As soon as the paper had gone to press Fergusson urged the motorist—whose name was Horton, and who lived at Richmond—to go with him to the War Office and report. Therefore, both men entered the car, and in a few moments drew up before the new War Office in Whitehall.

“I want to see somebody in authority at once!” cried Fergusson excitedly to the sentry as he sprang out.

“You’ll find the caretaker, if you ring at the side entrance—on the right, there,” responded the man, who then marched on.

“The caretaker!” echoed the excited sub-editor bitterly. “And England invaded by the Germans!”

He, however, dashed towards the door indicated and rang the bell. At first there was no response. But presently there were sounds of a slow unbolting of the door, which opened at last, revealing a tall, elderly man in slippers, a retired soldier.

“I must see somebody at once!” exclaimed the journalist. “Not a moment must be lost. What permanent officials are here?”

“There’s nobody ’ere, sir,” responded the man in some surprise at the request. “It’s Sunday morning, you know.”

“Sunday! I know that, but I must see someone. Whom can I see?”

“Nobody, until to-morrow morning. Come then.” And the old soldier was about to close the door when the journalist prevented him, asking—

“Where’s the clerk-in-residence?”

“How should I know? Gone up the river, perhaps. It’s a nice mornin’.”

“Well, where does he live?”

“Sometimes ’ere—sometimes in ’is chambers in{14} Ebury Street,” and the man mentioned the number.

“Better come to-morrow, sir, about eleven. Somebody’ll be sure to see you then.”

“To-morrow!” cried the other. “To-morrow! You don’t know what you’re saying, man! To-morrow will be too late. Perhaps it’s too late now. The Germans have landed in England!”

“Oh, ’ave they?” exclaimed the caretaker, regarding both men with considerable suspicion. “Our people will be glad to know that, I’m sure—to-morrow.”

“But haven’t you got telephones, private telegraphs, or something here, so that I can communicate with the authorities? Can’t you ring up the Secretary of State, the Permanent Secretary, or somebody?”

The caretaker hesitated a moment, his incredulous gaze fixed upon the pale, agitated faces of the two men.

“Well, just wait a minute, and I’ll see,” he said, disappearing into a long cavernous passage.

In a few moments he reappeared with a constable whose duty it was to patrol the building.

The officer looked the strangers up and down, and then asked—

“What’s this extraordinary story? Germans landed in England—eh? That’s fresh, certainly!”

“Yes. Can’t you hear what the newsboys are crying? Listen!” exclaimed the motorist.

“H’m. Well, you’re not the first gentleman who’s been here with a scare, you know. If I were you I’d wait till to-morrow,” and he glanced significantly at the caretaker.

“I won’t wait till to-morrow!” cried Fergusson. “The country is in peril, and you refuse to assist me on your own responsibility—you understand?”

“All right, my dear sir,” replied the officer, leisurely hooking his thumbs in his belt. “You’d better drive home, and call again in the morning.”

“So this is the way the safety of the country is neglected!” cried the motorist bitterly, turning away. “Everyone away, and this great place, built merely{15} to gull the public, I suppose, empty and its machinery useless. What will England say when she learns the truth?”

As they were walking in disgust out from the portico towards the car, a man jumped from a hansom in breathless haste. He was the reporter whom Fergusson had sent out to Sir James Taylor’s house in Cleveland Square, Hyde Park.

“They thought Sir James spent the night with his brother up at Hampstead,” he exclaimed. “I’ve been there, but find that he’s away for the week-end at Chilham Hall, near Buckden.”

“Buckden! That’s on the Great North Road!” cried Horton. “We’ll go at once and find him. Sixty miles from London. We can be there under two hours!”

And a few minutes later the pair were tearing due north in the direction of Finchley, disregarding the signs from police constables to stop, Horton wiping the dried mud from his goggles and pulling them over his half-closed eyes.

They had given the alarm in London, and the Weekly Dispatch was spreading the amazing news everywhere. People read it eagerly, gasped for a moment, and then smiled in utter disbelief. But the two men were on their way to reveal the appalling truth to the man who was one of the heads of that complicated machinery of inefficient defence which we so proudly term our Army.

Bursting with the astounding information, they bent their heads to the wind as the car shot onward through Barnet and Hatfield, then, entering Hitchin, they were compelled to slow down in the narrow street as they passed the old Sun Inn, and afterwards out again upon the broad highway with its many telegraph lines, through Biggleswade, Tempsford, and Eaton Socon, until, in Buckden, Horton pulled up to inquire of a farm labourer for Chilham Hall.

“Oop yon road to the left, sir. ’Bout a mile Huntingdon way,” was the man’s reply.

Then away they sped, turning a few minutes later{16} into the handsome lodge-gates of Chilham Park, and running up the great elm avenue, drew up before the main door of the ancient hall, a quaint many-gabled old place of grey stone.

“Is Sir James Taylor in?” Fergusson shouted to the liveried man who opened the door.

“He’s gone across the home farm with his lordship and the keepers,” was the reply.

“Then take me to him at once. I haven’t a second to lose. I must see him this instant.”

Thus urged, the servant conducted the pair across the park and through several fields to the edge of a small wood, where two elderly men were walking with a couple of keepers and several dogs about them.

“The tall gentleman is Sir James. The other is his lordship,” the servant explained to Fergusson; and a few moments later the breathless journalist, hurrying up, faced the Permanent Under-Secretary with the news that England was invaded—that the Germans had actually effected a surprise landing on the east coast.

Sir James and his host stood speechless. Like others, they at first believed the pale-faced, bearded sub-editor to be a lunatic, but a few moments later, when Horton briefly repeated the story, they saw that whatever might have occurred, the two men were at least in deadly earnest.

“Impossible!” cried Sir James. “We should surely have heard something of it if such were actually the case! The coastguard would have telephoned the news instantly. Besides, where is our fleet?”

“The Germans evidently laid their plans with great cleverness. Their spies, already in England, cut the wires at a pre-arranged hour last night,” declared Fergusson. “They sought to prevent this gentleman from giving the alarm by shooting him. All the railways to London are already either cut, or held by the enemy. One thing, however, is clear—fleet or no fleet, the east coast is entirely at their mercy.”{17}

Host and guest exchanged dark glances.

“Well, if what you say is the actual truth,” exclaimed Sir James, “to-day is surely the blackest day that England has ever known.”

“Yes, thanks to the pro-German policy of the Government and the false assurances of the Blue Water School. They should have listened to Lord Roberts,” snapped his lordship. “I suppose you’ll go at once, Taylor, and make inquiries?”

“Of course,” responded the Permanent Secretary. And a quarter of an hour later, accepting Horton’s offer, he was sitting in the car as it headed back towards London.

Could the journalist’s story be true? As he sat there, with his head bent against the wind and the mud splashing into his face, Sir James recollected too well the repeated warnings of the past five years, serious warnings by men who knew our shortcomings, but to which no attention had been paid. Both the Government and the public had remained apathetic, the idea of peril had been laughed to scorn, and the country had, ostrich-like, buried its head in the sand, and allowed Continental nations to supersede us in business, in armaments, in everything.

The danger of invasion had always been ridiculed as a mere alarmist’s fiction; those responsible for the defence of the country had smiled, the Navy had been reduced, and the Army had remained in contented inefficiency.

If the blow had really been struck by Germany? If she had risked three or four, out of her twenty-three, army corps, and had aimed at the heart of the British Empire? What then? Ay! what then?

As the car swept down Regent Street into Pall Mall and towards Whitehall, Sir James saw on every side crowds discussing the vague but astounding reports now published in special editions of all the Sunday papers, and shouted wildly everywhere.

Boys bearing sheets fresh from the Fleet Street presses{18} were seized, and bundles torn from them by excited Londoners eager to learn the latest intelligence.

Around both War Office and Admiralty great surging crowds were clamouring loudly for the truth. Was it the truth, or was it only a hoax? Half London disbelieved it. Yet from every quarter, from the north and from across the bridges, thousands were pouring in to ascertain what had really occurred, and the police had the greatest difficulty in keeping order.

In Trafalgar Square, where the fountains were plashing so calmly in the autumn sunlight, a shock-headed man mounted the back of one of the lions and harangued the crowd with much gesticulation, denouncing the Government in the most violent terms; but the orator was ruthlessly pulled down by the police in the midst of his fierce attack.

It was half-past two o’clock in the afternoon. The Germans had already been on English soil ten hours, yet London was in ignorance of where they had actually landed, and utterly helpless.

All sorts of wild rumours were afloat, rumours that spread everywhere throughout the metropolis, from Hampstead to Tooting, from Barking to Hounslow, from Willesden to Woolwich. The Germans were in England!

But in those first moments of the astounding revelation the excitement centred in Trafalgar Square and its vicinity. Men shouted and threatened, women shrieked and wrung their hands, while wild-haired orators addressed groups at the street corners.

Where was our Navy? they asked. Where was our “command of the sea” of which the papers had always talked so much? If we possessed that, then surely no invader could ever have landed? Where was our Army—that brave British Army that had fought triumphantly a hundred campaigns, and which we had been assured by the Government was always ready for any emergency? When would it face the invader and drive him back into the sea?{19}

When?

And the wild, shouting crowds looked up at the many windows of the Admiralty and the War Office, ignorant that both those huge buildings only held terrified caretakers and a double watch of police constables.

Was England invaded? Were foreign legions actually overrunning Norfolk and Suffolk, and were we really helpless beneath the iron heel of the enemy?

It was impossible—incredible! England was on the most friendly terms with Germany. Yet the blow had fallen, and London—or that portion of her that was not enjoying its Sunday afternoon nap in the smug respectability of the suburbs—stood amazed and breathless, in incredulous wonder.{20}

Monday, 3rd September 1910, was indeed Black Monday for London.

By midnight on Sunday the appalling news had spread everywhere. Though the full details of the terrible naval disasters were not yet to hand, yet it was vaguely known that our ships had been defeated in the North Sea, and many of them sunk.

Before 7 a.m. on Monday, however, telegrams reaching London by the subterranean lines from the north gave thrilling stories of frightful disasters we had, while all unconscious, suffered at the hands of the German fleet.

With London, the great cities of the north, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, and Birmingham, awoke utterly dazed. It seemed incredible. And yet the enemy had, by his sudden and stealthy blow, secured command of the sea and actually landed.

The public wondered why a formal declaration of war had not previously been made, ignorant of the fact that the declaration preceding the Franco-German War was the first made by any civilised nation prior to the commencement of hostilities for one hundred and seventy years. The peril of the nation was now recognised on every hand.

Eager millions poured into the City by every train from the suburbs and towns in the vicinity of the metropolis, anxious to ascertain the truth for themselves, pale with terror, wild with excitement, indignant{21} that our land forces were not already mobilised and ready to move eastward to meet the invader.

As soon as the banks were opened there was a run on them, but by noon the Bank of England had suspended all specie payments. The other banks, being thus unable to meet their engagements, simply closed the doors, bringing business to an abrupt standstill. Consols stood at 90 on Saturday, but by noon on Monday were down to 42—lower even than they were in 1798, when they stood at 47¼. Numbers of foreigners tried to speculate heavily, but were unable to do so, for banking being suspended they could not obtain transfers.

On the Stock Exchange the panic in the afternoon was indescribable. Securities of every sort went entirely to pieces, and there were no buyers. Financiers were surprised that no warning in London had betrayed the position of affairs, London being the money centre of the world. Prior to 1870 Paris shared with London the honour of being the pivot of the money market, but on the suspension of cash payments by the Bank of France during the Franco-German War, Paris lost that position. Had it not been that the milliards comprising the French War indemnity were intact in golden louis in the fortress of Spandau, Germany could never have hoped to wage sudden war with Great Britain before she had made Berlin independent of London in a money sense, or, at any rate, to accumulate sufficient gold to carry on the war for at least twelve months. The only way in which she could have done this was to raise her rate so as to offer better terms than London. Yet directly the Bank of England discovered the rate of exchange going against her, and her stock of gold diminishing, she would have responded by raising the English bank-rate in order to check the flow. Thus competition would have gone on until the rates became so high that all business would be checked, and people would have realised their securities to obtain the necessary money to carry on their affairs. Thus, no doubt, the coming war would have been forecasted had it not been for Germany{22}’s already prepared war-chest, which the majority of persons have nowadays overlooked. Its possession had enabled Germany to strike her sudden blow, and now the Bank of England, which is the final reserve of gold in the United Kingdom, found that as notes were cashed so the stock of gold diminished until it was in a few hours compelled to obtain from the Government suspension of the Bank Charter. This enabled the Bank to suspend cash payment, and issue notes without a corresponding deposit of the equivalent in gold.

The suspension, contrary to increasing the panic, had, curiously enough, the immediate effect of somewhat allaying it. Plenty of people in the City were confident that the blow aimed could not prove an effective one, and that the Germans, however many might have landed, would quickly be sent back again. Thus many level-headed business men regarded the position calmly, believing that when our command of the sea was again re-established, as it must be in a day or two, the enemy would soon be non-existent.

Business outside the money market was, of course, utterly demoralised. The buying of necessities was now uppermost in everyone’s mind. Excited crowds in the streets caused most of the shops in the City and West End to close, while around the Admiralty were great crowds of eager men and women of all classes, tearful wives of bluejackets jostling with officers’ ladies from Mayfair and Belgravia, demanding news of their loved ones—inquiries which, alas! the casualty office were unable to satisfy. The scene of grief, terror, and suspense was heartrending. Certain ships were known to have been sunk with all on board after making a gallant fight, and those who had husbands, brothers, lovers, or fathers on board wept loudly, calling upon the Government to avenge the ruthless murder of their loved ones.

In Manchester, in Liverpool, indeed all through the great manufacturing centres of the north, the excitement of London was reflected.{23}

In Manchester there was a panic “on ’Change,” and the crowd in Deansgate coming into collision with a force of mounted police, some rioting occurred, and a number of shop windows broken, while several agitators who attempted to speak in front of the Infirmary were at once arrested.

Liverpool was the scene of intense anxiety and excitement, when a report was spread that German cruisers were about the estuary of the Mersey. It was known that the coal staithes, cranes, and petroleum tanks at Penarth, Cardiff, Barry, and Llanelly had been destroyed; that Aberdeen had been bombarded; and there were rumours that notwithstanding the mines and defences of the Mersey, the city of Liverpool, with all its crowd of valuable shipping, was to share the same fate.

The whole place was in a ferment. By eleven o’clock the stations were crowded by women and children sent by the men away into the country—anywhere from the doomed and defenceless city. The Lord Mayor vainly endeavoured to inspire confidence, but telegrams from London announcing the complete financial collapse, only increased the panic. In the Old Hay Market and up Dale Street to the landing-stages, around the Exchange, the Town Hall, and the Custom House, the excited throng surged, talking eagerly, terrified at the awful blow that was prophesied. At any moment the grey hulls of those death-dealing cruisers might appear in the river; at any moment the first shell might fall and burst in their midst.

Some—the wiseacres—declared that the Germans would never shell a city without first demanding an indemnity, but the majority argued that as they had already disregarded the law of nations in attacking our fleet without provocation, they would bombard Liverpool, destroy the shipping, and show no quarter.

Thus during the whole of the day Liverpool existed in hourly terror of destruction.

London remained breathless, wondering what was about to happen. Every hour the morning newspapers{24} continued to issue special editions, containing all the latest facts procurable regarding the great naval disaster. The telegraphs and telephones to the north were constantly at work, and survivors of a destroyer who had landed at St. Abb’s, north of Berwick, gave thrilling and terrible narratives.

A shilling a copy was no unusual price to be paid in Cornhill, Moorgate Street, Lombard Street, or Ludgate Hill for a halfpenny paper, and the newsboys reaped rich harvests, except when, as so often happened, they were set upon by the excited crowd, and their papers torn from them.

Fleet Street was entirely blocked, and the traffic stopped by crowds standing before the newspaper offices waiting for the summary of each telegram to be posted up upon the windows. And as each despatch was read, sighs, groans, and curses were heard on every hand.

The Government—the sleek-mannered, soft-spoken, self-confident Blue Water School—were responsible for it all, was declared on every hand. They should have placed the Army upon a firm and proper footing; they should have encouraged the establishment of rifle clubs to teach every young man how to defend his home; they should have pondered over the thousand and one warnings uttered during the past ten years by eminent men, statesmen, soldiers, and writers: they should have listened to those forcible and eloquent appeals of Earl Roberts, England’s military hero, who, having left the service, had no axe to grind. He spoke the truth in the House of Lords in 1906 fearlessly, from patriotic motives, because he loved his country and foresaw its doom. And yet the Government and the public had disregarded his ominous words.

And now the blow he prophesied had fallen. It was too late—too late! The Germans were upon English soil.

What would the Government now do? What, indeed, could it do?

There were some who shouted in bravado that when{25} mobilised the British troops would drive the invader into the sea; but such men were unaware of the length of time necessary to mobilise our Army for home defence—or of the many ridiculous regulations which appear to be laid down for the purpose of hindering rather than accelerating the concentration of forces.

All through the morning, amid the chaos of business in the City, the excitement had been steadily growing, until shortly after three o’clock the Daily Mail issued a special edition containing a copy of a German proclamation which, it was said, was now posted everywhere in East Norfolk, East Suffolk, and in Maldon in Essex, already occupied by the enemy.

The original proclamation had been found pasted by some unknown hand upon a barn door near the town of Billericay, and had been detached and brought to London in a motor-car by the Mail’s correspondent.

It showed plainly the German intention was to deal a hard and crushing blow, and it struck terror into the heart of London, for it read as will be seen on next page.

Upon the walls of the Mansion House, the Guildhall, outside the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, and upon the various public buildings within the City wards a proclamation by the Lord Mayor quickly appeared. Even upon the smoke-blackened walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where, at that moment, a special service was being held, big posters were being posted and read by the assembled thousands.

There was a sullen gloom everywhere as the hours went slowly by, and the sun sank into the smoke haze, shedding over the giant city a blood-red afterglow—a light that was ominous in those breathless moments of suspense and terror.

Westward beyond Temple Bar proclamations were being posted. Indeed, upon all the hoardings in Greater London appeared various broadsheets side by side. One by the Chief Commissioner of Police, regulating the traffic in the streets, and appealing to the public to assist in the preservation of order; another by the Mayor{26}

of Westminster, couched in similar terms to that of the Lord Mayor; and a Royal Proclamation, brief but noble, urging every Briton to do his duty, to take his part in the defence of King and country, and to unfurl the banner of the British Empire that had hitherto carried peace and civilisation in every quarter of the world. Germany, whose independence had been respected, had attacked us without provocation; therefore hostilities were, alas, inevitable.

When the great poster printed in big capitals and headed by the Royal Arms made its appearance it was greeted with wild cheering.

It was a message of love from King to people—a message to the highest and to the lowest. Posted in Whitechapel at the same hour as in Whitehall, the throngs crowded eagerly about it and sang “God Save our Gracious King,” for if they had but little confidence in the War Office and Admiralty, they placed their trust in their Sovereign, the first diplomat in Europe. Therefore the loyalty was spontaneous, as it always is. They read the royal message, and cheered and cheered again.

As evening closed in yet another poster made its appearance in every city, town, and village in the country, a poster issued by military and police officers and naval officers in charge of dockyards—the order for mobilisation.

The public, however, little dreamed of the hopeless confusion in the War Office, in the various regimental dépôts throughout the country, at headquarters everywhere, and in every barracks in the kingdom. The armed forces of England were passing from a peace to a war footing; but the mobilisation of the various units—namely, its completion in men, horses, and material—was utterly impossible in the face of the extraordinary regulations which, kept a strict secret by the Council of Defence until this moment, revealed a hopeless state of things.

The disorder was frightful. Not a regiment was found fully equipped and ready to march. There was a dearth of officers, equipment, horses, provisions, of,{28} indeed, everything. Some regiments simply existed in the pages of the Army List, but when they came to appear on parade they were mere paper phantoms. Since the Boer War the Government had, with culpable negligence, disregarded the needs of the Army, even though they had the object-lesson of the struggle between Russia and Japan before their eyes.

In many cases the well-meaning efforts on the part of volunteers proved merely a ludicrous farce. Volunteers from Glasgow found themselves due to proceed to Dorking, in Surrey; those from Aberdeen were expected at Caterham, while those from Carlisle made a start for Reading, and found themselves in the quiet old city of Durham. And in a hundred cases it was the same. Muddle, confusion, and a chain of useless regulations at Aldershot, Colchester, and York all tended to hinder the movement of troops to their points of concentration, bringing home to the authorities at last the ominous warnings of the unheeded critics of the past.

In that hour of England’s deadly peril, when not a moment should have been lost in facing the invader, nothing was ready. Men had guns without ammunition; cavalry and artillery were without horses; engineers only half-equipped; volunteers with no transport whatever; balloon sections without balloons, and searchlight units vainly trying to obtain the necessary instruments.

Horses were being requisitioned everywhere. The few horses that, in the age of motor-cars, now remained on the roads in London were quickly taken for draught, and all horses fit to ride were commandeered for the cavalry.

During the turmoil daring German spies were actively at work south of London. The Southampton line of the London and South-Western Railway was destroyed—with explosives placed by unknown hands—by the bridge over the Wey, near Weybridge, being blown up, and again that over the Mole, between Walton and Esher, while the Reading line was cut by the great bridge over the Thames at Staines being destroyed. The line, too, between{29} Guildford and Waterloo was also rendered impassable by the wreck of the midnight train, which was blown up half-way between Wansborough and Guildford, while in several other places nearer London bridges were rendered unstable by dynamite, the favourite method apparently being to blow the crown out of an arch.

The well-laid plans of the enemy were thus quickly revealed. Among the thousands of Germans working in London, the hundred or so spies, all trusted soldiers, had passed unnoticed, but, working in unison, each little group of two or three had been allotted its task, and had previously thoroughly reconnoitred the position and studied the most rapid or effective means.

The railways to the east and north-east coasts all reported wholesale damage done on Sunday night by the advance agents of the enemy, and now this was continued on the night of Monday in the south, the objective being to hinder troops from moving north from Aldershot. This was, indeed, effectual, for only by a long détour could the troops be moved to the northern defences of London, and while many were on Tuesday entrained, others were conveyed to London by the motor-omnibuses sent down for that purpose.

Everywhere through London and its vicinity, as well as in Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Coventry, Leeds, and Liverpool, motor-cars and motor-omnibuses from dealers and private owners were being requisitioned by the military authorities, for they would, it was believed, replace cavalry to a very large extent.

Wild and extraordinary reports were circulated regarding the disasters in the north. Hull, Newcastle, Gateshead, and Tynemouth had, it was believed, been bombarded and sacked. The shipping in the Tyne was burning, and the Elswick works were held by the enemy. Details were, however, very vague, as the Germans were taking every precaution to prevent information reaching London.{30}

Terror and excitement reigned everywhere. The wildest rumours were hourly afloat. London was a seething stream of breathless multitudes of every class.

On Monday morning the newspapers throughout the kingdom had devoted greater part of their space to the extraordinary intelligence from Norfolk and Suffolk and Essex and other places.

That we were actually invaded was plain, but most of the newspapers happily preserved a calm, dignified tone, and made no attempt at sensationalism. The situation was far too serious.

Like the public, however, the Press had been taken entirely by surprise. The blow had been so sudden and so staggering that half the alarming reports were discredited.

In addition to the details of the enemy’s operations, as far as could as yet be ascertained, the Morning Post on Monday contained an account of a mysterious occurrence at Chatham, which read as follows:—

This amazing revelation showed how cleverly contrived was the German plan of hostilities. All our splendid ships at Chatham had, in that brief half-hour, been bottled up and rendered utterly useless. Yet the authorities were not blameless in the matter, for in November 1905 a foreign warship actually came up the Medway in broad daylight, and was not noticed until she began to bang away her salutes, much to the utter consternation of everyone!

This incident, however, was but one of the many illustrations of Germany’s craft and cunning. The whole scheme had been years in careful preparation.

She intended to invade us, and regarded every stratagem as allowable in her sudden dash upon England, an expedition which promised to result in the most desperate war of modern times.

At that moment the Globe reproduced those plain, prophetic words of Lord Overstone, written some years before to the Royal Defence Commission: “Negligence{39} alone can bring about the calamity under discussion. Unless we suffer ourselves to be surprised we cannot be invaded with success. It is useless to discuss what will occur or what can be done after London has fallen into the hands of an invading foe. The apathy which may render the occurrence of such a catastrophe possible will not afterwards enable the country, enfeebled, dispirited, and disorganised by the loss of its capital, to redeem the fatal error.”

Was that prophecy to be fulfilled?

Some highly interesting information was given by Lieutenant Charles Hammerton, 1st Volunteer Battalion Suffolk Regiment, of Ipswich, who with his company of Volunteer cyclists reconnoitred the enemy’s position in East Suffolk during Monday night. Interviewed by the Ipswich correspondent of the Central News, he said:

“We left Ipswich at eight o’clock in order to reconnoitre all the roads and by-roads in the direction of Lowestoft. For the first twelve miles, as far as Wickham Market, we knew that the country was clear of the enemy, but on cautiously entering Saxmundham—it now being quite dark—we pulled up before Gobbett’s shop in the High Street, and there learnt from a group of terrified men and women that a German reconnoitring patrol consisting of a group of about ten Uhlans under a sergeant, and supported by other groups all across the country to Framlingham and Tannington, had been in the town all day, holding the main road to Lowestoft, and watching in the direction of Ipswich. For hours they had patrolled the south end opposite Waller’s, upon whose wall they posted a copy of Von Kronhelm’s proclamation.

“They threatened to shoot any person attempting to move southward out of the town. Three other Germans were on the old church tower all day making signals northward at intervals. Then, as night closed in, the Uhlans refreshed themselves at the Bell, and with their black and white pennants fluttering{40}

THE LORD MAYOR’S APPEAL TO LONDON.{41}

from their lances, clattered backward in the direction of Yoxford.

“I had sent scouts off the main road from Woodbridge, through Framlingham, Tannington, and Wilby, with orders to push on if possible to Hoxne, to join the main road to Harleston, which I judged must be on the enemy’s flank. Each man knew those difficult crossroads well, which was necessary, we having to travel noiselessly without lights.

“In the bar-parlour of the Bell at Saxmundham we held consultation with a sergeant of police and a couple of constables, from whom we gathered some further information, and then decided to push cautiously north and ascertain into what positions the Uhlans had retired for the night, and, if possible, the whereabouts of the enemy’s march outposts. I had with me twelve men. Nine of us were in uniform, including myself, but the other four preferred to go in mufti, though warned of the risk that they might be treated as spies.

“Carefully, and in silence, we got past the crossroad, to Kelsale, on past the Red House, and down into Yoxford village, without meeting a soul. We were told in Yoxford by the excited villagers that there were foreign soldiers and motor-cyclists constantly passing and repassing all day, but that soon after seven o’clock they had all suddenly retired by the road leading back to Haw Wood. Whether they had gone to the right to Blythburgh, or to the left to Halesworth, was, however, unknown. Our expedition was a most risky one. We knew that we carried our lives in our hands, and yet the War Office and the whole country were anxiously waiting for the information which we hoped to gain. Should we push on? I put it to my companions—brave fellows every one of them, even though the Volunteers have so often been sneered at—and the decision was unanimous that we should reconnoitre at all costs.

“Therefore, again in silence, we went forward,{42} determining to take the Lowestoft high road. Where the enemy’s outposts were, we had no idea. Quietly we skirted Thorington Park, and were just ascending the bridge over the Blyth, before entering Blythburgh, when of a sudden we saw silhouetted on the slope against the star-lit sky a small group of heavily-accoutred German infantry, who had their arms piled beside the road, while two were acting as sentries close at hand.

“At once we were challenged in German. In an instant we flung ourselves from our machines, and took shelter in a hedge opposite. Several times was the gruff challenge repeated, and as I saw no possibility of crossing the bridge, we stealthily turned our cycles round and prepared to mount. Of a sudden we were evidently perceived, and next second shots whistled about us, and poor Maitland, a private, fell forward upon his face in the road—dead. We heard loud shouting in German, which we could not understand, and in a moment the place seemed alive with the foreigners, while we only just had time to mount and tear away in the direction we had come. At Haw Wood I decided to pass the river by a by-road I knew at Wissett, avoiding Halesworth on the right. As far as Chediston Green all was quiet, but on turning northward to Wissett at the cross-roads outside the inn we perceived three men lurking in the shadow beneath the wall.

“With one of my men I abandoned my machine, and crept softly in their direction, not knowing whether they were farm labourers or the enemy’s outposts. Slowly, and with great caution, we moved forward until, on listening intently, I heard them in conversation. They were speaking in German! On my return to my section, Plunkett, one of the privates in mufti, volunteered to creep past without his machine, get to Aldous Corner, and so reconnoitre the country towards the enemy’s headquarters, which, from Von Kronhelm’s proclamation, we knew to be at Beccles.

“Under our breath we wished him God-speed,{43} and a moment later he disappeared in the darkness. What afterwards happened we can only surmise. All we know is that he probably stumbled over a length of barbed wire stretched across the road, for of a sudden the three lurking Germans ran across in his direction. There was a sound of muffled oaths and curses, a quick shuffling of struggling feet, and the triumphant shout in German as a prisoner was secured.

“The truth held us breathless. Poor Plunkett was captured as a spy!

“We could do nothing to save him, for to reveal ourselves meant capture or death. Therefore we were compelled to again retire. We then slipped along the by-roads until we reached Rumburgh, narrowly avoiding detection by sentries stationed at the fork leading to Redisham. Rumburgh was the native place of one of my men named Wheeler, and fortunately he knew every hedge, wall, ditch, and field in the vicinity. Acting as our guide, he left the main road, and by a series of footpaths took us to the main Bungay Road at St. Lawrence. Continuing again by circuitous footpaths, he took us to the edge of Redisham Park, where we discovered a considerable number of German infantry encamped, evidently forming supports to the advance line of outposts. It then became difficult how to act, but this dilemma was quickly solved by Wheeler suggesting that he being in mufti should take the other two plain-clothes men and push on to Beccles, we having now safely passed the outposts and being actually within the enemy’s lines. No doubt we had penetrated the advance line of outposts when we struck off from Rumburgh, therefore there only remained for us to turn back and make good our escape, which we did by crossroads in the direction of Bungay. Wheeler and his two brave companions had hidden their cycles and rifles in the ditch outside the park, and had gone forward with whispered good-byes.

“Presently we found ourselves at Methingham Castle, where we again saw groups of Germans waiting{44} for the dawn, while squadrons of cavalry and motor-cyclists were apparently preparing to move out along Stone Street to scour all the country to the south-west. These we at once gave a wide berth, and succeeded at last in getting down to the Waveney and crossing it, little the worse, save for a wetting. Near Harleston, four miles to the south-west, we came across two of our men whom we had left at Woodbridge, and from them learnt that we were at last free of the enemy. Therefore, by three o’clock we were back again in Ipswich, and immediately made report to the adjutant of our regiment, who was anxiously awaiting our return to headquarters. The scene during the night in Ipswich was one of terror and disorder, the worst fears being increased by our report.

“Would Wheeler return? That was the crucial question. If he got to Beccles he might learn the German movements and the disposition of their troops. Yet it was a terribly risky proceeding, death being the only penalty for spies.

“Hour after hour we remained in eager suspense for news of the three gallant fellows who had risked their lives for their country, until shortly after eight I heard shouts outside in the street, and, covered with mud and perspiration, and bleeding from a nasty cut on his forehead, the result of a spill, Wheeler burst triumphantly in.

“Of the others he had seen nothing since leaving them in the market-place at Beccles, but when afterwards he secured his own cycle, the two other cycles were still hidden in the ditch. Travelling by paths across the fields, however, he joined the road south of Wissett, and there in the grey morning was horrified to see the body of poor Plunkett suspended from a telegraph pole. The unfortunate fellow had, no doubt, been tried at a drum-head court-martial and sentenced to be hanged as a warning to others!

“During the two and a half hours Wheeler was in Beccles, he made good use of eyes and ears, and his{45} report—based upon information given him by a carter whom the enemy had compelled to haul supplies from Lowestoft—was full of deepest interest and most valuable.

“From my own observations, combined with Wheeler’s information, I was enabled to draw up a pretty comprehensive report, and point out on the map the exact position of the German Army Corps which had landed at Lowestoft.

“Repeated briefly, it is as follows:—

“Shortly before three o’clock on Sunday morning the coastguard at Lowestoft, Corton, and Beach End discovered that their telephonic communication was interrupted, and half an hour later, to the surprise of everyone, a miscellaneous collection of mysterious craft were seen approaching the harbour; and within an hour many of them were high and dry on the beach, while others were lashed alongside the old dock, the new fish-docks of the Great Eastern Railway, and the wharves, disembarking a huge force of German infantry, cavalry, motor-infantry, and artillery. The town, awakened from its slumbers, was utterly paralysed, the more so when it was discovered that the railway to London was already interrupted, and the telegraph lines all cut. On landing, the enemy commandeered all provisions, including the stock at Kent’s, Sennett’s, and Lipton’s, in the London Road, all motor-cars they could discover, horses and forage, while the banks were seized, and the infantry falling in, marched up Old Nelson Street into High Street and out upon the Beccles Road. The first care of the invaders was to prevent the people of Lowestoft damaging the Swing Bridge, a strong guard being instantly mounted upon it, and so quietly and orderly was the landing effected that it was plain the German plans of invasion were absolutely perfect in every detail.

“Few hitches seemed to occur. The mayor was summoned at six o’clock by General von Kronhelm, the generalissimo of the German Army, and briefly informed that the town of Lowestoft was occupied, and that all{46} armed resistance would be punished by death. Then, ten minutes later, when the German war-flag was flying from several flagstaffs in various parts of the town, the people realised their utter helplessness.

“The Germans, of course, knew that irrespective of the weather, a landing could be effected at Lowestoft, where the fish docks and wharves, with their many cranes, were capable of dealing with a large amount of stores. The Denes, that flat, sandy plain between the upper town and the sea, they turned into a camping-ground, and large numbers were billeted in various quarters of the town itself, in the better-class houses along Marine Parade, in the Royal, the Empire, and Harbour hotels, and especially in those long rows of private houses in London Road South.

“The people were terror-stricken. To appeal to London for help was impossible, as the place had been cut entirely off, and around it a strong chain of outposts had already been thrown, preventing anyone from escaping. The town had, in a moment, as it seemed, fallen at the mercy of the foreigners. Even the important-looking police constables of Lowestoft, with their little canes, were crestfallen, sullen, and inactive.

“While the landing was continuing during all Sunday the advance guard moved rapidly over Mutford Bridge, along the Beccles Road, occupying a strong position on the west side of the high ground east of Lowestoft. Beccles, where Von Kronhelm established his headquarters, resting as it does on the River Waveney, is strongly held. The enemy’s main position appears to run from Windle Hill, one mile north-east of Gillingham, thence north-west through Bull’s Green, Herringfleet Hill, over to Grove Farm and Hill House to Ravingham, whence it turns easterly to Haddiscoe, which is at present its northern limit. The total front from Beccles Bridge north is about five miles, and commands the whole of the flat plain west towards Norwich. It has its south flank resting on the River Waveney, and to the north on Thorpe Marshes. The chief artillery{47} position is at Toft Monks—the highest point. Upon the high tower of Beccles Church is established a signal station, communication being made constantly with Lowestoft by helio by day, and acetylene lamps by night.

“The enemy’s position has been most carefully chosen, for it is naturally strong, and, being well held to protect Lowestoft from any attack from the west, the landing can continue uninterruptedly, for Lowestoft beach and docks are now entirely out of the line of any British fire.

“March outposts are at Blythburgh, Wenhaston, Holton, Halesworth, Wissett, Rumburgh, Homersfield, and Bungay, and then north to Haddiscoe, while cavalry patrols watch by day, the line roughly being from Leiston through Saxmundham, Framlingham, and Tannington, to Hoxne.

“The estimate, gleaned from various sources in Lowestoft and Beccles, is that up to Monday at midday nearly a whole Army Corps, with stores, guns, ammunition, etc., had already landed, while there are also reports of a further landing at Yarmouth, and at a spot still farther north, but at present there are no details.

“The enemy,” he concluded, “are at present in a position of absolute security.”{48}

This authentic news of the position of the enemy, combined with the vague rumours of other landings at Yarmouth, along the coast at some unknown point north of Cromer, at King’s Lynn, and other places, produced an enormous sensation in London, while the Central News interview, circulated to all the papers in the Midlands and Lancashire, increased the panic in the manufacturing districts.

The special edition of the Evening News, issued about six o’clock on Tuesday evening, contained another remarkable story which threw some further light upon the German movements. It was, of course, known that practically the whole of the Norfolk and Suffolk coast was already held by the enemy, but with the exception of the fact that the enemy’s cavalry vedettes and reconnoitring patrols were out everywhere at a distance about twenty miles from the shore, England was entirely in the dark as to what had occurred anywhere else but at Lowestoft. Attempts similar to that of the Ipswich cyclist volunteers had been made to penetrate the cavalry screen at various points, but in vain. What was in progress was carefully kept a secret by the enemy. The veil was, however, now lifted. The story which the Evening News had obtained exclusively, and which was eagerly read everywhere, had been related by a man named Scotney, a lobster-fisherman, of Sheringham, in Norfolk, who had made the following statement to the chief officer of coastguard at Wainfleet, in Lincolnshire:—{49}

The report added that the officer of coastguard in{53} question had, three hours before, noticed strange vessels coming up the Wash, and had already tried to report by telegraph to his divisional inspecting officer at Harwich, but could obtain no communication. An hour later, however, it had become apparent that a still further landing was being effected on the south side of the Wash, in all probability at King’s Lynn.

The fisherman Scotney’s statement had been sent by special messenger from Wainfleet on Sunday evening, but owing to the dislocation of the railway traffic north of London, the messenger was unable to reach the offices of the coastguard in Victoria Street, Westminster, until Monday. The report received by the Admiralty had been treated as confidential until corroborated, lest undue public alarm should be caused.

It had then been given to the Press as revealing the truth of what had actually happened.

The enemy had entered by the back door of England, and the sensation it caused everywhere was little short of panic.

Some further very valuable information was also received by the Intelligence Department of the War Office, revealing the military position of the invaders who had landed at Weybourne Hoop.

It appears that Colonel Charles Macdonald, a retired officer of the Black Watch, who lived in the “Boulevard” at Sheringham, making up his mind to take the risk, had carefully noted all that was in progress during the landing, had drawn up a clear description of it, and had, after some narrow escapes, succeeded in getting through the German lines to Melton Constable, and thence to London. He had, before his retirement, served as military attaché at Berlin, and, being thoroughly acquainted with the appearance of German uniforms, was able to include in his report even the names of the regiments, and in some cases their commanders.

From his observations it was plain that the whole of the IVth German Army Corps, about 38,000 men,{54} had been landed at Weybourne, Sheringham, and Cromer. It consisted of the 7th and 8th Divisions complete, commanded respectively by Major-General Dickmann and Lieutenant-General von Mirbach. The 7th Division comprised the 13th and 14th Infantry Brigades, consisting of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau’s 1st Magdeburg Regiment, the 3rd Magdeburg Infantry Regiment, Prince Louis Ferdinand von Preussen’s 2nd Magdeburg Regiment, and the 5th Hanover Infantry Regiment. Attached to this division were the Magdeburg Hussars No. 10, and the Uhlan Regiment of Altmärk No. 16.

In the 8th Division were the 15th and 16th Brigades, comprising a Magdeburg Fusilier Regiment, an Anhalt Infantry Regiment, the 4th and 8th Thuringen Infantry, with the Magdeburg Cuirassiers, and a regiment of Thuringen Hussars. The cavalry were commanded by Colonel Frölich, while General von Kleppen was in supreme command of the whole corps.

Careful reconnaissance of the occupied area showed that immediately on landing, the German position extended from the little town of Holt, on the west, eastward, along the main Cromer Road, as far as Gibbet Lane, slightly south of Cromer, a distance of about five miles. This constituted a naturally strong position; indeed, nature seemed to have provided it specially to suit the necessities of a foreign invader. The ground for miles to the south sloped gently away down to the plain, while the rear was completely protected, so that the landing could proceed until every detail had been completed.

Artillery were massed on both flanks, namely, at Holt and on the high ground near Felbrigg, immediately south of Cromer. This last-named artillery was adequately supported by the detached infantry close at hand. The whole force was covered by a strong line of outposts. Their advanced sentries were to be found along a line starting from Thornage village, through Hunworth, Edgefield, Barningham Green, Squallham,{55} Aldborough, Hanworth, to Roughton. In rear of them lay their picquets, which were disposed in advantageous situations. The general line of these latter were at North Street, Pondhills to Plumstead, thence over to Matlash Hall, Aldborough Hall, and the rising ground north of Hanworth. These, in their turn, were adequately supplemented by the supports, which were near Hempstead Green, Baconsthorpe, North Narningham, Bessingham, Sustead, and Melton.

In case of sudden attack, reserves were at Bodham, West Beckham, East Beckham, and Aylmerton, but orders had been issued by Von Kleppen, who had established his headquarters at Upper Sheringham, that the line of resistance was to be as already indicated—namely, that having the Holt-Cromer Road for its crest. Cuirassiers, hussars, and some motorists—commanded by Colonel von Dorndorf—were acting independently some fifteen miles to the south, scouring the whole country, terrifying the villagers, commandeering all supplies, and posting Von Kronhelm’s proclamation, which has already been reproduced.

From Colonel Macdonald’s inquiries it was shown that on the night of the invasion six men, now known to have been advance agents of the enemy, arrived at the Ship Inn, at Weybourne. Three of them took accommodation for the night, while their companions slept elsewhere. At two o’clock the trio let themselves out quietly, were joined by six other men, and just as the enemy’s ships hove in sight nine of them seized the coastguards and cut the wires, while the other three broke into the Weybourne Stores, and, drawing revolvers, obtained possession of the telegraph instrument to Sheringham and Cromer until they could hand it over to the Germans.

The panic in both Sheringham and Cromer when the astounded populace found the enemy billeted on them was intense. There were still many holiday-makers in the Grand and Burlington Hotels in Sheringham, as also in the Metropole, Grand, and Paris at Cromer,{56} and these, on that memorable Sunday morning, experienced a rude awakening from their slumbers.

At Cromer the enemy, as soon as they landed, took possession of the post office, commandeered all the stores at shops, including the West-End Supply Stores and Rust’s; occupied the railway station on the hill, with all its coal and rolling stock, and made prisoners of the coastguards, the four wires, as at Weybourne, having already been cut by advance agents, who had likewise seized the post office wires. A German naval party occupied the coastguard station, and hoisting the German flag at the peak of the staff in place of the white ensign, began to make rapid signals with the semaphore and their own coloured bunting instead of our coastguard flags.

In the clean, red-brick little town of Sheringham all the grocers and provision-dealers were given notice not to sell food to anyone, as it was now in possession of the invaders, while a number of motor-cars belonging to private persons were seized. Every lodging-house, every hotel, and every boarding-house was quickly crowded by the German officers, who remained to superintend the landing. Many machine guns were landed on the pier at Cromer, while the heavier ordnance were brought ashore at the gap and hauled up the fishermen’s slope.

Colonel Macdonald, who had carefully marked a cycling road-map of the district with his observations driving in his own dog-cart from one point to the other, met with a number of exciting adventures.

While in Holt on Monday evening—after a long day of constant observation—he suddenly came face to face with Colonel Frölich, commanding the enemy’s cavalry brigade, and was recognised. Frölich had been aide-de-camp to the Emperor at the time when Macdonald was attaché at the British Embassy, and both men were intimate friends.

They stopped and spoke, Frölich expressing surprise and also regret that they should meet as enemies after{57} their long friendship. Macdonald, annoyed at being thus recognised, took the matter philosophically as the fortunes of war, and learnt from his whilom friend a number of valuable details regarding the German position.

The retired attaché, however, pushed his inquiries rather too far, and unfortunately aroused the suspicions of the German cavalry commander, with the result that the Englishman’s movements were afterwards very closely watched. He then found himself unable to make any further reconnaisance, and was compelled to hide his map under a heap of stones near the Thornage Road, and there leave it for some hours, fearing lest he should be searched and the incriminating plan found upon him.

At night, however, he returned cautiously to the spot, regained possession of his treasure, and abandoning his dog-cart and horse in a by-road near North Barningham, succeeded in getting over to Edgefield. Here, however, he was discovered and challenged by the sentries. He succeeded, nevertheless, in convincing them that he was not endeavouring to escape; otherwise he would undoubtedly have been shot there and then, as quite a dozen unfortunate persons had been at various points along the German line.

To obtain information of the enemy’s position this brave old officer had risked his life, yet concealed in{58} his golf-cap was the map which would condemn him as a spy. He knew the peril, but faced it boldly, as an English soldier should face it.

His meeting with Frölich had been most unfortunate, for he knew that he was now a marked man.

At first the sentries disbelieved him, but, speaking German fluently, he argued with them, and was at last allowed to go free. His one object was to get the map into the hands of the Intelligence Department, but the difficulties were, he soon saw, almost insurmountable. Picquets and sentries held every road and every bridge, while the railway line between Fakenham and Aylsham had been destroyed in several places, as well as that between Melton Constable and Norwich.

Through the whole night he wandered on, hoping to find some weak point in the cordon about Weybourne, but in vain. The Germans were everywhere keeping a sharp vigil to prevent anyone getting out with information, and taking prisoners all upon whom rested the slightest suspicion.

Near dawn, however, he found his opportunity, for at the junction of the three roads near the little hamlet of Stody, a mile south of Hunworth, he came upon a sleeping Uhlan, whose companions had evidently gone forward into Briningham village. The horse was grazing quietly at the roadside, and the man, tired out, lay stretched upon the bank, his helmet by his side, his sabre still at his belt.

Macdonald crept up slowly. If the man woke and discovered him he would be again challenged. Should he take the man’s big revolver and shoot him as he lay?

No. That was a coward’s action, an unjustifiable murder, he decided.

He would take the horse, and risk it by making a dash for life.

Therefore, on tiptoe he crept up, passing the prostrate man, till he approached the horse, and in a second, old though he was, he was nevertheless in the saddle.{59} But none too soon. The jingle of the bit awakened the Uhlan suddenly, and he sprang up in time to see the stranger mount.

In an instant he took in the situation, and before the colonel could settle himself in the saddle he raised his revolver and fired.

The ball struck the colonel in the left shoulder, shattering it, but the gallant man who was risking his life for his country only winced, cursed his luck beneath his breath, set his teeth, and with the blood pouring from the wound, made a dash for life, and succeeded in getting clean away ere the alarm could be raised.

Twelve hours later the valuable information the colonel had so valiantly gained at such risk was in the hands of the Intelligence Department at Whitehall, and had been transmitted back to Norwich and Colchester.

That the Fourth German Army Corps were in a position as strong as those who had landed at Lowestoft could not be denied, and the military authorities could not disguise from themselves the extreme gravity of the situation.{60}

The first news of the great naval battle, as generally happens in war, was confused and distorted. It did not clearly show how the victory had been gained by the one side, or what had brought defeat upon the other. Only gradually did the true facts appear. The following account, however, of the sudden attack made by the Germans upon the British Fleet represents as near an approach as can ever be made, writing after events, to the real truth:

On the fateful evening of September 1, it appears that the North Sea Fleet lay peacefully at anchor off Rosyth, in the Firth of Forth. It mustered sixteen battleships, four of them of the famous Dreadnought class, and all powerful vessels. With it, and attached to it, was a squadron of armoured cruisers eight ships strong, but no destroyers, as its torpedo flotilla was taking part in the torpedo manœuvres in the Irish Sea. Some excitement had been caused in the fleet by orders received on the previous day, directing it to remain under steam ready to put to sea at an hour’s notice. Officers and men had read the reports in the papers announcing some friction with Germany, and had recalled with ironical amusement certain speeches of the Premier, in which he had declared that since his advent to power war was impossible between civilised nations. On the morning of the First, however, the orders to hold the fleet in readiness were cancelled, and Admiral Lord Ebbfleet was instructed to wait at{61} his anchorage the arrival of reinforcements from the reserve divisions at the great naval ports. The Admiral had reported some shortage of coal and ammunition, and had asked for further supplies of both. A promise was made him that more coal should be sent to Rosyth, but ammunition, he was told, it would be inconvenient and unnecessary to forward at this juncture. There was no reason for precipitation or alarm, a cipher telegram from Whitehall ran: Any sign of either would irritate Germany and endanger the situation. He was peremptorily enjoined to refrain from any act of preparation for war. The estimates could not be exceeded without good reason, and the necessary economies of the Admiralty had left no margin for unexpected expenses. Even the commissioning of the reserve ships, he was told, was not to be considered in any sense as pointing to the imminence of war; it was merely a test of the readiness of the fleet.

This remarkable despatch and the series of telegrams which accompanied it were produced at the Parliamentary investigation after the war, and caused simple stupefaction. There was not a hint in them of the peril which menaced the North Sea Fleet. Not the safety of England, but the feelings of the enemy, were considered. And yet the same utter absence of precautions had characterised the policy of the Government during the Fashoda crisis, when Mr. Goschen indignantly denied to an approving House of Commons the suggestion that the dockyards had been busy or that special efforts to prepare for war had been needed. In the North Sea crisis again, the safety of England had been left to chance, and the British fleets carefully withdrawn from the waters of the North Sea, or placed in a position of such weakness that their defeat was a probability.

Lord Ebbfleet, the Admiral, however, was wiser than the Admiralty. There were too many busybodies about, and the ships were too plainly under observation,{62} to make the full battle toilet. But all that afternoon his crews were active in removing the woodwork, which could not, unfortunately, be sent ashore or thrown into the water—that would have caused excessive suspicion. He would personally have preferred to weigh anchor and proceed to sea, but his instructions forbade this. A great admiral at such a juncture might have disobeyed, and acted on his own responsibility; but Lord Ebbfleet, though brave and capable, was not a Nelson. Still, as well as he could, he made ready for war, and far into the night the crews worked with a will.

Torpedo-nets were got out in all the large ships; the guns were loaded; the watch manned and armed ship; the ships’ torpedo boats were hoisted out and patrolled the neighbouring waters; all ships had steam up ready to proceed to sea, though the Admiralty had repeatedly censured Lord Ebbfleet for the heinous offence of wasting coal. Unhappily, the fortifications on the Firth of Forth were practically unmanned and dismantled. Many of the guns had been sold in 1906 to effect economies. In accordance with the policy of trusting to luck and the kindness of the Germans, in fear, also, of provoking Germany, no steps had been taken to mobilise their garrisons. Under the latest scheme of defence which the experts in London had produced, it had been settled that fortifications were not needed to protect the bases used by the fleet. The garrison artillery had gone—sacrificed to the demand for economy. It was considered amply sufficient to man the works with mobilised Volunteers when the need arose. That the enemy might come like a thief in the night had seemingly not occurred to the Government, the House of Commons, or the Army reformers.

Thus the Admiral had to trust entirely to his own ships and guns. The very searchlights on the coast defences were not manned; everything after the usual English fashion was left to luck and the last minute. And, truth to tell, the pacific assurances of the Ministerial{63} Press had lulled anxiety to rest everywhere, save, perhaps, in the endangered fleet. The nation wished to slumber, and it welcomed the leading articles which told it that all disquietude was ridiculous.

It was equally disastrous that no destroyers accompanied the fleet. The three North Sea flotillas of twenty-four boats were conducting exercises in the Irish Sea, whither they had been despatched after the grand naval manœuvres were over. No flotilla of destroyers, and not even a single one of those worn-out, broken-down torpedo boats which the Admiralty had persisted in maintaining as a sham defence for the British coast, was stationed in the Forth. For patrol work the Admiral had nothing but his armoured cruisers and the little launches carried in his warships, which were practically useless for the work of meeting destroyers. The mine defences on the coast had been abolished in 1905, with the promise that torpedo boats and submarines should take their place. Unluckily, the Admiralty had sold off the stock of mines for what it would fetch, before it had provided either the torpedo boats or the submarines, and now five years after this act of supreme wisdom and economy there was still no mobile defence permanently stationed north of Harwich.

At nightfall six of the battleships’ steam torpedo boats were stationed outside the Forth Bridge, east of the anchorage, to keep a vigilant watch, while farther out to sea was the fast cruiser Leicestershire with all lights out, in mid-channel, just under the island of Inchkeith. Abreast of her and close inshore, where the approach of hostile torpedo craft was most to be feared, were three small ships’ torpedo boats to the north and another three to the south, so that, in all, twelve torpedo boats and one cruiser were in the outpost line, to prevent any such surprise as that of the Russian fleet at Port Arthur on the night of February 8, 1904. Thus began this most eventful night in the annals of the British Navy.{64}

Hour after hour passed, while the lieutenants in charge of the torpedo boats incessantly swept the horizon with night glasses; and on the bridge of the Leicestershire a small group of officers and signalmen directed their telescopes and glasses out to sea. The great cruiser in the darkness showed not a glimmer of light; gently her engines moved her to and fro upon her beat; she looked through the blackness like a monstrous destroyer herself; and as she went to and fro her guns were always kept trained out seawards, with the watch ready. Towards 2 a.m. the tide began to set strongly into the Forth, and at the same time the weather became misty. Captain Cornwall, noting with uneasiness that the horizon was becoming obscured, and that the field of vision was narrowing, exclaimed to his fellow-watchers on the bridge that it was an ideal night for destroyers—if they should come.

Barely had he spoken thus when he was called aft to the wireless telegraphy instruments. Out of the night Hertzian waves were coming in. The mysterious message was not in the British code; it was not in the international code; and it bore no intelligible meaning. It was in no language that could be recognised—was evidently a cipher. For two or three minutes the recorder rattled off dots and dashes, and then the aërial impulse ceased. Immediately, with a noise like the rattle of pistol shots, the Leicestershire’s transmitters began to send the news of this strange signal back to the flagship at the anchorage. The special tuning of the British instruments kept for fleet work would prevent a stranger taking in her news.

While the Leicestershire’s wireless instruments were signalling, a steamer was made out approaching Inchkeith. From her build she was a tramp; she carried the usual lights, and seemed to be heading for Queensferry. A flashlight signal was made to her to ask her name and nationality, and to direct her not to approach, as manœuvres were in progress. She made not the faintest response to these signals—a by no means{65} unusual case with British and foreign merchant steamers. In the dim light she looked to be of about 2500 tons displacement as she steered straight for the Leicestershire. Captain Cornwall ordered one of the inshore torpedo boats to proceed to her, and examine her, and direct her, if she was not British, to go into Leith, thus taking upon his shoulders the considerable responsibility of interfering with a foreign ship in time of peace. But she paid no attention to the torpedo boat. She was about 3000 yards off the Leicestershire when the order to the boat was given, and she had now approached within 1500 yards. Disquieted by her proceedings, Captain Cornwall ordered one of the 3-pounders to fire a shot across her bow, and then, as this did not stop her, followed it up with two shots from a 3-pounder directed against her hull.

At the first shot across her bows she swung round, now little more than a thousand yards away from the British cruiser, bringing her broadside to bear. There was the noise of a dull report like the discharge of torpedo tubes, as an instant later the 3-pounder shells struck her hull. Immediately, at Captain Cornwall’s order, the Leicestershire opened fire with all her guns that would bear. Through the water came two streaks of bubbles and foam, moving with lightning speed. One passed right ahead of the Leicestershire; the other swept towards the British cruiser’s stern; there was a heavy explosion; the whole hull of the cruiser was violently shaken and lifted perceptibly up in the water; a spout of water and smoke rose up astern, and the engines ceased to work. The Leicestershire had been torpedoed by the stranger.

The stranger caught the cruiser’s fire and reeled under it. The British gunners took their revenge. The searchlights came on; four 7.5’s, in less time than it takes to tell, planted shell after shell upon her waterline, and the steamer began slowly to founder. Clouds of smoke and steam rose from her; her engine was apparently disabled, and the British launches closed{66} about her to seize those of her crew that survived. In ten minutes all was over. The steamer had disappeared, her side torn open by a dozen 7.5-in. shells charged with lyddite. But the Leicestershire was in serious plight. The damage done by the German torpedo was of the gravest nature. The British cruiser was heavily down by the stern; her port engine and propeller would no longer revolve; two compartments on the port quarter had filled, and water was leaking into the port engine-room. Very slowly, with the help of the starboard engine, Captain Cornwall took her in towards Leith and beached his ship on the shoals near the new harbour.

The opening act had been cleverly thought out by the German staff. While the torpedo boats were picking up the crew of the steamer, three divisions of German torpedo craft, each six boats strong, had passed into the Forth under the shadow of the northern coast. They glided like shadows through the darkness, and they do not seem to have been seen by the British vessels off Inchkeith, whose crews’ attention was riveted upon the Leicestershire. A fourth division, moving rapidly in the shadow of the southern coast, was seen by the Leicestershire and by the British launches about her and with her, and at once she opened fire upon the dim forms. But, bereft of motive power, she could not use her battery to advantage, and though it was thought that one of the destroyers disappeared in the water, the others sped up the estuary, towards the British fleet.

Warned by wireless telegraphy that destroyers had been sighted, the British crews were on the qui vive. There was not time at this eleventh hour to weigh and put out to sea; the only possible course was to meet the attack at anchorage. The fleet was anchored off Rosyth, the battleships in two lines ahead, headed by the flagships Vanguard and Captain. The Vanguard and Captain, the leading ships in the starboard and port lines respectively, were just abreast of the Beamer Rock and{67} Port Edgar. The seven armoured cruisers were moored in the St. Margaret’s Hope Anchorage. To torpedo craft coming from the sea and passing under the Forth Bridge, the fleet thus offered a narrow front, and comparatively few of its guns would bear.

About 2.30 a.m. on Sunday morning, the lookout of the Vanguard detected white foam, as from the bows of a destroyer, just under Battery Point; a few seconds later, the same sign was seen to the south of Inchgarvie, and as the bugles sounded and the 12-in. guns in the three forward turrets of the British flagship opened, and the searchlights played their steady glare upon the dark waters just under the Forth Bridge, the forms of destroyers or torpedo boats fast approaching were unmistakably seen.

In a moment the air trembled with the concussion of heavy guns; the quick-firers of the fleet opened a terrific fire; and straight at the battleships came eighteen German destroyers and large torpedo boats, keeping perfect station, at impetuous speed. The sea boiled about them; the night seemed ablaze with the flashing of the great guns and the brilliant flame of exploding shells. Now one destroyer careened and disappeared; now another flew into splinters, as the gunners sent home their huge projectiles. Above all the din and tumult could be heard the rapid hammering of the pom-poms, as they beat from the bridges with their steady stream of projectiles upon the approaching craft.

Four destroyers went to the bottom in that furious onrush; ten entered the British lines, and passed down them with the great ships on either side, not more than 200 yards away, and every gun depressed as much as it could be, vomiting flame and steel upon the enemy; the others turned back. The thud of torpedo firing followed; but the boats amid that tempest of projectiles, with the blinding glare of the searchlights in their gunners’ eyes, aimed uncertainly. Clear and unforgettable the figures of officers and men stood out of the blackness, as the searchlights caught the boats. Some could be seen{68} heaving heavy weights overboard; others were busy at the torpedo tubes; but in the blaze of light the pom-poms mowed them down, and tore the upper works of the destroyers to flinders. Funnels were cut off and vanished into space; a conning-tower was blown visibly away by a 12-in. shell which caught it fairly, and as the smitten boat sank there was a series of terrific explosions.

Fifth ship in the starboard British line from the Vanguard lay the great battleship Indefatigable, after the four “Dreadnoughts” one of the four powerful units in the fleet. Four torpedoes were fired at her by the German destroyers; three of the four missed her, two of them only by a hair’s breadth, but the fourth cut through the steel net and caught her fairly abreast of the port engine-room, about the level of the platform deck. The Germans were using their very powerful 17.7-in. Schwartzkopf torpedo, fitted with net-cutters, and carrying a charge of 265 lb. of gun-cotton, the heaviest employed in any navy, and nearly a hundred pounds heavier than that of the largest British torpedo.

The effect of the explosion was terrific. Though the Indefatigable had been specially constructed to resist torpedo attack, her bulkheads were not designed to withstand so great a mass of explosive, and the torpedo breached the plating of the wing compartments, the wing passage, and the coal-bunker, which lay immediately behind it. The whole structure of the ship was shaken and much injured in the neighbourhood of the explosion, and water began to pour through the shattered bulkheads into the port engine-room.

The pumps got to work, but could not keep the inrush down; the ship rapidly listed to the port side, and though “out collision mat” was ordered at once, and a mat got over the huge, gaping hole in the battleship’s side, the water continued to gain. Slipping her anchors, at the order of the Admiral, the Indefatigable proceeded a few hundred yards with her starboard screw to the shelving, sandy beach of Society Bank, where she dropped aground. Had the harbour works at Rosyth{69} been complete, the value of them to the nation at this moment would have been inestimable, for there would have been plenty of time to get her into the dock which was under construction there. But in the desire to effect apparent economies the works since 1905 had been languidly pushed.

The calamities of the British fleet did not end with the torpedoing of the Indefatigable. A few seconds later some object drifting in the water, probably a mine—though in the confusion it was impossible to say what exactly happened—struck the Resistance just forward of the fore barbette. It must have drifted down inside the torpedo nets, between the hull and the network. There was an explosion of terrific violence, which rent a great breach in the side of the ship near the starboard fore torpedo tube, caused an irresistible inrush of water, and compelled her captain also to slip his anchors and beach his ship.

Two of the British battle squadron were out of action in the space of less than five minutes from the opening of fire.

Already the shattered remnants of the German torpedo flotilla were retiring; a single boat was steaming off as fast as she had come, but astern of her four wrecks lay in the midst of the British fleet devoid of motive power, mere helpless targets for the guns.

As they floated in the glare of the searchlights with the water sputtering about them, in the hail of projectiles, first one and then another, and finally all four, raised the white flag. Four German boats had surrendered; four more had been seen to sink in the midst of the fleet; one was limping slowly off under a rain of shells from the smaller guns of the Vanguard.

The British cruiser Londonderry was ordered to slip and give chase to her, and steamed off in pursuit down the Forth. A caution to “beware of mines” was flashed by the Admiral, and was needed. The German destroyers must have carried with them, and thrown overboard in their approach, a large number of these{70} deadly agents, which were floating in all directions, greatly hampering the Londonderry in her chase.

But with the help of her searchlights she picked her way past some half-dozen mines which were seen on the surface, and she was so fortunate as not to strike any of those which had been anchored in the channel. Gathering speed, she overhauled the damaged destroyer. The crew could offer little resistance to the guns of a powerful cruiser.

A few shots from the three-pounders and a single shell from one of the Londonderry’s 7.5’s did the work. The German torpedo boat began to sink by the stern; her engines stopped; her rudder was driven by the explosion of the big projectile over to starboard, and the impulse of the speed at which she was travelling brought her head round towards the British vessel. The boat was almost flush with the water as one of her crew raised the white flag, and the fifth German boat surrendered.

The prisoners were rescued from the water with shaken nerves and quaking limbs, as men who had passed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, who had endured the hail of shells and faced the danger of drowning.

So soon as the survivors of that most daring and gallant attack had been recovered from the water, and possession had been taken of the battered hulls in which they had made their onset, the Admiral ordered his torpedo launches to drag the channel for mines.

And while the dragging was proceeding, the prisoners were taken on board the flagship and interrogated. They would disclose little other than the fact that, according to them, war had been already declared. The ship which had attacked the Leicestershire, they said, was a tramp fitted for mine-laying and equipped with three torpedo tubes. Half of them were more or less seriously wounded; all admitted that the slaughter on board their boats caused by the British fire had been terrific. One lieutenant stated that all the men at one of his torpedo tubes had been mown down twice by the{71} hail of small shells from the pom-poms, while a 12-in. shell which had hit the stern of his boat had blown it completely away. Yet the remnant of the boat had still floated.

Lord Ebbfleet surveyed the scene with rueful eyes. The Indefatigable and Resistance, two of his powerful battleships, were out of action, and could take no more part in operations for weeks. The Leicestershire was in the same plight. From sixteen battleships his force had fallen to fourteen; his armoured cruiser squadron was reduced from eight ships to seven. To remain in the anchorage without destroyers and torpedo boats to keep a lookout would be to court further torpedo attacks, and perhaps the even more insidious danger from German submarines, and might well imperil the safety of the British reserve ships. Only one course remained—to weigh and proceed to sea, endeavouring to pass south to meet the reserve ships.

Efforts to communicate his intention to the Admiralty failed. The roar of firing had awakened Leith and Edinburgh; people were pouring into the streets to know what this strange and sudden commotion meant, and what was the cause of the storm.

The windows at Queensferry had been shattered; the place was shaken as by a great earthquake. The three heavy bursts of firing, the continuous disquieting flashes of the searchlights, and the great hull of the Leicestershire ashore off Leith, indicated that something untoward had befallen the fleet.

For a moment it was thought that the Admiral had fallen to manœuvres at a most unseasonable hour, or that some accident had occurred on board the injured cruiser. Then suddenly the truth dawned upon the people. The crowd ashore, constantly increasing, as it gazed in alarm towards the anchorage, realised that war had begun, and that for the first time since the Dutch sailed up the Medway, more than two hundred years before, the sanctity of a British anchorage had been invaded by an enemy.{72}

The coastguardsmen, who had been placed under the control of the civil authorities as the result of one of the numerous reforms effected in the interests of economy, had for the most part forgotten the art of quick signalling or quick reading of naval signals, else they might have interpreted to the crowd the history of that night, as it was flashed to the wireless station at Rosyth, for transmission to London.

But, as has been said, the attempt to despatch the news to headquarters failed. The private wire from the dockyard to Whitehall would not work, and though the post office wires were tried no answer could be obtained. It appeared that, as on the famous night of the North Sea outrage, there was no one at the Admiralty—not even a clerk. It was, therefore, impossible to obtain definite information.

Lord Ebbfleet had meantime received a report from his torpedo launches that a precarious passage had been cleared through the mines in the channel, and about four o’clock on Sunday morning he ordered the armoured cruiser squadron to put to sea and ascertain whether the coast was clear, preceding the battle squadron, which, minus the two damaged battleships, was to follow at six.

The interval of two hours was required to take on board ammunition from the damaged ships, to land woodwork and all the impedimenta that could possibly be discarded before battle, and also to complete the preparations for action.

It was now almost certain that a German fleet would be encountered, but, as has been said, the risk of remaining in the Forth was even greater than that of proceeding to sea, while the Commander-in-Chief realised the full gravity of the fact that upon his fleet and its activity would depend the safety of England from invasion.

He knew that the other main fleets were far distant; that the reserve ships were much too weak by themselves to meet the force of the German Navy, and that the best{73} chance of averting a fresh disaster to them was to effect as speedily as possible a junction with them. Where exactly they were or whether they had moved from the Nore he was not yet aware; the absence of information from the Admiralty left him in the dark as to these two important points.

The armoured cruisers were ordered, if they encountered the German cruisers in approximately equal or inferior force, to drive them off and push through them, to ascertain the strength and whereabouts of the German battle fleet; if, however, the Germans were in much superior force, the British squadron was to fall back on the battle fleet. One by one the armoured cruisers steamed off, first the Polyphemus, with the Rear-Admiral’s flag, then the Olympia, Achates, Imperieuse, Aurora, and Londonderry, and last of all the Gloucester bringing up the rear.

Upon these seven ships the duty of breaking through the enemy’s screen was to devolve. As they went out they jettisoned their woodwork and formed a line ahead, in which formation they were to fight.

Unfortunately, the shooting of the squadron was very uneven. Three of its ships had done superbly at battle practice and in the gun-layers’ test; but two others had performed indifferently, and two could scarcely be trusted to hit the target.

For years the uneven shooting of the fleet had been noted as a source of weakness; but what was needed to bring the bad ships up to the mark was a lavish expenditure of ammunition, and ammunition cost money. Therefore ammunition had to be stinted.

In the German Navy, on the other hand, a contrary course had been followed. For the two months before the war, as was afterwards disclosed by the German Staff History, the German ships had been kept constantly at practice, and if the best ships did not shoot quite so well as the best units in the British fleet, a far higher average level of gunnery had been attained.

Increasing the number of revolutions till the speed{74} reached 18 knots, the cruiser squadron sped seawards. The east was flushed with the glow of dawn as the ships passed Inchcolm, but a grey mist lay upon the surface of the gently heaving sea and veiled the horizon. Leaving Inchkeith and the Kinghorn Battery soon after the Leith clocks had struck the half-hour, and steaming on a generally easterly course, the lookout of the Polyphemus saw right ahead and some ten or eleven miles away to the north-east the dark forms of ships upon the horizon. The British line turned slightly and headed towards these ships. All the telescopes on the Polyphemus’s fore-bridge were directed upon the strangers, and the fact that they were men-of-war painted a muddy grey was ascertained as they drew nearer, and transmitted by wireless telegraphy to Lord Ebbfleet.

They were coming on at a speed which seemed to be about 17 knots, and were formed in line ahead, in a line perfectly maintained, so that, as they were approaching on almost exactly the opposite course, their number could not be counted. In another minute or two, as the distance between the two squadrons rapidly diminished, it was clear from her curious girdermasts that the ship at the head of the line was either the large German armoured cruiser Waldersee, the first of the large type built by Germany, or some other ship of her class. At six miles distance several squadrons of destroyers were made out, also formed in line ahead, and steaming alongside the German line, abaft either beam.

A battle was imminent; there was no time to issue elaborate orders, or make fresh dispositions.

The British Admiral signalled that he would turn to starboard, to reconnoitre the strange fleet, and reserve fire till closer quarters. He turned five points, which altered his course to an east-south-easterly one. For a fractional period of time the Germans maintained their original course, steering for the rear of the British line. Then the German flagship or leader of the line turned to port, steering a course which would bring her directly across the bows of the British line.{75}

Simultaneously the two divisions of torpedo craft on the port beam of the German squadron increased speed, and, cutting across the loop, neared the head of the German line.

The German squadron opened fire as it began to turn, the Waldersee beginning the duel with the two 11-in. guns in her fore-turret.

A flash, a haze of smoke instantly dissipated, and a heavy shell passed screeching over the fore-turret of the Polyphemus.

Another flash an instant later, and a shell struck the British cruiser’s third funnel, tearing a great hole in it, but failing to burst. Then every German gun followed, laid on the Polyphemus, which blew her steam siren and fired a 12-pounder, the prearranged signal to the British ships for opening, and an instant later, just after 5 a.m., both squadrons were exchanging the most furious fire at a distance which did not exceed 5000 yards.

As the two lines turned, the British were able at last to make out the strength and numbers of their enemy. There were ten German armoured cruisers in line—at the head of the line the fast and new Waldersee, Caprivi, and Moltke, each of 16,000 tons, and armed with four 11-in. and ten 9.4-in. guns, with astern of them the Manteuffel, York, Roon, Friedrich Karl, Prince Adalbert, Prince Heinrich, and Bismarck.

The last four did not follow the first six in the turn, but maintained their original course, and headed direct for the rear of the British line. Thus the position was this: One German squadron was manœuvring to pass across the head of the British line, and the other to cross the rear of that line. Each German squadron was attended by two torpedo divisions.

Retreat for the British Admiral was already out of the question, even if he had wished to retire. But as he stood in the Polyphemus’s conning-tower and felt his great cruiser reel beneath him under the concussion of her heavy guns—as he saw the rush of splinters over her deck, and heard the officers at his side shouting down the{76} telephones amid the deafening din caused by the crash of steel on steel, the violent explosion of the shells, the heavy roar of the great guns, and the ear-splitting crack and rattle of the 12-pounders and pom-poms—he realised that the German squadrons were manœuvring perfectly, and were trying a most daring move—one which it would need all his nerve and foresight to defeat.{77}

Contrary to anticipation, in the interchange of fire the ships of the two combatants did not suffer any disabling injury. The armour on either side kept out the shells from the vitals, though great smoking gaps began to show where the unarmoured sides had been riven.

The Waldersee’s turrets flashed and smoked incessantly as she closed; the whole German squadron of six ships, which included her and followed her, turned its concentrated fire upon the Polyphemus, and the British cruisers to the rear of the British line were at some disadvantage, since their weapons could only fire at extreme range. The Germans aimed chiefly at the Polyphemus’s conning-tower, wherein, they knew, dwelt the brain that directed the British force.

Amidst the smoke and fumes of high-explosive shells, with the outlook obscured by the hail of splinters and the nerves shaken by the incessant blast of shells, it was difficult to keep a perfectly cool head.

The next move of the British Admiral has been bitterly criticised by those who forget that the resolutions of naval war may have to be reached in two seconds, under a strain to which no General on land is subjected.

Seeing that the main German squadron was gaining a position to execute the famous manœuvre of “crossing the T,” and unable to turn away to starboard for want of sea-room, the British Admiral signalled to his fleet to turn simultaneously to port, reversing the direction{78} of his movement and inverting the order of his fleet. His van became his rear, his rear his van.

Amidst all the uproar, the main German squadron replied with the same manœuvre, while the second German squadron instantly headed straight for the ships which had been to the rear of the British line, and now formed its van.

Simultaneously two of the four divisions of German destroyers attacked, one the rear and the other the head, of the British line, and the German ships let go their long-range torpedoes.

The range had fallen to a distance of not much over 3000 yards between the main German squadron and the Polyphemus. At the other extremity of the British line, as the four armoured cruisers forming the second German squadron closed on the British van, it rapidly decreased. The confusion was fearful on either side, and if the British had had destroyers with them the German official narrative acknowledges that it might have gone very hard with the German fleet. But here, as elsewhere, initial errors of disposition, in the famous words of the Archduke Charles, proved fatal beyond belief.

The smaller guns on board all the ships of both sides had been in many cases put out of action; even the heavier weapons had suffered. Several of the turrets no longer flashed and revolved. Funnels and bridges had sunk; wreckage of steel yawned where decks had been; dense clouds of smoke poured from blazing paint or linoleum, and the fires were incessantly renewed by fresh shell explosions. Blood covered the decks, the scuppers ran red; inside the fore barbette of the Imperieuse, which had been pierced by an 11-in. shell, was a scene of indescribable horror. The barbette had suddenly ceased firing.

An officer, sent to ascertain the cause, was unable to make his way in before he was swept away by a fresh projectile. Another volunteer climbed up through the top into the steel pent-house, for there was no other{79} means of access—returned alive, and reported that the whole barbette crew were dead and that the place was like a charnel-house. There was no sign of disabling injury to the mechanism, but the problem was how to get a fresh crew of living men through the hail of shells to the guns.

The four German armoured cruisers of the second division turned within 1500 yards of the head of the British line, firing torpedoes and delivering and receiving a terrific shell fire. One torpedo boat followed each German cruiser closely, and as the four cruisers turned, the torpedo craft, instead of following them, charged home.

The manœuvre was so unexpected and so hazardous that it was difficult to meet. At twenty-five knots speed the German boats passed like a flash through the British line. A great hump of water rose under the British cruiser Londonderry, second in the inverted order of the line, and she reeled and settled heavily in the water. A torpedo had struck her abaft the fore-turret.

Almost at the same instant another German torpedo division attacked the rear of the British line, and a German torpedo boat made a hit upon the Olympia, last but one in the British line. She was struck abaft the starboard engine-room, and she too listed, and settled in the water.

As the German boats attempted to escape to the south they caught the fire of the British squadron’s port broadsides, which sent two to the bottom and left two others in a sinking condition. Both the damaged British ships turned out of the British line and headed for the coast to the south. The only chance of saving the ships and crews was to beach the vessels and effect repairs. As they steered out of the battle, the tumult behind them increased, and their crews could see great tongues of flame shooting upwards from the Bismarck, which was held unmercifully by the British 9.2-in. shells. She was badly damaged and in sore trouble,{80} but the rest of the German ships still appeared to be going well. The British torpedoes, fired from the cruisers’ tubes, seemed to have made no hits.

The Germans offered no hindrance to the withdrawal of the injured ships. They closed on the remnant of the British force, now reduced to five ships, all much damaged. On their side, without the Bismarck, which had fallen out of the line, they had nine ships in action and two intact flotillas of torpedo craft to bring to bear.

The second German squadron had wheeled to join the other division, which was now steering a generally parallel course, though well astern of the British ships. The two fleets had drawn apart after the short but fierce torpedo action, and the British were now heading north. A fierce cruiser battle ensued.

In this sharp encounter at close quarters, at a range which did not exceed 2000 yards, a grave catastrophe had befallen the Polyphemus. As the Admiral was giving orders for his squadron to turn, two heavy projectiles in quick succession struck the conning-tower, inside which he was standing with the captain, a midshipman, a petty officer, and two boys at his side. The first shell struck the base of the conning-tower, causing a most violent shock, and filling the interior of the tower with smoke and fumes.

The Admiral leant against the side of the tower and strove to ascertain through the narrow opening in the steel wall what had happened, when the second shell hit the armour outside, and exploded against it with terrific violence. Admiral Hardy was instantly killed by the shock or by the bolts and splinters which the explosion or impact of the projectile drove into the conning-tower. The flag-captain was mortally wounded; the petty officer received an insignificant contusion. The midshipman and the two boys escaped without a scratch, though stunned and much shaken by the terrific blow.

For some seconds the ship passed out of control; then, dazed and bewildered, the midshipman took charge, and shouted to the chamber below, where the{81} steering gear was placed with the voice-pipes and all other appliances,—an improvement introduced after the war in the Far East,—orders to communicate the death of the Admiral and disablement of the captain to the commander. For some minutes the British squadron was without a chief, though under the system of “follow my leader,” which had been adopted for the cruiser squadron, the captain of the Gloucester which led the line was controlling the battle.

Some confusion resulted, and the opportunity of finishing off the Bismarck which undoubtedly offered at this moment was lost. Captain Connor, of the Gloucester, increased speed to eighteen knots, heading northward, to draw the German squadron away from the damaged British ships, and attempted to work across the head of the German line. The fleets now fought broadside to broadside, exchanging a steady fire, until Captain Connor, finding himself getting too close to the north coast, and with insufficient manœuvring room, turned southward, inverting the British line, and bringing the Polyphemus once more to its head.

The British squadron, after turning, steamed towards the Bismarck, which was crawling off eastwards, with a division of German torpedo boats near at hand to give her succour. The German squadrons had now formed up into one compact line, in which two of the ships appeared to be in serious difficulties. They copied the British manœuvre and steered a parallel course to the British cruisers, holding a position a little ahead of them. Simultaneously, their other intact torpedo division took station to leeward of their line near its rear, and the six remaining boats of the two divisions, which had executed the first attack, took station to leeward near the head of the line. The two fleets steamed 3500 yards apart, gradually closing, and fought an artillery battle, in which the greater gunpower, of the Germans, who had nine ships in action to the British five, speedily began to tell.{82}

The Gloucester lost two of her four funnels; one of her masts fell with a resounding crash. The Olympia had a slight list; the Aurora’s forward works were shot away; the Achates had lost one of her funnels.

In the German line the Waldersee’s forward military mast tottered and could be seen swaying at each instant, the network of steel girders had been badly damaged. The Caprivi was on fire amidships, and smoke was pouring up from the fire. The Moltke was without one of her four funnels. The Manteuffel’s stern had been wrecked till the structure of the ship above the armour looked like a tangle of battered girders. The York and Roon were less shattered, but gaping wounds could be seen in their sides. The Friedrich Karl had lost the upper portion of her after military mast. The Prince Heinrich was slightly down by the bow, and was drooping astern.

Sparks and splinters flew upwards from the steel sides of the great ships as the projectiles went home; the din was indescribable; mingled with the dull note of the heavy guns was the crackling of the smaller guns and the beating of the pom-poms, playing a devil’s tattoo in this furious encounter of the mastodons.

The German Admiral saw that the two fleets were steadily nearing the Bismarck, and essayed once more the manœuvre which he had already tried, a manœuvre studiously practised in the German Navy, which had for ten years been daily experimenting with battle-evolutions, and testing its captains’ nerves till they were of steel. In these difficult and desperate manœuvres, it was remarked then—and it has since been proved by experience—the Germans surpassed their British rivals, not because the German officer was braver or more capable, but because he was younger taught to display initiative to a higher degree than the personnel of the British fleet, and better trained for actual battle.

The four last cruisers in the German line suddenly altered course and steered straight at the British line,{83} while behind them, as before, followed six torpedo boats. Through the intervals at the head of the German line came the other six boats—an evolution which they had constantly rehearsed in peace, and which they carried out with admirable precision and dash in the crisis of battle—and charged the head of the British line. The rest of the German squadron maintained its original course, and covered the attack with a terrific fire, all its guns accelerating the rapidity of their discharge till the air hummed with projectiles.

The attack was suddenly and vigorously delivered. The British ships at the rear of the line met it and countered it with success by turning together south and steaming away, so that the German effort in this quarter ended with a blow to the air.

But the flagship at the head of the line was not so alert; the death of the Admiral was at this critical moment severely felt, and the Polyphemus, though she eluded three torpedoes which were fired at her at about 3000 yards by the German battleships, found two torpedo boats closing in upon her from right ahead. She charged one with the ram; there was no time for thinking, and she caught the boat fair under her steel prow, which cut through the thin plating of the boat like a knife through matchwood. Her huge hull passed with a slight shudder over the boat, which instantly foundered with a violent explosion.

The other boat, however, passed her only a hundred yards away in the spray of shells and projectiles which seemed as if by enchantment just to miss it. Her crew had a vision of wild-looking officers and men busy at the boat’s torpedo tubes; the flash of two torpedoes glinted in the sun as they leaped from the tubes into the water; then a great shell caught the boat and sent her reeling and sinking, but too late. The mischief had been done. One of the German torpedoes struck the Polyphemus full on the starboard engine-room, and, exploding with devastating effect, blew in the side and bulkheads. The engine-room filled{84} at once, and bereft of half her power the great cruiser broke from the British line and headed for the shore with a heavy list. Almost at the same moment the fire on board the Caprivi blazed up so fiercely under the impact of the British shells that she, too, had to leave the line of battle.

The British line re-formed, heading east, now only four ships strong, faced by eight German ships. For some minutes both fleets steamed on a parallel course 4500 yards apart, the Germans, who had, on the whole, suffered less damage, since their injuries were distributed over a larger number of ships, steaming a little faster. Once more the German Admiral essayed a surprise. Suddenly the eight German ships made each simultaneously a quarter-turn, which brought them into line abreast. They stood in towards the four British survivors, to deal the culminating blow. End-on they caught the full vehemence of the British fire. But with forces so weakened, the British senior officer could not run the risk of a mêlée, and to avoid his antagonists he, too, turned away from the Germans in a line abreast, and at the same moment the Achates, Imperieuse, and Aurora fired their stern torpedo tubes. Realising the danger of pressing too closely in the course of a retiring fleet, the Germans again altered course to line ahead, and steered to cut the British ships off from their line of retreat up the Forth.

The four British cruisers now headed up the Forth, perceiving that victory was impossible and flight the only course. They again received the German fire, steering on a parallel course. At this juncture the Gloucester, the last ship in the British line, dropped far astern; she had received in quick succession half a dozen heavy German shells on her 6-in. armour and had sprung a serious leak. The German ships closed on her, coming in to less than 2000 yards, when their guns battered her with ever-increasing effect. She sank deeper in the water, heading for the coast, with the Germans in hot pursuit firing continuously at her.{85} The other three cruisers were preparing to turn and go to her aid—a course which would certainly have involved the annihilation of the First Cruiser Squadron—when welcome help appeared.

To the west a column of great ships was made out coming up at impetuous speed from the Upper Forth. The new-comers were the British battleships steering to the scene of action.

At their approach the German cruisers wheeled and stood seaward, making off at a speed which did not exceed 16 knots, and leaving the Gloucester to beach herself. They were now in peril, in imminent danger of destruction—as it seemed to the British officers. Actually, however, the risk for them had not been great. Within touch of them the main German battle-fleet had waited off the Forth, linked to them by a chain of smaller cruisers and torpedo boats. It would have shown itself before, but for its commander’s fear that its premature appearance might have broken off the battle and led to the retreat of the British squadron. As the British fleet came up, the German cruiser Bismarck, which had been for an hour in the gravest trouble, dropped astern of the other German ships, and it could be seen that one other German ship had been taken in tow and was falling astern.

Thus the preliminary cruiser action between the fleets had ended all to the disadvantage of the British, who had fought for two hours, and in that brief space lost four ships disabled. From seven ships on that disastrous morning, the British strength had been reduced to three. Impartial posterity will not blame the officers and men of the armoured cruiser squadron, who made a most gallant fight under the most unfavourable conditions.

The real criminals were the British Ministers, who neglected precautions, permitted the British fleet to be surprised, and compelled the British Admiral to play the most hazardous of games while they had left the coast without torpedo stations, and England{86} without any military force capable of resisting an invading army.

Had there been a national army, even a national militia, the Commander-in-Chief could have calmly awaited the concentration of the remaining British fleets, which would have given the British Navy an overwhelming superiority. Had there been a fair number of destroyers always attached to his force, again, it is morally certain that he would have suffered no loss from the German torpedo attacks, while a number of torpedo stations disposed along the North Sea coast would have enabled him to call up torpedo divisions to his assistance, even if he had had none attached to his fleet.

Foresight would have provided for all the perils which menaced the British Navy on this eventful night; foresight had urged the rapid completion of the harbour at Rosyth, without which further strengthening of the North Sea fleet was difficult; foresight had pointed out the danger of neglecting the strengthening of the torpedo flotilla; foresight had called for a strong navy, and a nation trained to defend the fatherland.

It was the cry of the people and the politician for all manner of “reforms” at the expense of national security; the demand for old-age pensions, for feeding of children, for State work at preposterous wages for the work-shy; the general selfishness which asked everything of the State and refused to make the smallest sacrifice for it; the degenerate slackness of the Public and the Press, who refused to concern themselves with these tremendous interests, and riveted all their attention upon the trivialities of the football and cricket field, that worked the doom of England.

The nation was careless and apathetic; it had taken but little interest in its Fleet. Always it had assumed that the navy was perfect, that one British ship was a match for any two enemies. And now in a few hours it had been proved that the German Navy was as efficient; that its younger officers were better trained for{87} war and more enterprising than the older British personnel; that its staff had perfectly thought out and prepared every move; and that much of the old advantage possessed by the British Navy had been lost by the too general introduction of short service.

The shooting of the British ships, it is true, had on the whole been good, and even the cruisers, which in battle practice had done badly, in action had improved their marksmanship to a remarkable degree. But it was in the art of battle manœuvring and in the scientific employment of their weapons that the British had failed.

The three surviving cruisers of the British squadron had all suffered much damage from the German fire, and had exhausted so much of their ammunition in the two hours’ fight that they were practically incapable of taking further part in the operations. They had to proceed to Rosyth to effect hasty repairs and ship any further ammunition that might with luck be found in the insignificant magazines at that place.

The Olympia had been struck three times on her fore barbette, but though one of the 9.2-in. guns which it contained had been put out of action by splinters, the barbette still worked well. Twice almost the entire crew of the barbette had been put out of action and had been renewed. The scenes within the barbette were appalling. Two of her 7.5-in. barbettes had been jammed by the fire; her funnels were so much damaged that the draught had fallen and the coal consumption enormously increased. Below the armour deck, however, the vitals of the ship were intact.

The Impérieuse and Aurora had serious hits on the water-line astern, and each of them was taking on board a good deal of water. They, too, were much mauled about their funnels and upper works. As for the four beached cruisers, they were in a parlous condition, and it would take weeks to effect repairs. The losses in men of the cruisers had not been very heavy; the officers in the conning-towers had suffered most, as{88} upon the conning-towers the Germans had directed their heaviest fire.

Most serious and trying in all the ships had been the outbreaks of fire. Wherever the shells struck they appeared to cause conflagrations, and this, though the hoses were spouting water and the decks drowned before the action began. Once a fire broke out, to get it under was no easy task. Projectiles came thick upon the fire-parties, working in the choking smoke. Shell-splinters cut down the bluejackets and tore the hoses. The difficulty of maintaining communications within the ships was stupendous; telephones were inaudible in the terrible din; voice-pipes were severed; mechanical indicators worked indifferently.

The battle-fleet had spent its respite at the anchorage in getting on board the intact ships much of the ammunition from the Indefatigable and Triumph, and stripping away all remaining impedimenta; in rigging mantlets and completing the work of preparation.

While thus engaged at five a.m. the heavy boom of distant firing came in towards it from the sea—the continuous thundering of a hundred large guns, a dull, sinister note, which alternately froze and warmed the blood. Orders were instantly issued to make ready for sea with all possible speed, and hoist in the boats. Meantime the ships’ torpedo and picket boats had dragged carefully for mines, as Lord Ebbfleet dared to leave nothing to chance. Numerous mines were found floating on the water or moored in the channel, and it seemed a miracle that so many ships of the cruiser squadron had passed out to sea in safety.

Ten minutes later, at 5.10 a.m., Lord Ebbfleet signalled to weigh anchor, and the battle-fleet got under way and headed out to sea, its ships in a single line ahead, proceeding with the utmost caution. As it cleared the zone of danger, speed was increased to sixteen knots, and off Inchcolm the formation was modified.

Wishing to use to the utmost the high speed and{89} enormous batteries of his four battleships of the “Dreadnought “class, Lord Ebbfleet had determined to manœuvre with them independently. They steamed three knots faster than the rest of his fleet; their armour and armament fitted them to play a decisive part in the approaching action. They took station to starboard, and to port steamed the other ten battleships, headed by the Captain, under Sir Louis Parker, the second in command, who was given full authority to control his division. Behind the Captain steamed the Sultan, Defiance, Active, Redoubtable, Malta, Excellence, Courageous, Valiant, and Glasgow—a magnificent array of two-funnelled, grey-painted monsters, keeping perfect station, with their crews at quarters, guns loaded, and battle-flags flying. To starboard were the enormous hulls of the four “Dreadnoughts,” the Vanguard leading, with astern of her the Thunderer, Devastation, and Bellerophon. The great turrets, each with its pair of giant 45 ft. long 12-in. guns, caught the eye instantly; the three squat funnels in each ship emitted only a faint haze of smoke; on the lofty bridges high above the water stood white-capped officers, looking out anxiously to sea. Nearer and nearer came the roll of the firing; presently the four “Dreadnoughts” increased speed and drew fast ahead of the other line, while the spray flew from under their bows as the revolutions of the turbines rose and the speed went up to nineteen knots.

The other ten battleships maintained their speed, and fell fast astern. Off Leith a vast crowd gathered, watching the far-off fighting, and listening in disquietude to the roar of the firing of the cruiser battle, and cheered the great procession as it swiftly passed and receded from view, leaving behind it only a faint haze of smoke. A few minutes before 7 a.m. the group of officers on the Vanguard’s bridge saw ahead of them three cruisers, evidently British, steaming towards them, and far away yet another British cruiser low in the water, smoking under the impact of shells, with about{90} her a great fleet of armoured cruisers. The cruisers, as they approached, signalled the terrible news that Admiral Hardy was dead, three British cruisers out of action, and the Gloucester in desperate straits.

The battleships were just in time to effect the rescue. At 11,000 yards the Vanguard’s fore-turret fired the first shot of the battleship encounter, and as the scream of the projectile filled the air, the German cruisers drew away from their prey. The “Dreadnoughts” were now two miles ahead of the main squadron. Steaming fast towards the Bismarck, which had been abandoned by her consorts, the Vanguard fired six shells at her from her fore and starboard 12-in. turrets. All the six 12-in. shells went home; with a violent explosion the German cruiser sank instantly, taking with her to the bottom most of her crew. Yet there was no time to think of saving men, for on the horizon ahead of the British Fleet, out to sea, could be seen a dense cloud of smoke, betokening the presence of a great assemblage of ships. Towards this cloud the German cruisers were steaming at their best pace.

Lord Ebbfleet reduced speed to permit his other battleships to complete their formation and take up their positions for battle. The ten battleships of the second division simultaneously increased speed from fifteen to sixteen knots, which was as much as their engines could be trusted to make without serious strain.

About 7.15 a.m. the British Fleet had resumed its original order, and was abreast of North Berwick, now fast nearing the cloud of smoke which indicated the enemy’s presence, and rose from behind the cliffs of the Island of May.

The British admirals interchanged signals as the fleet steamed seaward, and Lord Ebbfleet instructed Vice-Admiral Parker and Rear-Admiral Merrilees to be prepared for the sudden charges of German torpedo craft.

That there would be many with the German Fleet was certain, for, although about twenty-four destroyers{91} and torpedo boats had been sunk, damaged, or left without torpedoes as the result of the previous attacks during the night and early morning, the German torpedo flotilla had been enormously increased in the four years before the war, till it mustered 144 destroyers and forty large torpedo boats.

Even ruling thirty out of action and allowing for detachments, something like a hundred might have to be encountered.

Lord Ebbfleet was not one of those officers who expect the enemy to do the foolish thing, and he had no doubt but that the Germans would follow a policy of rigid concentration. They would bring all their force to bear against his fleet and strive to deal it a deadly blow.

Five minutes passed, and the smoke increased, while now at last the forms of ships could be made out far away. Rapidly approaching each other at the rate of some thirty knots an hour, the head ships of the two fleets were at 7.25 a.m. about nine miles apart. It could be seen that the German ships were in three distinct lines ahead, the starboard or right German line markedly in advance of the others, which were almost abreast. The German lines had wide intervals between them.

In the British ships the ranges were now coming down to the guns from the fire-control stations aloft: “18,000 yards!” “17,000 yards!” “16,000 yards!” “15,000 yards!” “14,000 yards!” followed in quick succession; the sights were quietly adjusted, and the tension of the crews grew almost unendurable. The hoses were all spouting water to wet the decks; every eye was turned upon the enemy. Far away to the south the Bass Rock and the cliffs near Tantallon Castle rose out of a heaving sea, and behind them loomed the upland country south of Dunbar, so famous in Scottish story. To the north showed the rocky coast of Fife. The sun was in the eyes of the British gunners.{92}

The guns of the Vanguard, and, indeed, of all the British battleships, were kept trained upon the leading German. It could now be seen that she was of the “Kaiser” class, and that five others of the same class followed her. Her tier on tier of turrets showed against the sun; the grim brownish-grey hulls produced an impression of resolute force.

In the centre German line appeared to be stationed several ships of the “Braunschweig” and “Deutschland” classes—how many the British officers could not as yet make out, owing to the perfect order of the German line, and the fact that it was approaching on exactly the opposite course to the British Fleet.

The port or left German line was headed by one of the new monster battleships, built to reply to the Dreadnought, and of even greater size and heavier battery than that famous ship. It was, in fact, the Sachsen, flying Admiral Helmann’s flag, armed with twelve of the new pattern 46 ft. long 11-in. guns, twenty-four 4-in. quick-firers, and ten pom-poms.

The monster German battleship could be plainly distinguished by the Eiffel Tower-like structure of her masts, each with its two platforms carried on an elaborate system of light steel girders, which rendered them less liable to be shot away. End-on she showed her four 11-in. turrets, each bristling with a pair of muzzles. She brought two more heavy guns to bear ahead and on the broadside than did the Dreadnought, while her stern fire was incomparably more powerful, delivered from eight 11-in. guns.

It was the completion of two ships of this class that had caused Lord Ebbfleet so much anxiety for his position. Yet there were four of the class in the German line of battle, two of which did not appear in the official lists as ready for sea, but were given out to be only completing.

The range-finders in the fire-control stations in the British flagship were still sending down the distance. “13,000 yards!” “12,000 yards!” and the tension{93} augmented. The centre and port German columns of ships slowed and turned slightly in succession, while the starboard line increased speed and maintained its original course. By this manœuvre the German Fleet looked to be formed in one enormous irregular line, covering four miles of sea.

The numbers of the enemy could at last be counted; the British Fleet of fourteen battleships had twenty-two battleships against it, and of those twenty-two, four were as good ships as the Vanguard. The British Fleet turned a little to starboard to bring its batteries to bear with the best effect, and take advantage, as Lord Ebbfleet intended, of the dispersion of the German formation. “11,000 yards!” “10,000 yards!” came down to the barbettes. The Vanguard fired a 12-pounder, and as the flash was seen both Fleets opened with sighting shots, and the great battle began.{94}

But the German Admiral had anticipated the British move, and as the two fleets closed, replied with a daring and hazardous blow. His irregular line dissolved once more into its elements as the flashes came from every heavy gun that would bear in his twenty-two battleships. The Germans, as they drew abreast of the British Fleet, steaming on an opposite course, broke into three columns in three lines ahead, one of which steered straight for the British rear, one for the centre, and one for the van.

The Vanguard and the other three large battleships with Lord Ebbfleet had increased speed, and moved ahead of their original station till their broadsides bore and they practically belonged the British line. They circled at full battle speed of nineteen knots to pass across the German rear. Sheltering under the lee of the German battleships several destroyers or torpedo-boats could be discerned, and there were other destroyer or torpedo-boat divisions away to the north-east, moving gently apart and aloof from the battle out at sea.

The fire on either side had now become intense and accurate; the range varied from minute to minute, but it constantly fell. The tumult was indescribable. The German third division of six “Kaisers” passed round the rear of the main British division, executing against it the manœuvre of “crossing the T,” but receiving serious injury in the process.{95}

A stunning succession of blows rained upon the Glasgow, the sternmost battleship in the British line, and her excessively thin belt was pierced by three German 9.4-in. shells, one of which burst with dreadful effect inside the citadel, denting the armoured deck, driving bolts and splinters down into the boiler and engine-rooms, and for some instants rendering the ship uncontrollable. A great fire broke out where the shell had burst.

Almost at the same instant the Glasgow’s fore barbette put two shells in succession home just above the upper level of the Zahringen’s armour-belt amidships, and one of these shells bursting, wrecked and brought down the German battleship’s after-funnel, besides putting two of her Schultz boilers out of action. The Zahringen took fire, but the flames were quickly got under; she carried no wood and nothing inflammable.

Dense clouds of smoke from funnels, from bursting shells, from burning ships, began to settle over the water, and the air was acrid with the taint of burnt cordite and nitrous fumes from the German powder. In the twilight of smoke the dim forms of monster ships marched and countermarched, aglow with red flame.

The four “Dreadnoughts” passed round the first German division containing the four battleships of the “Sachsen” class, interchanging with them a terrific fire at about 5000 yards. Each side made many hits, and some damage was done to unarmoured portions of the huge hulls. An 11-in. shell struck the Thunderer’s centre 12-in. barbette, and jammed it for a few minutes; the Vanguard, at the head of the British division, received a concentrated fire, seven 11-in. shells striking her forward of her centre barbette. Several of her armour-plates were cracked; her port anchor gear was shot away, and her fore-funnel much shattered. Her whole structure vibrated under the terrific blows. Splinters swept her fore-bridge, and a hail of small projectiles from the German 40-pounder guns beat upon her conning-tower,{96} rendering control of the battle exceedingly difficult.

The noise and concussion were terrible; the blast of the great 12-in. guns, when they fired ahead, shook the occupants of the tower, and extreme caution was needed to avoid serious injury. Lord Ebbfleet triumphantly achieved the manœuvre of “crossing the T,” or passing across the head of the German line and raking it with all his ships, against the Germans, though the enormous bow-fire of the Sachsen served her well at this point.

But the German Admiral diminished the effectiveness of the manœuvre by turning away a little, and then, when the danger had passed, resuming his original course. The second German division rapidly came up on the port beam of the British main division, its head ships receiving a fearful fire from the British line. Closing upon the first German division, it formed up astern of it into one long line, and attacked the British rear.

Thus the Germans had surrounded the British ten battleships under Sir Louis Parker, and had concentrated against them twenty-two battleships. The fire of this great host of German ships told heavily upon the weak armour of the “Defiance” and “Valiant” classes. The “Sachsens,” at about 4000 yards, put shot after shot from their 11-in. guns into the hull of the Glasgow, the last ship in the British line, and clouds of smoke and tongues of flame leapt up from her. She was now steaming slowly, and in evident distress.

The four “Dreadnoughts” worked to the north of the Germans, maintaining with them a long-range action, and firing with great effect. But seeing the German concentration against the other division of his fleet, Lord Ebbfleet turned and stood towards it, while at the same time Admiral Parker began to turn in succession and move to meet the “Dreadnoughts.” As his line turned, the rearward ships received further injuries.

Outside the armour the structure of many ships on both sides was fast being reduced to a tangle of shattered{97} beams and twisted and rent plating. Most of the smaller guns were out of action, though the 6-in. guns in the casemates of the British ships were still for the most part intact. The Sultan’s 7.5’s were firing with great effect; while the Captain, which headed the British main division, had resisted the battering superbly, and inflicted great injury on the Preussen by her fire. At moments, however, her guns were blanketed by the ships behind her, from the fact that the German columns were well astern. It was to bring his guns to bear as well as to rejoin his Commander-in-Chief that the British Vice-Admiral altered course and steamed south-westward.

The Germans now practised a masterly stroke.

Their third division of six “Kaisers” headed direct for the van of the British line, closing rapidly upon a generally opposite course. At the same time their other two divisions steered to prevent the British ships from making a countermarch and avoiding the charge which was now imminent.

Lord Ebbfleet saw the danger, and increased speed, closing on the “Kaisers,” well astern of them, and plying them with a terrific fire from the three 12-in. turrets which bore ahead in his flagship. Smoke and sparks flew upwards from the Friedrich III., the last ship in the division. Her after-turret was out of action; her after-military mast fell amidst a rain of splinters; her stern sank slightly in the water.

At the same time the “Kaisers” began to catch the full fire of the other British division, and they were doubled upon. The head of their line was being raked by Sir Louis Parker; the Captain put shell after shell into the bows of the Wilhelm II.; her 9.2’s and 12-in. guns played with a steady stream of projectiles upon the German battleship, until, at 2000 yards, the Wilhelm’s upper works appeared to be dissolving in smoke and flame as before some irresistible acid.

The bows of the German battleship sank a little, but she turned, brought her broadside to bear, and the five{98} ships behind her did the same. The range was short; the position favourable for torpedoes; and the six Germans fired, first their bow tubes as they came round, and then twice in quick succession their two broadside tubes at the British line. The thirty torpedoes sped through the sea; the British replied with the two broadside tubes in each ship, as those tubes bore.

There was amidst all the din and turmoil and shooting flame a distinct pause in the battle as the crews of both fleets, or all those who could see what was happening, watched spell-bound the issue of this attack and counter-attack. They had not long to wait. One of the huge German torpedoes caught the Excellent right astern and wrecked her rudder and propellers. Another struck the Sultan almost amidships, inflicting upon her terrible injury, so that she listed heavily. The Wilhelm II. was struck by a British torpedo right on her bows, and as she was already low in the water, began to fill and sink.

The scene at this point was one of appalling horror. One battleship, the Wilhelm II., was sinking fast, with none to rescue her crew; the men were rushing up on deck; the fire from her guns had ceased; she lay on the sea a shattered wreck, riddled with shell, and smoking with the fires which still burnt fiercely amidst the débris of her upper works.

Not far from her lay the Excellent, completely disabled, but still firing. Near the Excellent, again, moving very slowly, and clearly in a sinking condition, but still maintaining gallantly the battle, was the Glasgow, in a dense cloud of smoke caused by the bursting shell from the guns of sixteen enemies and the blazing fires on board.

Making off to the south to beach herself was the Sultan, in lamentable plight, with a heavy list. It was 8.40 a.m., or little more than an hour since the joining of battle, and the German Admiral at this moment signalled that victory was his.

The news was sent by wireless telegraphy to the{99} German cruisers out at sea, and by them transmitted to Emden and Berlin.

At 11 that morning newspapers were selling in the streets of the German capital with the news that the British Fleet was beaten, and that Britain had lost the command of the sea. Five British battleships, it was added, in the brief wireless message, had been already sunk or put out of action.

The First News in Berlin of the
German Victory.

The German lines closed upon the two injured British ships, Exmouth and Glory, showering shells upon them. At once the two British Admirals turned and moved to the rescue, through the clouds of smoke which had settled on the sea, and which were rendering shooting at long range more than ever difficult. Through the smoke German torpedo-boats could be made out on the move, but they did not attempt as yet to close on the intact battleships, and kept well out of the range of the British guns. The first and most powerful German battleship division covered the other German ships in their attack upon the disabled British battleships,{100} and encountered the fire of the eleven British battleships which still remained in action. Meantime the other thirteen German battleships closed to about 1000 yards of the injured British ships. The 11-in. shells from the German turrets at this distance inflicted terrible injury. The German guns were firing three shots in two minutes, and under their fire and the storm of 6-in. and 6.7-in. shells which their smaller guns delivered it was impossible for the British gunners to shoot with any effect. Great explosions occurred on board the Glory; an 11-in. shell struck her fore barbette, where the plating had already been damaged by a previous hit, and, perforating, burst inside with fearful effect, blowing the crew of the barbette to pieces, and sending a blast of fire and gas down into the loading chamber under the barbette, where it exploded a cordite charge. Another shell struck the conning-tower, and disabled or killed all inside it. The funnels fell; both the masts, which were already tottering, came down; the ship lay upon the water a formless, smoking hulk. Yet still her crew fought on, a hopeless battle. Then several heavy shells caught her waterline, as the Germans closed a little, and must have driven in the armour or pierced it. More explosions followed; from the centre of the ship rose a column of smoke and flame and fragments of wreckage; the centre lifted visibly, and the ends dropped into the sea. The Glory parted amidships, and went to the bottom still firing her after barbette in that supreme moment, having proved herself worthy of her proud name. Several German torpedo-boats steamed towards the bubbles in the water, and fell to work to rescue the crew. Others had drawn near the Wilhelm II., and in neither case were they molested by the fire of the British fleet.

A scene as terrible took place on board the Exmouth. To save her was impossible, for only a few brief minutes were needed to complete the torpedo’s work, and no respite was given by the German officers. They poured in a heavy fire from all their guns that remained {101}battle-worthy upon the Exmouth’s barbettes and conning-tower, raining such a shower of projectiles upon the ship that, as in the case of the Glory, it was impossible for the British crew to fight her with effect. Her 7-in. armour did not keep out the German 11-in. projectiles at short range, and the citadel of the ship became a perfect charnel-house.

Amid the tangled steel-work, amid the blaze of the fires which could no longer be kept under, amid the hail of splinters, in the choking fumes of smoke from burning wood and linoleum and exploding shells, officers and men clung manfully to their posts, while under them the hull sank lower and lower in the water. Then the Braunschweig headed in to 500 yards, and at this range fired her bow torpedo at the British ship amidships. The torpedo struck the British battleship and did its dreadful work. Exploding about the base of the after-funnel, it blew in the side, and immediately the British ship listed sharply, showed her deck to her enemy, and with a rattle of objects sliding across the deck and a rush of blue figures, capsized amid a cloud of steam.

While the two disabled battleships were being destroyed, and the Swiftsure was crawling off to the south in the hope of reaching the shore and beaching herself, the fight between the rest of the British Fleet and the German divisions had reached its full intensity. For some minutes, indeed, both fleets had been compelled by the smoke to cease fire, but the heavy thunder of the firing never altogether stopped. The four big German battleships were still seemingly undamaged in any vital respect, though all showed minor injuries. The four British “Dreadnoughts” had stood the stern test as well.

But the other battleships had all suffered grievously. The Duncan and Russell had lost, one both her funnels and the other both her masts, and the speed of the Duncan could scarcely be maintained in consequence. The Montagu had one of her barbettes out of action, and one of the Albemarle’s 12-in. guns had either blown off its muzzle or else had it shot away. The Albemarle{102} had received a shell forward below the waterline, and had a compartment full of water. In the German line the Lothringen was on fire amidships, had lost her fore and centre funnels, and was low in the water, but her heavy guns were still in action. On her the British line now concentrated most of its fire, while the Germans plied with shell the Duncan and Russell. The second and third German divisions used their port batteries against the British main fleet, while their starboard batteries were destroying the Exmouth and Glory.

At this juncture the Duncan fell astern and left the British line, and almost at the same moment the Lothringen quitted the German line. The British Admiral turned all his ships eight points simultaneously, inverting the order of his line, to rescue his injured vessel. To attempt an attack upon the Lothringen would have meant forcing his way through the German line, and with the ever-growing disparity of numbers he did not dare to risk so hazardous a venture. But before he could effect his purpose, the German Admiral closed on the Duncan, and from the Sachsen’s and Grosser Kurfuerst’s 11-in. turrets poured in upon her a broadside of twenty 11-in. shells, which struck her almost simultaneously—the range was now too short for the gunners to miss—and caused fearful slaughter and damage on board her. Two of the projectiles, which were alternately steel shell and capped armour-piercing shell, perforated her side-armour; two more hit her fore barbette; one exploded against the conning-tower; the others hulled her amidships; and when the smoke about her lifted for an instant in a puff of the wind, she was seen to be slowly sinking and motionless. One of her barbettes was still firing, but she was out of the battle and doomed. Four British battleships had gone and two German, though one of these was still afloat and moving slowly off to the north-east, towards two divisions of German destroyers, which waited the moment to close and deal a final blow against the British Fleet.{103}

It was now about 10 a.m., and both fleets drew apart for some minutes. Another German battleship, the Westfalien, quitted the German line, and followed the Lothringen away from the fight. Her two turrets had been jammed temporarily by the British 12-in. shells, while most of her smaller guns had been put out of action by the Agamemnon’s 9.2-in. weapons, which had directed upon her a merciless fire. The Germans could be seen re-forming their divisions, and one of the battleships moved from the second to the first division. With seven battleships in each of these two divisions and five in the third, the Germans once more approached the British line, which had also re-formed, the Agamemnon taking station to the rear. The battle was renewed off Dunbar. Astern of the Germans, now that the smoke had cleared away, could be seen fifteen or twenty torpedo craft. Other destroyer and torpedo divisions were farther away to sea.

The German battleships steamed direct towards the British battleships, repeating the manœuvre which they had employed at the opening of the battle, and forming their two first divisions in one line, which moved upon the port bow of the British, while the other division, the third, advanced against the starboard bow. Both fleets reopened fire, and to avoid passing between the two German lines, Lord Ebbfleet turned towards the main German force, hoping, at even this eleventh hour, to retrieve the fortunes of the disastrous day by the use of his big ships’ batteries. Turning in succession in the attempt to cross his enemy’s bows, his ships received a very heavy fire from both German lines; simultaneously the conning-towers of the Vanguard and the Sachsen were struck by several shells. Two British 12-in. projectiles caught the Sachsen’s tower in succession; the first weakened the structure and probably killed every one inside, among them Admiral Helmann; the second practically demolished it, leaving it a complete wreck.

The blow of the German 11-in. shell upon the Vanguard{104}’s tower was equally fatal. Lord Ebbfleet was killed by a splinter, and his chief-of-the-staff received mortal injuries. Not a man in the tower escaped untouched. The brains of both fleets were paralysed, and the Vanguard steered wildly. The German destroyers saw their opportunity, and rushed in. Four boats came straight at the huge hull of the British flagship from ahead, and before she could be got under control, a torpedo fired from one of them hit her right forward, breaching two compartments and admitting a great quantity of water. Her bows sank in the sea somewhat, but she clung to her place in the line for some minutes, then dropped out, and, in manifest difficulty, headed for the shore, which was close at hand to the south. Another division of four destroyers charged on her, but her great turrets were still intact, and received them with a murderous fire of 12-in. shrapnel.

Two of the six guns made hits and wrecked two boats past recognition; the other four missed the swiftly moving targets, and two boats survived the first discharge and closed, one to port, and one to starboard. Her smaller guns were out of action, or unable to stop the boats with their fire. Both boats discharged two torpedoes; three torpedoes missed, but the fourth struck the flagship under the fore-turret. She took in so much water that she grounded, east of Dunbar, and lay there submerged up to the level of her main deck, and unable to use her big guns lest the concussion should shake her in this position to pieces. The Germans detached the battleship Preussen to wreck her with its fire. With the rest of their fleet they followed the remaining British ships, which were now heading seawards. Admiral Parker had determined to make a vigorous effort to escape to the south-east along the British coast, and surviving, to fight again on a less disastrous day, with the odds more even. Nothing could be achieved with nine ships against eighteen, even though many of the eighteen were much damaged.{105} Moreover, on board some of the British ships ammunition was beginning to run low.

The seventeen German ships formed into a single line and pursued the British, steering a parallel course, the head of the German line somewhat overlapping the head of the British line, so that the four German battleships of the “Sachsen” class could bring their entire fire to bear upon the three remaining “Dreadnoughts.” The other fourteen German battleships pounded the six older and weaker British battleships in the line. The distance between the two fleets was from 4500 to 6000 yards, and the fire of each fleet was slow, as the want of ammunition was beginning to be felt. For nearly five hours the two fleets had fought; it was now 11.30 a.m. Well out to sea, and some distance to leeward of the German battleships, the British captains could discern several German armoured cruisers, which, after having effected hasty repairs and shipped further ammunition from a store-ship in the offing, were closing once more. With them were at least four or five divisions of torpedo craft, shadowing and following the movements of the two fleets, prepared to rush in if a favourable opportunity offered. Both fleets were making about thirteen knots, for the worst damaged of the British battleships were not good for much more.

The fire of the Thunderer’s 12-in. guns, concentrated on the hull of the Sachsen, at last began to produce some effect. The conning-tower had already been wrecked by the Vanguard’s guns, which rendered the control and direction of the ship a matter of great difficulty. Two of her 11-in. turrets were also out of action, jammed by shells or completely disabled. She turned northward out of the German line, about twelve, leaving the Bayern at its head. About the same time the Albemarle signalled that she was in extreme difficulty; a great fire was raging on board her, her funnels were much damaged, both her masts were down, two compartments were full, and but few of her guns could fire. Looking down the British line from the battered{106} afterbridge of the Thunderer, it was evident that other ships were finding difficulty in keeping station. Strange changes and transformations had been worked in their outward appearance. Funnels and cowls were gone, masts had been levelled, heaps of wreckage appeared in place of the trim lines of the grey-painted steel-work. The sea was red with the blood that poured from the scuppers. Great rents gaped everywhere in the unarmoured works.

In the German line the conditions were much the same. Certain ships were dropping from their stations and receding to the rear of the long procession; many of the German battleships had been grievously mauled; all showed evident traces of the British gunners’ handiwork. The huge steel superstructures of the “Deutschland” class were wrecked beyond recognition. The Braunschweig, as the result of receiving a concentrated broadside from the Bellerophon, which caught her near the foot of her foremast, had an immense opening in the hull extending from the fore-turret to the foremast 6.7-in. gun turret, and her fore-funnel and foremast were completely shot away; her conning-tower, with its armoured support, stood up out of the gap, from which poured volumes of smoke and steam. She was clearly in a parlous condition, and only her after-turret still fired.

About 1 p.m. the Albemarle could keep up with the British line no longer. Admiral Parker signalled to her, with extreme difficulty, for most of his signalling appliances were shot away, and his message had to be conveyed by “flag-wagging,” to beach herself if possible on the coast to the south. To have turned with his fleet to protect her would have meant annihilation of the rest of his force. She stood away to the south, and as the rest of the British fleet, now only six ships strong, increased speed to about fifteen knots, two German battleships were seen to follow her, shell her, and then rejoin the German fleet. The remnant of the British fleet, with the Agamemnon at the rear in the{107} place of honour, began slowly to draw out of range, though still to the north the German torpedo craft followed in a sinister manner, and caused the more anxiety because, in view of the large quantity of ammunition that had been expended, and the great damage that had been done to all the smaller guns in the surviving British ships, their attacks would be extremely difficult to resist with success.

About 2 p.m. the German Admiral fired the last shot of the great battle of North Berwick at a range of 10,000 yards.{108}

Meanwhile let us turn to the state of affairs on land. When the intelligence of the invasion was received, Lancashire and Yorkshire were in a state of utter panic.

The first news, which reached Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, and the other great centres of commerce, about four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, was at once discredited.

Everyone declared the story to be a huge hoax. As the people assembled in the places of worship that evening, the amazing rumour was eagerly discussed; and later on, when the Sunday evening crowds promenaded the principal thoroughfares—Briggate in Leeds, Market Street in Manchester, Corporation Street in Birmingham, Cheapside in Barnsley, and the principal streets of Chester, Liverpool, Halifax, Huddersfield, Rochdale, Bolton, and Wigan—wild reports of the dash upon our east coast were upon everyone’s tongue.

There was, however, no authentic news, and the newspapers in the various towns all hesitated to issue special editions—first because it was Sunday night, and secondly because the editors had no desire to spread a wider panic than that already created.

Upon the windows of the Yorkshire Post office in Leeds some of the telegrams were posted and read by large crowds, while the Manchester Courier, in Manchester, and the Birmingham Daily Post, in Birmingham, followed a similar example.

The telegrams were brief and conflicting, some from{109} the London correspondents, and others from the Central News, the Press Association, and the Exchange Telegraph Company. Most of the news, however, in that early stage of the alarm was culled from the exclusive information obtained by the enterprise of the sub-editor of the Weekly Dispatch.

Leeds, the first city in Yorkshire, was the centre of most intense excitement on that hot, stifling Sunday night. The startling report spread like wildfire, first from the office of the Yorkshire Post among the crowds that were idling away their Sunday evening gossiping in Boar Lane, Briggate, and the Hunslett Road, and quickly the whole city from Burton Head to Chapel Town, and from Burmantofts to Armley Park, was in a ferment.

The sun sank with a misty, angry afterglow precursory of rain, and by the time the big clock in the tower of the Royal Exchange showed half-past seven the scene in the main streets was already an animated one. The whole city was agog. The astounding news, carried everywhere by eager, breathless people, had reached to even the remotest suburbs, and thousands of alarmed mill-hands and workers came flocking into town to ascertain the actual truth.

As at Leeds, so all through Lancashire and Yorkshire, Volunteers were assembling in breathless eagerness for the order to mobilise. But there was the same cry of unpreparedness everywhere. The Volunteer battalions of the Manchester Regiment at Patricroft, at Hulme, at Ashton-under-Lyne, at Manchester, and at Oldham; those of the Liverpool Regiment at Prince’s Park, at St. Anne’s, at Shaw Street, at Everton Brow, at Everton Road, and at Southport; those of the Lancashire Fusiliers at Bury, Rochdale, and Salford; the Hallamshire Volunteers at Sheffield; the York and Lancasters at Doncaster; the King’s Own Light Infantry at Wakefield; the battalions of the Yorkshires at Northallerton and Scarborough, that of the East Yorkshires at Beverley, and those of the West Yorkshires at York and Bradford.{110}

In Halifax great crowds assembled around the office of the Yorkshire Daily Observer, at the top of Russell Street, where the news received by telephone from Bradford was being constantly posted up. Huddersfield, with its cloth and woollen factories, was paralysed by the astounding intelligence. The electric trams brought in crowds from Cliff End, Oakes Fartown, Mold Green, and Lockwood, while telephone messages from Dewsbury, Elland, Mirfield, Wyke, Cleckheaton, Overdon, Thornton, and the other towns in the vicinity all spoke of the alarm and excitement that had so suddenly spread over the West Riding.

The mills would shut down. That was prophesied by everyone. And, if so, then before many days wives and families would most certainly be crying for food. Masters and operatives alike recognised the extreme gravity of the situation, and quickly the panic spread to every home throughout that densely populated industrial area.

The city of Bradford was, as may well be imagined, in a state of ferment. In the red, dusky sunset a Union Jack was flying from the staff above Watson’s shop at the corner of Market Street, and the excited throngs, seeing it, cheered lustily. Outside the Bradford Daily Telegraph and the Yorkshire Daily Observer offices the latest intelligence was posted, the streets being blocked by the eager people who had come in by car from Manningham, Heaton, Tyersall, Dudley Hill, Eccleshill, Idle, Thackley, and other places.

Bolton, like the neighbouring towns, was ruled by Manchester, and the masters eagerly went there on Monday to go on ’Change and ascertain the exact situation. They knew, alas! that the alarm must have a disastrous effect upon the cotton trade, and more than one spinner when the astounding news had been told him on the previous night, knew well that he could not possibly meet his engagements, and that only bankruptcy was before him.

In every home, rich and poor, not only in Bolton{112} but out at Farnworth, Kearsley, Over Hulton, Sharples, and Heaton the terrible catastrophe was viewed with abject terror. The mills would eventually close, without a doubt; if Manchester sent forth its mandate, then for the thousands of toilers it meant absolute starvation.

Those not at work assembled in groups in the vicinity of the Town Hall, and in Cheapside, Moor Street, Newport Street, Bridge Street, and the various central thoroughfares, eagerly discussing the situation, while outside Messrs. Tillotson’s, the Evening News office in Mealhouse Lane, the latest telegrams from London and Manchester were posted, being read by a great crowd, which entirely blocked the thoroughfare. The Evening News, with characteristic smartness, was being published hourly, and copies were sold as fast as the great presses could print them, while a special meeting of the Town Council was summoned and met at twelve o’clock to discuss what steps should be taken in case the mills really did close and the great populace were thrown on the town in anger and idleness.

The cotton trade was already feeling the effect of the sudden crisis, for by noon startling reports were reaching Bolton from Manchester of unprecedented scenes on ’Change and of the utter collapse of business.

Most mill-owners were already in Manchester. All who were near enough at once took train—from Southport, Blackpool, Morecambe, and other places—and went on ’Change to learn what was intended. Meanwhile, through the whole of Monday authentic reports of the enemy’s movements in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and East Yorkshire were being printed by the Evening News, each edition increasing the panic in that level-headed, hard-working Lancashire town.

Across at smoky Wigan similar alarm and unrest reigned. On that Monday morning, bright and sunny, everyone re-started work, hoping for the best. Pearson and Knowles’ and the Pemberton Collieries were running full time; Ryland’s mills and Ekersley’s spinning mills were also full up with work, for there was an era of as{113} great a prosperity in Wigan as in Bolton, Rochdale, Oldham, and other Lancashire towns. Never for the past ten years had the cotton and iron industries been so prosperous; yet in one single day—nay, in a few brief hours—the blow had fallen, and trade had become paralysed.

Spy mania was rife everywhere. In Oldham an innocent German, agent of a well-known firm in Chemnitz, while walking along Manchester Street about one o’clock, was detected as a foreigner and compelled to seek protection inside a shop. From Chadderton to Lees, from Royton to Hollinwood, the crisis was on everyone’s lips. Here again was the crucial question: Would the mills close?

Meanwhile, across at Liverpool, the wildest scenes were also taking place on ’Change. News over the wires from London became hourly more alarming, and this, combined with the rumour that German warships were cruising off the Mersey estuary, created a perfect panic in the city. The port was already closed, for the mouth of the river had been blocked by mines; yet the report quickly got abroad that the Germans would send in merchant ships to explode them and enter the Mersey after thus clearing away the deadly obstacles.

Liverpool knew too well the ridiculously weak state of her defences, which had so long been a reproach to the authorities, and if the German ships that had done such damage at Penarth, Cardiff, and Barry were now cruising north, as reported, it seemed quite within the bounds of probability that a demonstration would really be made before Liverpool.

Outside and within the great Exchange the excitement was at fever heat. The Bank Charter was suspended, and the banks had closed with one accord. Upon the “flags” the cotton-brokers were shouting excitedly, and many a ruined man knew that that would be his last appearance there. Every moment over the telephones came news from Manchester, each record more disastrous than the last. Hot, perspiring men{114} who had lived, and lived well, by speculation in cotton for years, surged around the great pediment adorned by its allegorical group of sculpture, and saw each moment their fortunes falling away like ice in the sunshine.

Thus trade in Lancashire—cotton, wool, iron, and corn—was, in the course of one single morning, utterly paralysed, all awaiting the decision of Manchester.

Thousands were already face to face with financial disaster, even in those first moments of the alarm.

The hours passed slowly. What was Manchester doing? Her decision was now awaited with bated breath throughout the whole of Lancashire and Yorkshire.

In Manchester, the Courier, the Daily Mail, and the several other journals kept publishing edition after edition, not only through the day, but also through the night. Presses were running unceasingly, and hour after hour were printed accounts of the calm and orderly way in which the enemy were completing their unopposed landing at Goole, Grimsby, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, King’s Lynn, and on the Blackwater.

Some British destroyers had interfered with the German plans at the latter place, and two German warships had been sunk, the Courier reported. But full details were not yet forthcoming.

There had been a good deal of skirmishing in the neighbourhood of Maldon, and again near Harleston, on the Suffolk border. The town of Grimsby had been half destroyed by fire, and the damage at Hull had been enormous. From a timber-yard there the wind had, it seemed, carried the flames across to the Alexandra Dock, where some stores had ignited and a quantity of valuable shipping in the dock had been destroyed at their moorings. The Paragon station and hotel had also been burned—probably by people of Hull themselves, in order to drive the German commander from his headquarters.

From Newcastle, Gateshead, and Tynemouth came{115} harrowing details of bombardment, and the frightful result of those awful petrol bombs. Fire and destruction had been spread broadcast everywhere.

On the Manchester Exchange on Tuesday there was no longer any reason to doubt the accuracy of Sunday’s report, and the feeling on ’Change became “panicky.” It seemed as though the whole of the ten thousand members had made up their minds to be present. The main entrance in Cross Street was blocked for the greater part of the afternoon, and late comers dodged round to the two entrances in Market Street, and the third in Bank Street, in the hope of squeezing through into the vibrating mass of humanity that filled the floors, the corridors, and the telephone, reading, and writing rooms. The attendants found they had an impossible task set them to make their way to the many lanterns around the vast hall, there to affix the latest messages, recording astounding fluctuations of prices, and now and again some news of the invasion. The master and secretary in the end told the attendants to give up the struggle, and he made his way with difficulty to the topmost balcony, where, above the murmurings of the crowd below, he read the latest bulletins of commercial and general intelligence as they arrived.

But there were no efforts made to do business; and had any of the members felt so inclined, the crush and stress were so great that any attempt to book orders would have ended in failure. In the swaying of the crowd hats were lost and trampled under foot; men whose appearance on ’Change had always been immaculate were to be seen with torn collars and disarranged neckwear. Never before had such a scene been witnessed. Lancashire men had often heard of such a state of things having occurred in the “pit” of the New York Exchange, when wild speculation in cotton was indulged in, but they prided themselves that they were never guilty of such conduct. No matter how the market jumped, they invariably kept their heads, and waited until it assumed its normal condition, and became{116} settled. It had often been said that nothing short of an earthquake would unnerve the Manchester commercial man; those who were responsible for the statement had evidently not turned a thought to a German invasion. That had done it completely.

In the cafés and the hotels, where the master-spinners and the manufacturers had been wont to forgather after high ’Change, there were the usual gatherings, but there was little or no discussion on business matters, except this: there was a common agreement that it would, in present circumstances, be inadvisable to keep the mills running. Work must be, and it was, completely suspended. The shippers, who had the manufacturers under contract to supply certain quantities of goods for transportation to their markets in India, China, and the Colonies, trembled at the very contemplation of the financial losses they would inevitably sustain by the non-delivery of the bales of cloth to their customers abroad; but, on the other hand, they also paid heed to the great danger of the vessels in which the goods were placed falling into the hands of the enemy when at sea. The whole question was full of grim perplexities, and even the most impatient among the shippers and the merchants had to admit that a policy of do-nothing seemed the safest course of procedure.

The chaotic scenes on ’Change in the afternoon were reproduced in the streets in the evening, and the Lord Mayor, towards eight o’clock, fearful of rioting, sent special messengers to the headquarters of three Volunteer corps for assistance in regulating street traffic. The officers in command immediately responded to the call. The 2nd V.B.M.R. took charge of Piccadilly and Market Street; the 4th were stationed in Cross Street and Albert Square; and the 5th lined Deansgate from St. Mary’s Gate to Peter Street. Mounted constabulary, by the exercise of tact and good temper, kept the crowds on the move, and towards midnight the pressure became so light that the officers felt perfectly{117} justified in withdrawing the Volunteers, who spent that night at their respective headquarters.

It was Wednesday, however, before Manchester people could thoroughly realise that the distressing news was absolutely true, and on the top of the confirmation came the startling report that the Fleet had been crippled, and immense troops of Germans were landing at Hull, Lowestoft, Yarmouth, Goole, and other places on the east, with the object of sweeping the country.{118}

The authentic account of a further landing in Essex—somewhere near Maldon—was now published. The statement had been dictated by Mr. Henry Alexander, J.P.,—the Mayor of Maldon, who had succeeded in escaping from the town,—to Captain Wilfred Quare, of the Intelligence Department of the War Office. This Department had, in turn, given it to the newspapers for publication.

It read as follows:—

“On Sunday morning, September 2, I had arranged to play a round of golf with my friend Somers, of Beeleigh, before church. I met him at the Golf Hut about 8.30. We played one round, and were at the last hole but three in a second round when we both thought we heard the sound of shots fired somewhere in the town. We couldn’t make anything at all of it, and as we had so nearly finished the round, we thought we would do so before going up to inquire about it. I was making my approach to the final hole when an exclamation from Somers spoilt my stroke. I felt annoyed, but as I looked round—doubtless somewhat irritably—my eyes turned in the direction in which I now saw my friend was pointing with every expression of astonishment in his countenance.

“ ‘Who on earth are those fellows?’ he asked. As for me, I was too dumbfounded to reply. Galloping over the links from the direction of the town came three{119} men in uniform—soldiers, evidently. I had often been in Germany, and recognised the squat pickel-haubes and general get-up of the rapidly approaching horsemen at a glance.

“ ‘I didn’t know the Yeomanry were out!’ was what my friend said.

“ ‘Yeomanry be hanged! They’re Germans, or I’m a Dutchman!’ I answered; ‘and what the dickens can they be doing here?’

“They were upon us almost as I spoke, pulling up their horses with a great spattering up of grass and mud, quite ruining one of our best greens. All three of them pointed big, ugly repeating pistols at us, and the leader, a conceited-looking ass in staff uniform, required us to ‘surrender’ in quite a pompous manner, but in very good English.

“ ‘Do we look so very dangerous, Herr Lieutenant?’ inquired I in German.

“He dropped a little of his frills when he heard me speak in his native language, asked which of us was the Mayor, and condescended to explain that I was required in Maldon by the officer at present in command of His Imperial Majesty the Kaiser’s forces occupying that place.

“I was absolutely staggered.

“When I left my house a couple of hours back I had just as much expectation of finding the Chinese there on my return as the Germans. I looked at my captor in complete bewilderment. Could he be some fellow trying to take a rise out of me by masquerading as a German officer? But no, I recognised at once that he was the genuine article. Everything about him, from the badly-cut riding-boots to the sprouting moustache curled up in feeble imitation of the Emperor’s characteristic adornment, bore witness to his identity. If anything were wanting, it was supplied by his aggressive manner.

“I suggested that he might point his pistol some other way. I added that if he wanted to try his skill{120} as marksman it would be more sporting to aim at the flag at the Long Hole near Beeleigh Lock.

“He took my banter in good part, but demanded my parole, which I made no difficulty about giving, since I did not see any way of escape, and in any case was only too anxious to get back to town to see how things were.

“ ‘But you don’t want my friend, do you—he lives out the other way?’ I queried.

“ ‘I don’t want him, but he will have to come all the same,’ rejoined the German. ‘It isn’t likely we’re going to let him get away to give the alarm in Colchester, is it?’

“Obviously it was not, and without more ado we started off at a sharp walk, holding on to the stirrup leathers of the horsemen.

“As we entered the town there was, on the bridge over the river, a small picket of blue-coated German infantry. The whole thing was a perfect nightmare. It was past belief.

“ ‘How on earth did you get here?’ I couldn’t help asking. ‘Did you come down from town in an excursion train or by balloon?’

“My German officer laughed.

“ ‘By water,’ he answered shortly, pointing down the river as he spoke, where I was still further astonished—if it were possible after such a morning—to see several steam pinnaces and boats flying the black and white German ensign.

“I was conducted straight to the Moot Hall. He already knew his way about, this German, it seemed. There I found a grizzled veteran waiting on the steps, who turned round and entered the building as we came up. We followed him inside, and I was introduced to him. He appeared to be a truculent old ruffian.

“ ‘Well, Mr. Mayor,’ he said, pulling viciously at his white moustache, ‘do you know that I’ve a great mind to take you out into the street and have you shot?’

“I was not at all inclined to be browbeaten.{121}

“ ‘Indeed, Herr Hauptman?’ I answered. ‘And may I inquire in what way I have incurred the displeasure of the Hochwohlgeboren officer?’

“ ‘Don’t trifle with me, sir. Why do you allow your miserable Volunteers to come out and shoot my men?’

“ ‘My Volunteers? I am afraid I don’t understand what you mean,’ I said. ‘I’m not a Volunteer officer. Even if I were, I should have no cognisance of anything that has happened within the last two hours, as I have been down on the golf course. This officer will bear me out,’ I added, turning to my captor. He admitted that he had found me there.

“ ‘But, anyway, you are the Mayor,’ persisted my interrogator. ‘Why did you allow the Volunteers to come out?’

“ ‘If you had been good enough to inform us of your visit, we might have made better arrangements,’ I answered, ‘but in any case you must understand that a mayor has little or no authority in this country. His job is to head subscription-lists, eat a dinner or two, and make speeches on public occasions.’

“He seemed to have some difficulty in swallowing this, but as another officer who was there, writing at a table, and who, it appears, had lived at some period in England, corroborated my statement, the choleric colonel seemed to be a little mollified, and contented himself with demanding my parole not to leave Maldon until he had reported the matter to the General for decision. I gave it without more ado, and then asked if he would be good enough to tell me what had happened. From what he told me, and what I heard afterwards, it seems that the Germans must have landed a few of their men about half an hour before I left home, down near the Marine Lake. They had not entered the town at once, as their object was to work round outside and occupy all the entrances, to prevent anyone getting away with the news of their presence. They had not noticed the little lane leading to the golf course, and so I had gone{122} down without meeting any of them, although they had actually got a picket just beyond the railway arch at that time. They had completed their cordon before there was any general alarm in the town, but at the first reliable rumour it seems that young Shand, of the Essex Volunteers, had contrived to get together twenty or thirty of his men in their uniforms and foolishly opened fire on a German picket down by St. Mary’s Church. They fell back, but were almost instantly reinforced by a whole company that had just landed, and our men, rushing forward, had been ridden into by some cavalry that came up a side street. They were dispersed, a couple of them were killed and several wounded, among them poor Shand, who was hit in the right lung. They had bagged four Germans, however, and their commanding officer was furious. It was a pity that it happened, as it could not possibly have been of any use. But it seems that Shand had no idea that it was more than a very small detachment that had landed from a gunboat that someone said they had seen down the river. Some of the Volunteers were captured afterwards and sent off as prisoners, and the Germans posted up a notice that all Volunteers were forthwith to surrender either themselves or their arms and uniforms, under pain of death. Most of them did the latter. They could do nothing after it was found that the Germans had a perfect army somewhere between Maldon and the sea, and were pouring troops into the town as fast as they could.

“That very morning a Saxon rifle battalion arrived from the direction of Mundon, and just afterwards a lot of spike-helmeted gentlemen came in by train from Wickford way. So it went on all day, until the whole town was in a perfect uproar. Another rifle battalion, then some sky-blue hussars and some artillery, then three more battalions of a regiment called the 101st Grenadiers, I believe. The infantry were billeted in the town, but the cavalry and guns crossed the river and canal at Heybridge, and went off in the direction{123} of Witham. Later on, another infantry regiment came in by train and marched out after them.

“Maldon is built on a hill that slopes gradually towards the east and south, but rises somewhat abruptly on the west and north, humping up a shoulder, as it were, to the north-west. At this corner they started to dig entrenchments just after one o’clock, and soon officers and orderlies were busy all round the town, plotting, measuring, and setting up marks of one kind and another. Other troops appeared to be busy down in Heybridge, but what they were doing I could not tell, as no one was allowed to cross the bridge over the river.

“The German officer who had surprised me down on the golf course did not turn out to be a bad kind of youth on further acquaintance. He was a Captain von Hildebrandt, of the Guard Fusilier Regiment, who was employed on the Staff, though in what capacity he did not say. Thinking it was just as well to make the best of a bad job, I invited him to lunch. He said he had to be off. He, however, introduced me to three friends of his in the 101st Grenadiers, who, he suggested, should be billeted on me. I thought the idea a fairly good one, and Von Hildebrandt, having apparently arranged this with the billeting officer without any difficulty, I took them home with me to lunch.

“I found my wife and family in a great state of mind, both on account of the untoward happenings of the morning and my non-return from golf at the expected time. They had imagined all sorts of things which might have befallen me, but luckily seemed not to have heard of my adventure with the choleric colonel. Our three foreigners soon made themselves very much at home, but as they were undeniably gentlemen, they contrived to be about as agreeable as could be expected under the circumstances. Indeed, their presence was to a great extent a safeguard against annoyance, as the stable and back premises were stuffed full of soldiers, who might have been very troublesome had they not been there to keep them in order.{124}

“Of what was happening up in London we knew nothing. Being Sunday, all the shops were shut; but I went out and contrived to lay in a considerable stock of provisions one way and another, and it was just as well I did, for I only just anticipated the Germans, who commandeered everything in the town and put everybody on an allowance of rations. They paid for them with bills on the British Government, which were by no means acceptable to the shopkeepers. However, it was ‘Hobson’s choice’—that or nothing. The Germans soothed them by saying that the British Army would be smashed in a couple of weeks, and the defrayment of such bills would be among the conditions of peace. The troops generally seemed to be well-behaved, and treated those inhabitants with whom they came in contact in an unexceptionable manner. They did not see very much of them, however, as they were kept hard at work all day with their entrenchments and were not allowed out of their billets after eight o’clock that evening. No one, in fact, was allowed to be about the streets after that hour. On the other hand, a couple of poor young fellows in the Volunteers who had concealed their connection with the force and were trying to slip out of the town with their rifles after dark, were caught, and the next morning stood up against the three-cornered tower of All Saints’ Church and shot without mercy. Two or three other people were shot by the sentries as they tried to break out in one direction or the other. These affairs produced a feeling of horror and indignation in the town, as Englishmen, having such a long experience of peace in their own country, have always refused to realise what war really means.

“The German fortifications went on at a rapid rate. Trenches were dug all round the northern and western sides of the town before dark on the first evening, and the following morning I woke up to find three huge gun-pits yawning in my garden, which looked to the northward. One was right in the middle of the lawn—or rather of where the lawn had been, for all the grass{125} that had not been displaced in the digging had been cut up in sods to build up the insides of their parapets. During breakfast there was a great rattling and rumbling in the street without, and presently three big field howitzers were dragged in and planted in the pits. There they stood, their ugly snouts pointing skyward in the midst of the wreck of flowers and fruit.

“Afterwards I went out and found that other guns and howitzers were being put in position all along the north side of Beeleigh Road, and round the corner by the Old Barracks. The high tower of the disused Church of St. Peter’s, now utilised for the safe custody of Dr. Plume’s library, had been equipped as a lookout and signal station.”

Such was the condition of affairs in the town of Maldon on Monday morning.

The excitement in London, and indeed all over the country, on Tuesday night was intense. Scotney’s story of the landing at Weybourne was eagerly read everywhere.

As the sun sank blood-red into the smoke haze behind Nelson’s Monument in Trafalgar Square, it was an ominous sign to the panic-stricken crowds that day and night were now assembled there.

The bronze lions facing the four points of the compass were now mere mocking emblems of England’s departed greatness. The mobilisation muddle was known; for, according to the papers, hardly any troops had, as yet, assembled at their places of concentration. The whole of the East of England was helplessly in the invader’s hands. From Newcastle had come terrible reports of the bombardment. Half the city was in flames, the Elswick works were held by the enemy, and whole streets in Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, and Tynemouth were still burning fiercely.

The Tynemouth fort had proved of little or no use against the enemy’s guns. The Germans had, it appeared,{126} used petrol bombs with appalling results, spreading fire, disaster, and death everywhere. The inhabitants, compelled to fly with only the clothes they wore, had scattered all over Northumberland and Durham, while the enemy had seized a quantity of valuable shipping that had been in the Tyne, hoisted the German flag, and converted the vessels to their own uses.

Many had already been sent across to Wilhelmshaven, Emden, Bremerhaven, and other places to act as transports, while the Elswick works—which surely ought to have been properly protected—supplied the Germans with quantities of valuable material.

Panic and confusion were everywhere. All over the country the railway system was utterly disorganised, business everywhere was at a complete deadlock, for in every town and city all over the kingdom the banks were closed.

Lombard Street, Lothbury, and other banking centres in the City had all day on Monday been the scene of absolute panic. There, as well as at every branch bank all over the metropolis, had occurred a wild rush to withdraw deposits by people who foresaw disaster. Many, indeed, intended to fly with their families away from the country.

The price of the necessities of life had risen further, and in the East End and poorer districts of Southwark the whole population were already in a state of semi-starvation. But worst of all, the awful truth with which London was now face to face was that the metropolis was absolutely defenceless.

Would not some effort be made to repel the invaders? Surely if we had lost our command of the sea the War Office could, by some means, assemble sufficient men to at least protect London? This was the cry of the wild, turbulent crowd surging through the City and West End, as the blood-red sun sank into the west, flooding London in its warm afterglow—a light in the sky that was prophetic of red ruin and of death to those wildly excited millions.{127}

FACSIMILE OF A PROCLAMATION POSTED BY UNKNOWN
HANDS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY.{128}

Every hour the papers were appearing with fresh details of the invasion, for reports were so rapidly coming in from every hand that the Press had difficulty in dealing with them.

Hull and Goole were known to be in the hands of the invaders, and Grimsby, where the Mayor had been unable to pay the indemnity demanded, had been sacked. But details were not yet forthcoming.

Londoners, however, learnt late that night more authentic news from the invaded zone, of which Beccles was the centre, and it was to the effect that those who had landed at Lowestoft were the IXth German Army Corps, with General von Kronhelm, the Generalissimo of the German Army. This Army Corps, consisting of about 40,000 men, was divided into the 17th Division, commanded by Lieutenant-General Hocker, and the 18th by Lieutenant-General von Rauch. The cavalry was under the command of Major-General von Heyden, and the motor infantry under Colonel Reichardt.

According to official information which had reached the War Office and been given to the Press, the 17th Division was made up of the Bremen and Hamburg Infantry Regiments, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg’s Grenadiers, the Grand Duke’s Fusiliers, the Lübeck Regiment No. 162, the Schleswig-Holstein Regiment No. 163, while the cavalry brigade consisted of the 17th and 18th Grand Duke of Mecklenburg’s Dragoons.

The 18th Division consisted of the Schleswig Regiment No. 84, and the Schleswig Fusiliers No. 86, the Thuringen Regiment, and the Duke of Holstein’s Regiment, the two latter regiments being billeted in Lowestoft, while the cavalry brigade forming the screen across from Leiston by Wilby to Castle Hill were Queen Wilhelmina’s Hanover Hussars and the Emperor of Austria’s Schleswig-Holstein Hussars No. 16. These, with the smart motor infantry, held every communication in the direction of London.

As far as could be gathered, the German commander had established his headquarters in Beccles, and had{129} not moved. It now became apparent that the telegraph cables between the East Coast and Holland and Germany, already described in the first chapter, had never been cut at all. They had simply been held by the enemy’s advance agents until the landing had been effected. And now Von Kronhelm had actually established direct communication between Beccles and Emden, and on to Berlin.

Reports from the North Sea spoke of the enemy’s transports returning to the German coast, escorted by cruisers; therefore the plan was undoubtedly not to move until a very much larger force had been landed.

Could England regain her command of the sea in time to prevent the completion of the blow?

The Eastminster Gazette, and similar papers of the Blue Water School, assured the public that there was but very little danger. Germany had made a false move, and would, in the course of a few days, be made to pay very dearly for it.

But the British public viewed the situation for itself. It was tired of these self-satisfied reassurances, and threw the blame upon the political party who had so often said that armed hostilities had been abolished in the twentieth century. Recollecting the Czar’s proposals for universal peace, and the Russo-Japanese sequel, they had no further faith in the pro-German party or in its organs. It was they, cried the orators in the streets, that had prevented the critics having a hearing; they who were culpably responsible for the inefficient state of our defences; they who had ridiculed clever men, the soldiers, sailors, and writers who had dared to tell the plain, honest, but unpalatable truth.

We were at war, and if we were not careful the war would spell ruin for our dear old England.

That night the London streets presented a scene of panic indescribable. The theatres opened, but closed their doors again, as nobody would see plays while in that excited state. Every shop was closed, and every railway station was filled to overflowing with the exodus{130} of terrified people fleeing to the country westward, or reserves on their way to join the colours.

The incredulous manner in which the country first received the news had now been succeeded by wild terror and despair. On that bright Sunday afternoon they laughed at the report as a mere journalistic sensation, but ere the sun set the hard, terrible truth was forced upon them, and now, on Tuesday night, the whole country, from Brighton to Carlisle, from Yarmouth to Aberystwyth, was utterly disorganised and in a state of terrified anxiety.

The Eastern counties were already beneath the iron heel of the invader, whose objective was the world’s great capital—London.

Would they reach it? That was the serious question upon everyone’s tongue that fevered, breathless night.{131}

The morning of Wednesday, September 5, dawned brightly, with warm sun and cloudless sky, a perfect day of English early autumn, yet over the land was a gloom and depression—the silence of a great terror. The fate of the greatest nation the world had ever known was now trembling in the balance.

When the first flush of dawn showed, the public clamoured for information as to what the War Office were doing to repel the audacious Teutons. Was London to be left at their mercy without a shot being fired? Was the whole of our military machinery a mere gold-braided farce?

Londoners expected that, ere this, British troops would have faced the foe, and displayed that dogged courage and grand heroism that had kept their reputation through centuries as the best soldiers in the world.

The Press, too, were loud in their demands that something should at once be done, but the authorities still remained silent, although they were in ceaseless activity.

They were making the best they could out of the mobilisation muddle.

So suddenly had the blow been struck that no preparation had been made for it. Although the printed forms and broadsides were, of course, in their dusty pigeon-holes ready to be filled up, yet where were the men? Many had read the proclamation which called them up for duty with their own corps, and in numberless cases, with commendable alacrity, they set out on a{132} long and tiresome journey to join their respective units, which were stationed, as is the case in peace-time, all over the country.

A sturdy Scot, working in Whitechapel, was endeavouring to work his way up to Edinburgh; a broad-speaking Lancastrian from Oldham was struggling to get to his regiment down at Plymouth; while an easygoing Irishman, who had conducted an omnibus in London, gaily left for the Curragh, were a few examples of the hopeless confusion now in progress.

With the disorganised train and postal services, and with the railway line cut in various places by the enemy, how was it possible for these men to carry out the orders they received?

Meanwhile, the greatest activity was in progress in the regimental depôts in the Eastern counties, Norwich, Bury St. Edmunds, Bedford, Warley, Northampton, and Mill Hill. In London, at Wellington Barracks, Chelsea Barracks, and the Tower of London, were witnessed many stirring scenes. Veterans were rejoining, greeting their old comrades—many of whom had now become non-commissioned officers since they themselves left the ranks—while excited crowds pressed round the barrack squares, wildly cheering, and singing “God save the King.”

There was bustle and movement on every hand, for the sight of English uniforms aroused the patriotic enthusiasm of the mob, who, having never been trained to arms themselves, now realised their own incompetency to defend their homes and loved ones.

Farther afield in the Home counties, the Regimental depôts at Guildford, Canterbury, Hounslow, Kingston, Chichester, and Maidstone were filling up quickly with surplus infantry, reservists, and non-efficients of all descriptions. At Guildford the Royal West Surrey Regiment were at Stoughton; at Canterbury were the old “Buffs”; at Hounslow the Royal Fusiliers; at Kingston the East Surrey Regiment; at Chichester the Royal Sussex, and at Maidstone the Royal West Kent.{133}

Cavalry were assembling at the riding establishments, while veteran gunners and Army Service Corps men were making the best of their way by steamer, rail, and road to Woolwich.

Horses for both cavalry and artillery were urgently required, but owing to the substitution of the motor-omnibus for the horse-drawn vehicle in the London streets, there was no longer that supply of animals which held us in such good stead during the South African War.

At the depôts feverish excitement prevailed, now that every man was ordered on active service. All officers and men who had been on leave were recalled, and medical inspection of all ranks at once commenced. Rations and bedding, stores and equipment were drawn, but there was a great lack of uniforms. Unlike the German Army, where every soldier’s equipment is complete even to the last button on the proverbial gaiter, and stowed away where the owner knows where to obtain it, our officers commanding depôts commenced indenting for clothing on the Royal Army Clothing Department, and the Army Corps Clothing Department.

A large percentage of men were, of course, found medically unfit to serve, and were discharged to swell the mobs of hungry idlers. The plain clothes of the reservists coming in were disposed of, no man daring to appear in the ranks unless in uniform, Von Kronhelm’s proclamation having forbidden the tactics of the Boers of putting mere armed citizens into the field.

Horse-collecting parties went out all over the country, taking with them head-collars, head-ropes, bits, reins, surcingles, numnahs, horse-blankets, and nose-bags. These scoured every county in search of likely animals. Every farm, every livery stable, every hunting-box, all hound-kennels, and private stables were visited, and a choice made. All this, however, took time. Precious hours were thus being wasted while the enemy were calmly completing their arrangements for the long-contemplated blow at the heart of the British Empire.

While the War Office refused any information,{134} special editions of the papers during Wednesday printed sensational reports of the ruthless completion of the impenetrable screen covering the operations of the enemy on the whole of the East Coast.

News had, by some means, filtered through from Yarmouth that a similar landing to those at Lowestoft and Weybourne had been effected. Protected as such an operation was, by its flanks being supported by the IVth and IXth Army Corps landing on either side, the Xth Army Corps under General von Wilburg had seized Yarmouth, with its many miles of wharves and docks, which were now crowded by the lighters’ craft of flotilla from the Frisian Islands.

It was known that the landing had been effected simultaneously with that at Lowestoft. The large number of cranes at the fish-docks were of invaluable use to the enemy, for there they landed guns, animals, and stores, while the provisions they found at the various ship’s chandlers, and in such shops as Blagg’s and the International Stores in King Street, Peter Brown’s, Doughty’s, Lipton’s, Penny’s, and Barnes’s, were at once commandeered. Great stores of flour were seized in Clarke’s and Press’s mills, while the horse-provender mills in the vicinity supplied them with valuable forage.

The hotels in the Market Place—the Bull, the Angel, the Cambridge, and Foulsham’s—were full of men billeted, while officers occupied the Star, the Crown and Anchor, and Cromwell House, as well as the Queen’s opposite the Britannia Pier, and the many boarding-houses along Marine Parade. And over all the effigy of Nelson looked down in silent contemplation!

Many men, it appeared, had also been landed at the red-brick little port of Gorleston, the Cliff and Pier Hotels being also occupied by officers remaining there to superintend the landing on that side of the Yare estuary.

Beyond these few details, as far as regarded the fate of Yarmouth nothing further was at present known.

The British division at Colchester, which comprised{135} all the regular troops north of the Thames in the eastern command, was, no doubt, in a critical position, threatened so closely north and south by the enemy. None of the regiments, the Norfolks, the Leicestershire, and the King’s Own Scottish Borderers of the 11th Infantry Brigade, were up to their strength. The 12th Infantry Brigade, which also belonged to the division, possessed only skeleton regiments stationed at Hounslow and Warley. Of the 4th Cavalry Brigade, some were at Norwich, the 21st Lancers were at Hounslow, while only the 16th Lancers were at Colchester. Other cavalry regiments were as far away as Canterbury, Shorncliffe, and Brighton, and although there were three batteries of artillery at Colchester, some were at Ipswich, others at Shorncliffe, and others at Woolwich.

Therefore it was quite evident to the authorities in London that unless both Colchester and Norwich were instantly strongly supported, they would soon be simply swept out of existence by the enormous masses of German troops now dominating the whole eastern coast, bent upon occupying London.

Helpless though they felt themselves to be, the garrison at Colchester did all they could. All available cavalry had been pushed out past Ipswich, north to Wickham Market, Stowmarket, and across to Bury St. Edmunds, only to find on Wednesday morning that they were covering the hasty retreat of the small body of cavalry who had been stationed at Norwich. They, gallantly led by their officers, had done everything possible to reconnoitre and attempt to pierce the enemy’s huge cavalry screen, but in every instance entirely in vain. They had been outnumbered by the squadrons of independent cavalry operating in front of the Germans, and had, alas! left numbers of their gallant comrades upon the roads, killed and wounded.

Norwich had, therefore, on Wednesday morning, fallen into the hands of the German cavalry, utterly defenceless. Reports of the retiring troopers told a grim story of how the grand old city had fallen. From{136}

APPEAL ISSUED BY THE MAYOR OF NORWICH.{137}

the Castle the German flag was now flying, the Britannia Barracks were being used by the enemy, food had all been seized, the streets were in a state of chaos, and a complete reign of terror had been created when a company of British infantry, having fired at some Uhlans, were ruthlessly shot down in the street close by the Maid’s Head Hotel.

An attempt at a barricade had been erected at the top of Prince of Wales’s Road, but the enemy, who came down the Aylsham Road, had soon cleared it. Many motor cars were seized from Howe’s garage, and the Norfolk Imperial Yeomanry, who were assembled at their headquarters in Tombland, were quickly discovered, disarmed, and dispersed. Green & Wright’s wholesale provision stores in Upper King Street, as well as Chandler’s in Prince of Wales’s Road, Wood’s in London Street, and many other grocers and provision-dealers were seized, the telegraph lines at the post-office were taken over by Germans, while, by reason of a shot fired from a window upon a German soldier who was passing, the whole block of buildings from the East Anglia Daily Press office, with Singer’s and the railway receiving office, was deliberately set on fire, and produced an alarming state of things.

In addition to this, the Mayor of Norwich was taken prisoner, lodged in the Castle, and held as surety for the well-behaviour of the town.

Everywhere Von Kronhelm’s famous proclamation was posted, and as the invaders poured into the city the inhabitants looked on in sullen silence, knowing that they were now under German military discipline, the most rigorous and drastic in the whole world.

The nation had, unfortunately, passed by unheeded the serious warnings of 1905-6. The authorities had remained impotent, and Mr. Haldane’s Army Scheme had proved useless. The War Office had only one power within it, that of the man who represented the Cabinet. The rest were mere instruments.

There were many reports of sharp brushes between{138} our cavalry vedettes and those of the enemy. The latter belonged to the corps who had established their headquarters in Maldon, and among those killed was an officer named Von Pabst, who was a prisoner, and who was shot while escaping, and in whose pocket was found a letter addressed to a friend, a certain Captain Neuhaus, of Lothringen Pioneer Battalion, stationed at Darmstadt.

It was interesting, for it threw some light upon the manner that particular corps of the invaders had embarked at Antwerp, and had apparently been hurriedly written in the intervals of the writer’s duties with Prince Henry of Würtemburg’s staff. Having been secured, it was sent to London, and was as follows:—

“Maldon, England,
“Wednesday, September 5.

“My dear Neuhaus,—Behold me, here at last in the ‘tight little island,’ by the English so greatly boasted! So far, we have had absolutely our own way, and have hardly seen an enemy. But you will be glad to have some account of my experience in this never-to-be-forgotten expedition. I was, of course, overjoyed to find myself appointed to the staff of His Highness Prince Henry of Würtemburg, and having obtained leave to quit my garrison, started for Treves without a moment’s delay. Our troops were to enter Belgium ostensibly to quell the riots in Brussels. But the line was so continually blocked by troop-trains going west, that on arrival I found that he had gone with his army corps to Antwerp. There at last I was able to report myself—only just in time. My train got in at noon, and we sailed the same night.

“Antwerp might have been a German city. It was simply crammed with our troops. The Parc, the Pépinière, the Jardin Zoologique, the Parc du Palais de l’Industrie, the Boulevards, and every open space, was utilised as a bivouac. Prince Henry had his quarters in a very nice house on the Place Vert, opposite{139} the Cathedral, and in the Place itself were picketed the horses belonging to the squadron of Jäegers zu Pferde, attached to the XIIth Corps. I rode round with the Prince in the afternoon, and saw the various regiments in the bivouacs, and the green-coated artillery, and the train in their sky-blue tunics hard at work all along the quays, getting their guns and waggons on board. The larger steamers lay two and three moored abreast alongside the quays, and astern of each a dozen flats or barges in two lots of six, each lashed together with a planked gangway leading to the outer ones. More barges, and the Rhine and other river steamers, and tugs to tow the lighters, lay outside in midstream. How all this had been arranged in the short time that had elapsed is more than I can imagine. Of course, our people had taken good care that no news should reach England by any of the many telegraph routes; the arrangements for that were most elaborate. There was no appearance of enthusiasm among the men. The gunners were too busy, and the infantry and cavalry destined for the expedition were not allowed to leave their bivouacs, and did not know that they were in for a sea voyage. The Belgian troops have all been disarmed and encamped on the other side of the river, between the older fortifications known as the Tête de Flandre and the outer lines. The populace for the most part have a sulky appearance, but as there is a very large German colony we found plenty of friends. The Burgomaster himself is a Bavarian, and most of the Councillors are also Germans, so that in the evening Prince Henry and his staff were entertained right royally at the Hôtel de Ville. I assure you, my friend, that I did justice to the civic hospitality. But the banquet was all too short.

“At eight o’clock we had to be on board. The steamer told off for us was the Dresden, which, with many other British vessels, had been commandeered that day. She lay alongside the pontoon, near the Steen Museum. As soon as she cast off, a gun was{140} fired from the Citadel, followed by three rockets, which shot up into the darkness from the Tête de Flandre. This was the signal for the flotilla to start, and in succession one steamer after another slid out into the stream from the shadows of the quays, and, followed by her train of tugs and barges, began to glide down the Scheldt. Our arrangements had been perfected, and everything went without a hitch.

“The Dresden went dead slow along under the farther bank for a time, and we watched the head of the procession of transports pass down the river. It was an inspiring sight to see the densely-packed steamers and barges carrying their thousands of stout German hearts on their way to humble the pride of overbearing and threatening Albion. It brought to mind the highly prophetic utterance of our Emperor: ‘Our Future lies on the Water.’ The whole flotilla was off Flushing shortly before midnight, and after forming in four parallel columns, stood away to the north-west. It was a quiet night, not very dark, and the surface of the water, a shining, grey sheet, was visible for a considerable distance from the ship. The steamers carried the usual steaming lights, and the barges and lighters white lights at bow and stern. The scuttles were all screened, so that no other lights might confuse those who were responsible for the safe conduct of the armada. I had no inclination to turn in.

“The general excitement of the occasion, the fascination I found in watching the dim shades of the swarm of craft on all sides, the lines of red, white, and green lights slowly moving side by side with their flickering reflections in the gently-heaving waters, held me spellbound and wakeful as I leaned over the taffrail. Most of my comrades on the staff remained on deck, also muffled in their long cloaks, and talking for the most part in undertones. Prince Henry paced the bridge with the officer in command of the vessel. All of us, I think, were impressed with the magnitude of the venture on which our Fatherland had embarked,{141}

{142}

and although we felt that things had been so carefully thought out and so splendidly arranged that the chances were almost all in our favour, yet we could not but wonder what would be the end of it all. As Von der Bendt—whom you will doubtless remember when he was in the 3rd Horse Grenadiers at Bromberg, and who is also on the Prince’s staff—said that night as he walked the deck, ‘Where would we be if, despite our precautions, the English had contrived to get wind of our intentions, and half a dozen destroyers came tearing up out of the darkness, and in among our flotilla? Our own particular future would then probably lie under the water instead of on it.’ I laughed at his croakings, but I confess I looked rather more intently at our somewhat limited horizon.

“About two in the morning the moon rose. Her light was but fitful and partial on account of a very cloudy sky, but I received rather a shock when her first rays revealed a long grey line of warships with all lights out, and with the darker forms of their attendant destroyers moving on their flanks, slowly crossing our course at right angles. As it turned out, they were only our own escorts, ordered to meet us at this point, and to convoy us and the other portions of the XIIth Corps, which were coming out from Rotterdam and other Dutch ports to join us. In a few minutes after meeting the ironclads, a galaxy of sparkling points of light approaching from the northward heralded their arrival, and by three o’clock the whole fleet was steaming due west in many parallel lines. Four battleships moved in line ahead on each flank, the destroyers seemed to be constantly coming and going in all directions, like dogs shepherding a flock of sheep, and I fancy there were several other men-o’-war ahead of us. The crossing proved entirely uneventful. We saw nothing of the much-to-be-dreaded British warships, nor indeed of any ships at all, with the exception of a few fishing-boats and the Harwich-Antwerp boat, which, ablaze with lights, ran through the rear portion of our flotilla, luckily{143} without colliding with any of our flats or lighters. What her crew and passengers must have thought of meeting such an array of shipping in mid-Channel can only be surmised. In any case, it was of no consequence, for by the time they arrived in Antwerp all our cards would be on the table.

“Towards morning I got very drowsy, and eventually fell asleep on a bench behind the after deck-house. I seemed hardly to have closed my eyes when Von der Bendt woke me up to inform me that land was in sight. It was just dawn. A wan light was creeping up out of the east, bringing with it a cold air that made one shiver. There was but little light in the west, but there right ahead a long black line was just discernible on the horizon. It was England!

“Our half of the fleet now altered course a few points to the southward, the remainder taking a more northerly course, and by five o’clock we were passing the Swin Lightship, and stood in the mouth of the river Crouch, doubtless to the amazement of a few fishermen who gazed open-mouthed from their boats at the apparition of our grey warships, with their bristle of guns and the vast concourse of shipping that followed them. By six we were at Burnham-on-Crouch, a quaint little town, evidently a yachting centre, for the river was absolutely covered with craft—small cutters, yawls, and the like, and hundreds upon hundreds of boats of all sizes. Many large, flat-bottomed barges, with tanned sails, lay alongside the almost continuous wooden quay that bordered the river. The boats of the squadron carrying a number of sailors and detachments from the 2nd Marine Battalion that formed part of the expedition had evidently preceded us, as the German ensign was hoisted over the coastguard station, which was occupied by our men. Several of our steam pinnaces were busily engaged in collecting the boats and small craft that were scattered all over the estuary, while others were hauling and towing some of the barges into position beside the quays to serve as landing-places.{144} The method employed was to lash one outside the other till the uttermost one was outside the position of low-water mark. Our lighter craft, at any rate, could then go alongside and disembark their men and stores at any time.

“The first men I saw land were the residue of the Marine Battalion, who were in the next transport to us. As soon as they were ashore, Prince Henry and his staff followed. We landed at a little iron pier, the planking of which was so rotten that it had given way in many places, and as the remainder of the flooring threatened to follow suit if one placed one’s weight on it, we all marched gingerly along the edge, clutching tight hold of the railings. The carpenter’s crew from one of the warships was, however, already at work on its repair. As we landed, I saw the Odin, followed by a steamer, towing several flats containing the 1st Battalion of the 177th Infantry, and a battery of artillery landing farther up the river. She did not go far, but anchored stem and stern. The steamer cast off her lighters close to the southern bank, and they ran themselves ashore, some on the river bank, and others in a little creek that here ran into the main stream. This detachment, I was informed, was to entrench itself in the little village of Canewdon, supposed to have been the site of Canute’s camp, and situated on an eminence about three miles west of us, and about a mile south of the river. As it is the only high ground on that side the river within a radius of several miles of Burnham, its importance to us will be evident.

“While we were waiting for our horses to be landed, I took a turn through the village. It consists of one street, fairly wide in the central portion, with a curious red tower on arches belonging to the local Rath-haus on one side of it. At the western exit of the town is a red-brick drill hall for the Volunteers. Our Marines were in possession, and I noticed several of them studying with much amusement a gaudily-coloured recruiting poster on the post-office opposite, headed: ‘Wanted,{145} recruits for His Majesty’s Army.’ One of their number, who apparently understood English, was translating the letterpress, setting forth the joys and emoluments which awaited the difficult-to-find Englishman patriotic enough to become a soldier. As if such a system of raising an army could ever produce an efficient machine! Was it not the famous Admiral Coligny who perished in the massacre of St. Bartholomew who said, ‘Rather than lead again an army of voluntaries, I would die a thousand times.’

“By this time our horses, and those of a couple of troops of the Jäegers zu Pferde had been put on shore. Then having seen that all the exits of the village were occupied, the Mayor secured, and the usual notices posted threatening death to any civilian who obstructed our operations, directly or indirectly, we started off for the high ground to the northward, where we hoped to get into touch with the Division which should now be landing at Bradwell, on the Blackwater. With us went as escort a troop of the Jäegers in their soft grey-green uniforms—for the descent being a surprise one we were in our ordinary uniforms—and a number of mounted signallers.

“The villagers were beginning to congregate as we left Burnham. They scowled at us, but said nothing. For the most part they appeared to be completely dumbfounded. Such an event as a real invasion by a real army of foreigners had never found any place in their limited outlook on life and the world in general. There were some good-looking girls here and there, with fresh, apple-red cheeks, who did not look altogether askance at our prancing horses and our gay uniforms. It was now about half-past eight, and the morning mists, which had been somewhat prevalent down by the river and the low-lying land on either bank, had thinned and drifted away under the watery beams of a feeble sun that hardly pierced the cloudy canopy above us. This, I suppose, is the English summer day of which we hear so much! It is not hot, certainly. The horses{146} were fresh, delighted to escape from their cramped quarters on shipboard, and, trotting and cantering through the many turns of the muddy lanes, we soon skirted the village of Southminster, and began to mount the high ground between it and a little place called Steeple.

“Here, just north of a steading known as Batt’s Farm, is the highest point on the peninsula formed by the Blackwater and Crouch Rivers. Though it is only 132 ft. above sea-level, the surrounding ground is so flat that a perfect panorama was spread before us. We could not distinguish Burnham, which was six miles or more to the southward, and hidden by slight folds of the ground and the many trees which topped the hedgerows, but the Blackwater and its creeks were in full view, and about seven miles to the north-west the towers and spires of Maldon, our principal objective in the first instance, stood up like grey pencillings on the sky-line. Our signallers soon got to work, and in a very few minutes picked up those of the Northern Division, who had established a station on a church tower about two miles to our north-east, at St. Lawrence. They reported a successful landing at Bradwell, and that the Ægir had gone up in the direction of Maldon with the 3rd Marine Battalion, who were being towed up in their flats by steam pinnaces.

“I think, my dear Neuhaus, that it would be as well if I now gave you some general idea of our scheme of operations, so far as it is known to me, in order that you may be the better able to follow my further experiences by the aid of the one-inch English ordnance map which you will have no difficulty in procuring from Berlin.

“As I have already said, Maldon is our first objective. It is situated at the head of the navigable portion of the Blackwater, and in itself—situated as it is on rising grounds suitable for defence, and surrounded to the north and north-west with a network of river and canal—offers a suitable position to check the preliminary{147} attack that we may surely expect from the Colchester garrison. It is intended, then, to occupy this as quickly as possible, and place it in a state of defence. Our next move will be to entrench ourselves along a line extending southward from Maldon to the river Crouch, which has already been reconnoitred by our Intelligence Department, and the general positions selected and planned. Prince Henry will, of course, be able to make any modifications in the original design that he may consider called for by circumstances. The total length of our front will be nearly seven miles, rather long for the number of troops we have at our disposal, but as the English reckon that to attack troops in position a six-to-one force is required, and as they will be fully occupied elsewhere, I expect we shall be amply sufficient to deal with any attack they can make on us. The right half of the line—with the exception of Maldon itself—is very flat, and offers no very advantageous positions for defence, especially as the ground slopes upwards in the direction of the enemy’s attack. It is, however, but a gradual slope. Towards the left, though, there is higher ground, affording fairly good gun positions, and this we must hold on to at all hazards. This, in fact, will be the real key of the position. Holding this, even if we are beaten out of Maldon and forced to abandon our defences in the flat ground to the south of the town, we can use it as a pivot, and fall back on a second position along a line of low hills that run in a north-east direction across the peninsula to St. Lawrence, which will quite well cover our landing-places. In order to further protect us from surprise, the three battalions of the 108th Sharpshooter Regiment belonging to the 32nd Division left Flushing somewhat in advance of us under convoy of some of the older battleships in three or four average-sized steamers that could get alongside the long pier at Southend, and have been ordered to occupy Hockley, Rayleigh, and Wickford, forming as it were a chain of outposts covering us from any early interruption by troops sent over from Chatham, or coming from London{148}

by either the southern branch of the Great Eastern Railway or the London, Tilbury, and Southend line. They took nothing with them but their iron ration, the ammunition in their pouches, and that usually carried in the company ammunition waggons (57.6 rounds per man). For the transport of this they were to impress carts and horses at Southend, and to move by a forced march to their positions. As soon as we are able, we also shall push forward advanced troops to{149} South Hanningfield, East Hanningfield, Danebury, and Wickham Bishops, covering us in a similar manner to the west and north. Our flanks are well protected by the two rivers, which are tidal, very wide in parts, and difficult to cross, except at one or two places on the Crouch, which we shall make special arrangements to defend. Moreover—with the exception of Canewdon, which we have already occupied—there is no elevated ground within miles of them which would offer good positions from which the enemy might fire into the ground we occupy between them.

“So much for the military portion of our programme. Now for the part allotted to the Navy. As I have told you, we had eight warships as our convoy, not counting destroyers, etc. These were the eight little armour-clads of the “Ægir” class, drawing only 18 ft. of water and carrying three 9.4 guns apiece, besides smaller ones. The Ægir and Odin are operating in the rivers on our flanks as far as they are able. The remaining six are busy, three at the entrance of each river, laying down mine-fields and other obstacles to protect us from any inroad on the part of the British Navy, and arranging for passing through the store-ships, which we expect to-night or to-morrow morning from various German and Dutch ports, with the provisions, stores, and ammunition for the use of the Northern Army Corps, when they have penetrated sufficiently far to the south to get into touch with us. Except by these rivers, I do not think that the English naval commanders can get at us.

“What are known as the Dengie Flats extend for three miles seaward, all along the coast between the mouths of the two rivers, and broken marshy land extends for three miles more inland. Their big ships would have to lie at least seven or eight miles distant from our headquarters and store depôt, which we intend to establish at Southminster, and even if they were so foolish as to waste their ammunition in trying to damage us with their big guns firing at high elevations, they would never succeed in doing us any harm. I{150} believe that the squadron of older battleships that escorted the 108th to Southend have orders to mine the mouth of the Thames, cover the mine-field with their guns as long as they can before being overpowered, and incidentally to try and capture Shoeburyness and destroy or bring off what guns they may find there. But this is not really in our particular section of the operations.

“But to return to my own experiences. I told you that Prince Henry and his staff had arrived at Steeple Hill, and that the signallers had got through to the other division that had landed at Bradwell. This was soon after nine o’clock. Not long afterwards the advanced guard of one of the Jäeger battalions, with their smart glazed shakoes, having the black plumes tied back over the left ear, and looking very workmanlike in their green red-piped tunics, came swinging along the road between St. Lawrence and the village of Steeple. They had some of their war-dogs with them in leashes. They were on their way to reinforce the 3rd Marine Battalion, which by this time we trusted had occupied Maldon and cut off all communication with the interior. They had a good nine miles before them. The Prince looked at his watch. ‘If they’re there before noon it’s as much as we can expect,’ he said. ‘Go and see if they are coming up from Burnham now,’ he added, turning sharply to me. Away I went at a gallop till I struck the main road out of Southminster. Here I just headed off the 1st Battalion of the 101st Grenadiers. Its Colonel informed me that the whole regiment was ashore and that the other two battalions were following close behind. When they left Burnham the three battalions of the 100th Body Grenadiers had nearly completed their disembarkation, and the horses of the Garde Reiter Regiment and the 17th Uhlans were being hoisted out by means of the big spritsail yards of the barges lying alongside the quays. The landing pontoons had been greatly augmented and improved during{151} the last hour or two, and the disembarkation was proceeding more and more quickly. They had got two of the batteries of the 1st Brigade Division landed as well as the guns belonging to the Horse Artillery, but they were waiting for the horses. The Prince signalled to the officer superintending the disembarkation at Burnham to send forward the cavalry and horse artillery by batteries and squadrons as soon as they could be mounted.

“Nothing could be done in the meantime but trust that the marines had been successful in occupying Maldon and in stopping any news of our presence from leaking out to Colchester. Presently, however, the signallers reported communication with a new signal station established by the Jäegers zu Pferde on Kit’s Hill, an eminence about six miles to the south-west. The officer in command of the troop reported: ‘Have cut line at Wickham Ferrers. Captured train of eight coaches coming from Maldon, and have shunted it on to line to Burnham.’ Prince Henry signalled back: ‘Despatch train to Burnham’; and then also signalled to O.C. 23 Division at Burnham: ‘Expect train of eight coaches at once. Entrain as many infantry as it will hold, and send them to Maldon with the utmost despatch.’

“While these signals were passing, I was employed in taking a careful survey with my glasses. This is what I saw, looking from right to left. The green and white lance pennons of a detachment of the hussars belonging to the 32nd Division came fluttering round the shoulder of the hill topped by the grey tower of St. Lawrence. Immediately below us a Jäeger battalion was winding through Steeple Village like a dark green snake. Away to my left front the helmets of the 101st Grenadier Regiment twinkled over the black masses of its three battalions as they wound downhill towards the village of Latchingdon, lying in a tree-shrouded hollow. Maldon was more distinct now, but there was nothing to indicate the presence of our{152} men, though not so very far down the river the lofty mast of the Ægir, with its three military tops, was distinguishable over a line of willows. As I lowered my field-glasses the Prince beckoned me. ‘Von Pabst,’ ordered he, as I raised my hand to the salute, ‘take half a dozen troopers, ride to Maldon, and report to me the situation there. I shall be at Latchingdon,’ added he, indicating its position on the map, ‘or possibly on the road between that and Maldon.’

“Followed by my six Jäegers in their big copper helmets, I dashed away on my mission, and before long was nearing my destination. Maldon perched on its knoll, with its three church towers and gabled houses, brought to my mind one of the old engravings of sixteenth-century cities by Merian. Nothing indicated the approach of war till we were challenged by a sentry, who stepped from behind a house at the entrance to a straggling street. We trotted on till just about to turn in the main street, when ‘bang’ went a straggling volley from the right. Shot after shot replied, and this told me that our marines had arrived. Then a score of khaki-clad men ran across the entrance of the side street up which we were approaching. ‘The English at last!’ thought I. It was too late to turn back. One or two of the enemy had caught sight of us as they rushed by, though most of them were too busily engaged in front to observe us. So with a shout of ‘Vorwarts!’ I stuck in my spurs, and with my six troopers charged into the middle of them, though I had no idea of how many there might be up the street. There was a tremendous clatter and banging of rifles. I cut down one fellow who ran his bayonet into my wallet. At the same time I heard a loud German ‘Hoch!’ from our right, and caught sight of a body of marines coming up the street at the double. It was all over in a moment. There were not more than thirty ‘khakis’ all told. Half a dozen lay dead or wounded on the ground, some disappeared up side{153} alleys, and others were made prisoners by the marines. It appeared afterwards that on the first boat-load landing, about an hour previously, the alarm had reached a local Volunteer officer, who had managed to collect some of his men and get them into uniform. He then made the foolish attack on our troops which had ended in so unsatisfactory a manner for him. He, poor fellow, lay spitting blood on the kerbstone. The colonel of marines appeared a moment later, and at once gave orders for the Mayor of Maldon to be brought before him.”

The letter ended abruptly, the German officer’s intention being no doubt to give some further details of the operations before despatching it to his friend in Darmstadt. But it remained unfinished, for its writer lay already in his grave.{154}

A special issue of the Times in the evening of 3rd September contained the following vivid account—the first published—of the happenings in the town of Goole, in Yorkshire:—

“Goole, September 3.

“Shortly before five o’clock on Sunday morning the night operator of the telephone call-office here discovered an interruption on the trunk-line, and on trying the telegraphs was surprised to find that there was no communication in any direction. The railway station, being rung up, replied that their wires were also down.

“Almost immediately afterwards a well-known North Sea pilot rushed into the post-office and breathlessly asked that he might telephone to Lloyd’s. When told that all communication was cut off he wildly shouted that a most extraordinary sight was to be seen in the river Ouse, up which was approaching a continuous procession of tugs, towing flats, and barges filled with German soldiers.

“This was proved to be an actual fact, and the inhabitants of Goole, awakened from their Sunday morning slumbers by the shouts of alarm in the streets, found to their abject amazement foreign soldiers swarming everywhere. On the quay they found activity everywhere, German being spoken on all hands. They watched a body of cavalry consisting of the 1st Westphalian{155} Hussars and the Westphalian Cuirassiers land with order and ease at the Victoria Pier, whence, after being formed up on the quay, they advanced at a sharp trot up Victoria Street, Ouse Street, and North Street to the railway stations, where, as is generally known, there are large sidings of the North-East Lancashire and Yorkshire lines in direct communication both with London and the great cities of the north. The enemy here found great quantities of engines and rolling stock, all of which was at once seized, together with huge stacks of coal at the new sidings.

“Before long the first of the infantry of the 13th Division, which was commanded by Lieutenant-General Doppschutz, marched up to the stations. They consisted of the 13th and 56th Westphalian Regiments, and the cavalry on being relieved advanced out of the town, crossing the Dutch River by the railway bridge, and pushed on as far as Thorne and Hensall, near which they at once strongly held the several important railway junctions.

“Meanwhile cavalry of the 14th Brigade, consisting of Westphalian Hussars and Uhlans, were rapidly disembarking at Old Goole, and, advancing southwards over the open country of Goole Moors and Thorne Waste, occupied Crowle. Both cavalry brigades were acting independently of the main body, and by their vigorous action both south and west they were entirely screening what was happening in the port of Goole.

“Infantry continued to pour into the town from flats and barges, arriving in endless procession. Doppschutz’s Division landed at Aldan Dock, Railway Dock, and Ship Dock; the 14th Division at the Jetty and Basin, also in the Barge Dock and at the mouth of the Dutch River; while some, following the cavalry brigade, landed at Old Goole and Swinefleet.

“As far as can be ascertained, the whole of the VIIth German Army Corps have landed, at any rate as far as the men are concerned. The troops, who are under the supreme command of General Baron von{156} Bistram, appear to consist almost entirely of Westphalians, and include Prince Frederick of the Netherlands’ 2nd Westphalians; Count Bulow von Dennewitz’s 6th Westphalians; but one infantry brigade, the 79th, consisted of men from Lorraine.

“Through the whole day the disembarkation proceeded, the townsmen standing there helpless to lift a finger and watching the enemy’s arrival. The Victoria Pleasure Grounds were occupied by parked artillery, which towards afternoon began to rumble through the streets. The German gunners, with folded arms, sat unconcernedly upon the ammunition boxes as the guns were drawn up to their positions. Horses were seized wherever found, the proclamation of Von Kronhelm was nailed upon the church doors, and the terrified populace read the grim threat of the German field-marshal.

“The wagons, of which there were hundreds, were put ashore mostly at Goole, but others up the river at Hook and Swinefleet. When the cavalry advance was complete, as it was soon after midday, and when reports had come in to Von Bistram that the country was clear of the British, the German infantry advance began. By nightfall they had pushed forward, some by road, some by rail, and others in the numerous motor-wagons that had accompanied the force, until march-outposts were established south of Thorne, Askern, and Crowle, straddling the main road to Bawtry. These places, including Fishlake and the country between them, were at once strongly held, while ammunition and stores were pushed up by railway to both Thorne and Askern.

“The independent cavalry advance continued through Doncaster until dusk, when Rotherham was reached, during which advance scattered bodies of British Imperial Yeomanry were met and compelled to retreat, a dozen or so lives being lost. It appears that late in the afternoon of Sunday news was brought into Sheffield of what was in progress,{157} and a squadron of Yeomanry donned their uniforms and rode forward to reconnoitre, with the disastrous results already mentioned.

“The sensation caused in Sheffield when it became known that German cavalry were so close as Rotherham was enormous, and the scenes in the streets soon approached a panic; for it was wildly declared that that night the enemy intended to occupy the town. The Mayor telegraphed to the War Office appealing for additional defensive force, but no response was received to the telegram. The small force of military in the town, which consisted of the 2nd Battalion Yorkshire Light Infantry, some Royal Artillery, and the local Volunteers, were soon assembled, and going out occupied the strong position above Sheffield between Catcliffe and Tinsley, overlooking the valley of the Rother to the east.

“The expectation that the Germans intended an immediate descent on Sheffield was not realised because the German tactics were merely to reconnoitre and report on the defences of Sheffield if any existed. This they did by remaining to the eastward of the river Rother, whence the high ground rising before Sheffield could be easily observed.

“Before dusk one or two squadrons of Cuirassiers were seen to be examining the river to find fords and{158} ascertain the capacity of the bridges, while others appeared to be comparing the natural features of the ground with the maps with which they all appeared to be provided.

“As night fell, however, the cavalry retired towards Doncaster, which town was occupied, the Angel being the cavalry headquarters. The reason the Germans could not advance at once upon Sheffield was that the cavalry was not strongly enough supported by infantry from their base, the distance from Goole being too great to be covered in a single day. That the arrangements for landing were in every detail perfect could not be doubted, but owing to the narrow channel of the Ouse time was necessary, and it is considered probable that fully three days must elapse from Sunday before the Germans are absolutely established.

“An attempt has been made by the Yorkshire Light Infantry and the York and Lancaster Regiment, with three battalions of Volunteers stationed at Pontefract, to discover the enemy’s strength and position between Askern and Snaith, but so far without avail, the cavalry screen across the whole country being impenetrable.

“The people of the West Riding, and especially the inhabitants of Sheffield, are stupefied that they have received no assistance—not even a reply to the Mayor’s telegram. This fact has leaked out, and has caused the greatest dissatisfaction. An enemy is upon us, yet we are in ignorance of what steps, if any, the authorities are taking for our protection.

“There are wild rumours here that the enemy have burned Grimsby, but these are generally discredited, for telegraphic and telephonic communication has been cut off, and at present we are completely isolated. It has been gathered from the invaders that the VIIIth Army Corps of the Germans have landed and seized Hull, but at present this is not confirmed.{159} There is, alas! no communication with the place, therefore the report may possibly be true.

“Dewsbury, Huddersfield, Wakefield, and Selby are all intensely excited over the sudden appearance of German soldiers, and were at first inclined to unite to stem their progress. But the German proclamation showing the individual peril of any citizen taking arms against the invaders having been posted everywhere, has held everyone scared and in silent inactivity.

“ ‘Where is our Army?’ everyone is asking. The whole country has run riot in a single hour, now that the Germans are upon us. On every hand it is asked: ‘What will London do?’ ”

The following account, written by a reporter of the Hull Daily Mail, appeared in the London Evening News on Wednesday evening, and was the first authentic news of what had happened on the Humber on Sunday:—

“Hull, Monday Night.

“A great disaster has occurred here, and the town is in the hands of the Germans. The totally unexpected appearance in the river at dawn on Sunday of an extraordinary flotilla of all kinds of craft, filled with troops and being towed towards Goole, created the greatest alarm. Loud shouting in the street just before five o’clock awakened me, and I opened my window. Shouting to a seaman running past, I asked what was the matter, when the man’s astounding reply was: ‘The whole river is swarming with Germans!’ Dressing hastily, I mounted my bicycle and ran along the Beverley road through Prospect Street to the dock office, where around the Wilberforce monument the excited crowd now already collected was impassable, and I was compelled to dismount.

“On eager inquiry I learnt that half an hour before men at work in the Alexandra Dock were amazed to discern through the grey mists still hanging across the Humber an extraordinary sight. Scores of ocean-going{160} tugs, each laboriously towing great Dutch barges and lighters, came into sight, and telescopes being quickly borrowed revealed every boat in question to be literally crammed with grey-coated men, evidently soldiers. At first it was believed that they were about to enter Hull, but they kept out in the channel, on the New Holland side, and were accompanied, it was seen, by a quantity of tramp steamers of small tonnage, evidently of such capacity as might get up to the port of Goole. It was at once patent that Goole was their objective.

“The alarm was at once raised in the town. The police ran down to the quays and the Victoria Pier, while the townspeople hastily dressed and joined them to witness the amazing spectacle.

“Somebody at the pier who had a powerful glass recognised the grey uniforms and declared them to be Germans, and then like wildfire the alarming news spread into every quarter of the town that the Germans were upon us.

“The police ran to the telegraph office in order to give the alarm, but it was at once discovered that both telegraph and telephone systems had suddenly been interrupted. Repeated calls elicited no reply, for the wires running out of Hull in every direction had been cut.

“In endless procession the strange medley of queer-looking craft came up out of the morning mist only to be quickly lost again in the westward, while the onlookers, including myself—for I had cycled to the Victoria Pier—gazed at them in utter bewilderment.

“At the first moment of alarm the East Yorkshire Volunteers hurried on their uniforms and assembled at their regimental headquarters for orders. There were, of course, no regular troops in the town, but the Volunteers soon obtained their arms and ammunition, and after being formed, marched down Heddon road to the Alexandra Dock.

“On every side was the greatest commotion, already bordering upon panic. Along Spring Bank, the Hessle road, the Anlaby road, and all the thoroughfares{161} converging into Queen Victoria Square, came crowds of all classes eager to see for themselves and learn the truth of the startling rumour. The whole riverside was soon black with the excited populace, but to the astonishment of everyone the motley craft sailed on, taking no notice of us and becoming fewer and fewer, until ships appeared through the grey bank of fog only at intervals.

“One thing was entirely clear. The enemy, whoever they might be, had destroyed all our means of appealing for help, for we could not telephone to the military at York, Pontefract, Richmond, or even to the regimental district headquarters at Beverley. They had gone on to Goole, but would they turn back and attack us?

“The cry was that if they meant to seize Goole they would also seize Hull! Then the terrified crowd commenced to collect timber and iron from the yards, furniture from neighbouring houses, tramway-cars, omnibuses, cabs; in fact, anything they could lay their hands upon to form barricades in the streets for their own protection.

“I witnessed the frantic efforts of the people as they built one huge obstacle at the corner of Queen Street, facing the pier. Houses were ruthlessly entered, great pieces of heavy furniture—wardrobes, pianos, and sideboards—were piled anyhow upon each other. Men got coils of barbed wire, and lashed the various objects together with seamanlike alacrity. Even paving-stones were prised up with pickaxes and crowbars, and placed in position. The women, in deadly terror of the Germans, helped the men in this hastily improvised barrier, which even as I watched grew higher across the street until it reached the height of the first-storey windows in one great heterogeneous mass of every article conceivable—almost like a huge rubbish heap.

“This was only one of many similar barricades. There were others in the narrow Pier Street, in Wellington Street, Castle Street, south of Prince’s Dock, in St. John’s Street, between Queen’s Dock and Prince’s Dock, while the bridges over the river Hull were all{162} defended by hastily improvised obstructions. In Jennings Street, on Sculcoates Bridge, and also the two railway bridges of the Hull and Barnsley and North-Eastern Railways were similarly treated. Thus the whole of the town west of the river Hull was at any rate temporarily protected from any landing eastward.

“The whole town now seemed in a perfect ferment. Wildest rumours were afloat everywhere, and the streets by six o’clock that morning were so crowded that it was almost impossible to move.

“Hundreds found themselves outside the barriers; indeed, the people in the Southcoates, Drypool, and Alexandra Wards were in the threatened zone, and promptly began to force their way into the town by escalading the huge barricades and scrambling over their crests.

“Foreigners—sailors and others—had a rough time of it, many of them being thrust back and threatened by the indignant townspeople. Each time a foreigner was discovered there was a cry of ‘spy,’ and many innocent men had fortunate escapes.

“The river seemed clear, when about seven o’clock there suddenly loomed up from seaward a great, ugly, grey-hulled warship flying the German flag. The fear was realised. Her sight caused absolute panic, for with a sudden swerve she calmly moored opposite the Alexandra Dock.

“Eager-eyed seamen, some of them Naval Reservists, recognised that she was cleared for action, and even while we were looking, two more similar vessels anchored in positions from which their guns could completely dominate the town.

“No sooner had these swung to their anchors than, from the now sunlit horizon, there rose the distant smoke of many steamers, and as the moments of terror dragged by, there came slowly into the offing a perfect fleet of all sizes of steamers, escorted by cruisers and destroyers.

“Standing behind the barricade in Queen Street I could overlook the Victoria Pier, and the next half-hour{163} was the most exciting one in my whole life. Three dirty-looking steamers of, as far as I could judge, about 2500 tons each, anchored in a line almost midstream. From my coign of vantage I could hear the rattle of the cables in the hawse-pipes as many other vessels of about the same size followed their example farther down the river. No sooner had the anchors touched the bottom than boats were hoisted out, lowered from all the davits, and brought alongside, while into them poured hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers, all in a uniform dusky grey. Steam pinnaces quickly took these in charge, towing some of them to the Victoria Pier near where I stood, and others to the various wharves.

“Armed and accoutred, the men sprang ashore, formed up, and were quickly told off by their officers in guttural accents, when, from our barricade, close beside me, a Volunteer officer gave the order to fire, and a ragged volley rang sharply out.

“A young German infantry officer standing in Nelson Street, in the act of drawing his revolver from its pouch, pitched heavily forward upon his face with a British bullet through his heart. There were also several gaps in the German ranks. Almost instantly the order for advance was given. The defence was an ill-advised and injudicious one, having in view the swarm of invaders. Hundreds of boats were now approaching every possible landing-place right along the river front, and men were swarming upon every wharf and quay.

“Shots sounded in every direction. Then, quite suddenly, some unintelligible order was given in German, and the crowd of the enemy who had landed at our pier extended, and, advancing at the double, came straight for our barricade, endeavouring to take it by assault. It was an exciting moment. Our Volunteers poured volleys into them, and for a time were able to check them, although the Germans kept up a withering fire, and I found myself, a non-combatant, with bullets whistling about me everywhere, in unpleasant proximity.

“They were breathless moments. Men were continually{164} falling on both sides, and one fierce-faced, black-haired woman, evidently a sailor’s wife, who had helped to build the barricade, fell dead at my side, shot through the throat. From the very beginning our defence at this point seemed utterly hopeless. The Volunteers—many of them friends of mine—very gallantly endeavoured to do what they could in the circumstances, but they themselves recognised the utter futility of fighting against what seemed to be a veritable army. They did their utmost, but the sudden rush of an enormous number of supports to strengthen the enemy’s advanced parties proved too much for them, and ten minutes later bearded Teutons came clambering over the barricades, ruthlessly putting to death all men in uniform who did not at once throw down their arms.

“As soon as I saw the great peril of the situation I confess that I fled, when behind me I heard a loud crash as a breach was at last made in the obstruction. I ran up Queen Street to Drypool Bridge, where at the barricade there I found desperate fighting in progress. The scene was terrible. The few Volunteers were bravely trying to defend us. Many civilians, in their frantic efforts to guard their homes, were lying upon the pavement dead and dying. Women, too, had been struck by the hail of German bullets, and the enemy, bent upon taking the town, fought with the utmost determination. From the ceaseless rattle of musketry which stunned the ears on every side it was evident that the town was being taken by assault.

“For five minutes or so I remained in Salthouse Lane, but so thick came the bullets that I managed to slip round to Whitefriargate, and into Victoria Square.

“I was standing at the corner of King Edward Street when the air was of a sudden rent by a crash that seemed to shake the town to its very foundations, and one of the black cupolas of the dock office was carried away, evidently by a high explosive shell.

“A second report, no doubt from one of the cruisers lying in the river, was followed by a great jet of flame{165} springing up from the base of one of the new shops on the left side of King Edward Street—caused, as I afterwards ascertained, by one of those new petrol shells, of which we had heard so much in the newspapers, but the practicability of which our unprogressive Government had so frequently refused to entertain.

“In a flash three shops were well alight, and even while I watched the whole block from Tyler’s to the corner was furiously ablaze, the petrol spreading fire and destruction on every hand.

“Surely there is no more deadly engine in modern warfare than the terrible petrol bomb, as was now proved upon our unfortunate town. Within ten minutes came a veritable rain of fire. In all directions the houses began to flare and burn. The explosions were terrific, rapidly succeeding one another, while helpless men stood frightened and aghast, no man knowing that the next moment might not be his last.

“In those never-to-be-forgotten moments we realised for the first time what the awful horror of War really meant.

“The scene was frightful. Hull had resisted, and in retaliation the enemy were now spreading death and destruction everywhere among us.”

Reports now reached London that the VIIth German Army Corps had landed at Hull and Goole, and taking possession of those towns, were moving upon Sheffield in order to paralyse our trade in the Midlands. Hull had been bombarded, and was in flames! Terrible scenes were taking place at that port.

The disaster was, alas! of our own seeking.

Lord Roberts, who certainly could not be called an alarmist, had in 1905 resigned his place on the Committee of National Defence in order to be free to speak his own mind. He had told us plainly in 1906 that we were in no better position than we were five or six years previous.{166} Behind the Regular Army we had no practicable reserve, while military training was more honoured in the breach than in the observance. The outlook was alarming, and the reasons for reform absolutely imperative.

He had pointed out to the London Chamber of Commerce in December 1905 that it was most important that our present unpreparedness for war should not be allowed to continue. We should use every endeavour to prevent the feeling of anxiety as to our unpreparedness from cooling down. England’s military hero, the man who had dragged us out of the South African muddle, had urged most strongly that a committee of the leading men of London should be formed to take the matter into their earnest consideration. The voice of London upon a question of such vital importance could not fail to carry great weight throughout the country.

A “citizen army,” he had declared, was needed as well as the Regular Army. The only way by which a sufficient amount of training could be given—short of adopting the Continental practice—was by giving boys and youths such an amount of drill and practice in rifle shooting as was possible while they were at school, and by some system of universal training after they reached manhood. And that Lord Roberts had urged most strongly.

Yet what had been done? Ay, what?

A deaf ear had been turned to every appeal. And now, alas! the long prophesied blow had fallen.

On that memorable Sunday, when a descent had been made upon our shores, there were in German ports on the North Sea nearly a million tons gross of German shipping. Normally, in peace time, half a million tons is always to be found there, the second half having been quietly collected by ships putting in unobserved into such ports as Emden, Bremen, Bremerhaven, and Geestemunde, where there are at least ten miles of deep-sea wharves, with ample railway access. The arrival of these crafts caused no particular comment, but they had{167} already been secretly prepared for the transport of men and horses while at sea.

Under the cover of the Frisian Islands, from every canal, river, and creek had been assembled a huge multitude of flats and barges, ready to be towed by tugs alongside the wharves and filled with troops. Of a sudden, in a single hour it seemed, Hamburg, Altona, Cuxhaven, and Wilhelmshaven were in excited activity, and almost before the inhabitants themselves realised what was really in progress the embarkation had well commenced.

At Emden, with its direct cables to the theatre of war in England, was concentrated the brain of the whole movement. Beneath the lee of the covering screen of Frisian Islands, Borkum, Juist, Norderney, Langebog, and the others, the preparations for the descent upon England rapidly matured.

Troop-trains from every part of the Fatherland{168} arrived with the punctuality of clockwork. From Düsseldorf came the VIIth Army Corps, the VIIIth from Coblenz, the IXth were already assembled at their headquarters at Altona, while many of them being stationed at Bremen embarked from there, the Xth came up from Hanover, the XIVth from Magdeburg, and the Corps of German Guards, the pride and flower of the Kaiser’s troops, arrived eagerly at Hamburg from Berlin and Potsdam, among the first to embark.

Each army corps consisted of about 38,000 officers and men, 11,000 horses, 144 guns, and about 2000 motor-cars, wagons, and carts. But for this campaign—which was more of the nature of a raid than of any protracted campaign—the supply of wheeled transport, with the exception of motor-cars, had been somewhat reduced.

Each cavalry brigade attached to an army corps consisted of 1400 horses and men, with some thirty-five light machine-guns and wagons. The German calculation—which proved pretty correct—was that each army corps could come over to England in 100,000 tons gross of shipping, bringing with them supplies for twenty-seven days in another 3000 tons gross. Therefore about 618,000 tons gross conveyed the whole of the six corps, leaving an ample margin still in German ports for any emergencies. Half this tonnage consisted of about 100 steamers, averaging 3000 tons each, the remainder being the boats, flats, lighters, barges, and tugs previously alluded to.

The Saxons who, disregarding the neutrality of Belgium, had embarked at Antwerp, had seized the whole of the flat-bottomed craft in the Scheldt and the numerous canals, as well as the merchant ships in the port, finding no difficulty in commandeering the amount of tonnage necessary to convey them to the Blackwater and the Crouch.

As hour succeeded hour, the panic increased.

It was now also known that, in addition to the various corps who had effected a landing, the German Guards{169} had, by a sudden swoop into the Wash, got ashore at King’s Lynn, seized the town, and united their forces with Von Kleppen’s corps, who, having landed at Weybourne, were now spread right across Norfolk. This picked corps of Guards was under the command of that distinguished officer the Duke of Mannheim, while the infantry divisions were under Lieutenant-Generals von Castein and Von Der Decken.

The landing at King’s Lynn on Sunday morning had been quite a simple affair. There was nothing whatever to repel them, and they disembarked on the quays and in the docks, watched by the astonished populace. All provisions were seized at shops, including the King’s Lynn and County Stores, the Star Supply Stores, Ladyman’s and Lipton’s in the High Street, while headquarters were established at the municipal buildings, and the German flag hoisted upon the old church, the tower of which was at once used as a signal station.

Old-fashioned people of Lynn peered out of their quiet, respectable houses in King Street in utter amazement, but soon, when the German proclamation was posted, the terrible truth was plain.

In half an hour, even before they could realise it, they had been transferred from the protection of the British flag to the militarism of the German.

The Tuesday Market Place, opposite the Globe Hotel, was one of the points of assembly, and from there and from other open spaces troops of cavalry were constantly riding out of town by the Downham Market and Swaffham Roads. The intention of this commander was evidently to join hands with Von Kleppen as soon as possible. Indeed, by that same evening the Guards and IVth Corps had actually shaken hands at East Dereham.

A few cavalry, mostly Cuirassiers and troopers of the Gardes du Corps, were pushed out across the flat, desolate country over Sutton Bridge to Holbeach and Spalding, while others, moving south-easterly, came{170} past the old Abbey of Crowland, and even to within sight of the square cathedral tower of Peterborough. Others went south to Ely.

Ere sundown on Sunday, stalwart, grey-coated sentries of the Guards Fusiliers from Potsdam and the Grenadiers from Berlin were holding the roads at Gayton, East Walton, Narborough, Markham, Fincham, Stradsett, and Stow Bardolph. Therefore on Sunday night, from Spalding on the east, Peterborough, Chatteris, Littleport, Thetford, Diss, and Halesworth were faced by a huge cavalry screen protecting the landing and repose of the great German Army behind it.

Slowly but carefully the enemy were maturing their plans for the defeat of our defenders and the sack of London.{171}

London was at a standstill. Trade was entirely stopped. Shopkeepers feared to open their doors on account of the fierce, hungry mobs parading the streets. Orators were haranguing the crowds in almost every open space. The police were either powerless, or feared to come into collision with the assembled populace. Terror and blank despair were everywhere.

There was unrest night and day. The banks, head offices and branches, unable to withstand the run upon them when everyone demanded to be paid in gold, had, by mutual arrangement, shut their doors, leaving excited and furious crowds of customers outside unpaid. Financial ruin stared everyone in the face. Those who were fortunate enough to realise their securities on Monday were fleeing from London south or westward. Day and night the most extraordinary scenes of frantic fear were witnessed at Paddington, Victoria, Waterloo, and London Bridge. The southern railways were badly disorganised by the cutting of the lines by the enemy, but the Great Western system was, up to the present, intact, and carried thousands upon thousands to Wales, to Devonshire, and to Cornwall.

In those three hot, breathless days the Red Hand of Ruin spread out upon London.

The starving East met the terrified West, but in those moments the bonds of terror united class with mass. Restaurants and theatres were closed, there was{172} but little vehicular traffic in the streets, for of horses there were none, while the majority of the motor ’buses had been requisitioned, and the transit of goods had been abandoned. “The City,” that great army of daily workers, both male and female, was out of employment, and swelled the idlers and gossips, whose temper and opinion were swayed each half-hour by the papers now constantly appearing night and day without cessation.

Cabinet Councils had been held every day, but their decisions, of course, never leaked out to the public. The King also held Privy Councils, and various measures were decided upon. Parliament, which had been hurriedly summoned, was due to meet, and everyone speculated as to the political crisis that must now ensue.

In St. James’s Park, in Hyde Park, in Victoria Park, on Hampstead Heath, in Greenwich Park, in fact, in each of the “lungs of London,” great mass meetings were held, at which resolutions were passed condemning the Administration and eulogising those who, at the first alarm, had so gallantly died in defence of their country.

It was declared that by the culpable negligence of the War Office and the National Defence Committee we had laid ourselves open to complete ruin, both financially and as a nation.

The man-in-the-street already felt the strain, for the lack of employment and the sudden rise in the price of everything had brought him up short. Wives and families were crying for food, and those without savings and with only a few pounds put by looked grimly into the future and at the mystery it presented.

Most of the papers published the continuation of the important story of Mr. Alexander, the Mayor of Maldon, which revealed the extent of the enemy’s operations in Essex and the strong position they occupied.

It ran as below:—

“Of the events of the early hours of the morning{173} I have no very clear recollection. I was bewildered, staggered, dumbfounded by the sights and sounds which beset me. Of what modern war meant I had till then truly but a very faint idea. To witness its horrid realities enacted in this quiet, out-of-the-way spot where I had pitched my tent for so many years, brought them home to me literally, as well as metaphorically. And to think that all this wanton destruction of property and loss of life was directly due to our apathy as a nation! The Germans had been the aggressors without a doubt, but as for us we had gone out of our way to invite attack. We had piled up riches and made no provision to prevent a stronger nation from gathering them. We had seen every other European nation, and even far-distant Japan, arm their whole populations and perfect their preparedness for the eventualities of war, but we had been content to scrape along with an apology for a military system—which was really no system at all—comforting ourselves with the excuse that nothing could possibly evade or compete with our magnificent navy. Such things as fogs, false intelligence, and the interruption of telegraphic and telephonic communication were not taken into account, and were pooh-poohed if any person, not content with living in a fool’s paradise, ventured to draw attention to the possibility of such contingencies.

“So foolhardy had we become in the end, that we were content to see an immense and threatening increase in the German shipbuilding programme without immediately ‘going one better.’ The specious plea that our greater rapidity in construction would always enable us to catch up our rivals in the race was received with acclamation, especially as the argument was adorned with gilt lettering in the shape of promised Admiralty economies.

“As might have been foreseen, Germany attacked us at the psychological moment when her rapidly increasing fleet had driven even our laissez faire politicians to lay down new ships with the laudable{174} idea of keeping our naval pre-eminence by the rapidity of our construction. Our wide-awake enemy, seeing that should these be allowed to attain completion the place he had gained in the race would be lost, allowed them to be half finished and then suddenly attacked us.

“But to return to my personal experiences on this never-to-be-forgotten day. I had run down Cromwell Hill, and seeing the flames of Heybridge, was impelled to get nearer, if possible, to discover more particularly the state of affairs in that direction. But I was reckoning without the Germans. When I got to the bridge over the river at the foot of the hill, the officer in charge there absolutely prevented my crossing. Beyond the soldiers standing or kneeling behind whatever cover was offered by the walls and buildings abutting on the riverside, and a couple of machine guns placed so as to command the bridge and the road beyond, there was nothing much to see. A number of Germans were, however, very busy in the big mill just across the river, but what they were doing I could not make out. As I turned to retrace my steps, the glare of the conflagration grew suddenly more and more intense. A mass of dark figures came running down the brightly-illuminated road towards the bridge, while the rifle fire became louder, nearer, and heavier than ever. Every now and again the air became alive with, as it were, the hiss and buzz of flying insects. The English must have fought their way through Heybridge, and these must be the bullets from their rifles. It was dangerous to stay down there any longer, so I took to my heels. As I ran I heard a thundering explosion behind me, the shock of which nearly threw me to the ground. Looking over my shoulder, I saw that the Germans had blown up the mill at the farther end of the bridge, and were now pushing carts from either side in order to barricade it. The two Maxims, too, began to pump lead with their hammering reports, and the men near them commenced to fall in twos{175} and threes. I made off to the left, and passed into the High Street by the end of St. Peter’s Church, now disused. At the corner I ran against Mr. Clydesdale, the optician, who looks after the library which now occupies the old building. He pointed to the tower, which stood darkly up against the blood-red sky.

“ ‘Look at those infernal Germans!’ he said. ‘They can’t even keep out of that old place. I wish we could have got the books out before they came.’

“I could not see any of our invaders where he was pointing, but presently I became aware of a little winking, blinking light at the very summit of the tower.

“ ‘That’s them,’ said Clydesdale. ‘They’re making signals, I think. My boy says he saw the same thing on Purleigh Church tower last night. I wish it would come down with them, that I do. It’s pretty shaky, anyway.’

“The street was fairly full of people. The Germans, it is true, had ordered that no one should be out of doors between eight in the evening and six in the morning; but just now they appeared to have their hands pretty full elsewhere, and if any of the few soldiers that were about knew of or thought anything of the interdiction, they said nothing. Wat Miller, the postman, came up and touched his cap.

“ ‘Terrible times, sir,’ he said, ‘ain’t they? There was a mort of people killed this afternoon by them shells. There was poor old Missis Reece in the London Road. Bed-ridden, she were, this dozen years. Well, sir, there ain’t so much as the head on her left. A fair mash up she were, poor old lady! Then there was Jones the carpenter’s three kids, as was left behind when their mother took the baby to Mundon with the rest of the women. The house was struck and come down atop of ’em. They got two out, but they were dead, poor souls! and they’re still looking for the other one.’

“The crash of a salvo of heavy guns from the direction of my own house interrupted the tale of horrors.

“ ‘That’ll be the guns in my garden,’ I said.

“ ‘Yes, sir; and they’ve got three monstrous great{176} ones in the opening between the houses just behind the church there,’ said Clydesdale.

“As he spoke the guns in question bellowed out, one after the other.

“ ‘Look—look at the tower!’ cried the postman.

“The light at the top had disappeared, and the lofty edifice was swaying slowly, slowly, over to the left.

“ ‘She’s gone at last!’ exclaimed Clydesdale.

“It was true. Down came the old steeple that had pointed heavenward for so many generations, with a mighty crash and concussion that swallowed up even the noise of the battle, though cannon of all sorts and sizes were now joining in the hellish concert, and shell from the English batteries began to roar over the town. The vibration and shock of the heavy guns had been too much for the old tower, which, for years in a tottery condition, had been patched up so often.

“As soon as the cloud of dust cleared off we all three ran towards the huge pile of débris that filled the little churchyard. Several other people followed. It was very dark down there, in the shadow of the trees and houses, despite the firelight overhead, and we began striking matches as we looked about among the heaps of bricks and beams to see if there were any of the German signal party among them. Why we should have taken the trouble under the circumstances I do not quite know. It was an instinctive movement of humanity on my part, and that of most of the others, I suppose. Miller, the postman, was, however, logical. ‘I ’opes as they’re all dead!’ was what he said.

“I caught sight of an arm in a light blue sleeve protruding from the débris, and took hold of it in a futile attempt to remove some of the bricks and rubbish which I thought were covering the body of its owner. To my horror, it came away in my hand. The body to which it belonged might be buried yards away in the immense heap of ruins. I dropped it with a cry, and fled from the spot.

“Dawn was now breaking. I do not exactly remember{177} where I wandered to after the fall of St. Peter’s Tower, but it must have been between half-past five and six when I found myself on the high ground at the north-western corner of the town, overlooking the golf links, where I had spent so many pleasant hours in that recent past that now seemed so far away. All around me were batteries, trenches, and gun-pits. But though the firing was still going on somewhere away to the right, where Heybridge poured black smoke skyward like a volcano, gun and howitzer were silent, and their attendant artillerymen, instead of being in cover behind their earthen parapets, were clustered on the top watching intently something that was passing in the valley below them. So absorbed were they that I was able to creep up behind them, and also get a sight of what was taking place. And this is what I saw:—

“Over the railway bridge which spanned the river a little to the left were hurrying battalion after battalion of green and blue clad German infantry. They moved down the embankment after crossing, and continued their march behind it. Where the railway curved to the right and left, about half a mile beyond the bridge, the top of the embankment was lined with dark figures lying down and apparently firing, while over the golf course from the direction of Beeleigh trotted squadron after squadron of sky-blue riders, their green and white lance pennons fluttering in the breeze. They crossed the Blackwater and Chelmer Canal, and cantered off in the direction of Langford Rectory.

“At the same time I saw line after line of the Germans massed behind the embankment spring over it and advance rapidly towards the lower portion of the town, just across the river. Hundreds fell under the fire from the houses, which must have been full of Englishmen, but one line after another reached the buildings. The firing was now heavier than ever—absolutely incessant and continuous—though, except for an occasional discharge from beyond Heybridge, the artillery was silent.{178}

“I have but little knowledge of military matters, but it was abundantly evident, even to me, that what I had just seen was a very formidable counter-attack on the part of the Germans, who had brought up fresh troops either from the rear of the town or from farther inland, and launched them against the English under cover of the railway embankment. I was not able to see the end of the encounter, but bad news flies apace, and it soon became common knowledge in the town that our troops from Colchester had not only failed to cross the river at any point, but had been driven helter-skelter out of the lower town near the station and from the smoking ruins of Heybridge with great loss, and were now in full retreat.

“Indeed, some hundreds of our khaki-clad fellow-countrymen were marched through the town an hour or two later as prisoners, to say nothing of the numbers of wounded who, together with those belonging to the Germans, soon began to crowd every available building suitable for use as an hospital. The wounded prisoners with their escort went off towards Mundon, and are reported to have gone in the direction of Steeple. It was altogether a disastrous day, and our hopes, which had begun to rise when the British had penetrated into the northern part of the town, now fell below zero.

“It was a black day for us, and for England. During the morning the same officer who had captured me on the golf course came whirling into Maldon on a 24-h.p. Mercedes car. He drove straight up to my house, and informed me that he had orders to conduct me to Prince Henry, who was to be at Purleigh early in the afternoon.

“ ‘Was it in connection with the skirmish with the Volunteers?’ I asked.

“ ‘I don’t know,’ was the reply. ‘But I don’t fancy so. In the meantime, could I write here for an hour or two?’ he asked politely. ‘I have much to write to my friends in Germany, and have not had a minute up to now.’{179}

“I was very glad to be able to oblige the young man in such a small way, and left him in my study till midday, very busy with pens, ink, and paper.

“After a makeshift of a lunch, the car came round, and we got into the back seat. In front sat his orderly and the chauffeur, a fierce-looking personage in a semi-military uniform. We ran swiftly down the High Street, and in a few minutes were spinning along the Purleigh Road, where I saw much that amazed me. I then for the first time realised how absolutely complete were the German plans.”

“Tuesday, September 4.

“About six o’clock this morning I awoke rather suddenly. The wind had gone round to the northward, and I was certain that heavy firing was going on somewhere in that direction. I opened the window and looked out. The ‘thud’ and rumble of a cannonade, with the accompaniment of an occasional burst of musketry, came clearly and loudly on the wind from the hills by Wickham Bishops village. The church spire was in plain view, and little faint puffs and rings of grey smoke were just visible in its vicinity every now and again, sometimes high up in the air, at others among the trees at its base. They were exploding shells; I had no doubt of that. What was going on it was impossible to say, but I conjectured that some of our troops from Colchester had come into collision with the Germans, who had gone out in that direction the day of their arrival. The firing continued for about an hour, and then died away.

“Soon after eight Count von Ohrendorff, the general officer commanding the 32nd Division, who appeared to be the supreme authority here, sent for me, and suggested that I should take steps to arrange for the manufacture of lint and bandages by the ladies living in the town. I could see no reason for objecting to this, and so promised to carry out his suggestion. I set about the matter at once, and, with the assistance of{180} my wife, soon had a couple of score of more or less willing workers busily engaged in the National Schoolroom. In the meantime, the roll of a terrible cannonade had burst forth again from Wickham Bishops. It seemed louder and more insistent than ever. As soon as I got away from the schools I hurried home and climbed out on the roof. The top of the Moot Hall, the tower of St. Peter’s, and other better coigns of vantage had all been occupied by the Germans. However, with the aid of a pair of field-glasses I was able to see a good bit. Black smoke was now pouring from Wickham Bishops in clouds, and every now and again I fancied I could see the forked tongues of flame shooting up above the surrounding trees. A series of scattered black dots now came out on the open ground to the south of the church. The trees of Eastland Wood soon hid them from my sight, but others followed, mingled with little moving black blocks, which I took to be formed bodies of troops. After them came four or five guns, driven at breakneck pace towards the road that passes between Eastland and Captain’s Woods, then more black dots, also in a desperate hurry. Several of these last tumbled, and lay still here and there all over the slope.

“Other dots followed at their heels. They were not quite so distinct. I looked harder. Hurrah! They were men in khaki. We were hustling these Germans at last. They also disappeared behind the woods. Then from the fringe of trees about Wickham half a dozen big brilliant flashes, followed after an interval by the loud detonation of heavy cannon. I could not distinguish much more, though the rattle of battle went on for some time longer. Soon after eleven four German guns galloped in from Heybridge. These were followed by a procession of maimed and limping humanity. Some managed to get along unaided, though with considerable difficulty. Others were supported by a comrade, some carried between two men, and others borne along on stretchers. A couple of ambulance carts trotted out and picked up more{181} wounded. Our bandages and lint had not long to wait before being required. After this there was a cessation of firing.

“About one o’clock the German general sent word to me that he thought an attack quite possible during the afternoon, and that he strongly advised me to get all the women and children out of the town—for the time being, at any rate. This was evidently well meant, but it was a pretty difficult matter to arrange for, to say nothing of raising a panic among the inhabitants. However, in an hour and a half’s time I had contrived to marshal several hundred of them together, and to get them out on to the road to Mundon. The weather was warm for the time of year, and I thought, if the worst came to the worst, they could spend the night in the old church. I left the sad little column of exiles—old, bent women helped along by their daughters, tiny children dragged along through the dust, clutching their mothers’ skirts, infants in arms, and other older and sturdier children staggering beneath the weight of the most precious home adornments—and made the best of my way back to arrange for the forwarding to them of their rations.

“At every step on my homeward way I expected to hear the cannonade begin again. But beyond the twittering of the birds in the trees and hedgerows, the creak and rumble of a passing cart, and the rush of a train along the railway on my left—just the usual sounds of the countryside—nothing broke the stillness. As I stepped out on the familiar highway I could almost bring myself to believe that the events of the past twenty-four hours were but the phantasmagoria of a dream. After interviewing some of the town councillors who were going to undertake the transport of provisions to the women and children at Mundon, I walked round to my own house.

“My wife and family had driven over to Purleigh on the first alarm, and had arranged to stay the night with some friends, on whatever shakedowns could be{182} improvised, since every house in the peninsula harboured some of the ubiquitous German officers and men. I wandered through the familiar rooms, and came out into the garden—or rather what had been the garden. There I saw that the Saxon gunners were all standing to their pieces, and one of my none too welcome guests accosted me as I left the house.

“ ‘If you’ll take my advice, sare, you’ll get away out of this,’ he said in broken English.

“ ‘What! are you going to fire?’ I asked.

“ ‘I don’t fancy so. It wouldn’t hurt you if we were. But I think your English friends from Colchester are about to see if they can draw us.’

“As he spoke I became aware of a sharp, hissing noise like a train letting off steam. It grew louder and nearer, passed over our heads, and was almost instantly followed by a terrible crash somewhere behind the house. A deeper and more muffled report came up from the valley beyond Heybridge.

“ ‘Well, they’ve begun now, and the best thing you can do is to get down into that gun epaulment there,’ said the German officer.

“I thought his advice was good, and I lost no time in following it.

“ ‘Here comes another!’ cried he, as he jumped down into the pit beside me. ‘We’ll have plenty of them now.’

“So we did. Shell after shell came hissing and screaming at us over the tree-tops in the gardens lower down the hill. Each one of them sounded to me as if it were coming directly at my head, but one after another passed over us to burst beyond. The gunners all crouched close to the earthen parapet—and so did I. I am not ashamed to say so. My German officer, however, occasionally climbed to the top of the embankment and studied the prospect through his field-glasses. At length there was a loud detonation, and a column of dirt and smoke in the garden next below us. Then two shells struck the parapet of the gun-pit on our left almost{183} simultaneously. Their explosion was deafening, and we were covered with the dust and stones they threw up.

“Immediately afterwards another shell passed so close over our heads that I felt my hair lift. It just cleared the parapet and plunged into the side of my house. A big hole appeared just to the right of the dining-room window, and through it came instantaneously the loud bang of the explosion. The glass was shattered in all the windows, and thick smoke, white and black, came curling from every one of them.

“ ‘The house is on fire!’ I shouted, and sprang madly from the pit. Heedless of the bombardment, I rushed into the building. Another crash sounded overhead as I entered, and a blaze of light shone down the stairway for an instant. Another projectile had found a billet in my home. I tried to make my way to my study, but found the passage blocked with fallen beams and ceiling. What with the smoke and dust, and the blocking of some of the windows, it was very dark in the hall, and I got quite a shock when, as I looked about me to find my way, I saw two red, glittering specks shining over the top of a heap of débris. But the howl that followed told me that they were nothing but the eyes of miserable Tim, the cat, who, left behind, had been nearly frightened out of his senses by the noise and concussion of the bursting shell. As I gazed at him another projectile struck the house quite close to us. Tim was simply smashed by a flying fragment. I was thrown down, and half buried under a shower of bricks and mortar. I think I must have lost consciousness for a time.

“The next thing I recollect was being dragged out into the garden by a couple of Saxons. I had a splitting headache, and was very glad of a glass of water that one of them handed me. Their officer, who appeared to be quite a decent fellow, offered me his flask.

“ ‘The house is all right,’ he said, with his strong accent. ‘It caught fire once, but we managed to get{184} it under. Your friends have cleared off—at any rate for the present. They got too bold at last, and pushed their guns down till they got taken in flank by the warship in the river. They had two of their pieces knocked to bits, and then cleared out. Best thing you can do is to do the same.’

“I was in two minds. I could not save the house by staying, and might just as well join my people at Purleigh Rectory. On the other hand, I felt that it would better become me, as Mayor, to stick to the town. Duty triumphed, and I decided to remain where I was—at least for the present. All was now quiet, and after an early supper I turned in, and, despite the excitement of the day and my aching head, was asleep the moment I touched the pillow.”

“Wednesday, September 5.

“It must have been about three in the morning when I awoke. My head was much better, and for a minute or two I lay comfortably in the darkness, without any recollection of the events of the preceding day. Then I saw a bright reflection pass rapidly over the ceiling. I wondered vaguely what it was. Presently it came back again, paused a moment, and disappeared. By this time I was wide awake. I went to the window and looked out. It was quite dark, but from somewhere over beyond Heybridge a long white ray was sweeping all along this side of Maldon. Now the foliage of a tree in the garden below would stand out in pale green radiance against the blackness; now the wall of a house half a mile away would reflect back the moving beam, shining white as a sheet of notepaper.

“Presently another ray shone out, and the two of them moving backwards and forwards made the whole of our hillside caper in a dizzy dance. From somewhere far away to my right another stronger beam now streamed through the obscurity, directed apparently at the sources of the other two, and almost simultaneously came the crack of a rifle from the direction{185} of Heybridge, sharp and ominous in the quiet darkness of the night. Half a dozen scattered shots followed; then a faint cheer. More and more rifles joined in, and presently the burring tap-tap-tap of a Maxim. I hurried on my clothes. The firing increased in volume and rapidity; bugles rang out here, there, and everywhere through the sleeping town, and above the rolling, rattling clamour of the drums I could distinguish the hurried tramp of hundreds of feet.

“I cast one glance from the window as I quitted the room. The electric searchlights had increased to at least half a dozen. Some reached out long, steady fingers into the vague spaces of the night, while others wandered restlessly up and down, hither and thither. Low down over the trees of the garden a dull red glare slowly increased in extent and intensity. The rattle of musketry was now absolutely continuous. As I ran out of the house into the street I was nearly carried off my feet by the rush of a battalion that was pouring down Cromwell Hill at the double. Hardly knowing what I did, I followed in their wake. The glare in front got brighter and brighter. A few steps, and I could see the cause of it. The whole of Heybridge appeared to be on fire, the flames roaring skywards from a dozen different conflagrations.”

England halted breathless. Fighting had commenced in real earnest.

The greatest consternation was caused by the publication in the Times of the description of the operations in Essex, written by Mr. Henry Bentley, the distinguished war correspondent, who had served that journal in every campaign since Kitchener had entered Khartum.

All other papers, without exception, contained various accounts of the British defence at the point nearest London, but they were mostly of the scrappy and sensational order, based more on report than upon actual fact. The Times account, however, had been written with calm impartiality by one of the most experienced{186} correspondents at the front. Whether he had been afforded any special facilities was not apparent, but, in any case, it was the most complete and truthful account of the gallant attempt on the part of our soldiers to check the advance from Essex westward.

During the whole of that hot, stifling day it was known that a battle was raging, and the excitement everywhere was intense.

The public were in anxious terror as the hours crept by until the first authentic news of the result of the operations was printed in a special evening edition of the Times as follows:—

“(From our War Correspondent.)

“Danbury, Essex, September 8.

“To-day has been a momentous one for England. The great battle has raged since dawn, and though just at present there seems to be a lull, during which the opposing forces are, so to speak, regaining their breath, it can be by no means over.

“Dead and living alike will lie out on the battlefield the whole night through, for we must hold on to the positions so hardly won, and be ready to press forward at the first glimmer of daylight. Our gallant troops, Regular and Volunteer alike, have nobly vindicated the traditions of our race, and have fought as desperately as ever did their forebears at Agincourt, Albuera, or Waterloo. But while a considerable success—paid for, alas! by the loss of thousands of gallant lives—has been achieved, it will take at least another day’s hard fighting before victory is in our grasp. Nowadays a soldier need not expect to be either victorious or finally defeated by nightfall, and although this battle, fought as it is between much smaller forces and extending over a much more limited area than the great engagement between the Russians and Japanese at Liaoyang, will not take quite so long a time to decide, the end is not yet in sight. I write this after a hard day’s travelling backwards and forwards behind our advancing line of battle.{187}

“I took my cycle with me in my motor-car, and whenever opportunity offered mounted it, and pushed forward as near to the fighting as I could get. Frequently I had to leave the cycle also, and crawl forward on hands and knees, sheltering in some depression in the ground, while the enemy’s bullets whined and whistled overhead. As reported in a previous issue, the Army which had assembled at Brentwood moved forward early on the 5th.

“During the afternoon the advanced troops succeeded in driving the enemy out of South Hanningfield, and before sundown they were also in full retreat from the positions they had held at East Hanningfield and Danbury. There was some stiff fighting at the latter place, but after a pounding from the artillery, who brought several batteries into action on the high ground north-west of East Hanningfield, the Germans were unable to withstand the attack of the Argyll and Sutherlands and the London Scottish, who worked their way through Danbury Park and Hall Wood right into their position, driving them from their entrenchments by a dashing bayonet charge. Everything north and east of the enemy’s main position, which is now known to lie north and south, between Maldon and the river Crouch, was now in our hands, but his troops still showed a stout front at Wickford, and were also reported to be at Rayleigh, Hockley, and Canewdon, several miles to the eastward. All preparations were made to assault the German position at Wickford at daybreak to-day, but our scouts found that the place had been evacuated. The news that Rayleigh and Hockley had also been abandoned by the enemy came in shortly afterwards. The German invaders had evidently completed their arrangements for the defence of their main position, and now said, in effect, ‘Come on, and turn us out if you can.’

“It was no easy task that lay before our gallant defenders. Maldon, perched on a high knoll, with a network of river and canal protecting it from assault{188} from the northward, fairly bristles with guns, many of them heavy field howitzers, and has, as we know to our cost, already repulsed one attack by our troops. Farther south there are said to be many guns on the knolls about Purleigh. This little out-of-the-way hamlet, by the way, is noteworthy as having had as its Rector from 1632-1643 the great-great-grandfather of the famous George Washington, and the father of the first Washingtons who emigrated to Virginia. Great Canney Hill, standing boldly up like an immense redoubt, is reported to be seamed with entrenchments mounting many heavy guns. The railway embankment south of Maldon forms a perfect natural rampart along part of the enemy’s position, while the woods and enclosures south-west of Great Canney conceal thousands of sharpshooters. A sort of advanced position was occupied by the enemy at Edwin Hall, a mile east of Woodham Ferrers, where a pair of high kopjes a quarter of a mile apart offered command and cover to some of their field batteries.

“Our scouts have discovered also that an elaborate system of wire entanglements and other military obstacles protects almost the whole front of the somewhat extensive German position. On its extreme left their line is said to be thrown back at an angle, so that any attempt to outflank it would not only entail crossing the river Crouch, but would come under the fire of batteries placed on the high ground overlooking it. Altogether, it is a very tough nut to crack, and the force at our disposal none too strong for the work that lies before it.

“Further detail regarding our strength would be inadvisable for obvious reasons, but when I point out that the Germans are supposed to be between thirty and forty thousand strong, and that it is laid down by competent military authorities that to attack troops in an entrenched position a superiority of six to one is advisable, my readers can draw their own conclusions. For the same reason, I will not enumerate all the regiments and corps that go to compose our Army in Essex. At the same time there can be no harm in mentioning{189} some of them which have particularly distinguished themselves in the hard fighting of the past twelve hours.

“Among these are the Grenadier and Irish Guards, the Inns of Court Volunteers, and the Honourable Artillery Company from London, and the Oxfordshire and two battalions of the Royal Marines from Chatham, which, with other troops from that place, crossed over at Tilbury and joined our forces. The last-mentioned are the most veteran troops we have here, as, besides belonging to a long-service corps, they have in their ranks a number of their Reservists who had joined at a day’s notice. The Marines are in reality, though not nominally, the most territorial of our troops, since the greater number of their Reserve men settle down in the immediate neighbourhood of their headquarters. It is this fact which enabled them to mobilise so much quicker than the rest of our regiments. The Oxfordshire, for instance, coming from the same garrison, has very few Reservists as yet, while most of the others are in the same plight. And yet the fiat has gone forth that the Marine Corps, despite its past record, the excellence of its men, and its constant readiness for active service, is to lose its military status. Would that we had a few more of its battalions with us to-day. But to return to the story of the great battle.

“The repairs to the railway line between Brentwood and Chelmsford, that had been damaged by the enemy’s cavalry on their first landing, were completed yesterday, and all night reinforcements had been coming in by way of Chelmsford and Billericay. The general headquarters had been established at Danbury, and thither I made my way as fast as my car could get along the roads, blocked as they were by marching horse, foot, and artillery. I had spent the night at South Hanningfield, so as to be on the spot for the expected attack on Wickford; but as soon as I found it was not to come off, I considered that at Danbury would be the best chance of finding out what our next move was to be.

“Nor was I mistaken. As I ran up to the village{190} I found the roads full of troops under arms, and everything denoted action of some kind. I was lucky enough to come across a friend of mine on the staff—Captain B——, I will call him—who spared a moment to give me the tip that a general move forward was commencing, and that a big battle was imminent. Danbury is situated on the highest ground for many miles round, and as it bid fair to be a fine, clear day, I thought I could not do better than try and get a general look round from the summit of the church tower before proceeding farther. But I was informed that the General was up there with some of his staff and a signalling party, so that I could not ascend.

“However, no other newspaper correspondents were in the immediate vicinity, and as there was thus no fear of my case being quoted as a precedent, my pass eventually procured me admission to the little platform, which, by the way, the General left a moment after my arrival. It was now eight o’clock, the sun was fairly high in the heavens, and the light mists that hung about the low ground in the vicinity of Maldon were fast fading into nothingness. The old town was plainly distinguishable as a dark silhouette against the morning light, which, while it illumined the panorama spread out before me, yet rendered observation somewhat difficult, since it shone almost directly into my eyes. However, by the aid of my glasses I was able to see something of the first moves on the fatal chess-board where so many thousands of lives are staked on the bloody game of war.

“I noticed among other things that the lessons of the recent war in the East had not passed unobserved, for in all the open spaces on the eastern slope of the hill, where the roads were not screened by trees or coppices, lofty erections of hurdles and greenery had been placed overnight to hide the preliminary movements of our troops from the glasses of the enemy. Under cover of these regiment after regiment of khaki-clad soldiers, batteries of artillery, and ammunition carts, were proceeding to their allotted posts down the network of{191} roads and lanes leading to the lower ground towards the south-east. Two battalions stood in quarter column behind Thrift Wood. They were kilted corps, probably the Argylls and the London Scottish. Several field batteries moved off to the left towards Woodham Walter. Other battalions took up their position behind Hyde Woods, farther away to the right, the last of them, the Grenadier Guards, I fancy, passing behind them and marching still farther southward.

“Finally two strong battalions, easily recognised as marines by their blue war-kit, marched rapidly down the main road and halted presently behind Woodham Mortimer Place. All this time there was neither sight nor sound of the enemy. The birds carrolled gaily in the old elms round my eyrie, the sparrows and martins piped and twittered in the eaves of the old church, and the sun shone genially on hill and valley, field and wood. To all appearance, peace reigned over the countryside, though the dun masses of troops in the shadows of the woodlands were suggestive of the autumn manœuvres. But for all this, the ‘Real Thing’ was upon us. As I looked, first one then another long and widely scattered line of crouching men in khaki issued from the cover of Hyde Woods and began slowly to move away towards the east. Then, and not till then, a vivid violet-white flash blazed out on the dim grey upland five miles away to the south-east, which had been pointed out to me as Great Canney, and almost at once a spout of earth and smoke sprang up a little way ahead of the advancing British. A dull boom floated up on the breeze, but was drowned in an ear-splitting crash somewhere close to me. I felt the old tower rock under the concussion, which I presently discovered came from a battery of big 4.7 guns established just outside the churchyard.

“There were at least six of them, and as one after another gave tongue, I descended from my rickety perch and went down to look at them. They were manned by a party of Bluejackets, who had brought them over from Chatham, and among the guns I found some of my{192} acquaintances in the Boer War, ‘Joe Chamberlain’ and ‘Bloody Mary,’ to wit. But I must leave my own personal experiences, at least for the present, and endeavour to give a general account of the day’s operations so far as I was able to follow them by observation and inquiry. The movement I saw developing below me was the first step towards what I eventually discovered was our main objective—Purleigh. The open ground, flat as a billiard-table to the north of this towards Maldon, presented the weakest front to our attack, but it was considered that if we penetrated there we should in a very short time be decimated and swept away by the cross fire from Maldon and Purleigh, to say nothing of that from other positions we might certainly assume the enemy had prepared in rear.

“Could we succeed in establishing ourselves at Purleigh, however, we should be beyond effective range from Maldon, and should also take Great Canney in reverse, as well as the positions on the refused left flank of the enemy. Maldon, too, would be isolated. Purleigh, therefore, was the key of the position. We have not got it yet, but have made a good stride in its direction, and if it is true that ‘fortune favours the brave,’ ought certainly to be in possession of it by to-morrow evening. Our first move was in this direction, as I have already indicated. The scouts were picked men from the Line battalions, but the firing lines were composed of Volunteers and, in some cases, Militiamen. It was considered more politic to reserve the Regulars for the later stages of the attack. The firing from Canney, and afterwards from Purleigh, was at first at rather too long a range to be effective, even from the heavy guns that were in use, and later on the heavy long-range fire from ‘Bloody Mary’ and her sisters at Danbury, and other heavy guns and howitzers in the neighbourhood of East Hanningfield, kept it down considerably, although the big, high-explosive shells were now and again most terribly destructive to the advancing British.

“When, however, the firing line—which as yet had{193}

not been near enough to fire a shot in reply—arrived in the neighbourhood of Loddard’s Hill, its left came under a terrible rifle fire from Hazeleigh Wood, while its right and centre were all but destroyed by a tornado of shrapnel from some German field batteries to the north of Purleigh. Though dazed and staggered under the appalling sleet of projectiles, the Volunteers stuck doggedly to their ground, though unable to advance. They were intelligent men; and even if they had the inclination to fall back, they knew that there was no safety that way. Line after line was pushed forward, the men stumbling{194} and falling over the thickly scattered bodies of their fallen comrades.

“It was a perfect holocaust. Some other card must be played at once, or the attack must fail.”

The second of Mr. Henry Bentley’s descriptive articles in the Times told a terrible truth, and was as follows:—

Late on Wednesday night came tardy news of the measures we were taking to mobilise.

The Aldershot Army Corps, so complete in the “Army List,” consisted, as all the world knew, of three divisions, but of these only two existed, the other being found to be on paper. The division in question, located at Bordon, was to be formed on mobilisation, and this measure was now being proceeded with. The train service was practically suspended, owing to the damage done to the various lines south of London by the enemy’s emissaries. Several of these men had been detected, and being in plain clothes were promptly shot out of hand. However, their work had, unfortunately for us, been accomplished, and trains could only run as far as the destroyed bridges, so men on their way to join their respective corps were greatly delayed in consequence.

In one instance, at about four o’clock in the morning, three men were seen by a constable acting suspiciously beneath the iron girder bridge of the South-Western Railway spanning the road on the London side of Surbiton Station. Of a sudden the men bolted, and a few moments later, with a terrific explosion, the great bridge crashed into the road.

The constable raised the alarm that the fugitives were German spies, whereupon a few unemployed workmen, rushing down Effingham Gardens, caught two of the men in Malpas Road. In the hands of these irate bricklayers the Germans were given short shrift,{203} and, notwithstanding the protests of the constable, the two spies were dragged along the Portsmouth Road, pitched headlong into the Thames almost immediately opposite the water-works, and drowned.

All was confusion at Bordon, where men were arriving in hundreds on foot, and by the service of motor-omnibuses, which the War Office had on the day before established between Charing Cross and Aldershot. Perspiring staff officers strove diligently, without much avail, to sort out into their respective units this ever-increasing mass of reservists.

There was perfect chaos.

Before the chief constituent parts of the division—that is to say, regiments who were stationed elsewhere—had arrived little could be done with the reservists. The regiments in question were in many cases stationed at considerable distance, and although they had received orders to start, were prevented from arriving owing to the universal interruptions of the railway traffic south. By this, whole valuable days were lost—days when at any hour the invaders might make a sudden swoop on London.

Reports were alarming and conflicting. Some said that the enemy meant to strike a blow upon the capital just as suddenly as they had landed, while others reassured the alarmists that the German plans were not yet complete, and that they had not sufficient stores to pursue the campaign.

Reservists, with starvation staring them in the face, went eagerly south to join their regiments, knowing that at least they would be fed with regularity; while, in addition, the true patriotic spirit of the Englishman had been roused against the aggressive Teuton, and everyone, officer and man, was eager to bear his part in driving the invader into the sea.

The public were held breathless. What would happen?

Arrivals at Aldershot, however, found the whole arrangements in such a complete muddle that Army{204} Service Corps men, who ought to have been at Woolwich, were presenting themselves for enrolment at Bordon, and infantry of the line were conducted into the camp of the Dragoons. The Motor Volunteer Corps were at this moment of very great use. The cars were filled with staff officers and other exalted officials, who were settling themselves in various offices, and passing out again to make necessary arrangements for dealing with such a large influx of men.

There were activity and excitement everywhere. Men were rapidly drawing their clothing, or as much of it as they could get, and civilians were quickly becoming soldiers on every hand. Officers of the Reserve were driving up in motor-cars and cabs, many of them with their old battered uniform-cases, that had seen service in the field in distant parts of the globe. Men from the “Junior” and the “Senior” wrung each other’s hands on returning to active duty with their old regiments, and at once settled down into the routine work they knew so well.

The rumour, however, had now got about that a position in the neighbourhood of Cambridge had been selected by the General Staff as being the most suitable theatre of action where an effective stand could, with any hope of success, be made. It was evident that the German tactics were to strike a swift and rapid blow at London. Indeed, nothing at present stood in their way except the gallant little garrison at Colchester, who had been so constantly driven back by the enemy’s cavalry on attempting to make any reconnaissance, and who might be swept out of existence at any hour.

During Tuesday and Wednesday large gangs of workmen had been busy repairing the damaged lines. The first regiment complete for the field was the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Fusiliers, who carried upon their colours the names of a score of battles, ranging from Corunna and Badajoz, all through the Peninsula, Afghanistan, and Egypt, down to the Modder River.{205} This regiment left by train for London on Tuesday evening, and was that same night followed by the 2nd Battalion King’s Liverpool Regiment and the 1st King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, while the Manchester Regiment got away soon after midnight.

These formed the second infantry brigade of the 1st Division, and were commanded by Brigadier-General Sir John Money. They were several hours getting up to London, whence from Clapham Junction their trains circled London on to the Great Eastern system to Braintree, where the Horn Hotel was made the headquarters. By other trains in the small hours of the morning the last of the Guards Brigade under Colonel (temporary Brigadier-General) Lord Wansford departed, and duly arrived at Saffron Walden, to join their comrades on the line of defence.

The divisional troops were also on the move early on Wednesday. Six batteries of artillery and the field company of Royal Engineers left by road. There was a balloon section accompanying this, and searchlights, wireless instruments, and cables for field-telegraphy were carried in the waggons.

The 2nd Division, under Lieutenant-General Morgan, C.B., was also active. The 3rd Infantry Brigade, commanded by Major-General Fortescue, composed of 2nd Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment, the 2nd Bedfordshire, the 1st Princess of Wales’ Own, and the 1st Royal Welsh Fusiliers, were preparing, but had not yet moved. The 4th Infantry Brigade of the same division, consisting of the 3rd and 4th Battalions King’s Royal Rifle Corps, the 2nd Sherwood Foresters, and the 2nd South Lancashire, with the usual smartness of those distinguished regiments, were quick and ready, now as ever, to go to the front. They were entrained to Baldock, slightly east of Hitchin, where they marched out on the Icknield Way. These were followed by Fortescue’s Brigade, who were also bound for Baldock and the neighbourhood.

The bulk of the cavalry and field artillery of both{206} divisions, together with the divisional troops, were compelled to set out by march-route from Aldershot for the line of defences. The single and all-sufficient reason of this delay in sending out the cavalry and artillery was owing to the totally inadequate accommodation on the railways for the transport of so many horses and guns. The troop-trains, which were, of course, necessary to transport the infantry, were not forthcoming in sufficient numbers, this owing to the fact that at several points the lines to London were still interrupted.

The orders to the cavalry who went by march-route were to get up to the line proposed to be taken up by the infantry as quickly as possible, and to operate in front of it to the east and north-east in screening and reconnoitring duties. The temporary deficiency of cavalry, who ought, of course, to have been the first to arrive at the scene, was made good as far as possible by the general employment of hordes of motor-cyclists, who scoured the country in large armed groups in order to ascertain, if possible, the dispositions of the enemy. This they did, and very soon after their arrival reported the result of their investigations to the general officers commanding the 1st and 2nd Divisions.

Meanwhile both cavalry and artillery in great bodies, and strings of motor-omnibuses filled with troops, were upon the white, dusty roads passing through Staines to Hounslow and Brentford, thence to London, St. Albans, en route to their respective divisions. Roughly, the distance was over fifty miles, therefore those marching were compelled to halt the night on the way, while those in the motor-omnibuses got through to their destination.

To cavalry, thirty-five miles is a long day’s march, and in view of the heavy work before them, stringent orders had been given them to spare the horses as much as possible. The heads of the columns did not, therefore, pass beyond Hounslow on the first night, and in that neighbourhood the thousands of all ranks made themselves{207} as comfortable as circumstances would permit. The majority of the men were fed and billeted by the all-too-willing inhabitants, and upon their hot march they met with ovations everywhere.

At last we were defending ourselves! The sight of British troops hurrying to the front swelled the hearts of the villagers and townsfolk with renewed patriotism, and everywhere, through the blazing, dusty day, the men were offered refreshment by even the poorest and humblest cottagers. In Bagshot, in Staines, and in Hounslow the people went frantic with excitement, as squadron after squadron rapidly passed along, with its guns, wagons, and ambulances rumbling noisily over the stones, in the rear.

Following these came pontoon troops with their long grey wagons and mysterious-looking bridging apparatus, telegraph troops, balloon sections, supply columns, field bakery, and field hospitals, the last-named packed in wagons marked with the well-known red cross of the Geneva Convention.

No sooner was Aldershot denuded of its army corps, however, than battalions began to arrive from Portsmouth on their way north, while troops from the great camp on Salisbury Plain were rapidly being pushed to the front, which, roughly speaking, extended through Hitchin, Royston, to Saffron Walden, across to Braintree, and also the high ground commanding the valley of the Colne to Colchester.

The line chosen by the General Staff was the natural chain of hills which presented the first obstacle to the enemy advancing on London from the wide plain stretching eastward beyond Cambridge to the sea.

If this could be held strongly, as was intended, by practically the whole of the British forces located in the South of England, including the Yeomanry, Militia, and Volunteers—who were now all massing in every direction—then the deadly peril threatening England might be averted.

But could it be held?{208}

{209}

This was the appalling question on everyone’s tongue all over the country, for it now became generally known that upon this line of defence four complete and perfectly equipped German army corps were ready to advance at any moment, in addition to the right flank being exposed to the attack of the XIIth Saxon Corps, entrenched on the Essex coast.

It was estimated that no fewer than two hundred thousand Germans were already upon English soil!

The outlook grew blacker every hour.

London was in a state of absolute stagnation and chaos. In the City, business was now at an entire standstill. The credit system had received a fatal blow, and nobody wanted to buy securities. Had people kept level heads in the crisis there would have been a moratorium, but, as it was, a panic had been created that nothing could allay. Even Consols were now unsaleable. Some of the smaller banks were known to have failed, and traders and manufacturers all over the country had been ruined on account of credit, the foundation of all trade, having been swept away. Only persons of the highest financial standing could have dealt with the banks, even if they had remained open.

The opinion held in banking circles was that if the invasion should unfortunately prove disastrous to England, and Germany demand a huge indemnity, there was still hope, however small. The experience of the Franco-German War had proved that though in such circumstances the Bank, for a considerable period, might not be able to resume cash payments, yet, with sound finance, there was no reason that the currency should greatly depreciate. During the period of suspension of cash payments by the Bank of France the premium on gold never went above 1.5 per cent., and during most of the period was 5, 4, or even less per mille. Therefore what the French by sound banking had been able to do, there was no reason why English bankers could not also do.{210}

At the outbreak of the war of 1870, on August 1 French Three per Cent. Rentes were at 60.85, and Four and a Half per Cents. at 98. On the memorable day of Sedan, September 2, they were at 50.80 and 88.50 respectively, and on January 2, 1871, Three per Cents. were down to 50.95. At the commencement of the Commune, on March 18, they were at 51.50 and 76.25, and on the 30th of that month down to 50.60 and 76.25 respectively.

With so little money in England as there now was, securities had fallen to the value at which holders would as soon not sell as sell at such a great discount. High rates and the heavy fall in the value of securities had brought business in every quarter all over London to a standstill. Firms all over the country were now hard put to it in order to find the necessary money to carry on their various trades. Instantly, after the report of the reverse at Sheffield, there was a wild rush to obtain gold, and securities dropped even a few more points.

Therefore, there was little or nothing for the banks to do, and Lombard Street, Lothbury, and the other banking centres were closed, as though it had been Sunday or Bank Holiday. Despair was, alas! everywhere, and the streets presented strange scenes.

Most of the motor-omnibuses had been taken off the road and pressed into the service of the military. The walls bore a dozen different broadsides and proclamations, which were read by the gaping, hungry crowds.

The Royal Standard was flying from St. Stephen’s Tower, for Parliament had now met, and all members who were not abroad for their summer vacation had taken their places at the heated debates now hourly in progress. Over Buckingham Palace the Royal Standard also flew proudly, while upon every public building was displayed a Union Jack or a white ensign, many of which had done duty at the coronation of His Majesty King Edward. The Admiralty flew its own flag, and upon the War Office, the India Office, the Foreign Office,{211} and all the dark, sombre Government buildings in Whitehall was bunting displayed.

The wild enthusiasm of Sunday and Monday, however, had given place to a dark, hopeless apprehension. The great mobs now thronging all the principal thoroughfares in London were already half-famished. Food was daily rising in price, and the East End was already starving. Bands of lawless men and women from the slums of Whitechapel were parading the West End streets and squares, and were camping out in Hyde Park and St. James’s Park.

The days were stifling, for it was an unusually hot September following upon a blazing August, and as each breathless evening the sun sank, it shed its blood-red afterglow over the giant metropolis, grimly precursory of the ruin so surely imminent.

Supplies were still reaching London from the country, but there had been immediate panic in the corn and provision markets, with the result that prices had instantly jumped up beyond the means of the average Londoner. The poorer ones were eagerly collecting the refuse in Covent Garden Market and boiling it down to make soup in lieu of anything else, while wise fathers of families went to the shops themselves and made meagre purchases daily of just sufficient food to keep body and soul together.

For the present there was no fear of London being absolutely starved, at least the middle class and wealthier portion of it. At present it was the poor—the toiling millions now unemployed—who were the first to feel the pinch of hunger and its consequent despair. They filled the main arteries of London—Holborn, Oxford Street, the Strand, Regent Street, Piccadilly, the Haymarket, St. James’s Street, Park Lane, Victoria Street, and Knightsbridge, overflowing northward into Grosvenor, Berkeley, Portman, and Cavendish Squares, Portland Place, and to the terraces around Regent’s Park. The centre of London became congested. Day and night it was the same. There was no{212} sleep. From across the river and from the East End the famished poor came in their bewildering thousands, the majority of them honest workers, indignant that by the foolish policy of the Government they now found themselves breadless.

Before the Houses of Parliament, before the fine new War Office, and the Admiralty, before Downing Street, and before the houses of known members of the Government, constant demonstrations were being made, the hungry crowds groaning at the authorities, and singing “God save the King.” Though starving and in despair, they were nevertheless loyal, still confident that by the personal effort of His Majesty some amicable settlement would be arrived at. The French entente cordiale was remembered, and our Sovereign had long ago been declared to be the first diplomat in Europe. Every Londoner believed in him, and loved him.

Many houses of the wealthy, especially those of foreigners, had their windows broken. In Park Lane, in Piccadilly, and in Grosvenor Square, more particularly, the houses seemed to excite the ire of the crowds, who, notwithstanding special constables having been sworn in, were now quite beyond the control of the police. The German Ambassador had presented his letters of recall on Sunday evening, and together with the whole staff had been accorded a safe conduct to Dover, whence they had left for the Continent. The Embassy in Carlton House Terrace, and also the Consulate-General in Finsbury Square, had, however, suffered severely at the hands of the angry crowd, notwithstanding that both premises were under police protection.

All the German waiters employed at the Cecil, the Savoy, the Carlton, the Métropole, the Victoria, the Grand, and the other big London hotels, had already fled for their lives out into the country, anywhere from the vengeance of the London mob. Hundreds of them were trying to make their way within the German lines in Essex and Suffolk, and it was believed that many{213} had succeeded—those, most probably, who had previously acted as spies. Others, it was reported, had been set upon by the excited populace, and more than one had lost his life.

Pandemonium reigned in London. Every class and every person in every walk of life was affected. German interests were being looked after by the Russian Ambassador, and this very fact caused a serious demonstration before Chesham House, the big mansion where lives the representative of the Czar. Audacious spies had, in secret, in the night actually posted copies of Von Kronhelm’s proclamation upon the Griffin at Temple Bar, upon the Marble Arch, and upon the Mansion House. But these had been quickly torn down, and if the hand that had placed them there had been known, it would certainly have meant death to the one who had thus insulted the citizens of London.

Yet the truth was, alas! too plain. Spread out across Essex and Suffolk, making leisurely preparations and laughing at our futile defence, lay over one hundred thousand well-equipped, well-fed Germans, ready, when their plans were completed, to advance upon and crush the complex city which is the pride and home of every Englishman—London.

On Friday night an official communication from the War Office was issued to the Press, showing the exact position of the invaders. It was roughly this:—

“The IXth German Corps, which had effected a landing at Lowestoft, had, after moving along the most easterly route, including the road through Saxmundham and Ipswich, at length arrived at a position where their infantry outposts had occupied the higher slopes of the rising ground overlooking the river Stour, near Manningtree, which town, as well as Ipswich, was held by them.

“The left flank of this corps rested on the river Stour itself, so that it was secure from any turning movement.{214} Its front was opposed to and directly threatened Colchester, while its outposts, to say nothing of its independent cavalry, reached out in a northerly direction towards Stowmarket, where they joined hands with the left flank of the Xth Corps—those under Von Wilburg, who had landed at Yarmouth—whose headquarters were now at Bury St. Edmund’s, their outposts being disposed south, overlooking the valley of the upper reaches of the Stour.”

Nor was this all. From Newmarket there came information that the enemy who had landed at Weybourne and Cromer—viz., the IVth Corps under Von Kleppen—were now encamping on the racecourse and being billeted in the town and villages about, including Exning, Ashley, Moulton, and Kentford. Frölich’s cavalry brigade had penetrated South, covering the advance, and had now scoured the country, sweeping away the futile resistance of the British Yeomanry, and scattering cavalry squadrons which they found opposed to them, all the time maintaining communication with the Xth Corps on their left, and the flower of the German Army, the Guards Corps, from King’s Lynn, on their right. Throughout the advance from Holt, Von Dorndorf’s motorists had been of the greatest utility. They had taken constantly companies of infantry hither and thither. At any threatened point, so soon as the sound of firing was heard in any cavalry skirmish or little engagement of outposts, the smart motor infantry were on the spot with the promptness of a fire brigade proceeding to a call. For this reason the field artillery, who were largely armed with quick-firing guns, capable of pouring in a hail of shrapnel on any exposed point, were enabled to push on much farther than would have been otherwise possible. They were always adequately supported by a sufficient escort of these up-to-date troops, who, although infantry, moved with greater rapidity than cavalry itself, and who, moreover, brought with them their Maxims, which dealt havoc far and near.

The magnificent troops of the Duke of Mannheim{215} in their service uniforms, who had landed at King’s Lynn, had come across the wide, level roads, some by way of Downham Market, Littleport, and Ely, and arrived at Cambridge. The 2nd Division, under Lieutenant-General von Kasten, protecting the exposed flanks, had marched viâ Wisbech, March, Chatteris, and St. Ives, while the masses of the cavalry of the Guard, including the famous White Cuirassiers, had been acting independently around the flat fen country, Spalding and Peterborough, and away to quaint old Huntingdon, striking terror into the inhabitants, and effectively checking any possible offensive movement of the British that might have been directed upon the great German Army during its ruthless advance.

Beyond this, worse remained. It was known that the VIIth Corps, under Von Bristram, had landed at Goole, and that General Graf Haeseler had landed at Hull, New Holland, and Grimsby. This revealed what the real strategy of the Generalissimo had been. Their function seemed twofold. First and foremost their presence, as a glance at the map will show, effectually prevented any attack from the British troops gathered from the north and elsewhere, and who were, as shown, concentrated near Sheffield and Birmingham, until these two corps had themselves been attacked and repulsed, which we were, alas! utterly unable to accomplish.

These were two fine German army corps, complete to the proverbial last button, splendidly equipped, well fed, and led by officers who had had lifelong training, and were perfectly well acquainted with every mile of the country they occupied, by reason of years of careful study given to maps of England. It was now entirely plain that the function of these two corps was to paralyse our trade in Yorkshire and Lancashire, to commit havoc in the big cities, to terrify the people, and to strike a crushing blow at our industrial centres, leaving the siege of London to the four other corps now so rapidly advancing upon the metropolis.{216}

Events meanwhile were marching quickly in the North.

The town of Sheffield throughout Tuesday and Wednesday was the scene of the greatest activity. Day and night the streets were filled with an excited populace, and hour by hour the terror increased.

Every train arriving from the North was crowded with Volunteers and troops of the line from all stations in the Northern Command. The 1st Battalion West Riding Regiment had joined the Yorkshire Light Infantry, who were already stationed in Sheffield, as had also the 19th Hussars, and from every regimental district and depot, including Scarborough, Richmond, Carlisle, Seaforth, Beverley, Halifax, Lancaster, Preston, Bolton, Warrington, Bury, Ashton-under-Lyne, came battalions of Militia and Volunteers. From Carlisle came the Reservists of the Border Regiment, from Richmond those of the Yorkshire Regiment, from Newcastle came what was left of the Reservists of the Durham Light Infantry, and the Northumberland Fusiliers, from Lancaster the Royal Lancashires, while field artillery came from Seaforth and Preston, and small bodies of Reservists of the Liverpool and the South Lancashire Regiments came from Warrington. Contingents of the East and North Lancashire Regiments arrived from Preston. The Militia, including battalions of the Liverpool Regiment, the South Lancashire Regiment, the Lancashire Fusiliers, and other regiments in the command, were hurried to the scene of action outside Sheffield. From every big town in the whole of the North of England and South of Scotland came straggling units of Volunteers. The mounted troops were almost entirely Yeomanry, and included the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Imperial Yeomanry, the East Riding of Yorks, the Lancashire Hussars, Northumberland Yeomanry, Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry, the Queen’s Own Yorkshire Dragoons, and the York Hussars.

These troops, with their ambulances, their baggage, and all their impedimenta, created the utmost confusion{217} at both railway stations. The great concourse of idlers cheered and cheered again, the utmost enthusiasm being displayed when each battalion forming up was marched away out of the town to the position chosen for the defence, which now reached from Woodhouse on the south, overlooking and commanding the whole valley of the river Rother, through Catcliffe, Brinsworth, and Tinsley, previously alluded to, skirting Greasborough to the high ground north of Wentworth, also commanding the river Don and all approaches to it through Mexborough, and over the various bridges which spanned this stream—a total of about eight miles.

The south flank was thrown back another four miles to Norton, in an endeavour to prevent the whole position being turned, should the Germans elect to deliver their threatened blow from a more southerly point than was anticipated.

The total line then to be occupied by the defenders was about twelve miles, and into this front was crowded the heterogeneous mass of troops of all arms. The post of honour was at Catcliffe, the dominating key to the whole position, which was occupied by the sturdy soldiers of the 1st Battalion West Riding Regiment and the 2nd Battalion Yorkshire Light Infantry, while commanding every bridge crossing the rivers which lay between Sheffield and the invaders were concentrated the guns of the 7th Brigade Royal Horse Artillery, and of the Field Artillery, the 2nd, the 30th, the 37th, and 38th Brigades, the latter having hurriedly arrived from Bradford.

All along the crests of these slopes which formed the defence of Sheffield, rising steeply from the river at times up to five hundred feet, were assembled the Volunteers, all now by daybreak on Thursday morning busily engaged in throwing up shelter-trenches and making hasty earthwork defences for the guns. The superintendence of this force had merged itself into that of the Northern Command, which nominally had{218}

its headquarters in York, but which had now been transferred to Sheffield itself, for the best of reasons—that it was of no value at York, and was badly wanted farther south. General Sir George Woolmer, who so distinguished himself in South Africa, had therefore shifted his headquarters to the Town Hall in Sheffield, but as soon as he had begun to get the line of defence{219} completed, he, with his staff, moved on to Handsworth, which was centrally situated.

In the command were to be found roughly twenty-three battalions of Militia and forty-eight of Volunteers; but owing to the supineness and neglect of the Government the former regiments now found themselves, at the moment when wanted, greatly denuded of officers, and, owing to any lack of encouragement to enlist, largely depleted in men. As regards the Volunteers, matters were even worse. During the past five years as much cold water as possible had been thrown upon all voluntary and patriotic military endeavour by the “antimilitant” Cabinets which had so long met at No. 10 Downing Street. The Volunteers, as a body, were sick to death of the slights and slurs cast upon their well-meaning efforts. Their “paper” organisation, like many other things, remained intact, but for a long time wholesale resignations of officers and men had been taking place. Instead, therefore, of a muster of about twenty-five thousand auxiliaries being available in this command, as the country would have anticipated, if the official tabulated statements had been any guide, it was found that only about fifteen thousand had responded to the call to arms. And upon these heroic men, utterly insufficient in point of numbers, Sheffield had to rely for its defence.

It might reasonably have been anticipated that in the majority of Volunteer regiments furnished by big manufacturing towns, a battalion would have consisted of at least five hundred efficient soldiers; but owing to the causes alluded to, in many cases it was found that from one hundred to two hundred only could “pass the doctor,” after having trained themselves to the use of arms. The catchword phrase, “Peace, retrenchment, and reform,” so long dinned into the ears of the electorate by the pro-German Party and by every socialistic demagogue, had sunk deeply into the minds of the people. Patriotism had been jeered at, and solemn warnings laughed to scorn, even when uttered by responsible{220} and far-seeing statesmen. Yet the day of awakening had dawned—a rude awakening indeed!

Away to the eastward of Sheffield—exactly where was yet unknown—sixty thousand perfectly-equipped and thoroughly-trained German horse, foot and artillery, were ready at any moment to advance westward into our manufacturing districts!{221}

Arrests of alleged spies were reported from Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, and other large towns. Most of the prisoners were, however, able to prove themselves naturalised British subjects; but several men in Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield were detained pending investigation and examination of correspondence found at their homes. In Manchester, where there are always a number of Germans, it is known that many slipped away on Sunday night after the publication of the news of the invasion. Several houses in Eccles and Patricroft, outside Manchester, a house in Brown Street in the City itself, one in Gough Street, Birmingham, and another in Sandon Place, Sheffield, were all searched, and from the reports received by Scotland Yard it was believed that certain important correspondence had been seized, correspondence which had betrayed a widespread system of German espionage in this country. Details were wanting, as the police authorities withheld the truth, for fear, it was supposed, of increasing the public alarm. At the house in Sheffield, where lived a young German who had come to England ostensibly as pupil at one of the large steelworks, an accumulation of newspaper cuttings was discovered, together with a quantity of topographical information concerning the country over which the enemy was now advancing from Goole.

In most of the larger Midland towns notices had been issued by the mayors deprecating hostility towards{222} residents of foreign origin, and stating that all suspicious cases were already receiving the attention of the police.

In Stafford the boot factories were idle, and thousands of despairing men were lounging about in Greengate, Eastgate, and other thoroughfares. In the Potteries all work was at a standstill. At Stoke-on-Trent, at Hanley, at Burslem, Tunstall, and Congleton all was chaos. Minton’s, Copeland’s, Doulton’s, and Brown Westhead’s were closed, and thousands upon thousands were already wanting bread. The silk-thread industry at Leek was ruined, so was the silk industry at Macclesfield; the great breweries at Burton were idle, while the hosiery factories of Leicester and the boot factories of Northampton were all shut.

With the German troops threatening Sheffield, Nottingham was in a state of intense alarm. The lace and hosiery factories had with one accord closed on Tuesday, and the great Market Place was now filled day and night by thousands upon thousands of unemployed mill-hands of both sexes. On Friday, however, came the news of how Sheffield had built barricades against the enemy, and there ensued a frantic attempt at defence on the part of thousands of terrified and hungry men and women. In their frenzy they sacked houses in order to obtain material to construct the barricades, which were, however, built just where the fancy took the crowd. One was constructed in Clumber Street, near the Lion Hotel; another at Lister Gate; and a third, a much larger one, in Radford Road. Near the Carrington Station, on the road to Arnold, a huge structure soon rose, another at Basford, while the road in from Carlton and the bridges leading in from West Bridgford and Wilford were also effectually blocked.

The white, interminable North Road, that runs so straight from London through York and Berwick to Edinburgh, was, with its by-roads in the Midlands, now being patrolled by British cavalry, and here and there telegraphists around a telegraph post showed{223} that those many wires at the roadside were being used for military communication.

At several points along the road between Wansford Bridge and Retford the wires had been cut and tangled by the enemy’s agents, but by Friday all had been restored again. In one spot, between Weston and Sutton-on-Trent, eight miles south of Newark, a trench had actually been dug during the night, the tube containing the subterranean telegraph lines discovered, and the whole system to the North disorganised. Similar damage had been done by German spies to the line between London and Birmingham, two miles south of Shipston-on-Stour, and again the line between Loughborough and Nottingham had been similarly destroyed.

The Post Office linesmen had, however, quickly made good the damage everywhere in the country not already occupied by the enemy, and telegraph and telephone communication North and South was now practically again in its normal state.

Through Lincolnshire the enemy’s advance patrols had spread South over every road between the Humber and the Wash, and in the city of Lincoln itself a tremendous sensation was caused when on Wednesday, market-day, several bodies of German motor-cyclists swept into the Stonebow and dismounted at the Saracen’s Head amid the crowd of farmers and dealers who had assembled there, not, alas! to do business, but to discuss the situation. In a moment the city was panic-stricken. From mouth to mouth the dread truth spread that the Germans were upon them, and people ran indoors and barricaded themselves within their houses.

A body of Uhlans came galloping proudly through the Stonebow a quarter of an hour later, and halted in High Street, opposite Wyatt’s clothing shop, as though awaiting orders. Then in rapid succession troops seemed to arrive from all quarters, many halting in the Cathedral Close and by Exchequer Gate, and{224} others riding through the streets in order to terrify the inhabitants.

Von Kronhelm’s famous proclamation was posted by German soldiers upon the police station, upon the Stonebow, and upon the door of the grand old Cathedral itself, and before noon a German officer accompanied by his staff called upon the Mayor and warned him that Lincoln was occupied by the German troops, and that any armed resistance would be punished by death, as the Generalissimo’s proclamation stated. An indemnity was demanded, and then the powerless people saw upon the Cathedral and upon several of the public buildings the German flag rise and float out upon the summer wind.

Boston was full of German infantry, and officers had taken up temporary quarters in the Peacock and the other hotels in the market-place, while upon the “stump” the enemy’s colours were flying.

No news came from London. People in Norwich, Ipswich, Yarmouth, and other places heard vaguely of the invasion in the North, and of fighting in which the Germans were careful to report that they were always successful. They saw the magnificently equipped army of the Kaiser, and, comparing it with our mere apology for military force, regarded the issue as hopeless from the very first. In every town the German colours were displayed, and all kinds of placards in German and in English made their appearance.

“Royston, September 9.

“Victory at last. A victory due not only to the bravery and exertion of our troops, regular and auxiliary, but also to the genius of Field-Marshal Lord Byfield, our Commander-in-Chief, ably seconded by the energy{225} and resource with which Sir William Packington, in command of the IVth Army Corps at Baldock, carried out that part of the programme entrusted to him.

“But though in this success we may hope that we are seeing the first glimmerings of dawn,—of deliverance from the nightmare of German invasion that is now oppressing our dear old England,—we must not be led into foolishly sanguine hopes. The snake has been scotched, and pretty badly into the bargain, but he is far from being killed. The German IVth Army Corps under the famous General Von Kleppen, their magnificent Garde Corps commanded by the Duke of Mannheim, and Frölich’s fine Cavalry Division, have been repulsed in their attack on our positions near Royston and Saffron Walden, and driven back with great loss and confusion. But we are too weak to follow up our victory as it should be followed up.

“The menace of the IXth and Xth Corps on our right flank ties us to our selected position, and the bulk of our forces being composed of indifferently trained Volunteers and Militia, is much more formidable behind entrenchments than when attempting to manœuvre in a difficult and intricate country such as it is about here. But, on the other hand, we have given pause to the invaders, and have certainly gained a few days’ time, which will be invaluable to us.

“We shall be able to get on with the line of fortifications that are being constructed to bar the approaches to London, and behind which it will be necessary for us to make our final stand. I do not conceive that it is possible for such an agglomeration of amateur troops as ours are in the main, to defeat in the open field such formidable and well-trained forces as the Germans have succeeded in throwing into this country. But when our Navy has regained command of the sea we hope that we may, before very long, place our unwelcome visitors ‘between the devil and the deep sea’—the part of the devil being played by our brave troops finally concentrated behind the strong defences of the metropolis.{226} In short, that the Germans may run out of ammunition and provisions. For if communication with the Fatherland is effectively cut, they must starve, unless they have previously compelled our submission, for it is impossible for an army of the size that has invaded us to live on the country.

“No doubt hundreds, nay thousands, of our non-militant countrymen—and, alas! women and children—will starve before the German troops are conquered by famine, that most terrible of enemies; but this issue seems to be the only possible one that will save the country.

“But enough of these considerations of the future. It is time that I should relate what I can of the glorious victory which our gallant defenders have torn from the enemy. I do not think that I am giving any information away if I state that the British position lay mainly between Saffron Walden and Royston, the headquarters respectively of the IInd and IIIrd Army Corps. The IVth Corps was at Baldock, thrown back to cover the left flank, and protect our communications by the Great Northern Railway. A detached force, from what command supplied it is not necessary or advisable to say, was strongly entrenched on the high ground north-west of Helions Bumpstead, serving to strengthen our right. Our main line of defence—very thinly held in some parts—began a little to the south-east of Saffron Walden, and ran westwards along a range of high ground through Elmdon and Chrishall to Heydon. Here it turned south through Great Chrishall to Little Chrishall, where it again turned west, and occupied the high range south of Royston, on which stands the village of Therfield.

“The night before the battle we knew that the greater portion of the German IVth and Garde Corps were concentrated, the former at Newmarket, the 1st Division of the latter at Cambridge, the 2nd on this side of St. Ives, while Frölich’s Cavalry Division had been in constant contact with our outposts the greater part of the day previous. The Garde Cavalry Brigade was reported{227}

to be well away to the westward towards Kettering, as we suppose, on account of the reports which have been going about of a concentration of Yeomanry and Militia in the hilly country near Northampton. Our Intelligence Department, which appears to have been very well served by its spies, obtained early knowledge of the intention of the Germans to make an attack on our position. In fact, they talked openly of it, and stated at Cambridge and Newmarket that they would not manœuvre at all, and only hoped that we should hold on long enough to our position to enable them to smash up our IInd and IIIrd Corps by a frontal attack, and so clear the road to London. The main roads lent themselves{228} admirably to such strategy, which rendered the reports of their intentions the more probable, for they all converged on our position from their main points of concentration.

“The letter ‘W’ will exactly serve to show the positions of the contending forces. St. Ives is at the top of the first stroke, Cambridge at the junction of the two shorter centre ones, Newmarket at the top of the last stroke, while the British positions at Royston and Saffron Walden are at the junctions of all four strokes at the bottom of the letter. The strokes also represent the roads, except that from Cambridge three good roads lead towards each of the British positions. The prisoners taken from the Germans in the various preliminary skirmishes also made no bones of boasting that a direct attack was imminent, and our Commander-in-Chief eventually, and rightly as it proved, determined to take the risk of all this information having been specially promulgated by the German Staff to cover totally different intentions, as was indeed quite probable, and to accept it as true. Having made up his mind, he lost no time in taking action. He ordered the IVth Corps under Sir William Packington to move on Potton, twelve miles to the north-west, as soon as it was dark. As many cavalry and mounted infantry as could possibly be spared from Royston were placed at his disposal.

“It ought to be stated that while the auxiliary troops had been busily employed ever since their arrival in entrenching the British position, the greater part of the regular troops had been occupying an advanced line two or three miles to the northward on the lower spurs of the hills, and every possible indication of a determination to hold this as long as possible was afforded to the German reconnoitrers. During the night these troops fell back to the position which had been prepared, the outposts following just before daylight. About 6 a.m. the enemy were reported to be advancing in force along the Icknield Way from Newmarket, and also by the roads running on either bank of the river Cam.{229} Twenty minutes later considerable bodies of German troops were reported at Fowlmere and Melbourn on the two parallel Royston-Cambridge roads. They must have followed very close on the heels of our retiring outposts. It was a very misty morning,—down in the low ground over which the enemy were advancing especially so,—but about seven a gust of wind from the westward dispelled the white fog-wreaths that hung about our left front and enabled our look-outs to get a glimpse along the famous Ermine Street, which runs straight as an arrow from Royston for twenty or thirty miles to the N.N.W.

“Along this ancient Roman way, far as the eye could reach, poured a steady stream of marching men, horse, foot, and artillery. The wind dropped, the mists gathered again, and once more enveloped the invaders in an impenetrable screen. But by this time the whole British line was on the qui vive. Regulars, Militia, and Volunteers were marching down to their chin-deep trenches, while those who were already there busied themselves in improving their loopholes and strengthening their head cover. Behind the ridges of the hills the gunners stood grouped about their ‘Long Toms’ and heavy howitzers, while the field batteries waited, ready horsed, for orders to gallop under cover of the ridge to whichever set of emplacements should first require to be manned and armed. We had not enough to distribute before the movements of the enemy should, to a certain extent, show his hand.

“About seven o’clock a series of crackling reports from the outskirts of Royston announced that the detachment of Mounted Infantry, who now alone held it, was exchanging shots with the advancing enemy, and in a few minutes, as the morning mistiness cleared off, the General and his staff, who were established at the northern edge of the village of Therfield, three or four hundred feet higher up than the German skirmishers, were able to see the opening of the battle spread like a panorama before them. A thick firing line of drab-costumed{230} Germans extended right across from Holland Hall to the Coach and Horses on the Fowlmere Road. On their left moved two or three compact masses of cavalry, while the infantry reserves were easily apparent in front of the village of Melbourn. Our Mounted Infantry in the village were indistinguishable, but away on the spur to the north-east of Royston a couple of batteries of Horse Artillery were unlimbered and were pushing their guns up to the brow of the hill by hand. In two minutes they were in action, and hard at work.

“Through the glasses the shrapnel could be seen bursting, half a dozen together, in front of the advancing Germans, who began to fall fast. But almost at once came an overwhelming reply from somewhere out of sight behind Melbourn. The whole hilltop around our guns was like a spouting volcano. Evidently big high-explosive shells were being fired from the German field-howitzers. In accordance with previous orders, our horse-gunners at once ran down their guns, limbered up, and started to gallop back towards our main position. Simultaneously a mass of German cavalry deployed into attack formation near the Coach and Horses, and swept down in their direction with the evident intention of cutting off and capturing them. But they reckoned without their escort of Mounted Infantry, who had been lying low behind the long, narrow line of copse north of Lowerfield Farm. Safely ensconced behind this—to cavalry—impassable barrier, the company, all good shots, opened a terrible magazine fire on the charging squadrons as they passed at close range. A Maxim they had with them also swept horses and men away in swathes. The charge was checked, and the guns saved, but we had not finished with the German reiters. Away to the north-east a battery of our 4.7 guns opened on the disorganised cavalry, firing at a range of four thousand yards. Their big shells turned the momentary check into a rout, both the attacking cavalry and their supports galloping towards Fowlmere to get out of range. We had scored the first trick!{231}

“The attacking lines of German Infantry still pressed on, however, and after a final discharge the Mounted Infantry in Royston sprang on their horses and galloped back over Whitely Hill, leaving the town to be occupied by the enemy. To the eastward the thunder of heavy cannon, gradually growing in intensity, proclaimed that the IInd Corps was heavily attacked. Covered by a long strip of plantation, the German IVth Corps contrived to mass an enormous number of guns on a hill about two miles north of the village of Elmdon, and a terrific artillery duel began between them and our artillery entrenched along the Elmdon-Heydon ridge. Under cover of this the enemy began to work his infantry up towards Elmdon, obtaining a certain amount of shelter from the spurs which ran out towards the north-east of our line. Other German troops with guns put in an appearance on the high ground to the north-east of Saffron Walden, near Chesterton Park.

“To describe the fortunes of this fiercely-contested battle, which spread along a front of nearly twenty miles, counting from the detached garrison of the hill at Helions Bumpstead—which, by the way, succeeded in holding its ground all day, despite two or three most determined assaults by the enemy—to Kelshall on the left of the British position, would be an impossibility in the space at my disposal. The whole morning it raged all along the northern slopes of the upland held by our gallant troops. The fiercest fighting was, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of Elmdon, where our trenches were more than once captured by the Magdeburg battalions, only to be themselves hurled out again by the rush of the 1st Coldstream Guards, who had been held in reserve near the threatened point. By noon the magnificent old palace at Audley End was in flames. Art treasures which were of inestimable value and absolutely unreplaceable perished in this shocking conflagration. Desperate fighting was going on in the streets of the little town of Saffron Walden, where a mingled mass of Volunteers and Militia strove hard{232} to arrest the advance of a portion of the German Army which was endeavouring to work round the right of our position.

“On our left the Foot Guards and Fusiliers of the 1st German Guard Division, after receiving a terrible pounding from our guns when they poured into Royston at the heels of our Mounted Infantry, had fought their way up the heights to within fifteen hundred yards of our trenches on the upper slopes of the ridge. Farther than that they had been unable to advance. Their close formations offered an excellent target to the rifles of the Volunteers and Militia lining our entrenchments. The attackers had lost men in thousands, and were{233} now endeavouring to dig themselves in as best they could under the hail of projectiles that continually swept the hillside. About noon, too, the 2nd Division of the Garde Corps, after some skirmishing with the Mounted Infantry away on our left front, got into attack formation along the line of the Hitchin and Cambridge Railway, and after pouring a deluge of projectiles from field guns and howitzers upon our position, advanced upon Therfield with the greatest bravery and determination. They had succeeded by 2 p.m. in driving our men from the end of the spur running northward near Therfield Heath, and managed to get a number of their howitzers up there, and at once opened fire from the cover afforded by several copses out of which our men had been driven.

“In short, things were beginning to look very bad for old England, and the watchers on the Therfield heights turned their glasses anxiously northward in search of General Sir William Packington’s force from Potton. They had not long to wait. At 2.15 the winking flash of a heliograph away near Wendy Place, about eight miles up Ermine Street, announced that the advance guard, consisting of the 1st Royal Welsh Fusiliers, was already at Bassingbourn, and that the main body was close behind, having escaped detection by all the enemy’s patrols and flank guards. They were now directly in the rear of the right of the German reserves, who had been pushed forward into the neighbourhood of Royston to support the attack of their main body on the British position. A few minutes later it was evident that the enemy had also become aware of their advent. Two or three regiments hurriedly issued from Royston and deployed to the north-west. But the guns of the Baldock Corps turned such a ‘rafale’ fire upon them that they hesitated and were lost.

“Every long-range gun in the British entrenchments that would bear was also turned upon them, leaving the infantry and field guns to deal with the troops{234} assaulting their position. The three battalions, as well as a fourth that was sent to their assistance, were simply swept out of existence by this terrible cross-fire. Their remnants streamed away, a disorganised crowd of scattered stragglers, towards Melbourn; while, still holding on to Bassingbourn, the Baldock force moved down on Royston, driving everything before it.

“The most advanced German troops made a final effort to capture our position when they saw what was going on behind them, but it was half-hearted; they were brought to a standstill, and our men, fixing bayonets, sprang from their trenches and charged down upon them with cheers, which were taken up all along the line for miles. The Germans here and there made a partial stand, but in half an hour they were down on the low ground, falling back towards the north-east in the greatest confusion, losing men in thousands from the converging fire of our guns. Their cavalry made a gallant attempt to save the day by charging our troops to the north of Royston. It was a magnificent sight to see their enormous masses sweeping over the ground with an impetus which looked capable of carrying everything before it, but our men, clustering behind the hedges of Ermine Street, mowed them down squadrons at a time. Not one of them reached the roadway. The magnificent Garde Corps was routed.

“The combined IIIrd and IVth Corps now advanced on the exposed right flank of the German IVth Corps, which, fighting gallantly, fell back, doing its best to cover the retreat of its comrades, who, on their part, very much hampered its movements. By nightfall there was no unwounded German south of Whittlesford, except as a prisoner. By this time, too, we were falling back on our original position.”{235}

On Tuesday, 10th September, the Tribune published the following telegram from its war correspondent, Mr. Edgar Hamilton:—

“Chelmsford, Monday, September 9.

“I sit down, after a sleepless night, to indite the account of our latest move. We hear that Sheffield has fallen, and our troops are in flight. As, by the time this appears in print, the enemy will of necessity be aware of our abandonment of Colchester, the censor will not, I imagine, prevent the despatch of my letter.

“For our move has been one of a retrograde nature, and I do not doubt that the cavalry of the German IXth Corps are close behind us and in touch with our own. But I must not, in using the word ‘retrograde,’ be supposed to criticise in any way the strategy of our generals. For everyone here is, I am sure, fully persuaded of the wisdom of the step. Colchester, with its plucky little garrison, was altogether too much ‘in the air,’ and stood a great risk of being isolated by a converging advance of the IXth and Xth Corps of the German invaders, to say nothing of the XIIth (Saxon) Corps at Maldon, which since the unfortunate battle of Purleigh has shown itself very active to the north and east.

“The Saxons have refrained from attacking our Vth Corps since its repulse, and it has been left almost in peace to entrench its position from Danbury to the{236} southward; but, on the other hand, while not neglecting to further strengthen their already formidable defences between the Blackwater and the Crouch, their cavalry have scoured the country up to the very gates of Colchester. Yesterday morning the 16th Lancers and the 17th Hussars—who had fallen back from Norwich—together with some of the local Yeomanry, moved out by the Tolleshunt d’Arcy and Great Totham roads, and drove in their patrols with some loss. At Tiptree Heath there was a sharp cavalry engagement between our red Lancers and several squadrons of a sky-blue hussar regiment. Our people routed them, but in the pursuit that followed would have fared badly, as they fell in with the four remaining squadrons supported by another complete regiment, had it not been for the opportune arrival of the Household Cavalry Brigade, which had moved north-east from Danbury to co-operate. This completely changed the aspect of affairs. The Germans were soundly beaten, with the loss of a large number of prisoners, and galloped back to Maldon in confusion. In the meantime the 2nd King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment and the 5th Battery R.F. Artillery had been sent down to Witham by train, whence they marched up to the high ground near Wickham Bishops. They and the Yeomanry were left there in a position to cover the main London road and the Great Eastern Railway, and at the same time threaten any movement of the enemy by the Great Totham road. When the news of our success reached Colchester soon after midday, we were all very jubilant. In fact, I fear that a great many people spent the afternoon in a species of fool’s paradise. And when towards the evening the announcement of our splendid victory at Royston was posted up on the red walls of the fine town hall, and outside the Cups, there was an incipient outbreak of that un-English excitement known as ‘Mafficking.’ Gangs of youths paraded the High Street, Head Street, and the principal thoroughfares, shouting, yelling, and{237} hustling passers-by, and even respectable members of society seemed bitten by the desire to throw up their hats and make idiots of themselves.

“The hotels, the Lamb, the Red Lion, and other places, did a roaring trade, and altogether the town was more or less demoralised. But all this exultation was fated to be but short-lived, even though the Mayor appeared on the balcony of the town hall and addressed the crowd, while the latest news was posted outside the offices of the Essex Telegraph, opposite the post-office. The wind was in the north, and about 5.45 in the afternoon the sound of a heavy explosion was heard from the direction of Manningtree. I was in the Cups Hotel at the time arranging for an early dinner, and ran out into the street. As I emerged from the archway of the hotel I distinctly heard a second detonation from the same direction. A sudden silence, ominous and unnatural, seemed to fall on the yelping jingoes in the street, in the midst of which the rumble of yet another explosion rolled down on the wind, this time from a more westerly direction. Men asked their neighbours breathlessly as to what all this portended. I myself knew no more than the most ignorant of the crowd, till in an officer who rushed hastily by me in Head Street, on his way into the hotel, I recognised my friend Captain Burton, of the Artillery.

“I buttonholed him at once.

“ ‘Do I know what those explosions were?’ repeated he in answer to my inquiry. ‘Well, I don’t know, but I’m open to bet you five to one that it’s the sappers blowing up the bridges over the Stour at Manningtree and Stratford St. Mary.’

“ ‘Then the Germans will have arrived there?’ I queried.

“ ‘Most probably. And look here,’ he continued, taking me aside by the arm, and lowering his voice, ‘you take my tip. We shall be out of this to-night. So you’d best pack up your traps and get into marching order.’{238}

“ ‘Do you know this?’ said I.

“ ‘Not officially, or I shouldn’t tell you anything about it. But I can put two and two together. We all knew that the General wouldn’t be fool enough to try and defend an open town of this size with such a small garrison against a whole army corps, or perhaps more. It would serve no good purpose, and expose the place to destruction and bring all sorts of disaster on the civil population. You could have seen that for yourself, for no attempt whatever has been made to erect defences of any kind, neither have we received any reinforcements at all. If they had meant to defend it they would certainly have contrived to send us some Volunteers and guns at any rate. No, the few troops we have here have done their best in assisting the Danbury Force against the Saxons, and are much too valuable to be left here to be cut off without being able to do much to check the advance of the enemy. If we had been going to try anything of that kind, we should have now been holding the line of the river Stour; but I know we have only small detachments at the various bridges, sufficient only to drive off the enemy’s cavalry patrols. By now, having blown up the bridges, I expect they are falling back as fast as they can get. Besides, look here,’ he added, ‘what do you think that battalion was sent to Wickham Bishops for this morning?’

“I told him my theories as set forth above.

“ ‘Oh yes, that’s all right,’ he answered. ‘But you may bet your boots that there’s more in it than that. In my opinion, the General has had orders to clear out as soon as the enemy are preparing to cross the Stour, and the Lancasters are planted there to protect our left flank from an attack from Maldon while we are retreating on Chelmsford.’

“ ‘But we might fall back on Braintree?’ I hazarded.

“ ‘Don’t you believe it. We’re not wanted there—at least, I mean, not so much as elsewhere. Where we shall come in is to help to fill the gap between Braintree{239} and Danbury. I think, myself, we might just as well have done it before. We have been sending back stores by rail for the last two days. Well, goodbye,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Keep all this to yourself, and mark my words, we’ll be off at dusk.’

“Away he went, and convinced that his prognostications were correct—as, indeed, in the main they proved—I hastened to eat my dinner, pay my bill, and get my portmanteau packed and stowed away in my motor. As soon as the evening began to close in I started and made for the barracks, going easy. The streets were still full of people, but they were very quiet, and mostly talking together in scattered groups. A shadow seemed to have fallen on the jubilant crowd of the afternoon, though, as far as I could ascertain, there were no definite rumours of the departure of the troops and the close advent of the enemy. Turning out of the main street, I had a very narrow escape of running over a drunken man. Indeed, I regret to say that there were a good many intoxicated people about, who had celebrated the day’s victory ‘not wisely but too well.’

“When I arrived at the barracks, I saw at once that there was something in the wind, for there was a great coming and going of orderlies; all the men I could see were in marching order, and the Volunteers, who had been encamped on the drill-ground since the outbreak of hostilities, were falling in, surrounded by an agitated crowd of their relations and friends. I pulled up alongside the barrack railings, and determined to watch the progress of events. I had not long to wait. In about ten minutes a bugle sounded, and the scattered assemblage of men on the barrack-square closed together and solidified into a series of quarter columns. At the same time, the Volunteer battalion moved across from the other side of the road and joined the Regular troops. I heard a sharp clatter and jingling behind me, and looking round, saw the General and his staff with a squad of cavalry canter up the road. They turned into the barrack gate,{240} greeted by a sharp word of command and the rattle of arms from the assembled battalions. As far as I could make out, the General made them some kind of address, after which I heard another word of command, upon which the regiment nearest to the gate formed fours and marched out.

“It was the 2nd Dorsetshire. I watched anxiously to see which way they turned. As I more than expected, they turned in the direction of the London road. My friend had been right so far, but till the troops arrived at Mark’s Tey, where the road forked, I could not be certain whether they were going towards Braintree or Chelmsford. The Volunteers followed; then the Leicestershires, then a long train of artillery, field batteries, big 4.7 guns, and howitzers. The King’s Own Scottish Borderers formed the rearguard. With them marched the General and his staff. I saw no cavalry. I discovered afterwards that the General, foreseeing that a retirement was imminent, had ordered the 16th Lancers and the 7th Hussars, after their successful morning performance, to remain till further orders at Kelvedon and Tiptree respectively, so that their horses were resting during the afternoon.

“During the night march the former came back and formed a screen behind the retiring column, while the latter were in a position to observe and check any movement northwards that might be made by the Saxons, at the same time protecting its flank and rear from a possible advance by the cavalry of Von Kronhelm’s Army, should they succeed in crossing the river Stour soon enough to be able to press after us in pursuit by either of the two eastern roads leading from Colchester to Maldon. After the last of the departing soldiers had tramped away into the gathering darkness through the mud, which after yesterday’s downpour still lay thick upon the roads, I bethought me that I might as well run down to the railway station to see if anything was going on there. I was just in time.

“The electric lights disclosed a bustling scene as the{241} last of the ammunition and a certain proportion of stores were being hurried into a long train that stood with steam up ready to be off. The police allowed none of the general public to enter the station, but my correspondent’s pass obtained me admission to the departure platform. There I saw several detachments of the Royal Engineers, the Mounted Infantry—minus their horses, which had been already sent on—and some of the Leicestershire Regiment. Many of the men had their arms, legs, or heads bandaged, and bore evident traces of having been in action. I got into conversation with a colour-sergeant of the Engineers, and learned these were the detachments who had been stationed at the bridges over the Stour. It appears that there was some sharp skirmishing with the German advanced troops before the officers in command had decided that they were in sufficient force to justify them in blowing up the bridges. In fact, at the one at which my informant was stationed, and that the most important one of all, over which the main road from Ipswich passed at Stratford St. Mary, the officer in charge delayed just too long, so that a party of the enemy’s cavalry actually secured the bridge, and succeeded in cutting the wires leading to the charges which had been placed in readiness to blow it up. Luckily, the various detachments present rose like one man to the occasion, and despite a heavy fire, hurled themselves upon the intruders with the bayonet with such determination and impetus that the bridge was swept clear in a moment. The wires were reconnected, and the bridge cleared of our men just as the Germans, reinforced by several of their supporting squadrons, who had come up at a gallop, dashed upon it in pursuit. The firing key was pressed at this critical moment, and, with a stunning report, a whole troop was blown into the air, the remaining horses, mad with fright, stampeding despite all that their riders could do. The road was cut, and the German advance temporarily checked, while the British detachment made off as fast as it could for Colchester.{242}

COPY OF ONE OF THE ENEMY’S PROCLAMATIONS.{243}

“I asked the sergeant how long he thought it would be before the Germans succeeded in crossing it. ‘Bless you, sir, I expect they’re over by now,’ he answered. ‘They would be sure to have their bridging companies somewhere close up, and it would not take them more than an hour or two to throw a bridge over that place.’ The bridges at Boxted Mill and Nayland had been destroyed previously.

“The railway bridge and the other one at Manningtree were blown up before the Germans could get a footing, and their defenders had come in by rail. But my conversation was cut short, the whistle sounded, the men were hustled on board the train, and it moved slowly out of the station. As for me, I hurried out to my car. As I came out I noticed that it had begun to rain. However, I was fully equipped for it, and, except for the chance of skidding and the splashing of the flying mud, did not mind it. But I could not help thinking of the poor soldiers trudging along on their night march over the weary miles that lay before them. I determined to follow in their steps, and putting on speed, was soon clear of the town, and spinning along for Mark’s Tey. It is about five miles, and shortly before I got there I overtook the marching column. The men were halted, and in the act of putting on their greatcoats. I was stopped here by the rearguard, who took charge of me, and would not let me proceed until permission was obtained from the General.

“Eventually this officer ordered me to be brought to him. I presented my pass; but he said, ‘I am afraid that I shall have to ask you either to turn back, or to slow down and keep pace with us. In fact, you had better do the latter. I might, indeed, have to exercise my powers and impress your motor, should the exigencies of the Service require it.’ I saw that it was best to make a virtue of necessity, and replied that it was very much at his service, and that I was very well content to accompany the column. In point of fact, the latter was strictly true, for I wanted to see what was to be{244} seen, and there were no points about going along with no definite idea of where I wanted to get to, with a possible chance of falling into the hands of the Saxons into the bargain. So a Staff officer, who was suffering from a slight wound, was placed alongside me, and the column, having muffled itself in its greatcoats, once more began to plug along through the thickening mire. My position was just in front of the guns, which kept up a monotonous rumble behind me. My companion was talkative, and afforded me a good deal of incidental and welcome information. Thus, just after we started, and were turning to the left at Mark’s Tey, a bright glare followed by a loudish report came from the right of the road. ‘What’s that?’ I naturally ejaculated. ‘Oh, that will be the sappers destroying the junction with the Sudbury line,’ he replied. ‘There’s the train waiting for them just beyond.’

“So it was. The train that I had seen leaving had evidently stopped after passing the junction, while the line was broken behind it. ‘They will do the same after passing the cross line at Witham,’ volunteered he.

“A mile or two farther on we passed between two lines of horsemen, their faces set northwards, and muffled to the eyes in their long cloaks, ‘That’s some of the 16th,’ he said, ‘going to cover our rear.’

“So we moved on all night through the darkness and rain. The slow, endless progress of the long column of men and horses seemed like a nightmare. We passed through the long street of Kelvedon, scaring the inhabitants, who rushed to their windows to see what was happening, and with the first glimmer of dawn halted at Witham. We had about nine miles still to go to reach Chelmsford, which I learned was our immediate destination, and it was decided to rest here for an hour, while the men made the best breakfast they could from the contents of their haversacks. But the villagers brought out hot tea and coffee, and did the best they could for us, so we did not fare so badly after all. As for me, I got permission to go on, taking with me my friend{245} the Staff officer, who had despatches to forward from Chelmsford. I pushed on at full speed. We were there in a very short space of time, and during the morning I learned that the Braintree Army was falling back on Dunmow, and that the Colchester garrison was to assist in holding the line of the river Chelmer.”

The continuation of the despatch from Brentwood, as follows, was published on Saturday, 15th September:

“At Little Waltham I found myself close to the scene of action. About a mile ahead of me the hamlet of Howe Street was in flames and burning furiously. I could see the shells bursting in and all over it in perfect coveys. I could not make out where they were coming from, but an officer I met said he thought the enemy must have several batteries in action on the high ground about Littley Green, a mile and a half to the north on the opposite side of the river. I crossed over myself, and got up on the knoll where the Leicestershires and Dorsets had been stationed, together with a number of the 4.7-inch guns brought from Colchester.

“This piece of elevated ground is about two miles long, running almost north and south, and at the top of it I got an extensive view to the eastward right away to beyond Witham, as the ground fell all the way. The country was well wooded, and a perfect maze of trees and hedgerows. If there were any Germans down there in this plain they were lying very low indeed, for my glasses did not discover the least indication of their presence. Due east my view was bounded by the high wooded ground about Wickham Bishops and Tiptree Heath, which lay a long blue hummock on the horizon, while to the south-east Danbury Hill, with our big war-balloon floating overhead, was plainly discernible.

“While I gazed on the apparently peaceful landscape{256} I was startled by a nasty sharp, hissing sound, which came momentarily nearer. It seemed to pass over my head, and was followed by a loud bang in the air, where now hung a ring of white smoke. It was a shell from the enemy. Just ahead of me was a somewhat extensive wood; and, urged by some insane impulse of seeking shelter, I left the car, which I ordered my chauffeur to take back for a mile and wait, and made for the close-standing trees. If I had stopped to think I should have realised that the wood gave me actually no protection whatever, and I had not gone far when the crashing of timber and noise of the bursting projectiles overhead and in the undergrowth around made me understand clearly that the Germans were making a special target of the wood, which, I imagine, they thought might conceal some of our troops. I wished heartily that I was seated beside my chauffeur in his fast-receding car.

“However, my first object was to get clear of the wood again, and after some little time I emerged on the west side, right in the middle of a dressing station for the wounded, which had been established in a little hollow. Two surgeons, with their assistants, were already busily engaged with a number of wounded men, most of whom were badly hit by shrapnel bullets about the upper part of the body. I gathered from one or two of the few most slightly wounded men that our people had been, and were, very hardly put to it to hold their own. ‘I reckon,’ said one of them, a bombardier of artillery, ‘that the enemy must have got more than a hundred guns firing at us, and at Howe Street village. If we could only make out where the foreign devils were,’ continued my informant, ‘our chaps could have knocked a good many of them out with our four-point-sevens, especially if we could have got a go at them before they got within range themselves. But they must have somehow contrived to get them into position during the night, for we saw nothing of them coming up. They are somewhere about Chatley, Fairstead Lodge, and Little{257} Leighs, but as we can’t locate them exactly and only have ten guns up here, it don’t give us much chance, does it?’ Later I saw an officer of the Dorsets, who confirmed the gunner’s story, but added that our people were well entrenched and the guns well concealed, so that none of the latter had been put out of action, and he thought we should be able to hold on to the hill all right. I regained my car without further adventure, bar several narrow escapes from stray shell, and made my way back as quickly as possible to Chelmsford.

“The firing went on all day, not only to the northward, but also away to the southward, where the Saxons, while not making any determined attack, kept the Vth Corps continually on the alert, and there was an almost continuous duel between the heavy pieces. As it appeared certain that the knoll I had visited in the forenoon was the main objective of the enemy’s attack, reinforcements had been more than once sent up there, but the German shell fire was so heavy that they found it almost impossible to construct the additional cover required. Several batteries of artillery were despatched to Pleshy and Rolphy Green to keep down, if possible, the fire of the Germans, but it seemed to increase rather than diminish. They must have had more guns in action than they had at first. Just at dusk their infantry made the first openly offensive movement.