The Invasion of 1910

CHAPTER IV

MASSACRE OF GERMANS IN LONDON

“Through the whole of last week the Germans occupying London suffered great losses. They are now hemmed in on every side.

“At three o’clock this morning, Von Kronhelm having withdrawn the greater part of the troops from the defence of the bridges, in an attempt to occupy defensive positions in North London, the South Londoners, impatient with long waiting, broke forth and came across the river in enormous multitudes, every man bent upon killing a German wherever seen.

“The night air was rent everywhere by the hoarse, exultant shouts as London – the giant, all-powerful city – fell upon the audacious invader. Through our windows in Carmelite Street came the dull roar of London’s millions swelled by the Defenders from the west and south of England, and by the gallant men from Canada, India, the Cape, and other British colonies who had come forward to fight for the Mother country as soon as her position was known to be critical.

“In the streets are seen Colonial uniforms side by side with the costermonger from Whitechapel or Walworth, and dark-faced Indians in turbans are fighting out in Fleet Street and the Strand. In the great struggle now taking place many of our reporters and correspondents have unfortunately been wounded, and, alas! four of them killed.

“In these terrible days a man’s life is not safe from one moment to another. Both sides seem to have now lost their heads completely. Among the Germans all semblance of order has apparently been thrown to the winds. It is known that London has risen to a man, and the enemy are therefore fully aware of their imminent peril. Already they are beaten. True, Von Kronhelm still sits in the War Office directing operations – operations which he knows too well are foredoomed to failure.

“The Germans have, it must be admitted, carried on the war in a chivalrous spirit until those drastic executions exasperated the people. Then neither side gave quarter, and now to-day all through Islington, Hoxton, Kingsland, and Dalston, right out eastward to Homerton, a perfect massacre of Germans is in progress.

“Lord Byfield has issued two urgent proclamations, threatening the people of London with all sorts of penalties if they kill instead of taking an enemy prisoner, but they seem to have no effect. London is starved and angered to such a pitch that her hatred knows no bounds, and only blood will atone for the wholesale slaughter of the innocent since the bombardment of the metropolis began.

“The Kaiser has, we hear, left the ‘Belvedere’ at Scarborough, where he has been living incognito. A confidential report, apparently well founded, has reached us that he embarked upon the steam-trawler Morning Star at Scarborough yesterday, and set out across the Dogger, with Germany, of course, as his destination. Surely he must now regret his ill-advised policy of making an attack upon England. He had gauged our military weakness very accurately, but he had not counted upon the patriotic spirit of our Empire. It may be that he has already given orders to Von Kronhelm, but it is nevertheless a very significant fact that the German wireless telegraph apparatus on the summit of Big Ben is in constant use by the German Commander-in-Chief. He is probably in hourly communication with Bremen, or with the Emperor himself upon the trawler Morning Star.

“Near Highbury Fields about noon to-day some British cavalry surprised a party of Germans, and attempted to take them prisoners. The latter showed fight, whereupon they were shot down to a man. The British held as prisoners by the Germans near Enfield have now been released, and are rejoining their comrades along the northern heights. Many believe that another and final battle will be fought north of London, but military men declare that the German power is already broken. Whether Von Kronhelm will still continue to lose his men at the rate he is now doing, or whether he will sue for peace, is an open question. Personally, he was against the bombardment of London from the very first, yet he was compelled to carry out the orders of his Imperial master. The invasion, the landing, and the successes in the North were, in his opinion, quite sufficient to have paralysed British trade and caused such panic that an indemnity would have been paid. To attack London was, in his opinion, a proceeding far too dangerous, and his estimate is now proved to have been the correct one. Now that they have lost command of the sea and are cut off from their bases in Essex, the enemy’s situation is hopeless. They may struggle on, but assuredly the end can only be an ignominious one.

“Yet the German Eagle still flies proudly over the War Office, over St. Stephen’s, and upon many other public buildings, while upon others British Royal Standards and Union Jacks are commencing to appear, each one being cheered by the excited Londoners, whose hearts are now full of hope. Germany shall be made to bite the dust. That is the war-cry everywhere. Many a proud Uhlan and Cuirassier has to-day ridden to his death amid the dense mobs, mad with the lust of blood. Some of the more unfortunate of the enemy have been lynched, and torn limb from limb, while others have died deaths too horrible to here describe in detail.

“Each hour brings to us further news showing how, by slow degrees, the German army of occupation is being wiped out. People are jeering at the audacious claim for indemnity presented to the British Government when the enemy entered London, and are asking whether we will not now present a claim to Germany. Von Kronhelm is not blamed so much as his Emperor. He has been the catspaw, and has burned his fingers in endeavouring to snatch the chestnuts from the fire.

“As a commander, he has acted justly, fully observing the international laws concerning war. It was only when faced by the problem of a national uprising that he countenanced anything bordering upon capital punishment. An hour ago our censors were withdrawn. They came and shook hands with many members of the staff, and retired. This surely is a significant fact that Von Kronhelm hopes to regain the confidence of London by appearing to treat her with a fatherly solicitude. Or is it that he intends to sue for peace at any price?

“An hour ago another desperate attempt was made on the part of the men of South London, aided by a large body of British regulars, to regain possession of the War Office. Whitehall was once more the scene of a bloody fight, but so strongly does Von Kronhelm hold the place and all the adjacent thoroughfares – he apparently regarding it as his own fortress – that the attack was repulsed with heavy loss on our side.

“All the bridges are now open, the barricades are in most cases being blown up, and people are passing and repassing freely for the first time since the day following the memorable bombardment. London streets are, however, in a most deplorable condition. On every hand is ruin and devastation. Whole streets of houses rendered gaunt and windowless by the now spent fires meet the eye everywhere. In certain places the ruins were still smouldering, and in one or two districts the conflagrations spread over an enormous area. Even if peace be declared, can London ever recover from this present wreck? Paris recovered, and quickly too. Therefore we place our faith in British wealth, British industry, and British patriotism.

“Yes. The tide has turned. The great Revenge now in progress is truly a mad and bloody one. In Kilburn this afternoon there was a wholesale killing of a company of German infantry, who, while marching along the High Road, were set upon by the armed mob, and practically exterminated. The smaller thoroughfares, Brondesbury Road, Victoria Road, Glendall Road, and Priory Park Road, across to Paddington Cemetery, were the scene of a frightful slaughter. The Germans died hard, but in the end were completely wiped out. German-baiting is now, indeed, the Londoner’s pastime, and on this dark and rainy afternoon hundreds of men of the Fatherland have fallen and died upon the wet roads.

“Sitting here, in a newspaper office, as we do, and having fresh reports constantly before us, we are able to review the whole situation impartially. Every moment, through the various news-agencies and our own correspondents and contributors, we are receiving fresh facts – facts which all combine to show that Von Kronhelm cannot hold out much longer. Surely the Commander-in-Chief of a civilised army will not allow his men to be massacred as they are now being! The enemy’s troops, mixed up in the maze of London streets as they are, are utterly unable to cope with the oncoming multitudes, some armed with rifles and others with anything they can lay their hands upon.

“Women – wild, infuriated women – have now made their reappearance north of the Thames. In more than one instance where German soldiers have attempted to take refuge in houses these women have obtained petrol, and, with screams of fiendish delight, set the houses in question on fire. Awful dramas are being enacted in every part of the metropolis. The history of to-day is written in German blood.

“Lord Byfield has established temporary headquarters at Jack Straw’s Castle, where Von Kronhelm was during the bombardment, and last night we could see the signals exchanged between Hampstead and Sydenham Hill, from whence General Bamford has not yet moved. Our cavalry in Essex are, it is said, doing excellent work. Lord Byfield has also sent a body of troops across from Gravesend to Tilbury, and these have regained Maldon and Southminster after some hard fighting. Advices from Gravesend state that further reinforcements are being sent across the river to operate against the East of London and hem in the Germans on that side.

“So confident is London of success that several of the railways are commencing to reorganise their traffic. A train left Willesden this afternoon for Birmingham – the first since the bombardment – while another has left Finsbury Park for Peterborough, to continue to York if possible. So wrecked are the London termini, however, that it must be some weeks before trains can arrive or be despatched from either Euston, King’s Cross, Paddington, Marylebone, or St. Pancras. In many instances the line just north of the terminus is interrupted by a blown-up tunnel or a fallen bridge, therefore the termination of traffic must, for the present, be at some distance north on the outskirts of London.

“Shops are also opening in South London, though they have but little to sell. Nevertheless, this may be regarded as a sign of renewed confidence. Besides, supplies of provisions are now arriving, and the London County Council and Salvation Army are distributing free soup and food in the lower-class districts. Private charity, everywhere abundant during the trying days of dark despair, is doing inestimable good among every class. The hard, grasping employer, and the smug financier, who hitherto kept scrupulous accounts, and have been noteworthy on account of their uncharitableness, have now, in the hour of need, come forward and subscribed liberally to the great Mansion House Fund, opened yesterday by the Deputy Lord Mayor of London. The subscription list occupies six columns of the issue of to-morrow’s paper, and this, in itself, speaks well for the open-heartedness of the moneyed classes of Great Britain.

“No movement has yet been made in the financial world. Bankers still remain with closed doors. The bullion seized at Southminster and other places is now under strong British guard, and will, it is supposed, be returned to the Bank immediately. Only a comparatively small sum has been sent across to Germany. Therefore all Von Kronhelm’s strategy has utterly failed. By the invasion Germany has, up to the present moment, gained nothing. She has made huge demands, at which we can afford to jeer. True, she has wrecked London, but have we not sent the greater part of her fleet to the bottom of the North Sea, and have we not created havoc in German ports?

“The leave-taking of our two gold-spectacled censors was almost pathetic. We had come to regard them as necessities to puzzle and to play practical jokes of language upon. To-day, for the first time, we have received none of those official notices in German, with English translations, which of late have appeared so prominently in our columns. The German Eagle is gradually disentangling his talons from London, and means to escape us – if he can.”

“Private information has just reached us from a most reliable source that a conference has been arranged between Von Kronhelm and Lord Byfield. This evening the German Field-Marshal sent a messenger to the British headquarters at Hampstead under a flag of truce. He bore a despatch from the German Commander asking that hostilities should be suspended for twenty-four hours, and that they should make an appointment for a meeting during that period.

“Von Kronhelm has left the time and place of meeting to Lord Byfield, and has informed the British Commander that he has sent telegraphic instructions to the German military governors of Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Northampton, Stafford, Oldham, Wigan, Bolton, and other places, giving notice of his suggestion to the British, and ordering that for the present hostilities on the part of the Germans shall be suspended.

“It seems more than likely that the German Field-Marshal has received these very definite instructions by wireless telegraph from the Emperor at Bremen or Potsdam.

“We understand that Lord Byfield, after a brief consultation by telegraph with the Government at Bristol, has sent a reply. Of its nature, however, nothing is known, and at the moment of writing hostilities are still in progress.

“In an hour’s time we shall probably know whether the war is to continue, or a truce is to be proclaimed.”

“Lord Byfield has granted a truce, and hostilities have now been suspended.

“London has gone mad with delight, for the German yoke is cast off. Further information which has just reached us from private sources states that thousands of prisoners have been taken by Lord Byfield to-day, and that Von Kronhelm has acknowledged his position to be absolutely hopeless.

“The great German Army has been defeated by our British patriots, who have fought so valiantly and so well. It is not likely that the war will be resumed. Von Kronhelm received a number of British officers at the War Office half an hour ago, and it is said that he is already making preparations to vacate the post he has usurped.

“Lord Byfield has issued a reassuring message to London, which we have just received with instructions to print. It declares that although for the moment only a truce is proclaimed, yet this means the absolute cessation of all hostilities.

“The naval news of the past few days may be briefly summarised. The British main fleet entered the North Sea, and our submarines did most excellent work in the neighbourhood of the Maas Lightship. Prince Stahlberger had concentrated practically the whole of his naval force off Lowestoft, but a desperate battle was fought about seventy miles from the Texel, full details of which are not yet to hand. All that is known is that, having now regained command of the sea, we were enabled to inflict a crushing defeat upon the Germans, in which the German flagship was sunk. In the end sixty-one British ships were concentrated against seventeen German, with the result that the German Fleet has practically been wiped out, there being 19,000 of the enemy’s officers and men on the casualty list, the greatest recorded in any naval battle.

“Whatever may be the demands for indemnity on either side, one thing is absolutely certain, namely, that the invincible German Army and Navy are completely vanquished.

“The Eagle’s wings are trailing in the dust.”

CHAPTER V

HOW THE WAR ENDED

Days passed – weary, waiting, anxious days. A whole month went by. After the truce, London very gradually began to resume her normal life, though the gaunt state of the streets was indescribably weird.

Shops began to open, and as each day passed, food became more plentiful, and consequently less dear. The truce meant the end of the war, therefore thanksgiving services were held in every town and village throughout the country.

There were great prison-camps of Germans at Hounslow, Brentwood, and Barnet, while Von Kronhelm and his chief officers were also held as prisoners until some decision through diplomatic channels could be arrived at. Meanwhile a little business began to be done; thousands began to resume their employment, bankers re-opened their doors, and within a week the distress and suffering of the poor became perceptibly alleviated. The task of burying the dead after the terrible massacre of the Germans in the London streets had been a stupendous one, but so quickly had it been accomplished that an epidemic was happily averted.

Confidence, however, was not completely restored, even though each day the papers assured us that a settlement had been arrived at between Berlin and London.

Parliament moved back to Westminster, and daily meetings of the Cabinet were being held in Downing Street. These resulted in the resignation of the Ministry, and with a fresh Cabinet, in which Mr. Gerald Graham, the organiser of the Defenders, was given a seat, a settlement was at last arrived at.

To further describe the chaotic state of England occasioned by the terrible and bloody war would serve no purpose. The loss and suffering which it had caused the country had been incalculable; statisticians estimated that in one month of hostilities it had amounted to £500,000,000, a part of which represented money transferred from British pockets to German, as the enemy had carried off some of the securities upon which the German troops had laid their hands in London.

Let us for a moment take a retrospective glance. Consols were at 50; bread was still 1s. 6d. per loaf; and the ravages of the German commerce-destroyers had sent up the cost of insurance on British shipping sky-high. Money was almost unprocurable; except for the manufacture of war material, there was no industry; and the suffering and distress among the poor could not be exaggerated. In all directions men, women, and children had been starving.

The mercantile community were loud in their outcry for “peace at any price,” and the pro-German and Stop-the-War Party were equally vehement in demanding a cessation of the war. They found excuses for the enemy, and forgot the frightful devastation and loss which the invasion had caused to the country. They protested against continuing the struggle in the interests of the “capitalists,” who, they alleged, were really responsible for the war.

They insisted that the working class gained nothing, even though the British Fleet was closely blockading the German coast, and their outcry was strengthened when a few days after the blockade of the Elbe had begun two British battleships were so unfortunate as to strike German mines, and sink with a large part of their crews. The difficulty of borrowing money for the prosecution of the war was a grave obstacle in the way of the party of action, and preyed upon the mind of the British Government.

The whole character of the nation and the Government had changed since the great days when, in the face of famine and immense peril, the country had fought Napoleon to the last and overthrown him. The strong aristocratic Government had been replaced by a weak Administration, swayed by every breath of popular impulse. The peasantry who were the backbone of the nation had vanished, and been replaced by the weak, excitable population of the towns.

Socialism, with its creed of “Thou shalt have no other god but Thyself,” and its doctrine, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” had replaced the religious beliefs of a generation of Englishmen taught to suffer and to die sooner than surrender to wrong. In the hour of trial, amidst smoking ruins, among the holocausts of dead which marked the prolonged, bloody, and terrible battles on land and at sea, the spirit of the nation quailed, and there was really no great leader to recall it to ways of honour and duty.

Seven large German commerce-destroyers were still at sea in the Northern Atlantic. One of them was the splendid ex-Cunarder Lusitania, of 25 knots, which had been sold to a German firm a year before the war, when the British Government declined to continue its subsidy of £150,000 per annum to the Cunard Company under the agreement of 1902. The reason for withdrawing this subsidy was the need for economy, as money had to be obtained to pay members of Parliament. The Cunard Company, unable to bear the enormous cost of running both its huge 25-knot steamers, was compelled to sell the Lusitania, but with patriotic enterprise it retained the Mauretania, even though she was only worked at a dead loss.