The Invasion of 1910

“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. 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 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 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 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 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.

CHAPTER XII

DESPERATE FIGHTING IN ESSEX

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 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 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 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 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 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.