The Invasion

The scene was weird and most impressive. London had fallen.

Around were the wrecked buildings, some still smouldering, some emitting flame. Behind lay the Bank of England with untold wealth locked within: to the right the damaged façade of the Royal Exchange was illuminated by a flickering light, which also shone upon the piled arms of the enemy's troops, causing them to flash and gleam.

In those silent, narrow City streets not an Englishman was to be seen. Every one save the Lord Mayor and his official attendants had fled.

The Government Offices in Whitehall were all in the hands of the enemy. In the Foreign Office, the India Office, the War Office, the Colonial Office, the Admiralty, and other minor offices were German guards. Sentries stood at the shattered door of the famous No. 10, Downing Street, and all up Whitehall was lined with infantry.

German officers were in charge of all our public offices, and all officials who had remained on duty were firmly requested to leave. Sentries were stationed to guard the archives of every department, and precautions were taken to guard against any further outbreaks of fire.

Across at the Houses of Parliament, with their damaged towers, the whole great pile of buildings was surrounded by triumphant troops, while across at the fine old Abbey of Westminster was, alas! a different scene. The interior had been turned into a temporary hospital, and upon mattresses placed upon the floor were hundreds of poor maimed creatures, some groaning, some ghastly pale in the last moments of agony, some silent, their white lips moving in prayer.

On one side in the dim light lay the men, some in uniform, others inoffensive citizens, who had been struck by cruel shells or falling débris; on the other side lay the women, some mere girls, and even children.

Flitting everywhere in the half light were nurses, charitable ladies, and female helpers, with numbers of doctors, all doing their best to alleviate the terrible sufferings of that crowded place, the walls of which showed plain traces of the severe bombardment. In places the roof was open to the angry sky, while many of the windows were gaunt and shattered.

A clergyman's voice somewhere was repeating a prayer in a low, distinct voice, so that all could hear, yet above all were the sighs and groans of the sufferers, and as one walked through that prostrate assembly of victims more than one was seen to have already gone to that land that lies beyond the human ken.

The horrors of war were never more forcibly illustrated than in Westminster Abbey that night, for the grim hand of death was there, and men and women lying with their faces to the roof looked into Eternity.

Every hospital in London was full, therefore the overflow had been placed in the various churches. From the battlefields along the northern defences, Epping, Edmonton, Barnet, Enfield, and other places where the last desperate stand had been made, and from the barricades in the northern suburbs ambulance waggons were continually arriving full of wounded, all of whom were placed in the churches and in any large public buildings which had remained undamaged by the bombardment.

St. George's, Hanover Square, once the scene of many smart weddings, was now packed with unfortunate wounded soldiers, British and German lying side by side, while in the Westminster Cathedral and the Oratory at Brompton the Roman Catholic priests made hundreds of poor fellows as comfortable as they could, many members of the religious sisterhoods acting as nurses. St. James's Church in Piccadilly, St. Pancras Church, Shoreditch Church, and St. Mary Abbotts', Kensington, were all improvised hospitals, and many grim and terrible scenes of agony were witnessed during that long eventful night.

The light was dim everywhere, for there were only paraffin lamps, and by their feeble illumination many a difficult operation had to be performed by those London surgeons who one and all had come forward, and were now working unceasingly. Renowned specialists from Harley Street, Cavendish Square, Queen Ann Street, and the vicinity were directing the work in all the improvised hospitals, men whose names were world-famous kneeling and performing operations upon poor unfortunate private soldiers or upon some labourer who had taken up a gun in defence of his home.

Of lady helpers there were hundreds. From Mayfair and Belgravia, from Kensington and Bayswater, ladies had come forward offering their services, and their devotion to the wounded was everywhere apparent. In St. Andrew's, Wells Street, St. Peter's, Eaton Square, in the Scottish Church in Crown Court, Covent Garden, in the Temple Church, in the Union Chapel in Upper Street, in the Chapel Royal, Savoy, in St. Clement Danes in the Strand, and in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, there were wounded in greater or less numbers, but the difficulties of treating them were enormous owing to the lack of necessaries for the performance of operations.

Weird and striking were the scenes within those hallowed places, as, in the half darkness with the long, deep shadows, men struggled for life or gave to the women kneeling at their side their name, their address, or a last dying message to one they loved.

London that night was a city of shattered homes, of shattered hopes, of shattered lives.

The silence of death had fallen everywhere. The only sounds that broke the quiet within those churches were the sighs, groans, and faint murmurings of the dying.

CHAPTER VII

GERMANS SACKING THE BANKS

Day dawned dismally and wet on September the 21st.

Over London the sky was still obscured by the smoke-pall, though as the night passed many of the raging fires had spent themselves.

Trafalgar Square was filled with troops who had piled arms and were standing at their ease. The men were laughing and smoking, enjoying a rest after the last forward movement and the street fighting of that night of horrors.

The losses on both sides during the past three days had been enormous; of the number of London citizens killed and wounded it was impossible to calculate. There had, in the northern suburbs, been wholesale butchery everywhere, so gallantly had the barricades been defended.

Great camps had now been formed in Hyde Park, in the Green Park between Constitution Hill and Piccadilly, and in St. James's Park. The Magdeburg Fusiliers were being formed up on the Horse Guards Parade, and from the flagstaff there now fluttered the ensign of the commander of an army corps, in place of the British flag. A large number of Uhlans and Cuirassiers were encamped at the west end of the Park, opposite Buckingham Palace, and both the Wellington Barracks and the Cavalry Barracks at Knightsbridge were occupied by Germans.

Many officers were already billeted in the Savoy, the Cecil, the Carlton, the Grand, and Victoria hotels, while the British Museum, the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum, the Tower, and a number of other collections of pictures and antiques were all guarded strongly by German sentries. The enemy had thus seized our national treasures.

London awoke to find herself a German city.

In the streets lounging groups of travel-worn sons of the Fatherland were everywhere, and German was heard on every hand. Every ounce of foodstuff was being rapidly commandeered by hundreds of foraging parties, who went to each grocer's, baker's, or provision shop in the various districts, seized all they could find, valued it, and gave official receipts for it.

The price of food in London that morning was absolutely prohibitive, as much as two shillings being asked for a twopenny loaf. The Germans had, it was afterwards discovered, been all the time, since the Sunday when they landed, running over large cargoes of supplies of all sorts to the Essex, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk coasts, where they had established huge supply bases, well knowing that there was not sufficient food in the country to feed their armed hordes in addition to the population.

Shops in Tottenham Court Road, Holborn, Edgware Road, Oxford Street, Camden Road, and Harrow Road were systematically visited by the foraging parties, who commenced their work at dawn. Those places that were closed and their owners absent were at once broken open, and everything seized and carted to either Hyde Park or St. James's Park, for though Londoners might starve, the Kaiser's troops intended to be fed.

In some cases a patriotic shopkeeper attempted to resist. Indeed, in more than one case a tradesman wilfully set his shop on fire rather than its contents should fall into the enemy's hands. In other cases the tradesmen who received the official German receipts burned them in contempt before the officer's eyes.

The guidance of these foraging parties was, in very many cases, in the hands of Germans in civilian clothes, and it was now seen how complete and helpful the enemy's system of espionage had been in London. Most of these men were Germans who, having served in the army, had come over to England and obtained employment as waiters, clerks, bakers, hairdressers, and private servants, and being bound by their oath to the Fatherland had served their country as spies. Each man, when obeying the Imperial command to join the German arms, had placed in the lapel of his coat a button of a peculiar shape, with which he had long ago been provided, and by which he was instantly recognised as a loyal subject of the Kaiser.

This huge body of German soldiers, who for years had passed in England as civilians, was, of course, of enormous use to Von Kronhelm, for they acted as guides not only on the march and during the entry to London, but materially assisted in the victorious advance in the Midlands. Indeed, the Germans had for years kept a civilian army in England, and yet we had, ostrich-like, buried our heads in the sand, and refused to turn our eyes to the grave peril that had for so long threatened.

Systematically, the Germans were visiting every shop and warehouse in the shopping districts, and seizing everything eatable they could discover. The enemy were taking the food from the mouths of the poor in East and South London, and as they went southward across the river, so the populace retired, leaving their homes at the mercy of the ruthless invader.

Upon all the bridges across the Thames stood German guards, and none were allowed to cross without permits.

Soon after dawn Von Kronhelm and his staff rode down Haverstock Hill with a large body of cavalry, and made his formal entry into London, first having an interview with the Lord Mayor, and an hour afterwards establishing his headquarters at the new War Office in Whitehall, over which he hoisted his special flag as Commander-in-Chief. It was found that, though a good deal of damage had been done externally to the building, the interior had practically escaped, save one or two rooms. Therefore the Field Marshal installed himself in the private room of the War Minister, and telegraphic and telephonic communication was quickly established, while a wireless telegraph apparatus was placed upon the ruined summit of Big Ben for the purpose of communicating with Germany, in case the cables were interrupted by being cut at sea.

The day after the landing a similar apparatus had been erected on the Monument at Yarmouth, and it had been daily in communication with the one at Bremen. The German left nothing to chance.

The clubs in Pall Mall were now being used by German officers, who lounged in easy chairs, smoking and taking their ease, German soldiers being on guard outside. North of the Thames seemed practically deserted, save for the invaders who swarmed everywhere. South of the Thames the cowed and terrified populace were asking what the end was to be. What was the Government doing? It had fled to Bristol and left London to its fate, they complained.

What the German demands were was not known until the "Daily Telegraph" published an interview with Sir Claude Harrison, the Lord Mayor, which gave authentic details of them.

They were as follows: —

1. Indemnity of £300,000,000, paid in ten annual instalments.

2. Until this indemnity is paid in full, German troops to occupy Edinburgh, Rosyth, Chatham, Dover, Portsmouth, Devonport, Pembroke, Yarmouth, Hull.

3. Cession to Germany of the Shetlands, Orkneys, Bantry Bay, Malta, Gibraltar, and Tasmania.

4. India, north of a line drawn from Calcutta to Baroda, to be ceded to Russia.

5. The independence of Ireland to be recognised.

Of the claim of £300,000,000, fifty millions was demanded from London, the sum in question to be paid within twelve hours.

The Lord Mayor had, it appeared, sent his secretary to the Prime Minister at Bristol bearing the original document in the handwriting of Von Kronhelm. The Prime Minister had acknowledged its receipt by telegraph both to the Lord Mayor and to the German Field Marshal, but there the matter had ended.

The twelve hours' grace was nearly up, and the German Commander, seated in Whitehall, had received no reply.

In the corner of the large, pleasant, well-carpeted room sat a German telegraph engineer with a portable instrument, in direct communication with the Emperor's private cabinet at Potsdam, and over that wire messages were continually passing and repassing.

The grizzled old soldier paced the room impatiently. His Emperor had only an hour ago sent him a message of warm congratulation, and had privately informed him of the high honours he intended to bestow upon him. The German Eagle was victorious, and London – the great unconquerable London – lay crushed, torn, and broken.

The marble clock upon the mantelpiece shelf chimed eleven upon its silvery bells, causing Von Kronhelm to turn from the window to glance at his own watch.