WILLIAM LE QUEUX: 15 Dystopian Novels & Espionage Thrillers (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux
occupation had in the end proved disastrous to the Germans, for, once within, they found themselves surrounded by a huge armed mob in the Waterloo Road and in the vicinity of the South-Western terminus; notwithstanding their desperate defence, they were exterminated to a man, until the gutters beneath the railway bridges ran with blood. Meanwhile the breach in the barricade was repaired, and two guns and ammunition captured from the enemy mounted in defence. There was a similar incident on Vauxhall Bridge, the populace being victorious, and now the Germans were offering no further opposition, as they had quite sufficient to occupy them on the Middlesex side.
The division of Lord Byfield’s army which had gone south to Horsham had moved north, and on the 24th were holding the country across from Epsom to Kingston-on-Thames, while patrols and motorists were out from Ewell, through Cheam, Sutton, Carshalton, Croydon, and Upper Norwood, to the high ground at the Crystal Palace. From Kingston to the Tower Bridge all approaches across the Thames were barricaded and held by desperate mobs, aided by artillerymen.
In those early days after the occupation, military order had apparently disappeared in London, as far as the British were concerned. General Sir Francis Bamford had, on the proclamation of martial law in London, been appointed military governor, and had, on the advance of the Germans, retired to the Crystal Palace, where he had now established his headquarters in the palace itself, with a wireless telegraph apparatus placed upon the top of the left-hand tower, by means of which he was in constant communication with Lord Byfield at Windsor, where the apparatus had been hoisted upon the flagstaff of the Round Tower.
The military tribunals established by the Proclamation of the 14th still existed in the police courts of South London, but those north of the Thames had already been replaced by German officers, and the British officers went across the bridges into the British lines. Von Kronhelm’s clever tactics, by which he had established an advisory board of British officials to assist in the government of London, seemed to have had the desired effect of reassurance in the case of London north of the Thames. But south of the river the vast population in that huge area from Gravesend, through Dartford, Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Merton, Wimbledon, and Kingston, lived still at the highest tension, while the defenders at the bridges and along the river-front kept up unceasing vigilance night and day, never knowing at what spot the Germans might throw across their pontoons. In peace time the enemy had for years practised the pontooning of the Rhine and the Elbe; therefore, they knew it to be an easy matter to cross the narrower reaches of the Thames if they so desired.
On the 24th the rumour became current, too, that during the night German wagons had moved large quantities of specie from the Bank of England out to their base at Southminster; but, though it was most probable, the news was not confirmed. On this date the position as regards London, briefly reviewed, was as follows: —
London north of the Thames, eastward to the sea, and the whole of the country east of a line drawn from the metropolis to Birmingham, was in the hands of the Germans. The enemy’s Guard Corps, under the Duke of Mannheim, who had landed at King’s Lynn, had established their headquarters at Hampstead, and held North London, with a big encampment in Regent’s Park. The Xth Corps, under Von Wilberg, from Yarmouth, were holding the City proper; the IXth Corps, from Lowestoft, were occupying the outskirts of East London, and keeping the lines of communication with Southminster; the IVth Corps, from Weybourne, under Von Kleppen, were in Hyde Park, and held Western London; while the Saxons had been pushed out from Shepperton through Staines to Colnbrook, as a safeguard from attack by Lord Byfield’s force, so rapidly being reorganised at Windsor. The remnants of the beaten army had gone to Chichester and Salisbury, but were now coming rapidly north, as the British Commander-in-Chief, had, it appeared, decided to give battle again, aided by the infuriated populace of Southern London.
At no spot south of the Thames, except perhaps the reconnoitring parties who crossed at Egham, Thorpe, and Weybridge, and recrossed each night, were there any Germans. The ground was so vast and the population so great, that Von Kronhelm feared to spread out his troops over too great an area. The Saxons had orders simply to keep Lord Byfield in check, and see that he did not cross the river. Thus it became for the time a drawn game. The Germans held the north of the Thames, while the British were continually threatening and making demonstrations from the south.
So great, however, was the population now assembled in South London that food was rising to absolutely famine prices. The estuary of the river had been so thickly mined by the Germans that no ships bearing food dared to come up. The Straits of Dover and the Solent were still dangerous on account of the floating mines, and it was only at places such as Brighton, Eastbourne, Hastings, and Folkestone that supplies could be landed at that moment. Trucks full of flour, coffee, rice, brandy, canned meats, boots, uniforms, arms, were daily run up to Deptford, Herne Hill, Croydon, and Wimbledon, but such supplies were very meagre for the millions now crowded along the river front, full of enthusiasm still to defy the enemy. At the first news of the invasion all the coal and coke in London had been expressly reserved for public purposes, small quantities only being issued to printing establishments and other branches of public necessity; but to private individuals they were rigorously denied. Wood, however, was sold without restriction, and a number of barges, old steamers of the County Council, and such-like craft were broken up for fuel.
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Through the past ten days the darkness, gloom, and ever-deepening hunger had increased, and though London retained the same spirit with which it had received the news of the audacious invasion, that portion south of the Thames was starving. Between the 20th and 24th September the price of every article of food rose enormously. On the 24th Ostend rabbits were sold in the Walworth Road for a sovereign each, and a hare cost double. An apple cost 1s. 6d., a partridge 15s., a fresh egg 2s., while bacon was 6s. 6d. a pound, and butter £1 per pound. Shops in the Old Kent Road, Camberwell, Brixton, Kennington, Walworth, Waterloo, and London Roads, which had hitherto been perhaps the cheapest places in which to buy provisions in the whole of London, were now prohibitive in their prices to the poor, though ladies habitually living in the West End and driven there through force of circumstances readily paid the exorbitant charges demanded. Indeed, there was often a fight in those shops for a rabbit, a ham, or a tin of pressed beef, one person bidding against another for its possession. Tallow was often being used for the purposes of cookery, and is said to have answered well.
If South London was in such a state of starvation, even though small quantities of food were daily coming in, Von Kronhelm’s position must have been one of extreme gravity when it is remembered that his food supply was now cut off. It was calculated that each of his five army corps operating upon London consumed in the space of twenty-four hours 18,000 loaves weighing 3 lb. each, 120 cwt. of rice or pearl barley, seventy oxen or 120 cwt. of bacon, 18 cwt. of salt, 30 cwt. of coffee, 12 cwt. of oats, 3 cwt. of hay, 3500 quarts of spirits and beer, with 60 cwt. of tobacco, 1,100,000 ordinary cigars, and 50,000 officers’ cigars for every ten days.
And yet all was provided for at Southminster, Grimsby, King’s Lynn, Norwich, and Goole. Huge food bases had been rapidly established from the first day of the invasion. The German Army, whatever might be said of it, was a splendid military machine, and we had been in every way incapable of coping with it. Yet it was impossible not to admire the courage and patriotism of the men under Byfield, Hibbard, and Woolmer in making the attempt, though from the first the game had been known to be hopeless.
West of London the members of the Hendon and other rifle clubs, together with a big body of Frontiersmen and other free-shooters, were continually harassing the Saxon advanced posts between Shepperton and Colnbrook, towards Uxbridge. On the 24th a body of 1,500 riflemen and Frontiersmen attacked a company of Saxon Pioneers close to where the Great Western Railway crosses the River Crane, north of Cranford. The Germans, being outnumbered, were obliged to withdraw to Hayes with a loss of twenty killed and a large force of wounded. Shortly afterwards, on the following day, the Pioneers, having been reinforced, retraced their steps in order to clear the districts on the Crane of our irregular forces; and they announced that if, as reported, the people of Cranford and Southall had taken part in the attack, both places would be burned.
That same night the railway bridges over the Crane and the Grand Junction Canal in the vicinity were blown up by the Frontiersmen. The fifty Saxons guarding each bridge were surprised by the British sharpshooters,