WILLIAM LE QUEUX: 15 Dystopian Novels & Espionage Thrillers (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux
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.
NOTICE.
TO ALL GERMAN SUBJECTS RESIDENT
IN ENGLAND.
WILHELM.
To all OUR LOYAL SUBJECTS, GREETING.
We hereby COMMAND and enjoin that all persons born within the German Empire, or being German subjects, whether liable to military service or not, shall join our arms at any headquarters of either of our Army Corps in England within 24 hours of the date of this proclamation.
Any German subject failing to obey this our Command will be treated as an enemy.
By the EMPEROR’S Command.
Given at Beccles, Sept. 3rd, 1910.
VON KRONHELM, Commanding the Imperial German Army in England.
FACSIMILE OF A PROCLAMATION POSTED BY UNKNOWN
HANDS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY.
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 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 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.
CHAPTER X
HOW THE ENEMY DEALT THE BLOW
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 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