The Great War in England in 1897

by William Le Queux

From Farnham, the line through Odiham and Aldershot was held by a force increasing hourly in strength; therefore the enemy were unable to get over to Farnborough to outflank the defenders. Through that brilliant, sunny September day the slaughter was terrible in every part of the enemy's column, and it was about noon believed that they would find their positions at Wonersh and Godalming untenable.

Nevertheless, with a dogged persistency unusual to our Gallic neighbours, they continued to fight with unquelled vigour. The 2nd Oxfordshire Light Infantry and the 1st and 2nd Wiltshire, holding very important ground over against Puttenham, bore their part with magnificent courage, but were at length cut up in a most horrible manner; while the 1st Bedfordshire, who, with a body of Regulars valiantly held the road running over the hills from Gomshall to Merrow, fought splendidly; but they too were, alas! subsequently annihilated.

Over hill and dale, stretching away to the Sussex border, the rattle and din of war sounded incessantly, and as hour after hour passed, hundreds of Britons and Frenchmen dyed the brown, sun-baked grass with their blood. The struggle was frightful. Volunteer battalions who had manœuvred over that ground at many an Eastertide had little dreamed that they would have one day to raise their rifles in earnest for the defence of their home and Queen. Yet the practice they had had now served them well, for in one instance the 1st Berkshire succeeded by a very smart manœuvre in totally sweeping away several troops of Cuirassiers, while a quarter of an hour later half an infantry battalion of Regulars attacked a large force of Zouaves on the Compton Road, and fought them successfully almost hand to hand.

Through the long, toilsome day the battle continued with unabated fury, and as the sun went down there was no cessation of hostilities. A force of our Regulars, extending from Farnham over Hind Head Common, fell suddenly upon a large body of French infantry, and, outflanking them, managed—after a most frightful encounter, in which they lost nearly half their men—to totally annihilate them.

In connection with this incident, a squadron of the 5th Dragoon Guards made a magnificent charge up a steep hill literally to the muzzles of the guns of a French battery, and by their magnificent pluck captured it. Still, notwithstanding the bravery of our defenders, and their fierce determination to sweep away their foe, it seemed when the sun finally disappeared that the fortunes of war were once more against us, for the French had now received huge reinforcements, and Dorking and Leatherhead having already passed into their hands two days previously, they were enabled to make their final assault a most savage and terrific one.

It was frightful; it crushed us! In the falling gloom our men fought desperately for their lives, but, alas! one after another our positions were carried by the invaders literally at the point of the bayonet, and ere the moon rose Guildford had fallen into the enemy's hands, and our depleted battalions had been compelled to retire in disorder east to Effingham and west to Farnham. Those who went to Effingham joined at midnight the column who had made an unsuccessful effort to recover Leatherhead, and then bivouaced in Oldlands Copse. The number of wounded in the battles of Guildford and Leatherhead was enormous. At Mickleham the British hospital flag floated over St. Michael's Church, the Priory at Cherkley, Chapel Farm, and on Mickleham Hall, a portion of which still remained intact, although the building had been looted by Zouaves. In Leatherhead the French had established hospitals at Givons Grove, Vale Lodge, Elmbank, and in the Church of St. Mary and the parish church at Fetcham. At Guildford, in addition to the field hospitals on Albury Downs and behind St. Catherine's Hill, Holden, Warren, and Tyting Farms, Sutton Place and Loseley were filled with wounded French infantrymen and British prisoners, and many schools and buildings, including the Guildhall in Guildford town, bore the red cross.

At two most important strategic points the first line defending London had now been broken, and the British officers knew that it would require every effort on our part to recover our lost advantages. The metropolis was now seriously threatened; for soon after dawn on the following day two great French columns, one from Guildford and the other from Leatherhead, were advancing north towards the Thames! The enemy had established telegraphic communication between the two towns, and balloons that had been sent up from Guildford and Ashstead to reconnoitre had reported that the second line of the British defence had been formed from Kingston, through Wimbledon, Tooting, Streatham, and Upper Norwood, and thence across viâ Sydenham to Lewisham and Greenwich.

It was upon this second line of defence that the French, with their enormous force of artillery, now marched. The Leatherhead column, with their main body about one day's march behind, took the route through Epsom to Mitcham, while the troops from Guildford pushed on through Ripley, Cobham, and Esher.

This advance occupied a day, and when a halt was made for the night the enemy's front extended from Walton to Thames Ditton, thence across Kingston Common and Malden to Mitcham. Bivouacing, they faced the British second line of defence, and waited for the morrow to commence their onslaught. In London the alarming news of the enemy's success caused a panic such as had never before been experienced in the metropolis. During the long anxious weeks that the enemy had been held within bounds by our Volunteers, London had never fully realised what bombardment would mean. While the French were beyond the Surrey Hills, Londoners felt secure; and the intelligence received of the enemy's utter rout at Newcastle, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Glasgow added considerably to this sense of security.

London, alas! was starving. Business was suspended; trains no longer left the termini; omnibuses, trams, and cabs had ceased running, the horses having been pressed into military service, and those which had not had been killed and eaten. The outlook everywhere, even during those blazing sunny days and clear moonlit nights, was cheerless and dispiriting. The bright sun seemed strangely incongruous with the black war-clouds that overhung the gigantic city, with its helpless, starving, breathless millions.