It was too late! Nothing could now be done to improve the rotten state of our defences. The invasion had begun, and Britain, handicapped alike on land and on sea, must arm and fight to the death.
By Tuesday night, three days after the Declaration of War, two French and half a Russian army corps, amounting to 90,000 officers and men, with 10,000 horses and 1500 guns and waggons, had landed, in addition to which reinforcements constantly arrived from the French Channel and Russian Baltic ports, until the number of the enemy on English soil was estimated at over 300,000.
The overwhelming descent on our shores had been secretly planned by the enemy with great forethought, every detail having been most carefully arranged. The steam tonnage in the French harbours was ample and to spare, for many of the vessels, being British, had been at once seized on the outbreak of hostilities. The sudden interruption of the mail and telegraphic services between the two countries left us in total ignorance of the true state of affairs. Nevertheless, for weeks an army of carpenters and engineers had been at work preparing the necessary fittings, which were afterwards placed in position on board the ships destined to convey horses and men to England.
In order to deceive the other Powers, a large number of military transport vessels had been fitted out at Brest for a bogus expedition to Dahomey. These ships actually put to sea on the day previous to the Declaration of War, and on Saturday night, at the hour when the news reached Britain, they had already embarked guns, horses, and waggons at the Channel ports. Immediately after the Tsar's manifesto had been issued the Russian Volunteer Fleet was mobilised, and transports which had long been held in readiness in the Baltic harbours embarked men and guns, and, one after another, steamed away for England without the slightest confusion or any undue haste.
CHAPTER XII.
IN THE EAGLE'S TALONS.
any British military and naval writers had ridiculed the idea of a surprise invasion without any attempt on the part of the enemy to gain more than a partial and temporary control of the Channel. Although an attack on territory without having previously command of the sea had generally been foredoomed to failure, it had been long ago suggested by certain military officers in the course of lectures at the United Service Institution, that under certain conditions such invasion was possible, and that France might ere long be ruled by some ambitious soldier who might be tempted to try a sudden dash on le perfide Albion. They pointed out that at worst it would entail on France the loss of three or four army corps, a loss no greater than she would suffer in one short land campaign. But alas! at that time very little notice was taken of such criticisms and illustrations, for Britons had always been prone to cast doubts upon the power of other nations to convey troops by sea, to embark them, or to land them. Thus the many suggestions directed towards increasing the mobility and efficiency of the Army were, like other warnings, cast aside, the prevailing opinion in the country being that sudden invasion was an absolute impossibility.