The St. John’s Ambulance Brigade, with many ladies, were doing all they could to render aid, while the Queen Victoria Jubilee Institute for Nurses was called upon for all available help. Every place where sick could be accommodated, including the well-known George Woofindin Convalescent Home, was crowded to overflowing with sufferers, while every doctor in Sheffield bore his part in unceasing surgical work. But the number of dead on both sides it was impossible to estimate.
At the Town Hall the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and councillors assembled, and met the German General, who sternly and abruptly demanded the payment of half a million pounds sterling in gold as an indemnity, together with the production of all stores that the German Army should require in order that they could re-victual.
In reply the Lord Mayor, after consulting with the Council, stated that he would call a meeting of all bank managers and heads of the great manufacturing firms in order that the demand might be, as far as possible, complied with. This answer was promised at five p.m.
Meanwhile, on the notice-board outside the Town Hall, a proclamation was affixed by the Chief of the German Staff, a sentry being posted on either side of it to prevent it being torn down.
Copies were sent to the offices of the local newspapers, and within half an hour its tenor was known in every part of the city. Throughout the night German cavalry patrolled all the main streets, most of the infantry being now reassembled into their brigades, divisions, and army corps on the southern outskirts of the city, and in Norton, Coal Aston, Dronfield, and Whittington were being established the headquarters of the four different divisions of which the VII. and VIII. Corps respectively were composed.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FEELING IN LONDON
Reports from Sheffield stated that on Sunday the gallant defence of the town by General Sir George Woolmer had been broken. We had suffered a terrible reverse. The British were in full flight, and the two victorious Corps now had the way open to advance to the metropolis of the Midlands, for they knew that they had left behind them only a shattered remnant of what the day before had been the British Army of the North.
In both Houses of Parliament, hastily summoned, there had been memorable scenes. In the Commons, the Government had endeavoured to justify its suicidal actions of the past, but such speeches were howled down, and even the Government organs themselves were now compelled to admit that the party had committed very grave errors of judgment.
Each night the House had sat until early morning, every member who had been in England on the previous Sunday being in his place. In response to the ever-repeated questions put to the War Minister, the reply was each day the same. All that could be done was being done.
Was there any hope of victory? That was the question eagerly asked on every hand—both in Parliament and out of it. At present there seemed none. Reports from the theatres of war in different parts of the country reaching the House each hour were ever the same—the British driven back by the enemy’s overwhelming numbers.