CHAPTER IV
MASSACRE OF GERMANS IN LONDON
“‘Daily Mail’ Office, Oct. 12, 6 p.m.
“Through the whole of last week the Germans occupying London suffered great losses. They are now hemmed in on every side.
“At three o’clock this morning, Von Kronhelm having withdrawn the greater part of the troops from the defence of the bridges, in an attempt to occupy defensive positions in North London, the South Londoners, impatient with long waiting, broke forth and came across the river in enormous multitudes, every man bent upon killing a German wherever seen.
“The night air was rent everywhere by the hoarse, exultant shouts as London—the giant, all-powerful city—fell upon the audacious invader. Through our windows in Carmelite Street came the dull roar of London’s millions swelled by the Defenders from the west and south of England, and by the gallant men from Canada, India, the Cape, and other British colonies who had come forward to fight for the Mother country as soon as her position was known to be critical.
“In the streets are seen Colonial uniforms side by side with the costermonger from Whitechapel or Walworth, and dark-faced Indians in turbans are fighting out in Fleet Street and the Strand. In the great struggle now taking place many of our reporters and correspondents have unfortunately been wounded, and, alas! four of them killed.
“In these terrible days a man’s life is not safe from one moment to another. Both sides seem to have now lost their heads completely. Among the Germans all semblance of order has apparently been thrown to the winds. It is known that London has risen to a man, and the enemy are therefore fully aware of their imminent peril. Already they are beaten. True, Von Kronhelm still sits in the War Office directing operations—operations which he knows too well are foredoomed to failure.
“The Germans have, it must be admitted, carried on the war in a chivalrous spirit until those drastic executions exasperated the people. Then neither side gave quarter, and now to-day all through Islington, Hoxton, Kingsland, and Dalston, right out eastward to Homerton, a perfect massacre of Germans is in progress.
“Lord Byfield has issued two urgent proclamations, threatening the people of London with all sorts of penalties if they kill instead of taking an enemy prisoner, but they seem to have no effect. London is starved and angered to such a pitch that her hatred knows no bounds, and only blood will atone for the wholesale slaughter of the innocent since the bombardment of the metropolis began.
“The Kaiser has, we hear, left the ‘Belvedere’ at Scarborough, where he has been living incognito. A confidential report, apparently well founded, has reached us that he embarked upon the steam-trawler Morning Star at Scarborough yesterday, and set out across the Dogger, with Germany, of course, as his destination. Surely he must now regret his ill-advised policy of making an attack upon England. He had gauged our military weakness very accurately, but he had not counted upon the patriotic spirit of our Empire. It may be that he has already given orders to Von Kronhelm, but it is nevertheless a very significant fact that the German wireless telegraph apparatus on the summit of Big Ben is in constant use by the German Commander-in-Chief. He is probably in hourly communication with Bremen, or with the Emperor himself upon the trawler Morning Star.