Great camps had now been formed in Hyde Park, in the Green Park between Constitution Hill and Piccadilly, and in St. James's Park. The Magdeburg Fusiliers were being formed up on the Horse Guards Parade, and from the flagstaff there now fluttered the ensign of the commander of an army corps, in place of the British flag. A large number of Uhlans and Cuirassiers were encamped at the west end of the Park, opposite Buckingham Palace, and both the Wellington Barracks and the Cavalry Barracks at Knightsbridge were occupied by Germans.
Many officers were already billeted in the Savoy, the Cecil, the Carlton, the Grand, and Victoria hotels, while the British Museum, the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum, the Tower, and a number of other collections of pictures and antiques were all guarded strongly by German sentries. The enemy had thus seized our national treasures.
London awoke to find herself a German city.
In the streets lounging groups of travel-worn sons of the Fatherland were everywhere, and German was heard on every hand. Every ounce of foodstuff was being rapidly commandeered by hundreds of foraging parties, who went to each grocer's, baker's, or provision shop in the various districts, seized all they could find, valued it, and gave official receipts for it.
The price of food in London that morning was absolutely prohibitive, as much as two shillings being asked for a twopenny loaf. The Germans had, it was afterwards discovered, been all the time, since the Sunday when they landed, running over large cargoes of supplies of all sorts to the Essex, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk coasts, where they had established huge supply bases, well knowing that there was not sufficient food in the country to feed their armed hordes in addition to the population.
Shops in Tottenham Court Road, Holborn, Edgware Road, Oxford Street, Camden Road, and Harrow Road were systematically visited by the foraging parties, who commenced their work at dawn. Those places that were closed and their owners absent were at once broken open, and everything seized and carted to either Hyde Park or St. James's Park, for though Londoners might starve, the Kaiser's troops intended to be fed.
In some cases a patriotic shopkeeper attempted to resist. Indeed, in more than one case a tradesman wilfully set his shop on fire rather than its contents should fall into the enemy's hands. In other cases the tradesmen who received the official German receipts burned them in contempt before the officer's eyes.
The guidance of these foraging parties was, in very many cases, in the hands of Germans in civilian clothes, and it was now seen how complete and helpful the enemy's system of espionage had been in London. Most of these men were Germans who, having served in the army, had come over to England and obtained employment as waiters, clerks, bakers, hairdressers, and private servants, and being bound by their oath to the Fatherland had served their country as spies. Each man, when obeying the Imperial command to join the German arms, had placed in the lapel of his coat a button of a peculiar shape, with which he had long ago been provided, and by which he was instantly recognised as a loyal subject of the Kaiser.
This huge body of German soldiers, who for years had passed in England as civilians, was, of course, of enormous use to Von Kronhelm, for they acted as guides not only on the march and during the entry to London, but materially assisted in the victorious advance in the Midlands. Indeed, the Germans had for years kept a civilian army in England, and yet we had, ostrich-like, buried our heads in the sand, and refused to turn our eyes to the grave peril that had for so long threatened.
Systematically, the Germans were visiting every shop and warehouse in the shopping districts, and seizing everything eatable they could discover. The enemy were taking the food from the mouths of the poor in East and South London, and as they went southward across the river, so the populace retired, leaving their homes at the mercy of the ruthless invader.