William Le Queux - The Invasion of 1910

In the clean, red-brick little town of Sheringham all the grocers and provision-dealers were given notice not to sell food to anyone, as it was now in possession of the invaders, while a number of motor-cars belonging to private persons were seized. Every lodging-house, every hotel, and every boarding-house was quickly crowded by the German officers, who remained to superintend the landing. Many machine guns were landed on the pier at Cromer, while the heavier ordnance were brought ashore at the gap and hauled up the fishermen’s slope.

Colonel Macdonald, who had carefully marked a cycling road-map of the district with his observations driving in his own dog-cart from one point to the other, met with a number of exciting adventures.

While in Holt on Monday evening – after a long day of constant observation – he suddenly came face to face with Colonel Frölich, commanding the enemy’s cavalry brigade, and was recognised. Frölich had been aide-de-camp to the Emperor at the time when Macdonald was attaché at the British Embassy, and both men were intimate friends.

They stopped and spoke, Frölich expressing surprise and also regret that they should meet as enemies after their long friendship. Macdonald, annoyed at being thus recognised, took the matter philosophically as the fortunes of war, and learnt from his whilom friend a number of valuable details regarding the German position.

The retired attaché, however, pushed his inquiries rather too far, and unfortunately aroused the suspicions of the German cavalry commander, with the result that the Englishman’s movements were afterwards very closely watched. He then found himself unable to make any further reconnaisance, and was compelled to hide his map under a heap of stones near the Thornage Road, and there leave it for some hours, fearing lest he should be searched and the incriminating plan found upon him.

At night, however, he returned cautiously to the spot, regained possession of his treasure, and abandoning his dog-cart and horse in a by-road near North Barningham, succeeded in getting over to Edgefield. Here, however, he was discovered and challenged by the sentries. He succeeded, nevertheless, in convincing them that he was not endeavouring to escape; otherwise he would undoubtedly have been shot there and then, as quite a dozen unfortunate persons had been at various points along the German line.

To obtain information of the enemy’s position this brave old officer had risked his life, yet concealed in his golf-cap was the map which would condemn him as a spy. He knew the peril, but faced it boldly, as an English soldier should face it.

His meeting with Frölich had been most unfortunate, for he knew that he was now a marked man.

At first the sentries disbelieved him, but, speaking German fluently, he argued with them, and was at last allowed to go free. His one object was to get the map into the hands of the Intelligence Department, but the difficulties were, he soon saw, almost insurmountable. Picquets and sentries held every road and every bridge, while the railway line between Fakenham and Aylsham had been destroyed in several places, as well as that between Melton Constable and Norwich.

Through the whole night he wandered on, hoping to find some weak point in the cordon about Weybourne, but in vain. The Germans were everywhere keeping a sharp vigil to prevent anyone getting out with information, and taking prisoners all upon whom rested the slightest suspicion.

Near dawn, however, he found his opportunity, for at the junction of the three roads near the little hamlet of Stody, a mile south of Hunworth, he came upon a sleeping Uhlan, whose companions had evidently gone forward into Briningham village. The horse was grazing quietly at the roadside, and the man, tired out, lay stretched upon the bank, his helmet by his side, his sabre still at his belt.

Macdonald crept up slowly. If the man woke and discovered him he would be again challenged. Should he take the man’s big revolver and shoot him as he lay?

No. That was a coward’s action, an unjustifiable murder, he decided.

He would take the horse, and risk it by making a dash for life.

Therefore, on tiptoe he crept up, passing the prostrate man, till he approached the horse, and in a second, old though he was, he was nevertheless in the saddle. But none too soon. The jingle of the bit awakened the Uhlan suddenly, and he sprang up in time to see the stranger mount.

In an instant he took in the situation, and before the colonel could settle himself in the saddle he raised his revolver and fired.

The ball struck the colonel in the left shoulder, shattering it, but the gallant man who was risking his life for his country only winced, cursed his luck beneath his breath, set his teeth, and with the blood pouring from the wound, made a dash for life, and succeeded in getting clean away ere the alarm could be raised.

Twelve hours later the valuable information the colonel had so valiantly gained at such risk was in the hands of the Intelligence Department at Whitehall, and had been transmitted back to Norwich and Colchester.

That the Fourth German Army Corps were in a position as strong as those who had landed at Lowestoft could not be denied, and the military authorities could not disguise from themselves the extreme gravity of the situation.

The first news of the great naval battle, as generally happens in war, was confused and distorted. It did not clearly show how the victory had been gained by the one side, or what had brought defeat upon the other. Only gradually did the true facts appear. The following account, however, of the sudden attack made by the Germans upon the British Fleet represents as near an approach as can ever be made, writing after events, to the real truth:

On the fateful evening of September 1, it appears that the North Sea Fleet lay peacefully at anchor off Rosyth, in the Firth of Forth. It mustered sixteen battleships, four of them of the famous Dreadnought class, and all powerful vessels. With it, and attached to it, was a squadron of armoured cruisers eight ships strong, but no destroyers, as its torpedo flotilla was taking part in the torpedo manœuvres in the Irish Sea. Some excitement had been caused in the fleet by orders received on the previous day, directing it to remain under steam ready to put to sea at an hour’s notice. Officers and men had read the reports in the papers announcing some friction with Germany, and had recalled with ironical amusement certain speeches of the Premier, in which he had declared that since his advent to power war was impossible between civilised nations. On the morning of the First, however, the orders to hold the fleet in readiness were cancelled, and Admiral Lord Ebbfleet was instructed to wait at his anchorage the arrival of reinforcements from the reserve divisions at the great naval ports. The Admiral had reported some shortage of coal and ammunition, and had asked for further supplies of both. A promise was made him that more coal should be sent to Rosyth, but ammunition, he was told, it would be inconvenient and unnecessary to forward at this juncture. There was no reason for precipitation or alarm, a cipher telegram from Whitehall ran: Any sign of either would irritate Germany and endanger the situation. He was peremptorily enjoined to refrain from any act of preparation for war. The estimates could not be exceeded without good reason, and the necessary economies of the Admiralty had left no margin for unexpected expenses. Even the commissioning of the reserve ships, he was told, was not to be considered in any sense as pointing to the imminence of war; it was merely a test of the readiness of the fleet.

This remarkable despatch and the series of telegrams which accompanied it were produced at the Parliamentary investigation after the war, and caused simple stupefaction. There was not a hint in them of the peril which menaced the North Sea Fleet. Not the safety of England, but the feelings of the enemy, were considered. And yet the same utter absence of precautions had characterised the policy of the Government during the Fashoda crisis, when Mr. Goschen indignantly denied to an approving House of Commons the suggestion that the dockyards had been busy or that special efforts to prepare for war had been needed. In the North Sea crisis again, the safety of England had been left to chance, and the British fleets carefully withdrawn from the waters of the North Sea, or placed in a position of such weakness that their defeat was a probability.