WILLIAM LE QUEUX: 15 Dystopian Novels & Espionage Thrillers (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux

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      CHAPTER XVII

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      Days passed — dark, dismal, dispiriting. Grim-visaged War had crushed all joy and gaiety from British hearts, and fierce patriotism and determination to fight on until the bitter end mingled everywhere with hunger, sadness, and despair. British homes had been desecrated, British lives had been sacrificed, and through the land the invaders rushed ravaging with fire and sword.

      Whole towns had been overwhelmed and shattered, great tracts of rich land in Sussex and Hampshire had been laid waste, and the people, powerless against the enormous forces sweeping down upon them, had been mercilessly mowed down and butchered by Cossacks, whose brutality was fiendish. Everywhere there were reports of horrible atrocities, of heartless murders, and wholesale slaughter of the helpless and unoffending.

      The situation, both in Great Britain and on the Continent, was most critical. The sudden declaration of hostilities by France and Russia had resulted in a great war in which nearly all European nations were involved. Germany had sent her enormous land forces over her frontiers east and west, successfully driving back the French along the Vosges, and occupying Dijon, Chalons-sur-Saône, and Lyons. Valmy, Nancy, and Metz had again been the scenes of sanguinary encounters, and Chaumont and Troyes had both fallen into the hands of the Kaiser's legions. In Poland, however, neither Germans nor Austrians had met with such success. A fierce battle had been fought at Thorn between the Tsar's forces and the Germans, and the former, after a desperate stand, were defeated, and the Uhlans, dragoons, and infantry of the Fatherland had swept onward up the valley of the Vistula to Warsaw. Here the resistance offered by General Bodisco was very formidable, but the city was besieged, while fierce fighting was taking place all across the level country that lay between the Polish capital and the Prussian frontier. Austrians and Hungarians fought fiercely, the Tyrolese Jägers displaying conspicuous bravery at Brody, Cracow, Jaroslav, and along the banks of the San, and they had succeeded up to the present in preventing the Cossacks and Russian infantry from reaching the Carpathians, although an Austrian army corps advancing into Russia along the Styr had been severely cut up and forced to retreat back to Lemberg.

      Italy had burst her bonds. Her Bersaglieri, cuirassiers, Piedmontese cavalry, and carabiniers had marched along the Corniche road into Provence, and, having occupied Nice, Cannes, and Draguigan, were on their way to attack Marseilles, while the Alpine infantry, taking the road over Mont Cenis, had, after very severe fighting in the beautiful valley between Susa and Bardonnechia, at last occupied Modane and Chambéry, and now intended joining hands with the Germans at Lyons.

      France was now receiving greater punishment than she had anticipated, and even those members of the Cabinet and Deputies who were responsible for the sudden invasion of England were compelled to admit that they had made a false move. The frontiers were being ravaged, and although the territorial regiments remaining were considered sufficient to repel attack, yet the Army of the Saône had already been cut to pieces. In these circumstances, France, knowing the great peril she ran in prolonging the invasion of Britain, was desperately anxious to make the British sue for peace, so that she could turn her attention to events at home, and therefore, although in a measure contravening International Law, she had instructed her Admirals to bombard British seaports and partially-defended towns.

      Although the guns of the hostile fleet had wrought such appalling havoc on the Humber, on the Tyne, and along the coast of Kent and Sussex, nevertheless the enemy had only secured a qualified success. The cause of all the disasters that had befallen us, of the many catastrophes on land and sea, was due to the wretchedly inadequate state of our Navy, although the seven new battleships and six cruisers commenced in 1894 were now complete and afloat.

      Had we possessed an efficient Navy the enemy could never have approached our shores. We had not a sufficient number of ships to replace casualties. Years behind in nearly every essential point, Britain had failed to give her cruisers either speed or guns equal in strength to those of other nations. Our guns were the worst in the world, no fewer than 47 vessels still mounting 350 old muzzleloaders, weapons discarded by every other European Navy.

      For years it had been a race between the hare and the tortoise. We had remained in dreamy unconsciousness of danger, while other nations had quickly taken advantage of all the newly-discovered modes of destruction that make modern warfare so terrible.

      Notwithstanding the odds against us in nearly every particular, the British losses had been nothing as compared with those of the enemy. This spoke much for British pluck and pertinacity. With a force against them of treble their strength, British bluejackets had succeeded in sinking a number of the finest and most powerful ships of France and Russia. France had lost the Amiral Duperré, a magnificent steel vessel of eleven thousand tons; the Neptune and Redoutable, a trifle smaller; the Tonnerre, the Terrible, the Furieux, the Indomptable, the Caïman, all armoured ships, had been lost; while the cruisers D'Estaing, Sfax, Desaix, Cosamo, Faucon, the despatch-vessel Hirondelle, the gunboats Iberville, Gabes, and Lance, and eleven others, together with sixteen torpedo boats and numbers of transports, had been either blown up, burned, or otherwise destroyed.

      The losses the Russians had sustained, in addition to the many transports and general service steamers, included the great steel cruiser Nicolai I., the vessels Gerzog Edinburgskij, Syzran, Rynda, Asia, Gangut, Kranaya Gorka, Olaf, and the torpedo boat Abo, with eight others.

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