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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
William Le Queux's "Ultimate Collection" is a comprehensive anthology that captures the essence of his prolific contributions to early 20th-century literature, particularly in the genres of adventure, espionage, and mystery. Employing a distinctive narrative style that blends vivid descriptions with gripping plots, Le Queux explores themes of nationalism, societal change, and the trepidation of international conflicts prevalent during his time. His works often reflect the zeitgeist of pre-World War I Europe, characterized by a fascination with espionage and the intricate web of diplomacy that underpins it, showcased through his intricate plots and diverse characters. William Le Queux was a pioneering British author whose multifaceted career spanned journalism, writing, and diplomacy. Born in 1864, his experiences across Europe, particularly in France and Russia, profoundly influenced his narratives, imbuing them with a rich understanding of political tension and cultural nuance. His extensive travels instilled in him an acute awareness of the delicate balance of power, leading him to craft stories that warn against the perils of complacency in a world poised on the brink of upheaval. This collection is an essential read for scholars and enthusiasts of early 20th-century literature, offering profound insights into the era's anxieties. It serves as not only an entertainment but also a historical lens reflecting the sociopolitical undercurrents of its time. Le Queux's sharp narratives and eloquent prose will captivate any reader eager to delve into the thrilling world of espionage and international intrigue. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A comprehensive Introduction outlines these selected works' unifying features, themes, or stylistic evolutions. - A Historical Context section situates the works in their broader era—social currents, cultural trends, and key events that underpin their creation. - A concise Synopsis (Selection) offers an accessible overview of the included texts, helping readers navigate plotlines and main ideas without revealing critical twists. - A unified Analysis examines recurring motifs and stylistic hallmarks across the collection, tying the stories together while spotlighting the different work's strengths. - Reflection questions inspire deeper contemplation of the author's overarching message, inviting readers to draw connections among different texts and relate them to modern contexts. - Lastly, our hand‐picked Memorable Quotes distill pivotal lines and turning points, serving as touchstones for the collection's central themes.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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WILLIAM LE QUEUX Ultimate Collection
Table of Contents
Introduction
This comprehensive single-author compendium assembles more than one hundred works by William Le Queux, the British journalist and novelist whose name became closely associated with popular espionage, invasion-scare fiction, and fast-paced crime adventure in the years surrounding the First World War. Conceived as both an essential reference and an immersive reading experience, the collection brings together full-length novels, sequences of short stories, and topical historical writings in an illustrated presentation. Its purpose is twofold: to exhibit the extraordinary range of Le Queux’s imagination across genres, and to preserve a vivid record of the anxieties and appetites that helped shape the modern thriller’s recognizable contours.
The long fiction represented here is remarkably varied. Invasion narratives like The Great War in England in 1897 and The Invasion of 1910 imagine national peril and mass mobilization, while cosmopolitan espionage and intrigue fuel The Czar’s Spy, Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo, The Stretton Street Affair, and The House of Whispers. Political and court tensions emerge in Behind the Throne, Her Majesty’s Minister, and The Great Court Scandal. Technological and scientific unease animates The Zeppelin Destroyer and The Mystery of the Green Ray. Crime and detection receive full treatment in The Red Room, The Lady in the Car, The White Lie, and numerous related tales.
The shorter fiction demonstrates Le Queux’s skill at concentrated suspense. Readers will find compact cycles and novelettes such as The Gentleman from London, The Sorcerer of Soho, The Seven Dots, The Master Atom, and The Great Tunnel Plot, alongside pointed pieces like The Silent Death, The Brass Triangle, and The Explosive Needle. These stories showcase brisk movement, ingenious schemes, and puzzles involving codes, clandestine meetings, and hazardous devices. Within the framework of magazine-length narrative, Le Queux shifts between suave boulevard intrigue and grim pursuit, sustaining immediacy through cliff-hangers and sharp turns that encourage continuous reading while withholding outcomes until the final page.
Complementing the fiction are historical and topical works that reflect Le Queux’s journalistic instincts and the public debates of his era. Rasputin the Rascal Monk, The Minister of Evil, The German Spy System from Within, German Atrocities: A Record of Shameless Deeds, The Secrets of Potsdam, and Béla Kiss present reportage and sensational history focused on espionage, influence, and wartime behavior. Rather than functioning as curiosities, these books illuminate the background against which the fiction was written and received, revealing how information, rumor, and narrative technique could intersect to amplify urgency, shape opinion, and lend a documentary surface to invented plots.
Across formats, several unifying themes recur. Le Queux repeatedly dramatizes the tension between vigilance and complacency, sending protagonists to decode messages, unmask impostors, and forestall conspiracies whose consequences touch private lives and public destinies. He maps intrigue onto recognizable geographies—London clubs and suburban villas, European frontiers and Mediterranean resorts—heightening plausibility through contemporary detail. His scenarios hinge on forged identities, intercepted documents, and the uncertain loyalties of intermediaries. Without disclosing resolutions, it can be said that chapters often end at the brink, propelling readers through corridors of suspicion that turn national anxiety into the breathless logic of pursuit.
Stylistically, Le Queux blends a reportorial tone with the tempo of serial melodrama. First-person narrators, recollected episodes, and conversational asides cultivate intimacy, while quick transitions, declared stakes, and recurring perils keep momentum high. He favors cosmopolitan settings, modern conveyances, and then-current technologies—wireless signals, airships, cameras, and chemicals—treating them as plot motors rather than mere ornament. Even when stories traverse palaces and back alleys, the prose remains direct and practical, engineered for velocity. The cumulative effect, visible across this collection, is a toolkit of devices and attitudes that helped establish durable conventions for espionage, crime, and adventure narratives.
Taken together, the novels, story sequences, and historical works invite multiple pathways through Le Queux’s career: the invasion-scare landmarks, the Berlin-set and Monte Carlo intrigues, the Secret Service episodes, the domestic mysteries, and the topical exposés that contextualize them. They provide a panoramic survey of concerns that preoccupied readers before, during, and after the Great War, while delivering enduring entertainment through setup, chase, and revelation. Newcomers can begin with headline titles; returning readers can rediscover experiments and rarities. The illustrations enhance the period atmosphere, and the scope encourages close study of patterns linking the journalism to the suspenseful fictions.
Historical Context
William Le Queux emerged from the late Victorian invasion-scare tradition, sharpening public anxieties forged by imperial rivalries and the Boer War of 1899–1902. The Great War in England in 1897 and The Invasion of 1910 harnessed the new mass press to dramatize threats from across the Channel, often serialized with map-like precision in Alfred Harmsworth’s Daily Mail. At a time of coast-defense debates and volunteer rifle corps, he fused reportage with melodrama to imagine mobilization, supply, and street fighting in London. These narratives echoed naval and military reform arguments, feeding a readership already conditioned by the Fashoda crisis and the 1904 Entente Cordiale.
Le Queux’s prewar espionage fiction flourished alongside the institutional birth of British intelligence. The Secret Service Bureau, created in 1909 and later split into MI5 and the foreign SIS, mirrored the conspiratorial webs in Spies of the Kaiser, Number 70, Berlin, and Sant of the Secret Service, as well as the quasi-documentary The German Spy System from Within. The strengthened Official Secrets Act of 1911, together with press campaigns, encouraged a culture of vigilance that his plots amplified through tales of railway-port watchers, code-letters, and hidden depots. Though often sensational, these stories tracked real debates about fortifications, shipyards, and alien registries.
The collection is steeped in technological modernity. Wireless telegraphy, clandestine codes, and electrified laboratories enable plots in tales like The Mystery of the Green Ray and The Explosive Needle, reflecting post‑Marconi enthusiasm and fears of invisible power. Aviation and the naval arms race, marked by HMS Dreadnought in 1906 and Zeppelin raids on Britain from 1915, animate The Zeppelin Destroyer and kindred aeronautical adventures. Motoring’s explosive growth after 1900, new roads along the Riviera, and cosmopolitan resorts infuse The Count’s Chauffeur and Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo with cross-border chases. Emerging forensics and fingerprinting, adopted by Scotland Yard in 1901, underpin his urban investigations.
Le Queux’s adventure romances draw on the late imperial imagination that stretched from North Africa to Central Asia. Works such as Zoraida, The Great White Queen, The Eye of Istar, and The Czar’s Spy mingle desert caravans, secret orders, and palace intrigues with British strategic concerns in Egypt, Morocco, and the Persian sphere. The Scramble for Africa and the 1898 victory at Omdurman formed a backdrop, while the Moroccan crises of 1905 and 1911 and the Balkan tensions before 1914 haunt settings like The Place of Dragons. These tales deploy orientalist spectacle to probe loyalty, empire, and the perils of frontier diplomacy.
His political and society thrillers reflect the flux of Edwardian and wartime Britain. Novels like Her Majesty’s Minister, The Under-Secretary, The Hunchback of Westminster, The Price of Power, The Lost Million, and The Great God Gold feed on cabinet crises, lobbying, and the precarious fortunes of aristocrats and financiers. The 1906 Liberal landslide, the Parliament Act of 1911 curbing the Lords, and suffragette militancy unsettled traditional elites, while scandals after the 1890 Baring crisis and the 1907 panic exposed speculative capitalism. Le Queux exploited clubland networks, Park Lane addresses, and discreet private offices to dramatize how information, credit, and reputation determined power.
War transformed Le Queux from alarmist novelist into an energetic propagandist. During 1914–1918 he issued exposés such as German Atrocities: A Record of Shameless Deeds, The Secrets of Potsdam, and The Minister of Evil, casting Kaiser Wilhelm II’s regime as conspiratorial and cruel. Rasputin the Rascal Monk and related pieces exploited the 1916 murder of Grigori Rasputin and the 1917 collapse of Romanov power to explain Russia’s turmoil to British readers. He also sensationalized the 1916 discovery of the Hungarian serial killer Béla Kiss, a case circulating through wartime rumor networks. Produced under the Defence of the Realm Act, these works rallied indignation but invited later skepticism.
His London-centered mysteries register the metropolis as both modern marvel and moral maze. Titles such as The Doctor of Pimlico, The Pauper of Park Lane, The House of Whispers, and The Sorcerer of Soho map a city of clubs, backstreets, and fashionable flats where wealth collides with secrecy. Scotland Yard’s modernization—fingerprint files from 1902, improved forensics, and a professionalized CID—frames puzzles featuring poisoners, master burglars, and impostors. Le Queux’s femmes fatales and cosmopolitan adventuresses, echoed in Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo, channel anxieties about urban leisure, migration, and the New Woman, while sensational jewel thefts and blackmail plots mirror headline-driven crime reporting.
The breadth of this collection reflects a mass-market ecosystem that carried Le Queux from railway bookstalls to international readers through cheap, illustrated editions and newspaper serials. While critics faulted his xenophobia, melodrama, and elastic fact‑checking, his synthesis of reportage, gadgetry, and geopolitics popularized the spy‑adventure template later refined by contemporaries like John Buchan and, decades on, by Ian Fleming. Post‑1918, with revolution, demobilization, and the Red Scare reshaping Europe, readers recognized in his intrigues both nostalgia and ongoing unease. Today the books function as cultural barometers, registering how a media‑saturated Britain imagined threat, technology, and class in the years surrounding 1900–1920.
Synopsis (Selection)
Invasion Prophecies and War-Tech Thrillers (The Great War in England in 1897; The Invasion of 1910; The Zeppelin Destroyer; The Mystery of the Green Ray; The Way to Win)
Le Queux imagines looming attacks on Britain and secret weapons races, moving from grand invasion panoramas to gadget-led missions and countermeasures. The tone is alarmist and patriotic, stressing preparedness, modern technology, and brisk, cliffhanger pacing that helped shift him from future-war prophecy to hands-on wartime thrills.
Recurring motifs include coded warnings, sudden mobilizations, and ordinary citizens thrust into national defense. The narratives emphasize urgency and plausibility through quasi-reportage, while avoiding graphic detail and preserving suspense over outcomes.
WWI Espionage and Counter-Espionage Novels (Spies of the Kaiser; Number 70, Berlin; Sant of the Secret Service; The Stolen Statesman; The Intriguers; At the Sign of the Sword; The Czar's Spy)
These tales chart clandestine networks across Europe—agents, dossiers, and double-crosses—framed as breathless chases through capitals and borderlands. They spotlight loyalty and betrayal under surveillance, with episodic structures, codewords, and staccato chapter-ends as stylistic signatures.
The mood is paranoid and procedural: informants whisper in cafés, couriers vanish, and plots hinge on stolen papers or abducted officials. Le Queux fuses sensational incident with patriotic messaging, keeping revelations just out of reach to sustain momentum.
Court and Cabinet Intrigue (Her Majesty's Minister; The Under-Secretary; Behind the Throne; Her Royal Highness; Of Royal Blood; The Hunchback of Westminster; The Great Court Scandal; The Price of Power)
Political ambition collides with royal protocol in scandals that threaten ministries and dynasties. These novels balance backroom bargaining with social spectacle, favoring melodramatic confrontations and ethical tests over procedural detail.
Themes of power, secrecy, and reputation dominate, as private indiscretions ripple into public crises. Le Queux’s style stays swift and declarative, using cliffhangers and whispered accusations to propel parliamentary drama.
Exotic and Lost-World Adventures (Zoraida; The Great White Queen; The Eye of Istar; The Place of Dragons; The Sign of the Stranger)
Explorers and fugitives enter remote kingdoms, occult sanctuaries, and perilous passes in quests laced with treasure, prophecy, and ritual. The tone is romantic and sensational, with lavish scenery and sudden ambushes emphasizing escape and wonder.
Recurring motifs include hidden cities, disguised rulers, and sacred artifacts that test courage and loyalty. The tales reflect period exoticism while foregrounding pace, peril, and fateful encounters.
London Crime and Society Mysteries (The Seven Secrets; The Pauper of Park Lane; The Mysterious Mr. Miller; The Lady in the Car; The House of Whispers; The Red Room; The Great God Gold (Treasure of Israel); Hushed Up!; The Death-Doctor; The Lost Million; The White Lie; The Four Faces; The Sign of Silence; The Mysterious Three; The Broken Thread; The Red Widow (The Death-Dealers of London); This House to Let; The Golden Face; The Stretton Street Affair; The Voice from the Void; The Doctor of Pimlico; Whither Thou Goest; Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo)
Heiresses, impostors, and secret chambers fuel urban puzzles that hinge on vanishing fortunes, sinister practitioners, and society’s mask-and-mirror games. The tone is brisk and cliffhanger-driven, favoring short chapters, serial twists, and startling revelations over forensic depth.
Motifs include coded notes, locked rooms, doctored identities, and fashionable haunts where crime hides in plain sight. Le Queux blends glamour with menace, keeping outcomes veiled while highlighting moneyed temptation and reputational peril.
Moral Snares and Sensation Fiction (Guilty Bonds; The Temptress; Devil's Dice; Whoso Findeth a Wife; If Sinners Entice Thee; The Bond of Black; The Day of Temptation; The Veiled Man; The Wiles of the Wicked; An Eye for an Eye; In White Raiment; As We Forgive Them; The Closed Book; Whatsoever a Man Soweth)
Domestic scandals and secret pasts escalate into blackmail, betrayal, and retribution, framed as cautionary dramas about choice and consequence. The tone is didactic yet lively, using aphoristic titles and sudden reversals to moralize without explicit detail.
Le Queux’s hallmarks—disguises, coincidence, and cliff-edge chapter endings—anchor these tales in sensation while exploring guilt, temptation, and social standing. The emphasis is on pace and peril rather than psychological interiority, keeping motives clear and outcomes withheld.
Femme Fatales and Social Sins (Short Stories: Stolen Souls; The Soul of Princess Tchikhatzoff; The Golden Hand; The Masked Circe; The Man with the Fatal Finger; Santina; The Woman with a Blemish; The Sylph of the Terror; One Woman’s Sin; Vogue La Galère!; Fortune’s Fool; Death-Kisses; A Child of the Sun)
Social climbers, compromised aristocrats, and elusive seductresses spring traps of passion and blackmail in compact, twist-led episodes. The style prizes swift exposition and a sting-in-the-tail, with masquerade, stigma, and sudden disgrace as recurring levers.
Themes of desire versus duty and the volatility of reputation dominate, often in cosmopolitan settings. Le Queux’s economy of scene and decisive turns maintain suspense while keeping revelations just beyond the page turn.
London Crooks and Confidence Games (Short Stories: The Gentleman from London; The Lady of the Great North Road; A Move on the "Forty"; A Sentimental Swindle; The Story of a Secret; A Run with Rosalie; The Six New Novels; The Count's Chauffeur; The Red Rooster; Concerning the Other Fellow; The Lady in a Hurry; The Devil’s Dice; The Blood-Red Band)
Tricksters and opportunists ply grifts on roads, railways, and boulevards, where identities shift and money changes hands under false pretenses. The tone is jaunty yet tense, with quick set-ups, reversals, and ironic codas.
Recurring devices include forged papers, staged accidents, and unwitting accomplices drawn from fashionable society. Le Queux favors brisk dialogue and neat payoffs, highlighting the thin line between respectability and criminal enterprise.
Espionage and Continental Conspiracies (Short Stories: The Peril of Pierrette; The Bomb-Makers; The Great Tunnel Plot; The Hyde Park Plot; The Explosive Needle; The Brass Triangle; The Gay Triangle; The Mystery of Rasputin’s Jewels; A Race for a Throne; The Sorcerer of Soho; The Peril of the Préfet; The Message for One Eye Only)
Saboteurs, secret police, and perilous rendezvous animate compressed spy puzzles that shuttle between salons, border posts, and hidden laboratories. The mood is nervous and procedural, hinging on passwords, courier snares, and last-minute rescues.
Motifs of coded messages, booby-trapped devices, and diplomatic leverage recur, echoing Le Queux’s larger spy canvases at short length. Tight plotting and cliff-edge cuts maintain pace while keeping betrayals offstage until the final pivot.
Weird Science and Catastrophe Tales (Short Stories: The City in the Sky; The Silent Death; The Master Atom; The Horror of Lockie; The Seven Dots)
Speculative perils—unnerving devices, unseen poisons, and impossible structures—threaten cities and small groups alike. The tone blends pseudo-scientific plausibility with eerie suggestion, keeping mechanisms half-veiled to heighten dread.
Themes center on unintended consequences of invention and the fragility of public safety. Le Queux’s concise build-ups and abrupt climaxes favor atmosphere and alarm over technical exposition.
Rasputin and the Russian Court (Historical Works: Rasputin the Rascal Monk; The Minister of Evil)
Journalistic exposés trace court intrigues and the influence attributed to Rasputin in the twilight of Imperial Russia. The tone is sensational and accusatory, presenting insider whispers and moral panic as explanations for political decay.
These works prioritize immediacy and anecdote over archival depth, aiming to decode personalities behind upheaval. Motifs of corruption, manipulation, and spiritual charlatanry align with the author’s broader fascination with hidden power.
German Espionage and War Crimes Dossiers (Historical Works: The German Spy System from Within; German Atrocities: A Record of Shameless Deeds; The Secrets of Potsdam)
Presented as insider testimony and documentary revelation, these pieces frame espionage, militarism, and brutality as systemic threats. The tone is urgent and polemical, designed to mobilize opinion and vigilance rather than to weigh competing evidence.
Recurring elements include purported secret files, named agents, and bureaucratic machinations. They mirror Le Queux’s fiction in pace and suspicion, while reflecting wartime anxieties and propagandistic aims.
True Crime Profile: Béla Kiss (Historical Work)
A concise dossier recounts the case of a notorious killer, focusing on method, disappearance, and investigative dead-ends. The narrative emphasizes the uncanny normality that can cloak violence, using sober detail and restrained shock.
Themes of deception, community fear, and the limits of detection predominate. Le Queux applies his thriller cadence to factual material, privileging clarity and unease over lurid embellishment.
WILLIAM LE QUEUX Ultimate Collection: 100+ Spy Thrillers, Detective Mysteries, Adventure Classics, Historical Novels, War Stories & Crime Tales (Illustrated)
Novels
The Great War in England in 1897
PREFACE
General Lord Roberts, V.C., on reading this forecast of the Coming War, wrote as follows: —
Dear Sir, — I entirely concur with you in thinking it most desirable to bring home to the British public in every possible way the dangers to which the nation is exposed, unless it maintains a Navy and Army sufficiently strong and well organised to meet the defensive requirements of the Empire. — Believe me, yours faithfully,
Field-Marshal Viscount Wolseley, K.P., in his Life of Marlborough, speaks plainly when he says —
Such outspoken expressions of opinion from two of our chief military authorities should cause the British public to pause and reflect. On all hands it is admitted by both naval and military experts, that, notwithstanding the increase of our Navy by the Spencer programme, our country is inadequately defended and totally unprepared for war. The extraordinary preparations now going forward in France and Russia are being made in view of an attack upon England, and it is ominous that the downfall of our Empire is a perpetual subject of discussion in the Paris press. Although a Briton, I have lived long enough in France to know that the French, while hating the Germans, despise the English, and are looking forward to a day not far hence when their battleships will bombard our south coast towns, and their legions advance over the Surrey Hills to London. When the Great War does come, it will come swiftly, and without warning. We are accustomed to scoff at the idea of an invasion of Britain. We feel secure in our sea-girt island home; we have confidence in our brave sailor defenders, in our gallant Army, and our enthusiastic Volunteers, and we entertain a supreme contempt for "mere foreigners." It is this national egotism, this insular conviction that foreign engines of war are inferior to our own, that may cause our ruin. Everything we possess, everything we hold dear, our position among nations, our very life, depends for its safety, firstly, upon the undoubted predominance of our Navy over any likely or possible combination of the Navies of Continental Powers; and, secondly, upon an Army properly equipped and ready to take the field on receipt of the momentous word "Mobilise"!
Is our Navy, even strengthened by the recent programme, in a sufficiently efficient state to retain the supremacy of the seas? Let us face the situation boldly, and allow a well-known and distinguished officer to reply to that question. Admiral of the Fleet Sir Thomas Symonds, G.C.B., writing to me, says —
Yet we are content to sit idly by, confident in a strength which two foreign Powers are slowly but surely undermining! Russia and France, both barely able to sustain their gigantic Armies, are to-day straining every nerve to enlarge their naval forces, preparatory to a swift descent upon our shores. This alarming fact we wilfully disregard, affecting to find humour in the Franco-Muscovite preparations. Thus, unless we maintain a Navy of sufficient strength to prevent invasion, War, with its attendant horrors, is inevitable, and the scene of battle will be England's smiling fields.
Turning to our Army, what do we find? Even the civilian writer who studies it is amazed at the muddle of insufficiency in which it is steeped. Our Home Defence Scheme is a very elaborate paper problem, but as our forces have never been mobilised, its many glaring defects must, alas! remain unremedied until our highways echo to the tramp of an enemy. Upon this point a volume might be written, but a few plain facts must suffice. Military experts will, I think, agree when I assert that the 2nd Corps, as planned by this grotesque scheme, does not and cannot exist; and while the 3rd Corps may possibly stand as regards infantry, because its infantry are all Militia, yet it will have neither Regular cavalry nor guns. Every one of the staffs is a myth, and the equipment and commissariat arrangements are a complete guarantee of collapse at the outset of mobilisation. What, for instance, can be said of a system in which one unit of the 3rd Cavalry Brigade "mobilises," and obtains its "personal" and part of its "regimental" equipment at Plymouth; the other part of its regimental paraphernalia, including munitions, at Aldershot; and its horses — at Dublin? Practically, half our cavalry at home are to-day, however, incapable of mobilisation, for, according to the latest return available, I find that over six thousand cavalry men have no horses! Again, the Volunteers, upon whom we must depend for the defence of London, have no transport, and the ammunition columns for the 3rd Army Corps and the Regular cavalry do not exist. Such staggering deficits as these are in themselves sufficient to show how critical would be our position if England were invaded, and in order to give an adequate idea of what we may expect during that reign of terror, I have penned the narrative which follows. Some, no doubt, believe that our enemies will treat us with more mercy than I have shown, but I firmly anticipate that in the desperate struggle for the supremacy of the world, towns will be bombarded and international law set at naught where our invaders see a chance of success. Consequently, the ruin must be widespread, and the loss of life enormous.
In the various strategical and tactical problems involved, I have received assistance from a number of well-known naval and military officers on the active list, whose names I am, however, not at liberty to divulge. Suffice it to say that, in addition to personally going over the whole of the ground where battles are fought, I have also obtained information from certain official documents not made public, and have endeavoured to bring this forecast up to date by introducing the latest inventions in guns, and showing the relative strength of Navies as they will appear in 1897. In this latter I have been compelled to bestow names upon many ships now building.
To Lieut. J. G. Stevens, 17th Middlesex Rifle Volunteers, who supplied me with many details regarding the Volunteers; to Mr. Alfred C. Harmsworth, F.R.G.S., whose suggestion prompted me to write this narrative; and to Mr. Harold Harmsworth, who on several occasions assisted me, I hereby acknowledge my thanks. While many readers will no doubt regard this book chiefly as an exciting piece of fiction, I trust that no small proportion will perceive the important lesson underlying it, for the French are laughing at us, the Russians presume to imitate us, and the Day of Reckoning is hourly advancing.
Prince of Wales's Club, Coventry Street, W.
BOOK I THE INVASION
CHAPTER I THE SHADOW OF MOLOCH
War! War in England!
Growled by thoughtful, stern-visaged men, gasped with bated breath by pale-faced, terrified women, the startling news passed quickly round the Avenue Theatre from gallery to boxes. The crisis was swift, complete, crushing. Actors and audience were appalled.
Though it was a gay comic opera that was being performed for the first time, entertainers and entertained lost all interest in each other. They were amazed, dismayed, awestricken. Amusement was nauseating; War, with all its attendant horrors, was actually upon them! The popular tenor, one of the idols of the hour, blundered over his lines and sang terribly out of tune, but the hypercritical first-night audience passed the defect unnoticed. They only thought of what might happen; of the dark cavernous future that lay before.
War had been declared against Britain — Britain, the Empire that had so long rested in placid sea-girt security, confident of immunity from attack, was to be invaded! The assertion seemed preposterous.
Some, after reading eagerly the newspapers still damp from the press, smiled incredulously, half inclined to regard the startling intelligence as a mere fabrication by alarmists, or a perfected phase of the periodical war-scare which sensational journalists annually launch upon the world during what is technically known as the "gooseberry" season.
Other readers, however, recollecting the grave political crises on the Continent, set their teeth firmly, silent and dumfounded. Upon many merchants and City men the news fell like a thunderbolt, for financial ruin stared them in the face.
Evidently a desperate attempt would be made by the enemy to land on English soil. Already the startled playgoers could hear in their excited imagination the clash of arms mingling with the triumphant yell of the victor, and the stifled, despairing cry of the hapless victim. But who, they wondered, would be the victim? Would Britannia ever fall to the dust with broken trident and shattered shield? Would her neck ever lie under the heel of the foreign invader? No, never — while Britons could fight.
The theatre, in its garish blaze of electricity, and crowded with well-dressed men and women, presented a brilliant appearance, which had suddenly become strangely incongruous with the feelings of the audience. In the boxes, where youth and beauty smiled, the bouquets which had been provided by the management gave to the theatre a bright, artistic touch of colour. Yet the pungent odour they diffused had become sickening. Intermingled with other flowers there were many tuberoses. They are funereal blossoms, ineffably emblematic of the grave. There is death in their breath.
When the astounding news fell upon the house the performance was drawing to a close. A moment before, every one had been silent and motionless, listening with rapt attention to the tenor's plaintive love song, and admiring the grace of the fair heroine, but as the terrible truth dawned upon them they rose, amid a scene of the wildest excitement. The few papers that had been purchased at fabulous prices at the doors were eagerly scanned, many of the sheets being torn into shreds in the mad struggle to catch a glimpse of the alarming telegrams they contained. For a few moments the agitation nearly approached a panic, while above the hum and din the hoarse, strident voices of running newsmen could be heard outside, yelling, "War declared against England! Expected landing of the enemy! Extrur-speshal!"
There was a hidden terror in the word "War" that at first held the amazed playgoers breathless and thoughtful. Never before had its significance appeared so grim, so fatal, so fraught with appalling consequences.
War had been actually declared! There was no averting it! It was a stern reality.
No adroit diplomatic negotiations could stem the advancing hordes of foreign invaders; Ministers and ambassadors were as useless pawns, for two great nations had had the audacity to combine in the projected attack upon Great Britain.
It seemed incredible, impossible. True, a Great War had long been predicted, forecasts had been given of coming conflicts, and European nations had for years been gradually strengthening their armies and perfecting their engines of war, in the expectation of being plunged into hostilities. Modern improvements in arms and ammunition had so altered the conditions of war, that there had long been a feeling of insecurity even among those Powers who, a few years before, had felt themselves strong enough to resist any attack, however violent. War-scares had been plentiful, crises in France, Germany, and Russia of frequent occurrence; still, no one dreamed that Moloch was in their midst — that the Great War, so long foreshadowed, had in reality commenced.
Yet on this hot, oppressive Saturday night in August the extra-special editions of the papers contained news that startled the world. It ran as follows: —
The most intense excitement has been caused here by a totally unexpected and amazing announcement made this afternoon by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the French Ambassador. It appears that the Minister has addressed to the French representative a short note in which the following extraordinary passage occurs: —
"The earnest negotiations between the Imperial Government and Great Britain for a durable pacification of Bosnia not having led to the desired accord, His Majesty the Tsar, my august master, sees himself compelled, to his regret, to have recourse to force of arms. Be therefore so kind as to inform your Government that from to-day Russia considers herself in a state of war with Great Britain, and requests that France will immediately comply with the obligations of the alliance signed by President Carnot on February 23rd, 1892."
A circular note has also been addressed by the Russian Foreign Office to its ambassadors at the principal Courts of Europe, stating that, for reasons assigned, the Tsar has resolved to commence hostilities against Great Britain, and has given his Armies and Navy orders to commence the invasion.
This declaration has, no doubt, been contemplated by the Russian Government for several days. During the past week the French Ambassador has twice had private audience of the Tsar, and soon after 11 A.M. to-day he had a long interview at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is understood that the Minister of War was also present.
No official notification of the Declaration of War has been given to the British Ambassador. This has created considerable surprise.
Large posters, headed "A Manifesto of His Majesty the Emperor of Russia," and addressed to his subjects, are being posted up in the Nevski Prospekt. In this document the Tsar says —
"Our faithful and beloved subjects know the strong interest which we have constantly felt in the destinies of our Empire. Our desire for the pacification of our western frontier has been shared by the whole Russian nation, which now shows itself ready to bear fresh sacrifices to alleviate the position of those oppressed by British rule. The blood and property of our faithful subjects have always been dear to us, and our whole reign attests our constant solicitude to preserve to Russia the benefits of peace. This solicitude never failed to actuate my father during events which occurred recently in Bulgaria, Austro-Hungary, and Bosnia. Our object, before all, was to effect an amelioration in the position of our people on the frontier by means of pacific negotiations, and in concert with the great European Powers, our allies and friends. Having, however, exhausted our pacific efforts, we are compelled by the haughty obstinacy of Great Britain to proceed to more decisive acts. A feeling of equity and of our own dignity enjoins it. By her recent acts Great Britain places us under the necessity of having recourse to arms. Profoundly convinced of the justice of our cause, we make known to our faithful subjects that we declare war against Great Britain. In now invoking a blessing upon our valiant armies, we give the order for an invasion of England."
This manifesto has excited the greatest enthusiasm. The news has spread rapidly, and dense crowds have assembled in the Nevski, the Izak Platz, and on the English Quay, where the posters are being exhibited.
The British Ambassador has not yet received any communication from the Imperial Government.
President Felix Faure has received a telegram from the French representative at St. Petersburg, stating that Russia has declared war against Great Britain. The President left immediately for Paris by special train.
An astounding piece of intelligence has this afternoon been received at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is no less than a Declaration of War by Russia against Britain. The telegram containing the announcement was received at the Ministry from the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg soon after three o'clock. The President was at once informed, and the Cabinet immediately summoned. A meeting is now being held for the purpose of deciding upon the course to be pursued with regard to the obligations of France contracted by the Treaty of Alliance made after the Cronstadt incident in 1891. The news of impending hostilities has just been published in a special edition of the Soir, and has created the wildest excitement on the Boulevards. Little doubt is entertained that France will join the invading forces, and the result of the deliberations of the Cabinet is anxiously awaited. President Felix Faure has returned from Fountainebleau.
The meeting of the Cabinet has just concluded. It has been resolved that France shall unreservedly render assistance to Russia. There is great activity at the War Office, and troops are already being ordered on active service. The excitement in the streets is increasing.
Telegrams received here from St. Petersburg report that Russia has unexpectedly declared war against Great Britain, and called upon France to aid her in a combined attack. The report is scarcely credited here, and further details are being eagerly awaited. The Emperor, who was to have left for Bremen this afternoon, has abandoned his journey, and is now in consultation with the Chancellor.
The French Channel Squadron, which has been manœuvring for the past fortnight off the western coast of Norway, anchored outside the fjord here last night. This morning, according to rumour, the Russian Squadron arrived suddenly, and lay about thirty miles off land. Secret telegraphic orders were received at 6 P.M. by the Admirals of both fleets almost simultaneously, and the whole of the vessels left in company half an hour later. They sailed in a southerly direction, but their destination is unknown.
Ten transport vessels are embarking troops for England. Four regiments of cavalry, including the 4th Chasseurs and 16th Guards, are —1
1 The conclusion of this message has not reached us, all the wires connecting this country with France having been cut.
CHAPTER II A TOTTERING EMPIRE
The excitement in the theatre had increased, and the curtain had been rung down. Death shadows, grimly apparent, had fallen upon the house, and the scene was an extraordinary and unprecedented one. No such wild restlessness and impetuous agitation had ever before been witnessed within those walls. Some enthusiast of the pit, springing to his feet, and drawing a large red handkerchief from his pocket, waved it, shouting —
"Three cheers for good Old England!" to which, after a moment's silence, the audience responded lustily.
Then, almost before the last sound had died away, another patriot of the people mounted upon his seat, crying —
"No one need fear. The British Lion will quickly hold the French Eagle and the Russian Bear within his jaws. Let the enemy come; we will mow them down like hay."
This raised a combined laugh and cheer, though it sounded forced and hollow. Immediately, however, some buoyant spirits in the gallery commenced singing "Rule, Britannia," the chorus of which was taken up vigorously, the orchestra assisting by playing the last verse.
Outside, the scene in the streets was one of momentarily increasing excitement. The news had spread with marvellous rapidity, and the whole city was agog. An elbowing, waving, stormy crowd surged down the Strand to Trafalgar Square, where an impromptu demonstration was being held, the Government being denounced by its opponents, and spoken of with confidence by its supporters. The Radical, the Socialist, the Anarchist, each aired his views, and through the throng a hoarse threatening murmur condensed into three words, "Down with Russia! Down with France!" The cry, echoed by a thousand throats, mingled weirdly with the shouts of the newsmen and the snatches of patriotic songs.
London was anxious, fevered, and turbulent, that hot, moonless August night. At that hour all the shops were closed, and the streets only lighted by the lamps. From the unlighted windows the indistinct shapes of heads looking out on the scene could be distinguished.
On the pavements of Piccadilly and Knightsbridge knots of people stood arguing and wrangling over the probable turn of events. From uncouth Whitechapel to artistic Kensington, from sylvan Highgate to the villadom of Dulwich, the amazing intelligence had been conveyed by the presses of Fleet Street, which were still belching forth tons of damp news-sheets. At first there was confidence among the people; nevertheless little by little this confidence diminished, and curiosity gave place to surprise. But what could it be? All was shrouded in the darkest gloom. In the atmosphere was a strange and terrible oppression that seemed to weigh down men and crush them. London was, it appeared, walled in by the unknown and the unexpected.
But, after all, England was strong; it was the mighty British Empire; it was the world. What was there to fear? Nothing. So the people continued to shout, "Down with France! Down with the Autocrat! Down with the Tsar!"
A young man, who had been sitting alone in the stalls, had risen, electrified at the alarming news, and rushing out, hailed a passing cab, and drove rapidly away up Northumberland Avenue. This conduct was remarkable, for Geoffrey Engleheart was scarcely the man to flinch when danger threatened. He was a tall, athletic young fellow of twenty-six, with wavy brown hair, a dark, smartly-trimmed moustache, and handsome, well-cut features. He was happy and easy-going, always overflowing with genuine bonhomie. As the younger son of a very distinguished officer, he contrived to employ himself for a couple of hours a day at the Foreign Office, where, although a clerk, he held a very responsible position. Belonging to a rather good set, he was a member of several fashionable clubs, and lived in cosy, well-furnished chambers in St. James's Street.
Driving first to the house of his fiancée, Violet Vayne, at Rutland Gate, he informed her family of the startling intelligence; then, re-entering the conveyance, he subsequently alighted before the door of his chambers. As he paid the cabman, an ill-clad man pushed a newspaper into his face, crying, "'Ere y'are, sir. Extrur-special edition o' the People. Latest details. Serious scandal at the Forrin' Office."
Geoffrey started. He staggered, his heart gave a bound, and his face blanched. Thrusting half a crown into the man's dirty palm, he grasped the paper, and rushing upstairs to his sitting-room, cast himself into a chair. In breathless eagerness he glanced at the front page of the journal, and read the following: —
An extraordinary rumour is going the round of the Service clubs to-night. It is alleged that the present Declaration of War would have been impossible but for the treachery of some person through whose hands the transcript of a secret treaty between England and Germany passed to-day.
A prominent Cabinet Minister, on being questioned by our reporter on the subject, admitted that he had heard the rumour, but declined to make any definite statement whether or not it was true.
There must be a good deal behind the rumour of treachery, inasmuch as none of the prominent men who have already been interviewed gave a denial to the statement.
Geoffrey sat pale and motionless, with eyes fixed upon the printed words. He read and re-read them until the lines danced before his gaze, and he crushed the paper in his hands, and cast it from him.
The little French clock on the mantelshelf chimed the hour of one upon its silvery bell; the lamp spluttered and burned dim. Still he did not move; he was dumfounded, rooted to the spot.
Blacker and blacker grew the crowd outside. The density of the cloud that hung over all portended some direful tragedy. The impending disaster made itself felt. An alarming sense of calmness filled the streets. A silence had suddenly fallen, and was becoming complete and threatening. What was it that was about to issue from these black storm-clouds? Who could tell?
CHAPTER III ARMING FOR THE STRUGGLE
London was amazed.
The provinces were awestricken, paralysed by the startling suddenness with which the appalling news of the invasion had been flashed to them. Bewildered, the people could not believe it.
Only slowly did the vivid and terrible truth dawn individually upon the millions north and south, and then, during the Day of Rest, they crowded to the newspaper and telegraph offices, loudly clamouring for further details of the overwhelming catastrophe that threatened. They sought for information from London; they expected London, the mighty, all-powerful capital, to act.
Through the blazing Sunday the dust rose from the impatient, perspiring crowds in towns and cities, and the cool night brought no rest from a turmoil now incessant. Never before were such scenes of intense enthusiasm witnessed in England, Wales, and Scotland, for this was the first occasion on which the public felt the presence of invaders at their very doors.
A mighty force was on its way to ruin their homes, to sweep from them their hard-earned savings, to crush, to conquer — to kill them!
Fierce antagonism rose spontaneously in every Briton's heart, and during that never-to-be-forgotten day, at every barracks throughout the country, recruiting-sergeants were besieged by all sorts and conditions of men eager to accept the Queen's shilling, and strike for their country's honour. Heedless of danger, of hardship, of the fickle fortune of the fight, the determination to assist in the struggle rose instantly within them.
At York, Chester, Edinburgh, and Portsmouth, volunteers came forward by hundreds. All were enthusiastic, undrilled, but ready to use their guns — genuinely heroic patriots of our land, such as are included in no other nation than the British. Pluck, zeal for the public safety, and an intense partisanship towards their fellows induced thousands to join the colours — many, alas! to sink later beneath a foeman's bullet, unknown, unhonoured heroes!
Already the Cabinet had held a hurried meeting, at which it had been decided to call out the whole of the Reserves. Of this the War Office and Admiralty had been notified, and the Queen had given her sanction to the necessary proclamations, with the result that telegraphic orders had been issued to general officers commanding and to officers commanding Reservists to mobilise instantly.
The posters containing the proclamation, which are always kept in readiness in the hands of officers commanding Regimental Districts, were issued immediately, and exhibited on all public places throughout the kingdom. On the doors of town halls, churches, chapels, police stations, military barracks, and in the windows of post offices, these notices were posted within a few hours. Crowds everywhere collected to read them, and the greatest enthusiasm was displayed. Militia, Yeomanry, Volunteers, all were called out, and men on reading the Mobilisation Order lost no time in obtaining their accoutrements and joining their depôts. The national danger was imminent, and towards their "places of concentration" all categories of Her Majesty's forces were already moving. In every Regimental District the greatest activity was displayed. No country maintains in peace the full complement, or anything approaching the full complement of transport which its Armies require; hence vehicles and horses to complete the Army Service Corps companies, and for the supplemental service, were being immediately requisitioned from far and near.
One of the many anomalies discovered during this critical period was, that while transport could thus be rapidly requisitioned, yet the impressment of civilians as drivers and caretakers of the animals was not permitted by the law; therefore on all hands the organisation of this requisitioned transport was fraught with the utmost difficulty, the majority of owners and employees refusing to come forward voluntarily. Registered horses were quickly collected, but they were far from sufficient for the requirements, and the want of animals caused loud outcries from every Regimental District.
The general scheme was the constitution of a Field Army of four cavalry brigades and three army corps, with behind them a semi-mobile force made up of thirty-three Volunteer infantry brigades and eighty-four Volunteer batteries of position. The garrisons having been provided for, the four cavalry brigades and the 1st and 2nd Army Corps were to be composed entirely of Regulars, the 3rd Army Corps being made up of Regulars, Militia, and Volunteers. Organised in brigades, the Yeomanry were attached to the various infantry brigades or divisions of the Field Army, and the Regular Medical Staff Corps being much too weak, was strengthened from companies of the Volunteer Medical Staff Corps. In brief, the scheme was the formation of a composite Field Army, backed by a second line of partially trained Auxiliaries.
Such a general scheme to set in battle order our land forces for home defence was, no doubt, well devised. Nevertheless, from the first moment the most glaring defects in the working out of details were everywhere manifested. Stores were badly disposed, there was a sad want of clothing, camp equipment, and arms, and the arrangements for the joining of Reservists were throughout defective. Again, the whole Reserve had been left totally untrained from the day the men left the colours; and having in view the fact that all leading authorities in Europe had, times without number, told us that the efficiency of an Army depended on drill, discipline, and shooting, what could be expected from a system which relied in great part for the safety of the country on a Reserve, the members of which were undisciplined, undrilled, and unpractised in shooting for periods ranging from nine years in the Guards to five years in the case of the Line?
On the day of mobilisation not a single regiment in the United Kingdom was ready to move forward to the front as it stood on parade! Not an officer, not a man, was prepared. England had calmly slept for years, while military reforms had been effected in every other European country. Now she had been suddenly and rudely awakened!
Everywhere it was commented upon that no practical peace trial of the mobilisation scheme had ever been made. Little wonder was there, then, that incomplete details hampered rapid movements, or that the carrying out of the definite and distinct programme was prevented by gaps occurring which could not be discovered until the working of the system had been tested by actual experiment.
It was this past apathy of the authorities, amounting to little less than criminal negligence, that formed the text of the vehement outpourings of Anarchists, Socialists, and "No War" partisans. A practical test of the efficiency of the scheme to concentrate our forces should have taken place even at the risk of public expenditure, instead of making the experiment when the enemy were actually at our doors.
Another anomaly which, in the opinion of the public, ought long ago to have been removed, was the fact that the billeting of troops on the march on the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, other than owners of hotels, inns, livery stables, and public-houses, is illegal, while troops when not on the march cannot be billeted at all! At many points of concentration this absurd and antiquated regulation, laid down by the Army Act in 1881, was severely felt. Public buildings, churches, and schools had to be hired for the accommodation of the troops, and those others who could not find private persons hospitable enough to take them in were compelled to bivouac where they could. Of tents they had scarcely any, and many regiments were thus kept homeless and badly fed several days before moving forward!
Was there any wonder, then, that some men should lose heart? Did not such defects portend — nay, invite disaster?
Strange though it may seem, Geoffrey Engleheart was one of but two persons in England who had on that Saturday anticipated this sudden Declaration of War.
Through the hot night, without heed of the wild turbulence outside, regardless of the songs of patriots, of gleeful shouts of Anarchists, that, mingling into a dull roar, penetrated the heavy curtains before the window of his room, he sat with brows knit and gaze transfixed.
Words now and then escaped his compressed lips. They were low and ominous; utterances of blank despair.
CHAPTER IV THE SPY
Count von Beilstein was a polished cosmopolitan. He was in many ways a very remarkable man.
In London society he was as popular as he had previously been in Paris and in Berlin. Well-preserved and military-looking, he retained the vigour, high spirits, and spruce step of youth, spent his money freely, and led the almost idyllic life of a careless bachelor in the Albany.
Since his partnership with Sir Joseph Vayne, the well-known shipowner, father of Geoffrey's fiancée, he had taken up a prominent position in commercial circles, was a member of the London Chamber of Commerce, took an active part in the various deliberations of that body, and in the City was considered a man of considerable importance.
How we of the world, however shrewd, are deceived by outward appearances!
Of the millions in London there were but two men who knew the truth; who were aware of the actual position held by this German landed proprietor. Indeed, the Count's friends little dreamed that under the outward cloak of careless ease induced by wealth there was a mind endowed with a cunning that was extraordinary, and an ingenuity that was marvellous. Truth to tell, Karl von Beilstein, who posed as the owner of the great Beilstein estates, extending along the beautiful valley of the Moselle, between Alf and Cochem, was not an aristocrat at all, and possessed no estate more tangible than the proverbial château in Spain.
Count von Beilstein was a spy!
His life had been a strangely varied one; few men perhaps had seen more of the world. His biography was recorded in certain police registers. Born in the Jews' quarter at Frankfort, he had, at an early age, turned adventurer, and for some years was well known at Monte Carlo as a successful gamester. But the Fickle Goddess at last forsook him, and under another name he started a bogus loan office in Brussels. This, however, did not last long, for the police one night made a raid on the place, only to discover that Monsieur had flown. An extensive robbery of diamonds in Amsterdam, a theft of bonds while in transit between Hanover and Berlin, and the forgery of a large quantity of Russian rouble notes, were events which followed in quick succession, and in each of them the police detected the adroit hand of the man who now called himself the Count von Beilstein. At last, by sheer ill-luck, he fell into the grip of the law.
