Great Britain -- Defenses; Imaginary wars and battles
A frightful holocaust was the result. Fully a hundred of the poor
fellows were literally burned alive; while the neighbouring houses,
being set in flames, compelled the citizen free-shooters to quickly
evacuate their position. Against such terrible missiles even the best
trained troops cannot stand, therefore no wonder that all opposition at
that point was soon afterwards swept away, and the pioneers quickly
opened the road for the victorious legions of the Kaiser.
And so in that prosaic thoroughfare, the Holloway Road, brave men fought
gallantly and died, while a Scotch piper paced the pavement sharply,
backwards and forwards, with his colours flying. Then, alas! came the
red flash, the loud explosions in rapid succession, and the next instant
the whole street burst into a veritable sea of flame.
High Street, Kingsland, was also the scene of several fierce conflicts;
but here the Germans decidedly got the worst of it. The whole infuriated
population seemed to emerge suddenly from the side streets of the
Kingsland Road on the appearance of the detachment of the enemy, and the
latter were practically overwhelmed, notwithstanding the desperate fight
they made. Then ringing cheers went up from the defenders.
The Germans were given no quarter by the populace, all of whom were
armed with knives or guns, the women mostly with hatchets, crowbars, or
edged tools.
Many of the Germans fled through the side streets towards Mare Street,
and were hotly pursued, the majority of them being done to death by the
maddened mob. The streets in this vicinity were literally a
slaughterhouse.
The barricades in Finchley Road, and in High Road, Kilburn, were also
very strongly held, and at the first-named it was quite an hour before
the enemy's pioneers were able to make a breach. Indeed, then only after
a most hotly contested conflict, in which there were frightful losses on
both sides. Petrol bombs were here also used by the enemy with appalling
effect, the road being afterwards cleared by a couple of Maxims.
Farther towards Regent's Park the houses were, however, full of
sharpshooters, and before these could be dislodged the enemy had again
suffered severely. The entry into London was both difficult and
perilous, and the enemy suffered great losses everywhere.
After the breaking down of the defences in High Road, Kilburn, the men
who had held them retired to the Town Hall, opposite Kilburn Station,
and from the windows fired at the passing battalions, doing much
execution. All efforts to dislodge them proved unavailing, until the
place was taken by storm, and a fearful hand to hand fight was the
outcome. Eventually the Town Hall was taken, after a most desperate
resistance, and ten minutes later wilfully set fire to and burned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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