Page:The Invasion of 1910.djvu/269

 the Staff officer, who had despatches to forward from Chelmsford. I pushed on at full speed. We were there in a very short space of time, and during the morning I learned that the Braintree Army was falling back on Dunmow, and that the Colchester garrison was to assist in holding the line of the river Chelmer."

Another despatch from Mr. Edgar Hamilton, of the Tribune, was published in that journal on Friday, the 14th September:—

", Thursday, September 13, 1910.

"The events of the last three days have been so tremendous, so involved, and so disastrous to us as a nation, that I hardly know how to deal with them. It is no news now that we have again been beaten, and beaten badly. The whole right of our line of defence has been driven back in disorder, and we are now practically at the 'last ditch.' The remnants of that fine force which has, up to now, not only been able to hold the Saxon Army in check, but even to be within an ace of beating it at the memorable battle of Purleigh, less than a week ago, is now occupying the entrenchments which have been under construction ever since the landing of the Germans, and which form a section of the works that have been planned for the defence of the metropolis.

"Here, too, are portions of the Braintree Army Corps and some of the troops lately constituting the garrison of Colchester, whom I accompanied on their night march out of that city when it had been decided to abandon it. We have only the vaguest rumours as to what has happened to the other portion of the Ist Army Corps that was occupying Dunmow and the upper part of the river Chelmer. We can only hope that these troops, or at any rate a considerable portion of them, have been able to gain the shelter of the defensive enceinte to the north-westward. It is to be feared