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 CHAPTER VIII

GERMANS SACKING THE BANKS

dawned dismally and wet on September the 21st.

Over London the sky was still obscured by the smoke-pall, though as the night passed many of the raging fires had spent themselves.

Trafalgar Square was filled with troops, who had piled arms and were standing at their ease. The men were laughing and smoking, enjoying a rest after the last forward movement and the street fighting of that night of horrors.

The losses on both sides during the past three days had been enormous; of the number of London citizens killed and wounded it was impossible to calculate. There had, in the northern suburbs, been wholesale butchery everywhere, so gallantly had the barricades been defended.

Great camps had now been formed in Hyde Park, in the Green Park between Constitution Hill and Piccadilly, and in St. James's Park. The Magdeburg Fusiliers were being formed up on the Horse Guards Parade, and from the flagstaff there now fluttered the ensign of the commander of an army corps in place of the British flag. A large number of Uhlans and Cuirassiers were encamped at the west end of the Park, opposite Buckingham Palace, and both the Wellington Barracks and the Cavalry Barracks at Knightsbridge were occupied by Germans.

Many officers were already billeted in the Savoy, the Cecil, the Carlton, the Grand, and Victoria hotels, 393