fact, and not at all, as some
apologists have sought to show, an exaggerated or overheated version of
these lamentable events.

Regarded as an indication of the pass we had reached at this period of
our decadence, this stage of our trial by fire, the conduct of the
crowds in Western London during those dreadful nights, impressed me more
forcibly than the disaster which Martin considers the climax and pivot
of the week's tragedy.

One does not cheerfully refer to these things, but, to be truthful, I
must mention the other matter which produced upon me, personally, the
greatest sense of horror and disgrace.

Military writers have described for us most fully the circumstances in
which General Lord Wensley's command was cut and blown to pieces in the
Epping and Romford districts. Authorities are agreed that the records of
civilized warfare have nothing more horrible to tell than the history
of that ghastly butchery. As a slaughter, there was nothing exactly like
it in the Russo-Japanese war--for we know that there were less than a
hundred survivors of the whole of Lord Wensley's command. But those who
mourned the loss of these brave men had a consolation of which nothing
could rob them; the consolation which is graven in stone upon the Epping
monument; a consolation preserved as well in German as in English
history. Germany may truthfully say of the Epping shambles that no
quarter was given that day. England may say, with what pride she may,
that none was asked. The last British soldier slaughtered in the Epping
trenches had no white flag in his hand, but a broken bayonet, and, under
his knee, the Colours of his regiment.

The British soldiers in those blood-soaked trenches were badly armed,
less than half-trained, under-officered, and of a low physical standard.
But these lamentable facts had little or nothing to do with their
slaughter. There were but seven thousand of them, while the German force
has been variously estimated at between seventy thousand and one hundred
thousand horse and foot, besides artillery. One need not stop to
question who should bear the blame for the half-trained, vilely equipped
condition of these heroic victims. The far greater question, to which
the only answer can be a sad silence of remorse and bitter humiliation,
bears upon the awful needlessness of their sacrifice.

The circumstances have been described in fullest detail from authentic
records. The stark fact which stands out before t