of Britain's defence.
The whole of his own strenuous life had been devoted to the same cause.
His declining years had known no ease by reason of his unceasing and
thankless striving to awaken his fellow countrymen to a sense of their
military responsibilities. Now he felt that the end of all things had
come for him, in the carrying out of an order which snapped his life's
work in two, and flung it down at the feet of England's almost unopposed
conqueror.

The understanding Englishman has forgiven General von Fuechter much, by
virtue of his treatment of the noble old soldier, who with tear-blinded
eyes and twitching lips tendered him the surrender of the almost
non-existent British Army. No man ever heard a speech from General von
Fuechter, but the remark with which he returned our Field Marshal's sword
to him will never be forgotten in England. He said, in rather laboured
English, with a stiff, low bow:

"Keep it, my lord. If your countrymen had not forgotten how to recognize
a great soldier, I could never have demanded it of you."

And the man of iron saluted the heart-broken Chief of the shattered
British Army.

We prefer not to believe the report that this, the German Commander's
one act of gentleness and magnanimity in England, was subsequently paid
for by the loss of a certain Imperial decoration. But, if the story was
true, then the decoration it concerned was well lost.

It was a grim, war-stained procession that followed General von Fuechter
when, between two and three o'clock, he rode with his staff by way of
Ludgate Hill and the Strand to Carlton House Terrace. But the cavalry
rode with drawn sabres, the infantry marched with fixed bayonets, and,
though weariness showed in every line of the men's faces, there was as
yet no sign of relaxed tension.

Throughout that evening and night the baggage wagons rumbled through
London, without cessation, to the two main western encampments in Hyde
Park. The whole of Pall Mall and Park Lane were occupied by German
officers that night, few of the usual occupants of the clubs in the one
thoroughfare, or the residences in the other, being then in London.

By four o'clock General von Fuechter's terms were in the hands of the
Government which had now completed its earning of the title of "The
Destroyers." The Chief Commissioner of Police and the principal
municipal authorities of greater London had all been examined during the
day at the House of Commons, and were unani