• Trench digging practice on Dallow Downs.

By far the most realistic work that the soldiers stationed in and around Luton have experienced in their present training took place last week, culminating in a big battle at dawn on Friday.

The operations were on a very large scale. It was no afternoon picnic. It was three days of very hard work, but nevertheless it was an experience which the majority of the men at any rate would not have missed for worlds.

A special edition of The Luton News was printed on Friday, September 18th, 1914, following an unannounced visit by King George V to inspect troops at Luton Hoo that day. No Press photographers were present.

His Majesty King George visited Luton Hoo this morning and inspected a representative body of Territorials from the North Midland Brigade, now in training in Luton and district.

Events have moved with appalling swiftness during the past week. Austria is at war with Servia [Serbia], Germany is at war with Russia and France, and we ourselves are on the very verge of war with Germany. We are confronted in Europe with a situation that has no parallel since the first Napoleon was at the height of his career of almost world-wide conquest.

In Park Square, Luton, a crowd of about 3,000 gathered on Thursday evening around the platform from which speeches were made urging eligible men to respond to the appeal for recruits for the Bedfordshire Territorials. While the chief speakers were coming from an earlier meeting in the country, the Luton Red Cross Band played selections.

Mr Frederick Holland, a young nephew of Mrs Arthur Dimmock, has just arrived in Luton after an exciting escape from Brussels, where he was present during the German entry into the city. And his story, as told to one of our representatives yesterday, in some respects fully bears out the terrible details of sufferings caused to the people in Belgium by the German invasion.

The Recruiting Committee which organised the recent Territorial boom in South Beds and who managed to draw in enough recruits to bring the local companies of the 5th Battalion, Beds Regiment, almost up to full strength, are now to carry on another campaign in order to gain recruits both for home and foreign service.

MP Cecil Harmsworth's Parliamentary letter: The Luton News, August 27th, 1914.

During the last week the fortunes of war have swayed pretty impartially this way and that. From our point of view, the best news had come from the east and from the south-east. There can be no doubt whatever that Russia has begun to exercise great pressure on Germany's eastern frontier. Indeed, Russia now occupies a considerable area of eastern Prussia. This fact explains, I think, the fury of the German onslaught on ourselves and our allies in the neighbourhood of Namur and Mons.

Luton is now not so full of Territorial visitors for some thousands marched out during the weekend for fresh quarters at Harpenden, but there are still sufficient remaining here for the streets to continue to be unusually crowded in the evening hours.

The men are still undergoing a most rigorous training and are to be seen going out in shirt sleeves for their long marches, not only the men but some of the officers as well abandoning their tunics while the weather is so warm.