The lights are going out all over Europe …
Posted: August 4, 2014 Filed under: Architectural, Corridors of Power, Events, Interiors, London Labour, London Places, Vanishings, Wartime London | Tags: August 4th 1914, Britain's entry into World War One, lights going out all over Europe, Sir Edward Grey, start of World War One Comments Off on The lights are going out all over Europe …
Foreign and Commonwealth Office. © David Secombe 1993.
A friend came to see me on one of the evenings of the last week — he thinks it was on Monday, August 3rd. We were standing at a window of my room in the Foreign Office. It was getting dusk, and the lamps were being lit in the space below on which we were looking. My friend recalls that I remarked on this with the words: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time’.
From Twenty-Five Years 1892-1916 (New York, 1925) by Viscount Grey of Fallodon, formerly Sir Edward Grey. Sir Edward Grey was British Foreign Secretary in August 1914; Britain declared war on Germany on August 4th.
The London Column 