About eight the Bingen was rushed by an armed mob, and all its defenders
killed after a fierce, disorderly struggle.

The difficulty of the Germans in both these cases came from the
impossibility of landing any efficient force or, indeed, any force at
all from the air-fleet. The airships were quite unequal to the transport
of any adequate landing parties; their complement of men was just
sufficient to manoeuvre and fight them in the air. From above they could
inflict immense damage; they could reduce any organised Government to a
capitulation in the briefest space, but they could not disarm, much less
could they occupy, the surrendered areas below. They had to trust to
the pressure upon the authorities below of a threat to renew the
bombardment. It was their sole resource. No doubt, with a
highly organised and undamaged Government and a homogeneous and
well-disciplined people that would have sufficed to keep the peace. But
this was not the American case. Not only was the New York Government a
weak one and insufficiently provided with police, but the destruction of
the City Hall--and Post-Offide and other central ganglia had hopelessly
disorganised the co-operation of part with part. The street cars and
railways had ceased; the telephone service was out of gear and only
worked intermittently. The Germans had struck at the head, and the head
was conquered and stunned--only to release the body from its rule. New
York had become a headless monster, no longer capable of collective
submission. Everywhere it lifted itself rebelliously; everywhere
authorities and officials left to their own imitative were joining in
the arming and flag-hoisting and excitement of that afternoon.

6

The disintegrating truce gave place to a definite general breach with
the assassination of the Wetterhorn--for that is the only possible word
for the act--above Union Square, and not a mile away from the exemplary
ruins of City Hall. This occurred late in the afternoon, between five
and six. By that time the weather had changed very much for the worse,
and the operations of the airships were embarrassed by the necessity
they were under of keeping head on to the gusts. A series of squalls,
with hail and thunder, followed one another from the south by
south-east, and in order to avoid these as much as possible, the
air-fleet came low over the houses, diminishing its range of observation
and exposing itself to a rifle attack.

Overnight there had