nterior
garrisons of the country had been one of the long debated problems. As
no women entered them and as it was not safe to attempt the corruption
of any of the men, there were but two alternatives: blow them up and
sacrifice the men wholesale or meet them with a superior force as they
rushed out to ascertain the nature of the explosions, and fight them in
open battle. Gisela had finally decided to give them a chance for their
lives, as she had no mind to shed any more blood than was unavoidable;
and these men, being no longer in their prime, must be overcome
eventually, no matter what their fury.

When she hovered over the Marztplatz in front of the garrison a few
moments after the last of the explosions, and while fire was still
raging in this military quarter of magazines, arsenals and laboratories,
men and women were mixed in a hideous confusion, shooting and slashing
indiscriminately. But there were thousands of women and only a few
hundred men, all of whom at one time or another had been wounded.
Finally the captain of this regiment of women ordered a swift retreat,
and simultaneously three machine guns opened fire from innocent looking
windows, but on the garrison building, not on the square. They ceased
after one round, and the captain of the women gave such men as were
alive and unwounded their choice between death and surrender. They chose
the sensible alternative, were driven within, and placed under a heavy
guard.

It was not safe to venture too close to the still exploding and blazing
structures, but it was quite apparent that the work had been done
thoroughly. The fire brigades were busy, and there was little danger of
Munich, one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world,
falling a victim to the revolution. Many lives had been sacrificed, no
doubt. The women night-workers in the factories, fifteen minutes before
the signal from the Frauenkirche, had pretended to strike, seized all
the hand arms available and shot down the men who attempted to control
them. The men in the secret had gone with them and were already about
their business.

The officers in charge of the Class of 1920 were too few in number to
make any resistance, too dazed to grasp a situation for which there was
no precedent; they had surrendered to the Amazons grimly awaiting their
decision. The poor boys in the Kadettenkorps had run home to their
mothers, and, finding them in the streets, had either taken refuge in
the c