rom the _Suwo_, the Japanese
flagship, having destroyed a 24-cm. gun and killed eight men on Fort
Hui-tchien-huk. In the town itself the streets, not immune from falling
projectiles, were deserted, and the only centre of social intercourse
and conviviality was the German Club, where regularly officers or
non-combatants slipped in for dinner, luncheon, or a glass of beer. But
it was realized that the end was not far distant.

[Sidenote: Central redoubt taken.]

[Sidenote: Mass attack on forts.]

[Sidenote: The white flag.]

Early in the morning of November 6 the airman von Pluschow flew away
across Kiao-chau Bay, and did not return. He escaped with the Governor's
last dispatches into Chinese territory, where his machine was interned.
That day and night saw no cessation of the firing, the guns of the
defenders still roaring at intervals. About an hour after midnight the
first impulse of the general attack took effect. While a particularly
heavy artillery fire kept the Germans in their bomb-proof shelters, the
central redoubt of the first line of defence, which had been badly
shattered by the bombardment, was rushed by a storming party headed by
General Yoshimi Yamada. Engineers had in the darkness sapped right up to
the barbed-wire entanglements, which being cut provided way for the
infantry, who, while part held the enemy in front, rushed the redoubt on
both flanks. Two hundred prisoners were taken, and the Japanese flag was
hoisted. The besiegers were through the German line, but the position
had to be consolidated, or disaster would follow. Danger from the flank
was, however, soon obviated by advances in other parts of the line. Just
after five o'clock a battery on Shao-tan Hill was captured; half an hour
later another battery in Tao-tung-chien redoubt was taken, and Fort
Chung-shan-wa, the base of the German right wing, fell. The shadows were
still dense, and the final phase of the siege, viewed from Prince
Heinrich Hill, presented a sight brilliant with many flashes and flaming
fireworks, and a sound dominated by the thunder of the batteries. But
dawn, as the besiegers began in mass to close in upon the main line of
forts Iltis, Moltke, and Bismarck, was breaking. It was decided to storm
these positions forthwith, since the German fire, owing to exhaustion of
the ammunition, was dying away. Governor Meyer-Waldeck, who had been
wounded, realized now that further resistance was futile. Shortly before
six o'clock he