But perhaps the most curious feature of this eventful affair
was that the most ill-informed and empty-headed clamour about the mismanagement of the defences of London had full sway for wore than twenty-four• hours, until it became known that the German Zeppelin fleet had suffered by far the greatest disaster in its history. There seems no doubt that most of the Zeppelins, in attempting to return, were caught in a violent storm, probably at a height of some twenty thousand feet or even higher, and were driven helplessly across France. When the daylight of last Saturday morning came they had dropped to a lower altitude, and were a comparatively easy prey to gunfire and attack by aeroplane. It will hardly be believed, yet it is true, that the news that at least four, and probably five, Zeppelins had been brought down in France was the signal in England for another outburst of criticism. Why had the guns remained silent in London ? Why had the searchlights of London not been used ? Why had we to suffer this humiliation of knowing that Zeppelins were brought down in France like pheasants from a well-stocked cover whereas they had been almost untouched in England
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