Meantime, Fort Totten and Fort Hamilton had been taken from the rear by overwhelming forces, and their mortars had been used to silence the guns of Fort Schuyler and Fort Wadsworth. In this emergency, seeing the situation hopeless, General Wood withdrew his forces in good order under cover of a rear-guard action between the Uhlans and the United States colored cavalry, and, hurrying before him the crowds of fleeing civilians, marched his troops in three divisions across the Brooklyn Bridge, leaving Brooklyn in flames behind him. Then facing inexorable necessity, he ordered his engineers to blow up these three beautiful spans that had cost hundreds of millions, and to flood the subways between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Seen through the darkness at the moment of its ruin the vast steel structure of the Brooklyn Bridge, with its dim arches and filaments, was like a thing of exquisite lace. In shreds it fell, a tangled, twisted, tragically wrecked piece of magnificence. CHAPTER V GENERAL VON HINDENBURG TEACHES NEW YORK CITY A LESSON On May 24, 1921, the situation of New York City was seen to be desperate, and most of the newspapers, even those that had clamoured loudest for resistance and boasted of American valour and resourcefulness, now admitted that the metropolis must submit to a German occupation. Even the women among the public officials and political leaders were inclined to a policy of nonresistance. General Wood was urged to surrender the city and avoid the horrors of bombardment; but the commander replied that his first duty was to defend the territory of the United States, and that every day he could keep the enemy isolated on Long Island was a day gained for the permanent defences that were frantically organising all over the country. It was vital, too, that the immense stores of gold and specie in the vaults of the Federal Reserve and other great New York banks should be safely transported to Chicago. All day and all night, automobile trucks, operated under orders from William G. McAdoo, Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank, loaded with millions and millions of gold, passed unprotected and almost unheeded through the crowded section between Wall Street and the Grand Central Station. The people stared at them dumbly. They knew what was going on. They knew they could have a fortune by reaching out their hands. But at this moment, with their eternities in their eyes, they had no thought of gold. Hour after hour the work went on. Finally, subway trains and street cars were pressed into service as treasure-carriers. By night $800,000,000 had started West and the next morning Chicago was the financial capital of America.