During the night following the unsuccessful _coup de main_ against Liége, a Zeppelin attacked the town and dropped bombs. "On Thursday, August 6th, at 3.30 a.m. Z6 returned from an air-cruise over Belgium. The airship took a conspicuous part in the attack on Liége, and was able to intervene in a markedly successful manner. Our first bomb was dropped from a height of 1,800 feet, but failed to explode. The ship then sank to 900 feet above the city, and a non-commissioned officer dropped twelve more bombs, all of which exploded, setting the city ablaze in several places."[96] [Footnote 96: German official report in the _Berliner Tageblatt_, August 10th.] An Austrian who was in the town afterwards described the attack in the _Grazer Tagespost_. According to this witness it was already daylight when the airship appeared, and the effect of the bombs was truly awful. In view of the circumstance that it was already light, Germany cannot put forward the defence that the bombs were intended for the twelve forts which surround Liége at a distance of some miles. This is the earliest official record of an attack upon civilians--and it came from the German side! The crew of Z6 were the recipients of a tremendous ovation on their return, while the news of this dastardly murder was received with jubilation throughout the German Empire. In Lunéville fifteen civilians were killed by airship bombs two days earlier; shortly afterwards followed the attack by airship on civilians in Antwerp. The author has before him about one hundred different newspaper reports, alleging the most awful barbarism on the part of the Belgians. Among the numerous statements that Germans were murdered, only two names are mentioned, and both these men are alive to-day; the one is Herr Weber, proprietor of an hotel in Antwerp. "We have now received full details of the murder of the German, Weber. He had fled from his pursuers and hidden himself in a cellar. As the raging mob could not find him they burnt sulphur in the house, which caused Weber to break into a violent fit of coughing. This betrayed his hiding-place; he was dragged out and murdered."[97] [Footnote 97: _Hamburger Fremdenblatt_, August 12th, and simultaneously in many other journals. On the following day the _Vorwärts_ announced that Herr Weber had returned to Germany in the company of their own correspondent.] "The German pork-butcher, Deckel, who had a large business in Brussels, was attacked in his house by a crowd of Belgian beasts because he had refused to hang a Belgian flag before his shop; with axes and hatchets the mob cut off his head and hewed his corpse in pieces."[98] [Footnote 98: _Kölnische Volkszeitung_, August 10th.] A few days later the _Berliner Tageblatt_ informed its readers that Herr Deckel was residing in Rotterdam, and had suffered no harm whatever.