the sporadic Social
Democratic opposition to the war, mainly by Dr. Liebknecht, was
ignored by the Government. The war-machine was running so
smoothly, and, from the German standpoint, so victoriously, that
the Government thought it could safely let Liebknecht rant to his
heart's content.

Dr. Liebknecht had long been a thorn in the War Party's side. He
inherited an animosity to Prussian militarism from his late father,
Dr. Wilhelm Liebknecht, who with August Bebel founded the modern
German Social Democratic Party. Four or five years before the war
Liebknecht, a lawyer by profession, campaigned so fiercely against
militarism that he was sentenced to eighteen months' fortress
imprisonment for "sedition." He served his sentence, and soon
afterwards his political friends nominated him for the Reichstag
for the Royal Division of Potsdam, of all places in the world,
knowing that such a candidature would be as ironical a blow as
could be dealt to the war aristocrats. He was elected by a big
majority in 1913, the votes of the large working-class population
of the division, including Spandau (the Prussian Woolwich), being
more than enough to offset the military vote which the Kaiser's
henchmen mobilised against him. Some time afterwards Liebknecht
was also elected to represent a Berlin Labour constituency in the
_Prussian Diet_, the Legislature which deals with the affairs in
the Kingdom of Prussia, as distinct from the Reichstag (the
_Imperial Diet_), which concerns itself with Empire matters only.

Dr. Liebknecht is forty-four years old. Of medium build, he wears
a shock of long, curly, upstanding hair, which rather accentuates
his "agitator" type of countenance, and is a skilful and eloquent
debater. A university graduate and well-read thinker and student,
he turned out to be the one consistent Social Democratic politician
in Germany on the question of the war. When the war began the
Socialist Party was effectually and willingly tied to the
Government's chariot--including, nominally, even Liebknecht. A few
hours before making his notorious "Necessity-knows-no-law" speech
in the Reichstag on August 4, 1914, Bethmann-Hollweg conferred with
all the Parliamentary parties, and convinced them (including the
Socialists) that Germany had been cruelly dragged into a war of
defence. Later in the day, following other party leaders, Herr
Haase, spokesman for the Socialists, got up in the House, voiced a
few harmless plati