o-day, of course, as the Army discussions were on the agenda,
there was an unusually brave array of gold braid and brass buttons.
Herr von Oldenburg, a prominent Junker M.P., once said if he were
the Kaiser he would send a Prussian lieutenant and ten men to close
up the Reichstag.

Liebknecht arrived early, a slight and unimpressive figure in
somewhat worn field-grey, the German khaki. The "debate" having
begun, I noticed how he listened eagerly to every word spoken,
jotting down notes incessantly for the evident purpose of replying
to the grandiloquent utterances about our "glorious army of
_Kultur_-bearers" which were falling from the lips of "patriotic"
party orators. Liebknecht had earned the displeasure of the House
a few days before by asking some embarrassing questions about
Turkish massacres in Armenia. He was jeered and laughed at
hilariously; when he went on to say that a "Black Chamber" was
spying on his every movement, shadowing other members of the
Reichstag, even eavesdropping on their telephone conversations and
opening their private correspondence.

While a Socialist comrade, Herr Davidssohn, was speaking from the
desk in the centre of the tribune, at which all members must stand
when addressing the House, I now saw Liebknecht walking up the
aisle leading from the Socialist seats to the President's chair as
unobtrusively as possible. He was walking furtively and he cut the
figure of a hunted animal which is conscious that it is surrounded
by other animals anxious to pounce upon it and devour it if it
dares to show itself in the open.

Liebknecht has now reached the President's side. The President, a
long-whiskered septuagenarian, is popularly known as "Papa" Kaempf.
I see Liebknecht whispering quietly in Kaempf's ear. He is asking
for permission to speak, probably as soon as comrade Davidssohn has
finished making his innocuous suggestions of minor reforms to
relieve discomforts in the trenches. Kaempf is shaking his head
negatively. As the official executor of the House's wishes, the
old man understands perfectly well that Liebknecht must under no
circumstances have a hearing. Davidssohn has now stopped talking.
Liebknecht has meantime reached the bottom step of the stairway of
five or six steps leading from the tribune to the level of the
floor. He can be plainly seen from all sections of the House. I
hear him start to say that he has a double right to be heard on the
Army Bill, not only