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 as a member of the House, but as a soldier.  He gets no further.  The Chamber is already filled with shouts and jeers. “Maul halten!” (shut your mouth!) bursts from a dozen places in the Conservative and rational Liberal and Centre benches. “’Raus mit ihm!” (throw him out!) is another angry taunt which I can distinguish in the bedlam.  Liebknecht has been howled down many times before under similar circumstances.  He is not terrified to-day, though his face is pale with excitement and anger.  He stands his ground.  His right arm is extended, a finger levelled accusingly at the Right and Centre from which imprecations, unceasingly, are being snarled at him.  But he cannot make himself heard amid the uproar.