Page:Karl Liebknecht - Militarism (1917).djvu/167

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
SOME CARDINAL SINS
135

by a volley. On all this class-justice set its stamp of approval and laid particular emphasis by numerous heavy sentences which were imposed on workmen. From 1886 to 1902 there was scarcely a strike in Belgium without the military interfering. In that period some 80 men were killed. During the general strike of 1893, which though of a political nature may be mentioned in this connection, numerous people were left dead on the field of battle. The names of Verviers, Roux, La Louvière, Jemappes, Ostende, Bergerhout, Mons have been burnt as with a red-hot iron into the memory of the class-conscious Belgian working-class. They are blood-stained leaves in the big book registering the sins of Belgian capitalism. It was in 1902 that the standing army, together with the reserves, was mobilized for strike purposes for the last time, that time in consequence of the general strike. The unfavorable reports about the disposition and sentiments of the soldiers that reached the cabinet and were soon verified by the fact that the soldiers began to show their revolutionary temper in a fairly open man-