ment," he declared, "it [the German government] plotted to bring about this war and thus burdened itself with the principal responsibility for its immediate outbreak. It began the war by misleading the masses of people, and even by misleading the Reichstag—compare, among other things, the concealment of the ultimatum to Belgium, the make-up of the German White Book, the elimination therefrom of the dispatch of the Czar on July 29, 1914, etc.—and it continues to maintain war sentiment among the people by the use of reprehensible methods."
Those letters show Liebknecht in his true light. He is not only, as some try to paint him, an opponent of this war, but is an opponent of all wars. He is not only committed to the fight against reaction at home, but to that against autocracy, wherever it exists.
On June 28, 1916, Karl Liebknecht was sentenced to thirty months' penal servitude. The trial was secret. When the public prosecutor asked for this secrecy Liebknecht exclaimed: "It is cowardice on your part, gentlemen. Yes, I re-
