The Battle of Fontenoy took place on 11 May 1745 during the War of the Austrian Succession, near Tournai, then part of the Austrian Netherlands, now in Belgium. A French army of 50,000 under Marshal Saxe defeated a Pragmatic Army of roughly the same size, led by the Duke of Cumberland.

By 1745, five years of war had brought France close to financial bankruptcy, and the Austrian Netherlands seemed to offer the best opportunity for a decisive victory which would end it. In April 1745, Saxe besieged Tournai, a key strategic town on the upper Scheldt, compelling the main Allied army to march to its relief. Leaving 22,000 men to continue the siege, Saxe placed his main force about  away in the villages of Antoing, Vezon and Fontenoy, along a naturally strong feature strengthened with defensive works.

After several unsuccessful flank assaults which incurred heavy casualties, an Allied infantry column of 15,000 attacked the French centre, before being repulsed. Covered by their cavalry, they retreated toward Brussels, abandoning Tournai which fell shortly afterwards. Many British troops were withdrawn in October to suppress the Jacobite rising of 1745, leaving France in control of the Austrian Netherlands.

However, Fontenoy failed to end the war, and in May 1746, Louis XV initiated peace talks, but negotiations dragged on for the next two years. Despite further French victories at Rocoux in 1746 and Lauffeld in 1747, their economic position continued to deteriorate. The war ended in November 1748 with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, under which France relinquished its gains in the Austrian Netherlands.

Background
The immediate cause of the War of the Austrian Succession was the death in 1740 of Emperor Charles VI, the last male Habsburg in the direct line. The Habsburg monarchy was governed by Salic law, thus excluding his eldest daughter Maria Theresa from the throne, a condition waived by the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713.

The closest male heir was Charles of Bavaria, who challenged the legality of Maria Theresa's succession. A family inheritance dispute became a European issue because the Monarchy dominated the Holy Roman Empire, a federation of mostly German states, headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. Technically an elected position, in January 1742 Charles became the first non-Habsburg Emperor in 300 years, supported by France, Prussia and Saxony. Maria Theresa was backed by the so-called Pragmatic Allies; Austria, Britain, Hanover, and the Dutch Republic.

The main beneficiary from four years of conflict was Prussia, which captured the Austrian province of Silesia during the 1740–1742 First Silesian War. The richest province in the Empire, Silesian taxes provided ten per cent of total Imperial income and contained large mining, weaving and dyeing industries. Regaining it was a priority for Maria Theresa and led to the 1744–1745 Second Silesian War. Shortly after Charles died in January 1745, the Austrians over-ran Bavaria and defeated a Franco-Bavarian force at Pfaffenhofen on 15 April. Charles' son, Maximilian III Joseph, now sued for peace and supported the election of Maria Theresa's husband, Francis Stephen, as the new Emperor. With Bavaria out of the war, Austria could focus on Silesia, while France was released from its involvement in Germany, and could concentrate on Italy and the Low Countries.

1745 Campaign Plans

In the first half of 1744, France made significant advances in the Austrian Netherlands, before being forced to divert resources to meet threats elsewhere. For the 1745 campaign, Maurice de Saxe persuaded Louis XV it was the best place to inflict a decisive defeat on Britain, whose financial resources were central to the Allied war effort. His plan was to bring the Allies to battle on a ground of his choosing, before British financial strength could be used to fund extra troops and negate the current French superiority in numbers. Saxe also benefitted from a unified command and strategy, unlike the Allies who were often deeply divided over objectives and priorities.

Most of the fighting in this region took place in what is often referred to as Flanders, a compact area  wide, its highest point only  above sea level and dominated by rivers running southwest to northeast. Until the advent of railways in the 19th century, bulk goods and supplies were transported by water, and wars in this region were fought for control of major waterways, including the rivers Lys, Sambre and Meuse.

The most important of these was the Scheldt, which began in Northern France and ran for  before entering the North Sea at Antwerp. Saxe planned to attack Tournai, a town close to the French border which controlled access to the upper Scheldt basin, making it a vital link in the trading network for Northern Europe. With a garrison of over 8,000, it was also the strongest of the Dutch Barrier Forts in the Austrian Netherlands, factors Saxe hoped would force the Allies to fight for it.

In March 1745, George Wade was replaced as Allied commander in Flanders by the 24-year-old Duke of Cumberland, advised by the experienced Earl Ligonier. In addition to British and Hanoverian troops, the Pragmatic Army included a large Dutch contingent, commanded by Prince Waldeck, with a small number of Austrians, led by Count Königsegg-Rothenfels. However, a coherent Allied strategy was undermined by internal disputes and different objectives; the British and Hanoverians resented and mistrusted each other, Austria did not consider Flanders a military priority and Waldeck was unpopular with his subordinates, who often disputed his orders. These divisions were exacerbated by Cumberland's inexperience, lack of diplomatic skill and tendency to ignore advice.

On 21 April, a French cavalry detachment under D'Estrées feinted towards Mons and Cumberland prepared to march to its relief. Although it soon became clear this was a diversion, French intentions remained unclear until the siege of Tournai began on 28 April. Combined with faulty intelligence that estimated Saxe had less than 30,000 men, this meant the Allies advanced on Tournai with only their field army of 50,000, leaving large garrisons at nearby Namur and Charleroi. Having confirmed the Allies were approaching from the south-east, on 7 May Saxe left 22,000 men to continue the siege, and placed his main force of 50,000  around the villages of Fontenoy and Antoing,  from Tournai.

Battle

As Saxe considered his infantry inferior to their opponents, he placed them behind defensive works and fortified the villages. The French line ran along the crest of a plateau, with the right flank resting on the Scheldt, the left stationed behind the Bois de Barry, with the Redoubt d'Eu and Redoubt de Chambonas covering the gap between the wood and their centre in the village of Fontenoy. The Chemin de Mons sloped down from Fontenoy to the small hamlets of Vezon and Bourgeon below, exposing any direct attack on the village to prolonged fire from in front and the flanks.

The Allies made contact with the French outposts on the evening of 9 May, but a hasty reconnaissance by Cumberland and his staff failed to spot the Redoubt d'Eu. On 10 May, British and Hanoverian cavalry under James Campbell pushed the French out of Vezon and Bourgeon. Campbell's deputy, the Earl of Crawford, then recommended that infantry be sent to clear the Bois de Barry, while the cavalry swung around it to outflank the French left. Unfortunately, this plan was abandoned when Dutch hussars reconnoitring the route were fired on by French troops in the wood and withdrew.

The attack was postponed until the following day, both armies camping overnight on their positions. At 4:00 a.m. on 11 May, the Allies formed up, British and Hanoverians on the right and centre, Dutch on the left, with the Austrians in reserve. The Dutch were ordered to take Fontenoy and Antoing, while a brigade under Richard Ingoldsby captured the Redoubt de Chambonas, and cleared the Bois de Barry. Once both flanks were engaged, massed Allied infantry in the centre under Ligonier would advance up the slope, and dislodge the main French army.

As soon as it was light, the Allied artillery opened fire on Fontenoy, but the bombardment had little effect on the dug-in French infantry. Because Cumberland had badly under-estimated French numbers, he assumed their main force was in the centre, and failed to appreciate the strength of the flanking positions. This meant the true strength of the French left only became apparent when Ingoldsby ran into the Redoubt d'Eu. He requested artillery support, and the advance halted while his men skirmished in the woods with light troops known as Harquebusiers de Grassins. These numbered no more than 900 but uncertain of their strength, Ingoldsby hesitated; given the earlier failure to detect the redoubt, his caution was understandable but delayed the main attack.

Growing impatient, at 7:00 a.m., Cumberland ordered Ingoldsby to abandon his assault on the Redoubt d'Eu and join the main column, although he failed to inform Ligonier. As the Dutch advanced on Fontenoy, they were fired on by French troops in the nearby walled cemetery and fell back with heavy losses. At 9:00 a.m., Ligonier sent an aide instructing Ingoldsby to attack the Redoubt d'Eu immediately and was apparently horrified when Ingoldsby shared his change of orders. At 10:30 a.m., the Dutch assaulted Fontenoy again, supported by the 42nd Foot; after some initial success, they were forced to retreat, and at 12:30 p.m., Cumberland ordered the central column forward.

Thought to comprise some 15,000 infantry, the column advanced up the slope led by Cumberland and Ligonier, and despite heavy casualties reached the French position still in formation. After halting to dress their lines, the Guards in the first rank allegedly invited the Gardes Françaises to open fire. First reported by Voltaire in 1768, there is some doubt as to the reliability of this anecdote, but the opening volley was considered so important that commanders often preferred their opponents to go first, particularly if their own troops were well disciplined and thus able to absorb it without losing cohesion.

Thus goaded, the Gardes fired prematurely, greatly reducing the impact of their first volley, while that of the British killed or wounded 700 to 800 men. The French front line broke up in confusion; many of their reserves had been transferred to meet the Dutch attack on Fontenoy, and the Allies now advanced into this gap. Seeing this, Noailles, who was observing the fighting from a position near Notre Dame de Bois along with Louis XV and his son, implored the king to seek safety. However, Saxe assured Louis the battle was not lost, while Löwendal ordered a series of cavalry attacks, which although poorly co-ordinated forced the Allies back.

Isolated in the middle of the column, Cumberland had lost control of the main battle and made no attempt to relieve pressure on the Allied centre by ordering fresh attacks on Fontenoy or the Redoubt d'Eu. Under fire from both flanks and in front, the column formed itself into a hollow, three sided square, reducing their firepower advantage. Their cavalry charges gave the French infantry time to reform, and at 14:00 Saxe brought up his remaining artillery, which began firing into the Allied square at close range. This was followed by a general assault, with the regiments d'Aubeterre, du Roi, Royal and de la Couronne attacking from the right, the Irish Brigade, regiments des Vaisseaux, Normandie, d'Eu and two battalions of the Gardes françaises the left. The assault cost the Aubeterre regiment 328 wounded or killed, while the four battalions of the Régiment Royal lost a total of 675, including 30 officers, and the Irish Brigade 656, including 25 per cent of their officers.

Led by Saxe and Löwendal, the Gardes Françaises attacked once more, while D'Estrées and Richelieu brought up the elite Maison du roi cavalry, forcing the column back with heavy losses. The Hanoverian Böselager regiment suffered 377 casualties, the largest of any single Allied unit, the 23rd Foot lost 322, and the three Guards regiments over 700 in total. Despite this, discipline and training allowed the Allied infantry to make an orderly withdrawal, the rearguard halting at intervals to fire on their pursuers. On reaching Vezon, the cavalry provided cover as they moved into columns of march, before withdrawing  to Ath, largely undisturbed by the French.

The decision to retreat was opposed by Waldeck and other Dutch officers, who were reluctant to abandon their garrison in Tournai; one of them later wrote that "We were repulsed without being [defeated but ...] our hasty retreat makes us look beaten ...[while] we have left [much] baggage and many wounded". Next day, a cavalry detachment led by D'Estrées captured 2,000 wounded Allied soldiers left behind at Leuze,  from the battlefield. Forty-four abandoned pieces of artillery were also taken, along with122 supply wagons.

Aftermath

Fontenoy was the bloodiest battle in Western Europe since Malplaquet in 1709. French losses were an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 killed and wounded, those of the Allies between 7,400 to 12,000, including prisoners. Victory restored French battlefield pre-eminence in Europe, although the best of the Allied infantry remained superior to their opponents. Since his presence technically made him senior commander, Louis became the first French king able to claim a battlefield victory over the English since Saint Louis. This fact was emphasised in a propaganda campaign, which included a laudatory poem by Voltaire, titled La Bataille De Fontenoy.

It also cemented Saxe's reputation as one of the leading generals of the period, although his domestic opponents attacked him for not pursuing with more vigour. In response, he pointed out his troops were exhausted while the Allied cavalry and large parts of their infantry remained intact and fresh. These critics did not include either Louis XV or Frederick the Great, who viewed Fontenoy as a tactical masterpiece and invited Saxe to Sanssouci to discuss it. His victory was also achieved despite being in great pain from edema or "dropsy", and forced to exercise command from a wicker chair carried round the battlefield.

On the other hand, Cumberland performed poorly as a commander, ignoring advice from his more experienced subordinates, failing to ensure the Bois de Barry was properly cleared and issuing Ingoldsby with conflicting orders. Although praised for his courage, the inactivity of the Allied cavalry was partly due to his participation in the infantry attack, and loss of strategic oversight. Ligonier and others viewed Fontenoy as a "defeat snatched from the jaws of victory" and although understandable for a 24-year-old in his first major engagement, the same faults were apparent at the Battle of Lauffeld in 1747.

In the recriminations that followed, Ingoldsby was court martialled for the delay in attacking the Redoubt d'Eu, although his claim to have received inconsistent orders was clearly supported by the evidence. He himself was wounded, while the largest casualties of any units involved were incurred by two regiments from his brigade, the 12th Foot and Böselager's. The court concluded his actions arose 'from an error of judgement, not want of courage', but he was forced out of the army, a decision many considered unjust. Cumberland and some of his staff also blamed the Dutch for not relieving pressure on the centre by continuing their attack on Fontenoy. Dutch cavalry commander Casimir van Schlippenbach echoed this criticism, although failure was largely due to the confusion caused by Cumberland himself, while the Dutch infantry retreated in good order.

Regardless, Waldeck was critical of the lack of initiative displayed by his troops, as was Isaac Cronström, head of the Dutch infantry. Born in 1661, the latter fought at Malplaquet, where the Dutch had continued to attack French entrenchments despite incurring very heavy casualties. In a letter to Grand Pensionary Anthonie van der Heim, he noted "these troops are [not] like those in the previous war", while in his official report to the States General, Waldeck claimed "the famous old Dutch courage" had gone. These conclusions led to an intensive programme of retraining, and the Dutch performed significantly better at Rocoux in 1746. However, the war confirmed the decline of the Dutch Republic as a Great Power; Newcastle, whose foreign policy had assumed the opposite, later berated himself for his "ignorance, obstinacy, and credulity", in believing otherwise.

With no hope of relief, Tournai surrendered on 20 June, followed by the loss of Ostend and Nieuport; in October, the British were forced to divert resources to deal with the Jacobite rising of 1745, allowing Saxe to continue his advance in 1746. Despite the presence of Dutch troops in the Pragmatic Army, France did not declare war on the Dutch Republic itself until 1747. This decision made their financial situation even worse, since French merchants had evaded the British naval blockade by transporting their goods in "neutral" Dutch ships. By the end of 1747, France had occupied most of the Austrian Netherlands and was on the verge of advancing into Dutch territory, but their economy was being strangled by the blockade, which was also causing widespread food shortages. Peace was a matter of extreme urgency and despite the huge military and financial costs incurred, under the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle Louis XV agreed to evacuate the Austrian Netherlands for minimal return, leading to a popular French phrase "as stupid as the Peace".

Legacy
The participation of the Irish Brigade and the casualties incurred led 19th and early 20th-century Irish nationalists to portray Fontenoy as the "pinnacle of Irish military valour", with the battle giving its name to a variety of streets, buildings and athletic clubs. In 1905, nationalist author Richard Barry O'Brien founded a committee to fund an Irish Brigade memorial in the village of Fontenoy, where it still features in annual commemorations of the battle.

When surveying the battlefield, Louis XV reportedly said: "See how much blood a triumph costs. The blood of our enemies is still the blood of men. The true glory is to save it." In 1968, the French army installed a memorial in the neighbouring town of Vezon which bears this quotation.

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

Bibliography

Battles involving France
Battles involving Great Britain
Battles involving Hanover
Battles involving the Dutch Republic
Battles involving Austria
Battles of the War of the Austrian Succession
Conflicts in 1745
1745 in France
1745 in Great Britain
1745 in the Dutch Republic
1745 in the Habsburg monarchy
Flight of the Wild Geese
Battle
Louis XV
Prince William, Duke of Cumberland

Battle of Fontenoy


The Sean Hannity Show is an American radio show with conservative talk show host Sean Hannity. It is a political talk show, but many times will cover things other than the mainstream media. The Hannity program is the second highest rated program, behind only The Rush Limbaugh Show. On the show, Sean and the people who call in often say to each other "you're a great American!"

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The Right Honourable (sometimes written as The Rt Hon., The Rt Hon or The Rt. Hon.) is a prefix that shows honour. It is given to certain people, such as some MPs, in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the English-speaking Caribbean and other places that are members of the Commonwealth. It is sometimes also given in other places. Examples are The Right Honourable David Cameron PC MP, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, The Right Honourable Stephen Harper PC MP, former Prime Minister of Canada, and The Right Honourable John Key MP, former Prime Minister of New Zealand.

In the United Kingdom, the term is now given to members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. In effect, these are present or past members of Parliament who have served as cabinet ministers in a government.

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Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German socialist and anti-militarist. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) beginning in 1900, he was one of its deputies in the Reichstag from 1912 to 1916, where he represented the left-revolutionary wing of the party. In 1916 he was expelled from the SPD's parliamentary group for his opposition to the political truce between all parties in the Reichstag while the war lasted. He twice spent time in prison, first for writing an anti-militarism pamphlet in 1907 and then for his role in a 1916 antiwar demonstration. He was released from the second under a general amnesty three weeks before the end of the First World War.

During the November Revolution that broke out across Germany in the final days of the war, Liebknecht proclaimed Germany a "Free Socialist Republic" from the Berlin Palace on 9 November 1918. On 11 November, together with Rosa Luxemburg and others he founded the Spartacist League. In December, his call to make Germany a soviet republic was rejected by the majority of the Reich Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils (). At the end of 1918, Liebknecht was one of the founders of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Shortly after the suppression of the Spartacist uprising in which he played a leading role, he and Rosa Luxemburg were killed by members of the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division after they had consulted with Gustav Noske, who was a member of the Council of the People's Deputies, Germany's interim government, and had responsibility for military affairs. Although two of the men directly involved in the murders were prosecuted, no one responsible for ordering their deaths was ever brought to trial.

After their deaths, both Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg became martyrs for the socialist cause in Germany and throughout Europe. Commemoration of the two continues to play an important role among the German left to this day.

Life

Background
Karl Liebknecht was born in Leipzig in 1871, the second of the five sons of Wilhelm Liebknecht and his second wife Natalie (née Reh). His father, along with August Bebel, was one of the founders and key leaders of the SPD and its precursor parties. Karl was baptized a Lutheran in St. Thomas Church. According to the Liebknecht family tradition, their lineage was directly descended from the theologian and founder of Reformation, Martin Luther. His godparents included Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were not present at the baptism but had written declarations of their godparenthood.

As a child in the early 1880s, Liebknecht lived in Borsdorf, now located on the eastern outskirts of Leipzig. His father had moved into a suburban villa there with August Bebel after they were expelled from Leipzig under the 'Lesser State of Siege', a provision of the Anti-Socialist Laws directed against socialist, social democratic and communist associations and writings. The laws were in force from 1878 to 1890.

Studies
In 1890 he graduated from the  in Leipzig and on 16 August 1890 began studying law and administrative (cameral) sciences at Leipzig University. He studied there with jurist Bernhard Windscheid, jurist and theologian Rudolph Sohm, economist Lujo Brentano, psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, and art historian Anton Springer. When the family moved to Berlin in October 1890, he continued his studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University (now the Humboldt University of Berlin), where he attended lectures by historian Heinrich von Treitschke and economist Gustav Schmoller. His certificate of academic completion is dated 7 March 1893. On 29 May 1893, he passed his examination for higher civil service posts ().

Liebknecht then did his military service as a one-year volunteer with the Guard Pioneer Battalion, a unit of the Prussian Army, in Berlin in 1893 and 1894.

After a long search for a position, he wrote his doctoral thesis "Compensation Enforcement and Compensation Pleas According to Common Law" (), which was awarded a magna cum laude by the Law and Political Science Faculty of the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg in 1897. On 5 April 1899 he passed the examination for candidates to the higher civil service career path with a "good".

Legal career
With his brother Theodor and the socialist and Zionist Oskar Cohn, he opened a law office in Berlin in 1899. In May of the following year he married Julia Paradies, with whom he had two sons, Wilhelm and Robert, and a daughter Vera.

He joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1900 and in 1904, along with his colleague Hugo Haase, he became known abroad as a political lawyer when he defended nine Social Democrats, among them the Pole Franciszek Trąbalski, in the Königsberg Secret Society trial. In other high profile criminal trials, he denounced the class-based justice of the empire and the brutal treatment of recruits in the military.

Treason trial
From 1907 to 1910 Liebknecht was president of the International Union of Socialist Youth, where he frequently spoke out against militarism. In 1907 he published Militarism and Anti-Militarism as part of the SPD Youth. In the work he argued that against an external enemy, external militarism required chauvinistic obstinacy, and against an internal enemy, internal militarism required a lack of understanding or hatred of any progressive movement. Militarism also needed an impassive people so that the masses could be driven like a herd of cattle. Anti-militarist agitation, he said, must educate about the dangers of militarism, but it must do so within the framework of the law – a statement that the Reich Court of Justice did not accept when Liebknecht was brought to trial for treason. He characterized the spirit of militarism with a reference to a remark by the Prussian Minister of War at the time, General Karl von Einem, according to whom a soldier loyal to the king who shoots badly is preferable to one who shoots well but whose political convictions are questionable. On 17 April 1907 von Einem asked the Reich Prosecutor's Office to initiate criminal proceedings against Liebknecht on account of the pamphlet.

The treason trial against Liebknecht took place before the Reich Court of Justice, presided over by Judge Ludwig Treplin, on  9, 10 and 12 October 1907, with a large public presence. On the first day of the trial, Liebknecht said that imperial orders were null and void if their purpose was a breach of the constitution. (In the court's final ruling, it emphasized that the soldiers' unconditional duty of obedience to the emperor was a central provision of the constitution of the empire.) When Liebknecht responded to a question from the presiding judge by saying that various newspapers as well as the conservative politician Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau were calling for a violent breach of the constitution, the judge cut him off, saying that he could allege that statements had been made in his courtroom that he had understood to be an incitement to a breach of the constitution. On the third day of the trial, Liebknecht was sentenced to one and a half years imprisonment for acts preliminary to high treason.

Emperor Wilhelm II, who had a copy of Militarism and Anti-Militarism, was informed about the Liebknecht trial several times by telegraph. He received a detailed report after the verdict was pronounced, but Liebknecht was not sent a copy of the written verdict until 7 November. His self-defense at the trial brought him considerable popularity among Berlin's workers, and a throng of people escorted him to prison.

Member of the Prussian Parliament and the Reichstag
In 1908 Liebknecht became a member of the Prussian House of Representatives even though he had not yet been released from prison in Silesia. He was one of the first eight Social Democrats to become a member of the Prussian state parliament, despite the Prussian three-class franchise that gave more weight to higher-income voters. Liebknecht remained a member of the state parliament until 1916.

His wife Julia died on 22 August 1911 after a gall bladder operation. Liebknecht married Sophie Ryss (1884–1964) in October 1912.

Following the national election of January 1912, Liebknecht, who was just 40, entered the Reichstag as one of the youngest SPD deputies. After unsuccessful attempts in 1903 and 1907, he won the "imperial constituency" of Potsdam-Spandau-Osthavelland, which until then had been the safe domain of the German Conservative Party. In the Reichstag he immediately emerged as a staunch opponent of an army bill that would grant the emperor tax funds for armaments for the army and navy. He was also able to prove that the Krupp company, a large steel and armaments firm, had illegally obtained economically important information by bribing employees of the War Ministry (the so-called Kornwalzer scandal).

First World War
In the first half of July 1914 Liebknecht traveled to Belgium and France, where he met with socialist politicians Jean Longuet and Jean Jaurès and spoke at several events. He spent the French national holiday in Paris. He only became aware of the danger of a European war on 23 July, after the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia became known (the July Crisis). At the end of July, he returned to Germany via Switzerland.

On 1 August, the day mobilization was announced and war declared on Russia, the Reichstag was summoned for a 4 August session. At the time there was still no question in Liebknecht's mind that "the rejection of war loans was self-evident and unquestionable for the majority of the SPD Reichstag faction". In the party's preparatory meeting on 3 August, there were, according to SPD representative Wolfgang Heine, "vile, noisy scenes" because Liebknecht and 13 other deputies spoke out decisively against war loans. In the 4 August parliamentary session, however, the Social Democratic faction voted unanimously in favor of approving the loans that enabled the government to finance the initial war effort.

Before the parliamentary group meeting on 3 August, those in favor of the approval had not expected such a success and had been by no means sure of even obtaining a majority in the SPD parliamentary group. Even during the break in the session after Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg's speech, immediately before the vote, there was turmoil among the SPD deputies because some had demonstratively applauded the Chancellor's remarks. Liebknecht, who in the years before had repeatedly defended the unwritten rules of party discipline (i.e. unanimity) against representatives of the party's right wing, bowed to the decision of the majority and also voted for the government bill in the Reichstag's full session. Hugo Haase, who like Liebknecht had opposed the loan in the parliamentary group, agreed for similar reasons to read the statement of the parliamentary group majority, which was received with jubilation by the bourgeois parties. Liebknecht often thought about or discussed the events of 4 August, both privately and in public. He saw them as a catastrophic political and personal watershed. In 1916, he noted:"The defection of the majority of the parliamentary group came as a surprise even to the pessimists; the atomization of the hitherto predominant radical wing no less so. The importance of the credit approval in the shift of the faction's entire policy to the government camp was not obvious: there was still the hope that the decision of 3 August was the result of a temporary panic and would soon be corrected, or at least not repeated and even overridden. These and similar considerations, but also uncertainty and weakness, explained the failure of the attempt to win over the minority for a separate public vote. But what must not be overlooked is the sacred veneration that was still paid to party discipline at that time, and most of all by the radical wing that until then had had to defend itself ever more pointedly against breaches of discipline, or tendencies to break discipline, on the part of revisionist party members."
Liebknecht expressly did not endorse a statement by Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring (its complete text is thought to have been lost), in which they threatened to leave the party because of its conduct. He "felt that it was a half-measure: in such a case one would already have had to leave." Luxemburg formed the International Group on 5 August 1914, to which Liebknecht along with ten other SPD leftists belonged and that attempted to form an inner-party opposition to the SPD's Burgfriedenspolitik – a political truce under which the SPD voted for the war loans, all parties agreed not to criticize the government or the war, and the trade unions refrained from striking. In the summer and fall of 1914 Liebknecht and Luxemburg traveled throughout Germany to try to persuade – with little success – opponents of the war to reject financial support for the war. He also contacted other European workers' parties to show them that not all German Social Democrats were in favor of the war.

Liebknecht's first major conflict with the new party line, one which attracted wide public attention, came when he traveled to Belgium between 4 and 12 September, in the middle of the 3-month long German invasion of the country. There he met with local socialists and was informed – in Liège and Andenne, among other places – about the mass reprisals ordered by the German military against alleged attacks by Belgian civilians. Liebknecht was accused in the press – including by Social Democratic papers – of "treason against the fatherland" and "party treason" and had to justify himself before the party executive on 2 October.

After that he was all the more determined to vote against the new loan bill and to make it a demonstrative statement against the "unity phase's high tide" and for it to be the basis for rallying opponents of the war. In the run-up to the 2 December 1914 session, he tried and failed to win other opposition deputies over to his position. Otto Rühle, who had previously assured Liebknecht that he would also openly vote no, was not able to withstand the party pressure and stayed away from the full session. Liebknecht was in the end the only deputy not to stand when Reichstag President Johannes Kaempf called on the House to approve the supplementary budget by rising from their seats. At the next vote on 20 March 1915, Rühle voted with Liebknecht. Both had previously refused a request from about 30 other party members to leave the chamber with them during the vote.

In April 1915 Mehring and Luxemburg published the journal . It was immediately confiscated by the authorities and appeared only once. Liebknecht, however, was not able to participate in the venture. Since 2 December 1914, police and military authorities had been considering how to stop his activities. In early February 1915, the high command of the Prussian Army called him to serve in a construction battalion. He was therefore subject to the military laws that forbade any political activity outside his duties in the Reichstag and the Prussian Landtag. He went through the war on the Western and Eastern fronts as non-combatant soldier who was given leaves of absence for sessions of the Reichstag and Landtag.

He nevertheless succeeded in expanding the International Group and organizing the SPD's staunchest opponents of the war throughout the Reich. That gave rise to the Spartacus League on 1 January 1916; it was renamed the Spartacist League after its final break from social democracy in November 1918. On 12 January 1916, the SPD Reichstag membership expelled Liebknecht from its ranks by 60 votes to 25. In solidarity with him, Otto Rühle also resigned from the parliamentary group two days later. In March 1916 another 18 opposition deputies were expelled and subsequently formed the Social Democratic Working Group, which Liebknecht and Rühle did not join.

During the war Liebknecht had few opportunities to make himself heard in the Reichstag. Contrary to customary practice, the Reichstag president did not record in the official minutes the statement that Liebknecht had submitted in writing explaining his vote against the second war loan bill on 2 December 1914. Under various pretexts he was subsequently refused the parliamentary floor. It was not until 8 April 1916 that Liebknecht was able to speak from the rostrum on a lesser budget issue. This resulted in what deputy Wilhelm Dittmann called a "chaotic and scandalous scene" such as never before witnessed in the Reichstag. Liebknecht was shouted down by liberal and conservative deputies raging "as if possessed", insulted as a "scoundrel" and an "English spy" and told to "shut his mouth". One member snatched Liebknecht's written notes from him and threw the sheets into the hall, and another had to be prevented by members of the Social Democratic Working Group from physically attacking him.

At the Easter Youth Conference in Jena, Liebknecht spoke to 60 young people on anti-militarism and the changing of social conditions in Germany. On 1 May 1916 he led an antiwar demonstration in Berlin that had been planned by the Spartacus League. Even though the demonstrators were surrounded by police, he began his oration with the words "Down with the war! Down with the government!" He was arrested and charged with treason. On the first day of the trial, which was intended to be an example for the socialist left, a spontaneous solidarity strike organized by the Revolutionary Stewards took place in Berlin with over 50,000 participants. Instead of weakening the opposition, Liebknecht's arrest gave new impetus to opposition to the war. On 23 August 1916 Liebknecht was sentenced to four years and one month in prison, which he served at Luckau, Brandenburg from mid-November 1916 until his release under an amnesty on 23 October 1918. While Liebknecht was in prison, Hugo Haase, SPD chairman until March 1916, lobbied in vain for his release. In April 1917 the SPD split apart with the founding of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which the Spartacus group joined in order to work within it toward revolutionary goals.

Along with Eduard Bernstein and the Catholic Reichstag deputy Matthias Erzberger of the Centre Party – who like Liebknecht was later murdered by right-wing extremists – Liebknecht was one of a very few German parliamentarians to publicly denounce the human rights violations of Germany's Turkish-Ottoman allies such as the Armenian genocide and the brutal crackdown on other non-Turkish minorities, particularly in Syria and Lebanon. This practice was tacitly approved both by the liberal parties and by the majority SPD, which was politically allied with the Young Turk party CUP. In some cases support was even publicly justified on the grounds of Germany's strategic interests and the alleged existential threat to Turkey from Armenian and Arab terrorism.

November revolution 1918
Liebknecht was released from prison on 23 October 1918 as part of a general amnesty that the Reich government hoped would act as a relief valve for the pre-revolutionary mood in the country. The hope proved illusory, since in Berlin, where Liebknecht went immediately, he was greeted by a cheering crowd at the Anhalter Station. A march set off in the direction of the Reichstag building but was pushed eastward by the Berlin police. In front of the Russian Embassy Liebknecht gave a speech in which he proclaimed: "Down with the Hohenzollerns! Long live the social republic of Germany!" The embassy, which since the Russian October Revolution of 1917 was representing a communist led country, then gave a reception in his honor.

Liebknecht set about reorganizing the Spartacus League, which then emerged as a political organization in its own right. He urged the Revolutionary Stewards, which had organized the January strike, and both the USPD's rank and file and the Spartacus League to jointly coordinate preparations for a nationwide revolution. They planned a simultaneous general strike in all major cities and parades of armed strikers in front of the barracks of army regiments in order to persuade them to either join or lay down their arms. The Stewards, guided by workers' sentiment in the factories and fearing an armed confrontation with army troops, postponed the date set for the revolution several times, finally to 11 November 1918. Liebknecht though was unable to win acceptance in his party for the plans. On 30 October 1918 the central executive committee of the USPD, whose members were thinking more of a revolution by peaceful means, rejected his ideas, as did a meeting between the USPD and the Revolutionary Stewards on 1 November.

On 8 November the revolution sparked by the sailors' uprising in Kiel spread across Germany independently of Liebknecht's plans. Berlin's Revolutionary Stewards and USPD representatives called on their supporters to join the marches planned for the following day. On 9 November masses of people poured into the center of Berlin from all directions. From Gate 4 of the Berlin Palace, standing at the large window of the second floor, Liebknecht proclaimed the "Free Socialist Republic of Germany". Earlier that day Philipp Scheidemann of the SPD had proclaimed the "German Republic" from the Reichstag building.

Liebknecht then became the spokesman for the revolutionary left. In order to push the November Revolution in the direction of a socialist soviet republic, he and Rosa Luxemburg began publishing a daily newspaper, Die Rote Fahne ('The Red Flag'). In the ensuing disputes, however, it soon became apparent that most workers' representatives in Germany were pursuing social democratic rather than socialist goals. At the Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils of 16–20 December 1918, a majority advocated early parliamentary elections and thus self-dissolution of the councils. Liebknecht and Luxemburg were excluded from participation.

Since December 1918, Friedrich Ebert (SPD), head of the Council of the People's Deputies that was acting as Germany's interim government, had been trying to take power away from the council movement with, if necessary, the help of the army. He was doing this in accordance with the secret Ebert-Groener pact, under which Wilhelm Groener, Quartermaster General of the German Army, had assured Ebert of the army's loyalty, in return for which Ebert had promised among other things to take prompt action against leftist uprisings. Ebert had troops assembled in and around Berlin for this purpose. On 6 December 1918 he attempted to use the military to prevent the Reich Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils from taking place and, after that failed, to weaken the resolution the Congress had made for disempowering the military. On 24 December 1918, during the Berlin Christmas battles, he used military force for the first time, directing it against the People's Navy Division. It was close to the revolutionary Kiel sailors and was supposed to protect the Reich Chancellery for the Ebert government but was not prepared to leave its positions without pay. As a result of Ebert's successful military intervention against it, the three USPD representatives on the Council of People's Deputies resigned on 29 December, after which the council was made up of five SPD representatives.

The Spartacists, who were gaining popularity throughout the Reich, made use of the military intervention to plan the founding of a new, left-wing revolutionary party and invited their supporters to its founding congress in Berlin at the end of December 1918. On 1 January 1919, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) introduced itself to the public.

Beginning on 8 January, Liebknecht and other KPD members participated in the Spartacist uprising which began with a general strike and the occupation of several Berlin newspaper buildings. Liebknecht joined the strike leadership and, against the advice of Rosa Luxemburg, called for an armed insurrection to overthrow the Ebert government. KPD delegates tried without success to persuade some regiments stationed in and around Berlin to defect, and with only minimal support from the mass of the working classes of Berlin, the uprising failed to gain ground. When the government called out the military against the insurgents on 11 January, they were quickly overwhelmed. The total death toll is estimated at around 180.

Murder
The "intelligence services of numerous 'associations representing the interests of the state'" actively sought the leading figures of the KPD. In December 1918 numerous red, large-format posters directed against the Spartacus League were posted in Berlin, culminating in the demand "Beat their leaders to death! Kill Liebknecht!" Hundreds of thousands of handbills with the same content were also distributed. Eduard Stadtler's Anti-Bolshevik League was among those involved. In the SPD's newspaper Vorwärts (Forward), Liebknecht was repeatedly portrayed as "mentally ill". The entire Council of People's Deputies signed a leaflet on 8 January announcing that "the hour of reckoning is approaching". The following day the leaflet's text appeared as official news in the , the German Reich's newspaper of record. Rumors circulated among civilians and military personnel – spread by, among others, Philipp Scheidemann's son-in-law Fritz Henck – that bounties had been placed on the Spartacist leaders. On 14 January an article appeared in a newsletter of two Social Democratic regiments, stating that "the next few days" would show that "as for the heads of the movement … the gloves are now coming off".

Since their lives were now in danger, Liebknecht and Luxemburg went into hiding, initially in the Berlin suburb of Neukölln, but after two days they moved to new quarters in Berlin's Wilmersdorf neighborhood. The owner of the apartment, the merchant Siegfried Marcusson, was a member of the USPD and belonged to the Wilmersdorf Workers' and Soldiers' Council; his wife was a friend of Rosa Luxemburg. In the early evening of 15 January, five members of the Wilmersdorf  – a middle class civilian militia – entered the apartment and arrested Liebknecht and Luxemburg. It is not known who tipped off the  or gave it the order, but it is certain that it was a targeted raid, not a random search. Each person involved in the arrest received a reward of 1,700 marks from the chairman of the Wilmersdorf civic council. Around 9 p.m. Wilhelm Pieck, who was to become president of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1949 to 1960, entered the apartment unsuspectingly and was also arrested.

Liebknecht was first taken to the Wilmersdorf Cecilia School. From there a member of the  called the Reich Chancellery and informed its deputy press chief, Robert Breuer of the Wilmersdorf SPD, that Liebknecht had been captured. Breuer said he would call back but reportedly did not. At about 9:30 p.m. members of the  drove Liebknecht to their command office, the headquarters of the Guards Cavalry Rifle Division in the Eden Hotel. Liebknecht, who up to that point had denied who he was, was identified by the initials on his clothing in the presence of the de facto commander of the division, Captain Waldemar Pabst. After a few minutes of reflection, Pabst decided to have Liebknecht and Luxemburg, who was brought in around 10 p.m., "taken care of". He called the Reich Chancellery to discuss further action with Minister of Defense Gustav Noske. Noske urged him to consult with the commander in chief of the Provisional Reichswehr, General von Lüttwitz, and if possible obtain a formal order from him. Pabst said that it was out of the question, to which Noske replied, "Then you yourself must know what is to be done."

Pabst charged a group of naval officers under the command of Captain Lieutenant Horst von Pflugk-Harttung with carrying out Liebknecht's murder. (In January 1932 Pflugk-Harttung said in an interview that Noske had explicitly ordered Liebknecht's shooting, but when Noske publicly contradicted him, he claimed that he had been misunderstood by the journalist.) The officers left the hotel with Liebknecht at around 10:45 p.m., dressed in enlisted men's uniforms for disguise. As they were leaving, Liebknecht was spat on, insulted and struck by hotel guests. Just after he was put into a waiting car with the officers, Private Otto Runge, who had been promised money by a Guards Cavalry officer not privy to the full plan, hit him with the butt of his rifle. Lieutenant Rudolf Liepmann, who also had not been informed by Pabst of the intention to murder Liebknecht, drove the car to the nearby Tiergarten park. There he feigned a breakdown at a spot "where a completely unlit footpath branched off". Liebknecht was led away from the car and after a few meters shot from behind "at close range" by the shore of a lake. Shots were fired by von Pflugk-Harttung, Naval Lieutenant Heinrich Stiege, Naval First Lieutenant Ulrich von Ritgen and by Liepmann, who "instinctively joined in". Also present were Captain Heinz von Pflugk-Harttung, Horst's younger brother; Second Lieutenant Bruno Schulze; and Private Clemens Friedrich, the only enlisted man involved in the crime.

The perpetrators delivered the dead man as an "unknown body" to the ambulance station opposite the Eden Hotel at 11:15 p.m. and then reported to Pabst. Half an hour later, Luxemburg was taken away in an open car and shot about 40 meters from the entrance to the Eden Hotel, apparently by Naval Lieutenant Hermann Souchon. Her body was thrown into the Landwehr Canal by First Lieutenant Kurt Vogel and was not found until 31 May. Pabst's press officer Friedrich Grabowski subsequently circulated a communiqué stating that Liebknecht had been "shot while fleeing" and Luxemburg "killed by a mob".

In 1969, Pabst commented on the background to the murders in a private letter: "The fact is: the execution of my orders unfortunately did not take place as it should have. But it did take place, and for that these German idiots should thank Noske and me on their knees, erect monuments to us, and have streets and squares named after us! [Because Pabst thought that the murders had prevented Germany from becoming communist.] Noske was exemplary at the time, and the party [SPD] (except for its semi-communist left wing) behaved impeccably in the affair. That I could not carry out the action without Noske's approval (with Ebert in the background) and also that I had to protect my officers is clear. But very few people understood why I was never questioned or brought up on charges, and why the court-martial went the way it did, [Kurt] Vogel was freed from prison, and so on. As a man of honor, I responded to the behavior of the SPD of the time by keeping my mouth shut for 50 years about our cooperation. ... If it is not possible to skirt the truth and I get so angry I'm ready to explode, I will tell the truth, which I would like to avoid in the interest of the SPD."Liebknecht was buried on 25 January along with 31 other dead from the Spartacist uprising. The burial initially planned by the KPD at the Cemetery of the March Fallen in Friedrichshain was forbidden by both the government and Berlin's municipal authorities. Instead the burial commission was referred to the cemetery for the poor in Friedrichsfelde, then located on the urban periphery. The funeral procession turned into a mass demonstration in which several tens of thousands of people took part in spite of a massive military presence. Chairman Paul Levi spoke at the graves for the KPD and Luise Zietz and Rudolf Breitscheid for the USPD.

In 1926 the November Revolution Monument was dedicated at the gravesite of the militants in the Friedrichsfelde Cemetery. Nazi authorities had it demolished in 1935. The remains of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg have never been definitively found or identified. In 1951, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were honoured with symbolic graves at the Memorial to the Socialists () in the Friedrichsfelde Cemetery.

Prosecution of the murderers
The officers Horst von Pflugk-Harttung, Heinrich Stiege, Ulrich von Ritgen and Rudolf Liepmann are to be regarded as the murderers of Karl Liebknecht. In addition, the officers Heinz von Pflugk-Harttung, Bruno Schulze and the soldier Clemens Friedrich were involved.

A civilian trial against the murderers of Liebknecht and Luxemburg did not take place, and an investigation into what lay behind them was not initiated. Only after the KPD, through its own investigations led by Leo Jogiches, had revealed the whereabouts of some of the perpetrators, did the Guard Cavalry open court-martial proceedings against them. The military court prosecutor Paul Jorns impeded the investigations, and in the main trial only Otto Runge and Kurt Vogel were sentenced to prison terms. The only officers charged, the von Pflugk-Harttung brothers, were acquitted. The verdicts were signed by Gustav Noske, who also arranged for the subsequent appeal proceedings to be discontinued. Runge and Vogel later received compensation for their time in prison from the National Socialists.

Heinz von Pflugk-Harttung later played a leading role in the Kapp Putsch. In 1920, he was killed in an explosion after grenades in his car accidentally detonated.

Pabst was neither prosecuted nor charged, and Vogel was helped to escape by Captain Lieutenant (later Admiral) Wilhelm Canaris three days after sentencing. Runge, recognized and beaten by workers in 1925 and 1931 after his release from prison, was tracked down by members of the KPD in Berlin in May 1945 and handed over to the Soviet commandant's office on the instructions of senior prosecutor Max Berger. Runge was charged with murder, but his health later deteriorated, and he died in custody in September 1945.

In 1946, the Counterintelligence Corps searched von Ritgen's home after his father-in-law reported him for his alleged involvement in the murder of Walther Rathenau. During the search, the CIC instead found evidence linking him to Liebknecht's murder. On the orders of the U.S. military occupation authorities, German police officers were forced to arrested von Ritgen and put him on trial. While in prison, he was treated as a "hero of freedom", and was later acquitted by the Kassel Higher Regional Court. Ritgen died in 1969.

Political theory and Marxism
Since Liebknecht's main interest was political agitation, he rarely expressed himself in public on political theory and participated only minimally in the SPD's theoretical disputes, such as the debate on imperialism. He found leisure and calm for his studies only during his time in prison. That he grappled with questions of political theory and practice throughout his political life can be seen from the progress of his posthumously published "Studies on the Laws of Motion of Social Development" (), which he began to work on in 1891. The philosophically oriented "Studies" consisted of the parts "Basic Concepts and Classification", "Contexts and Laws", and "Individual Cultural Phenomena". His aim was to revise and further develop Karl Marx's theory of scientific socialism with a more constitutive-constructive theory.

In Liebknecht's opinion, Marx had limited his theory too much to the era of capitalism and therefore had not been able to grasp the complexity of social development. He considered Marx's philosophical and economic foundations to be wrong because they were limited to the materialistic concept of history. Only through the spiritual and psychic essence of economic relations was a connection to human development possible, and through this alone would they be social phenomena. He rejected the labour theory of value because, in his view, labor could not, as the result of some sort of economic 'spontaneous generation', create surplus value beyond its own intrinsic value. The value of goods, including labor, was determined instead by the average societal prerequisites of production. For Liebknecht exploitation was purely a problem of distribution and not of production, as Marx had claimed. Value, he argued, was not a fact of capitalist society because it existed before and after capitalist development. His system would better show that the exploitation of the proletariat would take place through force and discrimination in the distribution of the total production of society.

His universal approach was based – unlike Marx's – on concepts of a philosophy of nature. He saw human society as a unified organism following a higher instinct of development, with the goal of a new, all-encompassing humanism. For him the history of mankind was not determined by class struggles but by struggles for the distribution of social and political functions within a society. It was not a dialectical process, but an evolutionary process determined by objective and subjective factors. Objective factors were the gradual alignments of the various interest groups in a society arising from the fact that they were driven by insight into the nature and needs of society, and those would increasingly satisfy individual needs. Subjective factors were the conscious political actions of politicians in the interests of higher development, something that would be triggered by the social movement of the proletariat – as a form of development and struggle of the new humanism – because all other social groups would have to give up part of their privileges.

For Liebknecht the evolutionary process included not only continuing education but also cultural and social setbacks. The revolution would be only one particularly intense stage within the evolutionary process. Liebknecht's utopian and vague goal of a new humanism had no appeal to the masses during the November Revolution.

Historian Klaus Gietinger did not think that Liebknecht was a Marxist. It was not entirely clear to him whether Liebknecht read Marx himself or learned about him second hand. Gietinger calls Liebknecht's work, which remained fragmentary, "anti-Marx".

Memorials

The annual Liebknecht-Luxemburg commemorations in Berlin marking the anniversary of their murders on the second Sunday in January are attended by a wide range of left-leaning groups, parties and individuals.

At the site of the 1916 antiwar demonstration, Friedrich Ebert Jr., Lord Mayor of Greater Berlin (East) and member of the Politburo of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (East German Communist Party), unveiled the cornerstone of a monument to Karl Liebknecht on 13 August 1951, the 80th anniversary of his birth. The tribute took place within the framework of the Third World-Festival of Youth and Students and was part of a campaign against the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). But the memorial on Potsdamer Platz was not completed before the erection of the Berlin Wall.

The sealing off of the sector border to West Berlin began on 13 August 1961. The memorial cornerstone stood in the border strip at the forward wall until the reunification of Germany in 1990. With planning for the new Potsdamer Platz, the memorial was removed and put into storage in 1995. In 2002 the district council of Berlin's Mitte district advocated for the pedestal's reinstallation as a document of the city's history and of how Germany's socialist and anti-militarist traditions were dealt with.

In the Soviet Union there was a Karl Liebknecht School for German emigrant children in Moscow. The Russian warship Karl Liebknecht bore his name, as did several places in Russia. Karlo-Libknekhtovsk in Soviet Ukraine was also named after him.

In East Germany, Liebknecht was honored as a "mastermind of socialism". This led to the erection of numerous monuments in his honor as well as the naming of streets and schools after him. Some of these were renamed after the reunification of Germany in 1990, while others retained their names.

References

Further reading
 Timeline of Karl Liebknecht's  life (in German), at the Lebendiges Museum Online.
 Helmut Trotnow, Karl Liebknecht, 1871–1919: A Political Biography, Olympic Marketing Corp, 1984, .
 Emile Burns, Karl Liebknecht, London: Martin Lawrence, 1934.
 Karl Liebknecht, "The Future Belongs to the People" Leopold Classic Library, 2015.
 H. Wohlgemuth, Karl Liebknecht, Dietz Verlag, 1975.
 Annelies Laschitza, Die Liebknechts: Karl und Sophie – Politik und Familie, Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch, 2009.
 Sara Ann Sewell, "Mourning Comrades: Communist Funerary Rituals in Colonge during the Weimar Republic", German Studies Review, 32(3) 2009, 527–548.
 Eric D. Weitz, Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State.  Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997.
 Ottokar Luban, "The Role of the Spartacist Group after 9 November 1918 and the Formation of the KPD", in: Ralf Hoffrogge and Norman LaPorte (eds.), Weimar Communism as Mass Movement 1918–1933, London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2017, pp. 45–65.
 Karl Liebknecht's works (in English) at the Marxists Internet Archive.

External links

 Karl Liebknecht Internet Archive. Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 21 April 2010.

1871 births
1919 deaths
Politicians from Leipzig
Politicians from the Kingdom of Saxony
Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians
Communist Party of Germany politicians
Members of the 13th Reichstag of the German Empire
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Left communists
German Marxists
German anti–World War I activists
People of the German Revolution of 1918–1919
Leipzig University alumni
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni
University of Würzburg alumni
German torture victims
Executed German revolutionaries
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1919 murders in Germany
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Karl Liebknecht


Kutub al-Sittah are the main hadith collections in Sunni Islam meaning the six books. They are sometimes called the Sahih Sittah. They consist of Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan as-Sughra, Sunan Abu Dawood, Jami al-Tirmidhi and Sunan ibn Majah. Huraira is the most quoted person in these books.

References

Hadith Books

Kutub al-Sittah


Sellwood Riverfront Park is a city park of about  in southeast Portland, in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located at Southeast Spokane Street and Oaks Parkway, the park has paths, picnic tables, a stage, a boat dock on the Willamette River, restrooms, and a dog off-leash area.

Description and history
Formerly a mill site overgrown with Himalayan blackberries, the south half of the park includes a parking lot, the boat launches, and a large grassy area suitable for picnics and lawn games. The north end of the park is a native-plant wetland and riparian zone featuring marsh plants and willows. A formal path winds through the wetland, home to frogs and dragonflies, and an informal path follows the river bank toward Oaks Amusement Park to the north. Running parallel to Oaks Parkway along the east side of the park is the Springwater Corridor, a hiking and biking trail linking the park to Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge and downtown Portland, as well as the amusement park. Directly east of the park on the far side of the Springwater Corridor is Sellwood Park. The Macadam Bay Club is across the river from the park, and slightly north of the club lies Butterfly Park.

Portland Parks & Recreation arranges free, sponsored, public concerts in the park during the summer. Performances in 2010, all held on Monday evenings, consisted of four separate concerts, one apiece devoted to soul music, gospel and rhythm and blues (R&B), alternative pop, and rock.

References

External links

Off-leash area map

1969 establishments in Oregon
Parks in Portland, Oregon
Protected areas established in 1969
Sellwood-Moreland, Portland, Oregon
Urban public parks

Sellwood Riverfront Park


The Feller Bach is a right tributary of the Moselle River in Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany). Its source is in the Hunsrück mountains. It flows through the villages Lorscheid (Verbandsgemeinde Ruwer), Fell and Riol (Verbandsgemeinde Schweich). It joins the Moselle in Riol.

At the left there is the Thommer Bach in the Nossernvalley with the Fell Exhibition Slate Mine (Besucherbergwerk Fell).

Geography of Rhineland-Palatinate
Rivers of Germany

Feller Bach


Manganate normally means the MnO42- ion. It is a bright green ion. It is made during the making of permanganates. It is a weak reducing agent and moderate oxidizing agent. They are similar to the sulfate (SO42-) and chromate (CrO42-) ions. Potassium manganate is an example.

Related pages
Manganese compounds

Ions

Manganate


Karst Tates (March 6, 1971 – May 1, 2009) was a Dutch man who tried to harm the Dutch Royal Family (including Willem Alexander and Beatrix). He tried to do this by making his car collide with the Royal Bus. This event happened in Apeldoorn, Netherlands on 30 April, 2009, the Dutch national holiday of Queen's Day (Koninginnedag). He did not succeed, but killed seven people who were watching the festivities and himself.

According to a policeman who claimed having talked to Tates, Tates said immediately after the crash that he had wanted to hit the members of the Royal Family that had just passed there in an open bus, because Willem-Alexander was a racist and a fascist in his view. After having been brought to hospital, Tates died from his wounds.

1971 births
2009 deaths
Dutch people
Murderers who committed suicide

Karst Tates


Middle Fell is a hill or fell in the English Lake District. It is a satellite of Seatallan standing above the northern shore of Wastwater. Middle Fell can be climbed from Greendale near the foot of Wastwater, and a fine view of the lake backed by the Wastwater Screes is visible from the summit.

Topography
The Western Fells occupy a triangular sector of the Lake District, bordered by the River Cocker to the north east and Wasdale to the south east. Westwards the hills diminish toward the coastal plain of Cumberland. At the central hub of the high country are Great Gable and its satellites, while two principal ridges fan out on either flank of Ennerdale, the western fells in effect being a great horseshoe around this long wild valley. Middle Fell is an outlier of the southern arm.

The main watershed runs broadly westwards from Great Gable, dividing the headwaters of Ennerdale and Wasdale. Travelling in this direction the principal hills are Kirk Fell, Pillar, Scoat Fell, Haycock and Caw Fell. Haycock sends out a long southern ridge terminating in Seatallan and Seatallan in turn has a south eastern spur. This is Middle Fell.

Middle Fell begins at the unnamed col on the eastern face of Seatallan at a height of 1,525 ft. This is its only connection with other high ground, being constrained on three sides by deep valleys. To the west, separating Middle Fell from its parent, is Greendale Gill. This begins at Greendale Tarn, nestled into the steep face of Middle Fell. The tarn, around 30 ft deep, sits in a long narrow bowl, looked down on by a collection of huge boulders.

To the east is Nether Beck, flowing down to the Lake through its long valley. On the other side are the long southern slopes of Red Pike. The southern slopes of Middle Fell fall to the shore of Wastwater, claiming a long section of the northern shore between Nether Beck Bridge and the Greendale road junction. Goat Gill and Smithy Beck provide further drainage on this side.

Middle Fell is steep on all sides. The western face is rough with areas of scree and boulders, but generally free of crags. The longer eastern slopes by contrast have tier upon tier of rocks. Long, Water, Goat, Foegill and Iron Crags are the principal features. The ridge northward to Seatallan is broad, levelling out onto grass after an initial rough descent.

Geology
The summit area is composed of the dacitic, welded lapilli tuff of the Lincomb Tarns Formation. Andesitic lapilli tuff occurs on either end of the ridge, together with small intrusions of basalt and dolerite. Underlying this is the Birker Fell Formation of plagioclase-phyric andesite lavas.

Summit
The summit cairn is sited on a small rock outcrop, close to the beginning of the ridge-end descent to the south. The view across Wastwater to the screes of Whin Rigg and Illgill Head is excellent. Also in view is the head of Wasdale and the more distant Coniston Fells. Black Combe appears far off to the south west.

Ascents
The simplest ascent is via a path up the nose of the ridge, beginning at Greendale. A longer alternative climbs the beck to Greendale Tarn before doubling back to the summit along the Seatallan ridge. A circular tour can be contrived via Seatallan and Buckbarrow.

References

Fells of the Lake District
Borough of Copeland

Middle Fell


Hickam Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) installation, named in honor of aviation pioneer Lieutenant Colonel Horace Meek Hickam. The installation merged in 2010 with Naval Station Pearl Harbor to become part of the newly formed Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, on the island of Oʻahu in the State of Hawaiʻi. The base neighbors Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and currently shares runways with the airport for its activities and operations.

Major units

Hickam is home to the 15th Wing (15 WG) and 67 partner units including Headquarters of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), Hawaii Air National Guard and the 154th Wing (154 WG) of the Hawaii Air National Guard. The Air Mobility Command's 515th Air Mobility Operations Wing (515 AMOW) provides tactical and strategic airlift within the Pacific region.

In addition, Hickam supports 140 tenant and associate units.

The 15th Wing is composed of four groups each with specific functions. The 15th Operations Group (15 OG) controls all flying and airfield operations. The 15th Maintenance Group (15 MXG) performs aircraft and aircraft ground equipment maintenance. The 15th Mission Support Group (15 MSG) has a wide range of responsibilities but a few of its functions are Security, Civil Engineering, Communications, Personnel Management, Logistics, Services and Contracting support. The 15th Medical Group (15 MDG) provides medical and dental care.
 15th Operations Group (Tail Code: HH)
 15th Operations Support Squadron
 25th Air Support Operations Squadron
 535th Airlift Squadron (C-17 Globemaster III)
 65th Airlift Squadron (C-37B)
 19th Fighter Squadron (F-22 Raptor)
 15th Maintenance Group
 15th Medical Group
 15th Wing Staff Agencies
The 535th Airlift, 96th Air Refueling, and 19th Fighter Squadrons are each hybrid units joined with the Hawaii Air National Guard's 204th Airlift, and
199th Fighter Squadrons, respectively. These units are structured according to the USAF Total Force Integration (TFI) concept, and as such have both an active duty Commander and
a Guard Commander. They share missions as well as equipment.
 Major Tenant Units
154th Wing Hawaii Air National Guard
 515th Air Mobility Operations Wing

History

Origins
In 1934, the Army Air Corps saw the need for another airfield in Hawaii when Luke Field on Ford Island became too congested for both air operations and operation of the Hawaiian Air Depot.  of land and fishponds adjacent to John Rodgers Airport and Fort Kamehameha were purchased by the War Department from the Bishop, Damon and Queen Emma estates for a new air depot and air base at a cost of $1,095,543.78. It was the largest peacetime military construction project in the United States to that date and continued through 1941.

The Quartermaster Corps was assigned the job of constructing a modern airdrome from tangled algaroba brush and sugar cane fields adjacent to Pearl Harbor. Planning, design, and supervision of construction were all conducted by Capt. Howard B. Nurse of the QMC. The site consisted of ancient, emerged coral reef covered by a thin layer of soil, with the Pearl Harbor entrance channel and naval reservation marking its western and northern boundaries, John Rodgers Airport (HIA today) to the east, and Fort Kamehameha on the south. The new airfield was dedicated on 31 May 1935 and named in honor of Lt Col Horace Meek Hickam, a distinguished aviation pioneer who was killed in an aircraft accident the previous November 5 when his Curtiss A-12 Shrike, 33-250, hit an obstruction during night landing practice on the unlighted field at Fort Crockett in Galveston, Texas and overturned. Construction was still in progress when the first contingent of 12 men and four aircraft under the command of 1st Lt Robert Warren arrived from Luke Field on September 1, 1937.

Hickam Field was completed and officially activated on September 15, 1938. By November 1939 all Air Corps troops and activities—including most facilities such as the chapel, enlisted housing, and theater, which were dismantled and ferried in sections across the channel—had transferred from Luke Field with the exception of the Hawaiian Air Depot, which required another year to move. In early 1939 construction began on the main barracks, a single three-story nine-winged structure to house 3,200 men at a cost of $1,039,000. Personnel began moving into the barracks in January 1940, and by its completion on 30 September 1940, it was fully occupied and the largest structure of any kind on an American military installation. It included barber shops, a 24-hour medical dispensary, a laundry, a post exchange, multiple squadron dayrooms, and a massive consolidated mess hall at its center, and thus was dubbed the "Hickam Hotel".

Hickam was the principal army airfield in Hawaii and the only one large enough to accommodate the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. In connection with defense plans for the Pacific, aircraft were brought to Hawaii throughout 1941 to prepare for potential hostilities. The first mass flight of bombers (21 B-17Ds) from Hamilton Field, California arrived at Hickam on 14 May 1941. By December, the Hawaiian Air Force had been an integrated command for slightly more than one year and consisted of 754 officers and 6,706 enlisted men, with 233 aircraft assigned at its three primary bases: Hickam, Wheeler Field (now Wheeler Army Airfield), and Bellows Field (now Bellows Air Force Station).

World War II

When the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Oahu on 7 December 1941, its planes bombed and strafed Hickam to eliminate air opposition and prevent American aircraft from following them back to their aircraft carriers. Hickam suffered extensive damage and aircraft losses, with 189 people killed and 303 wounded. Notable casualties included nine Honolulu Fire Department (HFD) firefighters (three killed, six injured) who fought fires at Hickam during the attack; they later received Purple Hearts for their heroic actions that day in peacetime history, the only civilian firefighters awarded as such to date.

During World War II, the base became a major center for training pilots and assembling aircraft. It also served as the hub of the Pacific aerial network, supporting transient aircraft ferrying troops and supplies to—and evacuating wounded from—the forward areas—a role it would reprise during the Korean and Vietnam wars and earning it the official nickname "America's Bridge Across the Pacific".

Cold War

After World War II, the Air Force in Hawaii consisted primarily of the Air Transport Command and its successor, the Military Air Transport Service (MATS), until 1 July 1957 when Headquarters Far East Air Forces completed its move from Japan to Hawai'i and was redesignated the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF). The 15th Air Base Wing, host unit at Hickam AFB, supported the Apollo astronauts in the 1960s and 1970s; Operation Homecoming (return of prisoners of war from Vietnam) in 1973; Operation Babylift / New Life (movement of nearly 94,000 orphans, refugees, and evacuees from Southeast Asia) in 1975; and NASA's Space Shuttle flights in the 1980s and 1990s. Hickam is home to the 65th Airlift Squadron which transports theater senior military leaders throughout the world in the C-37B and C-40 Clipper aircraft. In mid-2003, the 15th Air Base Wing (15 ABW) was converted to the 15th Airlift Wing (15 AW) as it prepared to bed down and fly the USAF's newest transport aircraft, the C-17 Globemaster III. The first Hickam-based C-17 arrived in February 2006, with seven more to follow during the year. The C-17s will be flown by the 535th Airlift Squadron.

On September 16, 1985, the Secretary of the Interior designated Hickam AFB a National Historic Landmark, recognizing its key role in the World War II Pacific campaign. A bronze plaque reflecting Hickam's "national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America" took its place among other memorials surrounding the base flagpole. Dominating the area is a large bronze tablet engraved with the names of those who died as a result of the 1941 attack. Other reminders of the attack can still be seen. Bullet holes mark many buildings in use, including World War II era hangars and the base hospital., including the tattered American flag that flew over the base that morning. It is on display in the lobby of the Pacific Air Forces Headquarters building, whose bullet-scarred walls (the structure was a barracks and mess hall known as "the Big Barracks" in 1941) have been carefully preserved as a reminder to never again be caught unprepared.

Accidents and incidents
On 22 March 1955, a United States Navy Douglas R6D-1 Liftmaster on descent to a landing in darkness and heavy rain strayed off course and crashed into Pali Kea Peak in the southern part of Oahus Waianae Range, killing all 66 people on board. It remains the worst air disaster in Hawaiis history and the deadliest heavier-than-air accident in the history of U.S. naval aviation.

Previous names
 Flying Field, Tracts A and B, near Ft Kamehameha, United States Army (Origins)
 Hickam Field, 21 May 1935
 Army Air Base, APO #953 (official designation, 16 May 1942 – 31 May 1946)
 Hickam Field, 1 Jun 1946
 Hickam Air Force Base, 26 March 1948 – 1 October 2010

Major commands to which assigned
 1935–1940: Hawaiian Dept, United States Army
 1940–1942: Hawaiian Air Force
 1942–1944: Seventh Air Force
 1944–1945: Army Air Forces Pacific Ocean Areas (Provisional)
 1945: Seventh Air Force
 1945–1946: Air Transport Command
 1946–1949: Pacific Air Command
 1949–1955: Military Air Transport Service
 1955–1957: Far East Air Forces
 1957–present: Pacific Air Forces

Geography
Hickam Air Force Base consists of , valued at more than $444 million. It was originally bounded on the north by Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, on the west by the Pearl Harbor entrance channel, on the south by Fort Kamehameha, and on the east by the airport complex. The original main gate is reached via Nimitz Highway (Hawaii Route 92) from Honolulu, and it shares its western terminus with the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard's main gate. This part of Nimitz Highway can be reached from the expressway Interstate H-1 (Exit 15) southeast from Halawa or west from Honolulu (Exit 15B) and from Kamehameha Highway (State Hawaii Route 99), the eastern termination of which is at Nimitz Highway.

The housing around the base is within the Hickam Housing CDP.

See also
 List of airports in Hawaii
 Hawaii World War II Army Airfields
 Arnold W. Braswell
 HABS/HAER documentation of Hickam Air Force Base for a listing of the documentation of Hickam Air Force Base Base by the Historic American Buildings Survey

References

 Arakaki, Leatrice R. and Kuborn, John R. (1991). 7 December 1941: The Air Force Story, Pacific Air Forces Office of History, Hickam AFB, Hawaii.
 Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. .
 Mueller, Robert (1989). Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982. USAF Reference Series. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History.
 Ravenstein, Charles A. (1984). Air Force Combat Wings Lineage and Honors Histories 1947–1977. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. .
 Rogers, Brian (2005). United States Air Force Unit Designations Since 1978. Hinkley, England: Midland Publications. .

External links

 Hickam Air Force Base
 History at Hickam
 Hickam AFB Installation Overview
 Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary

Installations of the United States Air Force in Hawaii
Airports in Hawaii
Art Deco airports
Art Deco architecture in Hawaii
Buildings and structures in Honolulu County, Hawaii
Installations of the United States Air National Guard
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Hawaii
National Historic Landmarks in Hawaii
Transportation in Honolulu County, Hawaii
Historic American Buildings Survey in Hawaii
National Register of Historic Places in Honolulu County, Hawaii
Space Shuttle Emergency Landing Sites
Military installations established in 1935
1935 establishments in Hawaii

Hickam Air Force Base