Page:Edward Aveling - Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Social-Democratic Movement in Germany (1896).djvu/11

 interview with Brentano, made up his mind that this worthy was secretly intriguing with the reaction, and he told Struve and Johann Philip Becker, his elders, of his belief. They, however, did not share it at that time, and in a few days he was arrested again, and his cutlass and pocket-knife taken from him, as the bold Brentano for two whole days affirmed, or swore, perhaps, that these deadly weapons were intended for him. At the expiration of the two whole days, Liebknecht was set free, just in time to take his share in the actual physical fighting in Baden. When our English audiences see and hear this pleasant, genial, benignant old gentleman, they will hardly believe that in 1848 he was bombardier in the battery of Becker. When the "Rebels" were defeated, Liebknecht made his way again into the sanctuary of Switzerland. This time to French Switzerland and Geneva. There he met for the first time Frederick Engels, who in the same warfare had served as an adjutant in Willich's volunteers.

The German Swiss Trade Union movement was at that time moving vigorously. Liebknecht tried to unify the trade unions on the basis of a Socialist programme. It was proposed to hold a Congress at Murten or Morat on Lake Morat. This gave the necessary pretext to the authorities, who straightway arrested Liebknecht again. This time they determined to get rid of him thoroughly, so he was carried to the French frontier by the Swiss police, handed over to the French police, escorted by them through France, and seen safely into a ship and packed off to England like a bale of contraband goods. This took place in February, 1850. Arrived in London, he for the first time made the personal acquaintance of Karl Marx and his family, and was an intimate and daily visitor at the rooms in Dean Street, Soho, nearly opposite the present Royalty Theatre, in which Marx was writing the "Kritik" and "The 18th Brumaire." Afterwards when times bettered a little, the Marx family moved to Grafton Terrace, Haverstock Hill, and Liebknecht with his belongings lived almost opposite the Mother Shipton in that neighbourheod. It is worth noticing, as showing Liebknecht's kindness and self-sacrifice that on one occasion—an occasion never forgotten by Marx—when Marx's wife was down with small-pox, Liebknecht, although he had a child of his own, took the Marx's children into his house.

In those days Liebknecht was very straightened in his