about $950,000,000. At that time the total indebtedness of the United States was approximately $26,597,000,000, or $249.38 per capita, the annual debt charges being about $8.38 per capita. It was estimated that at the close of the war at least 20,000,000 persons, and probably as many as 25,000,000, were holders of Liberty bonds. Although complete data were not available it seemed probable that the war loans of the United States were much more widely distributed among the population than those of any other country. By an Act of March 3 1919 Congress established a cumulative sinking fund amounting to 23 % annually of the aggregate total of the loans out- standing July I 1920, less the amount which had been invested in foreign Government securities.
For a study of the U.S. Government's financing of the war, see Jacob H. Hollander, War Borrowing (1919). (M. V.*)
LICHNOWSKY, PRINCE KARL MAX VON (1860- ), Ger- man diplomatist, was born March 8 1860 at Kreuzenort in Upper Silesia. He entered the German Foreign Office in 1884 and from 1904 to 1911 held secretarial posts in different German embassies abroad. In 1912 he was sent to London as ambassador, and remained at that post until the outbreak of the World War. He took part in the negotiations for a convention with Great Britain regarding the Bagdad railway and various colonial questions, which was on the point of being signed when the crisis of July and August 1914 became acute. Lichnowsky was convinced that for years the relations between Germany and Great Britain had been mismanaged and misunderstood by the Foreign Office in Berlin, and, in particular, he believed that Bethmann Hollweg and his advisers failed to appreciate the pacific attitude and in- tentions of Sir Edward Grey and the British Government during the crisis that ended in the World War. He embodied his views in the pamphlet entitled Meine Londoner Mission, which he circulated privately in manuscript among his German friends. This document came into the hands of a harebrained enthusi- ast, Capt. von Beerfclde, who was the means of its being pub- lished, without authorization, in 191 7. The publication exercised a very prejudicial effect upon the German war spirit and there were loud demands among the Conservative and National Liberals for the prosecution of the author. The Prussian Up- per House, of which Lichqpwsky was a member, passed a re- solution excluding him from that assembly. It became impos- sible for him to live in Germany, and he sought refuge in Switzerland.
LIEBKNECHT, KARL (1871-1919), German Socialist and revolutionary leader, was the son of Wilhelm Liebknecht (see 16.592). He was born in Aug. 1871 at Leipzig. In 1899 he qualified as a lawyer, and speedily became a prominent agitator on the extreme Left wing of the Socialist party. In 1907 he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for high treason. In the following year he was elected a member of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies; in 1912 he also became a member of the Reichstag, and on the outbreak of the World War he distinguished himself by the violent opposition which he offered to the policy of the Government and the successive votes of credit. Liebknecht was then expelled from the Social Democratic party and founded a faction of his own, which he called " die Sozialdemokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft." In 1916 he was once more arrested on a charge of high treason brought against him by the military au- thorities and was sentenced to four years' penal servitude. On the eve of the revolution in Oct. 1918 he was reprieved, and, on his release, at once put himself at the head of the Spartacists, the extreme revolutionary section in sympathy with Russian Bolshevism. He was once more arrested during the Spartacist insurrection in Jan. 1919, for which he was largely responsible. While he was being conveyed in a motor-car from the Govern- ment military headquarters in the west end of Berlin to the prison at Moabit he was shot down by his military escort while, as was subsequently alleged, he was attempting escape. His death, as well as that of his associate, Rosa Luxemburg, who perished on the same night at the hands of the soldiers or the mob, was constantly made a subject of reproach to the Govern- ment Socialists by the extreme Communist party.
LIÉGE (see 16.593). The pop. of the city (not including the suburbs) had risen from 168,532 in 1904 to 172,643 in 1913 but, according to a census estimate on Dec. 31 1920, had then fallen slightly below 165,000. During the World War factories and works were sacked by the Germans and the machinery either broken up or removed, but on the declaration of peace the work of restoration was undertaken with remarkable vigour. Apart from the main iron and steel works and the manufacture of arms, industrial development has been towards the production of zinc and automobiles, thousands of hands being employed in the latter industry. Previous to the war a School of Mines, Arts and Manu- factures had been established and an institute for research in electricity, the gift of Montefiore-Levy, had been founded.
Liege was the first serious obstacle to the German invasion when they violated Belgian neutrality in 1914. Gen. Leman, the military governor, commanded the defence force. On Aug. 16 the last fort capitulated and the passage of the Meuse was forced, but only after a serious delay of eight days to the Germans and after heavy losses. The forts were repaired by Krupp in 1914-5. On the night of Aug. 20 1914, under the pre- text of Gen. Kolewe, " Kommandantur," that his troops had been fired upon by Russian students, a massacre took place in the streets and 18 persons lost their lives. Many houses in the Rue des Pitteurs, the Place de 1'Universite, and Quai des Pecheurs were systematically fired by the German soldiery, and order was not restored for several days. Under the occupation, the indus- trial workers gave proof of their independence of spirifby refus- ing to take part in the manufacture of weapons for use on the western front, and resisted to the utmost the deportation which took place during 1915-6. At the close of war, the Place de 1'Universite was re-named Place du Vingt Aout to recall the scenes of Aug. 20 1914, and the Place Verte became the Place du Marechal Foch.
See Kurth, La Cite de Liege (3 vols., 1909-10).
THE SIEGE or 1914
The importance of the fortress at the opening of the World War lay in its control of the routes from the region of Aachen to that of Maubeuge, and until these routes were in German con- trol the assembly of the masses of the German I. and II. Army in the Belgian plain was impossible. The first phase of opera- tions was therefore an attempt to seize Liege and these routes by an immediate coup de main, delivered by troops which were brought from their normal stations at peace strength without waiting for reservists to rejoin.
The fortress was a ring-fortress of about 9 miles average diameter, lying astride the Mouse and its tributaries, the Ourthe and the Vesdre. All these rivers were in deep-cut narrow valleys, which on the right bank of the Meuse lie some 350-400 ft. below the plateau level. On the left bank the country in the vicinity of the forts was more undulating than scarped, but on the side opposed to Germany the works occupied commanding eminences, but imperfectly controlled the denies of the rivers, which, however, were in themselves highly defensible by the ordinary methods of field warfare. From the Meuse above Liege, over the Ourthe to the Vesdre valley, the country forming the edge of the Ardennes is heavily wooded. The northernmost forts of the ring could just reach the Dutch frontier line with their artillery. The Prussian frontier to the E. was little beyond the range of Fort Evegnee. Liege was, therefore, both an effective obstacle to manoeuvre and a tempting target for surprise attack; and these contrasted characters made it difficult for the Belgian military authorities to decide in advance whether it should be considered as a stronghold to be equipped as a self-sufficing entrenched camp or only as a barrier position. In the event, it was treated .as the latter.
The defences consisted of a ring of large and small self-contained forts of the well-known Brialmont type, that is, commanding concrete masses with all guns under armour, each fort being disguised to participate both in the distant and in the close defence without differentiation of the guns. In the intervals, therefore, there was no peace-time provision for the long-range batteries, and the forts themselves possessed no element corresponding to the traditore batteries and Bourgcs casemates characteristic of the "infantry" type of fort. Thus, the power
