Chapter IV: Of Provincial and Communal Institutions (7)

"Otto von Bismarck-Schoenhausen, born April 1, 1815, was a
Junker [squire, aristocrat] from top to toe, but from the very
first, as was the case with all the Junkers of Prussia,
Pomerania and the Mark, his life had been thoroughly merged in
that of the Prussian state. He had first called attention to
himself in 1847 at the general diet (Vereinigter Landtag]. In
1849 he came forward in the chamber of deputies, in 1850 in
the Union Parliament at Frankfort—always as the goad of the
extreme right, and each time his appearance gave the signal
for a violent conflict. Perfectly unsparing of all his
opponents, very anti-liberal but very Prussian, very
national-minded, in spite of being such a Junker, Bismarck
flared up with especial violence against the democratic
attacks on the army and the monarchy. … To Frankfort Bismarck
came as the sworn defender of the policy of reaction. The
Austrian party, thinking him to be a man of no consequence,
greeted his coming with joy. He soon made himself unpleasant
enough, especially to the Austrian presidents of the federal
diet. … He refused to accept the servile role which Austria
had apportioned to him; his objections in matters of form and
on unimportant occasions prepared the great fundamental
anti-Austrian uprising. A feeling of pain came over him at the
sight of the Prussian submission to Austria, but at the same
time he was seized with a thirst for vengeance. … In
Frankfort, too, he learned thoroughly to know German affairs:
the utter weakness of the Confederation and the misery of
having so many petty states. … To his mind the goal of
Prussian policy was to drive Austria out of Germany and then
to bring about a subordination of the other German states to
Prussia. … Nor did he make the least secret of his warlike
attitude towards Austria. When an Austrian arch-duke, who was
passing through, once asked him maliciously whether all the
many decorations which he wore on his breast had been won by
bravery in battle: 'All gained before the enemy, all gained
here in Frankfort,' was the ready answer. In the year 1859
came the complications between Austria and Italy, the latter
being joined by France. This Italian war between Austria and
France thoroughly roused the German nation. … Many wanted to
protect Austria, others showed a disinclination to enter the
lists for Austria's rule over Italy. … Bismarck's advice at
this time was that Prussia should side against Austria and
should join Italy. In the spring of 1859, however, he was
transferred from Frankfort on the Main to St. Petersburg: 'put
on ice on the Neva,' as he said himself, 'like champagne for
future use.' … In June 1859, in view of the Italian war, it
had been decreed in Prussia that the army should be mobilized
and kept in readiness to fight. … When, later, in the summer
of this year, the probability of war had gone by, the Landwehr
was not dismissed but, on the contrary, a beginning was made
with a new formation of regiments which had already been
planned and talked over. … On February 10, 1860, the question
of the military reorganization was laid before the diet, where
doubts and objections were raised against it. … On the 4th of
May, at the same time when the law about civil marriages was
rejected, the land-tax, by which the cost of the
army-reorganization was to have been covered, was refused by
the Upper House. The liberals were disappointed and angered.
The ministry was soon in a bad dilemma: should it give way to
the liberal opposition and dissolve the newly formed
regiments? The expedient that was thought of seemed clever
enough but it led in reality to a blind alley and was
productive of the most baneful consequences. The ministry
moved a single grant of 9,000,000 thalers for the purpose of
completing the army and maintaining its efficiency on the
former footing. The motion was carried on May 15, 1860, by a
vote of 315 against two. … The new elections for the house of
deputies in December 1861 produced a diet of an entirely
different stamp from that of 1858. … The moderate majority was
now to atone for the sin of not having come to any real
arrangement with the ministry on the army question; for the
new majority came to Berlin with the full intention of
crushing the army-reform. … The chief task of the newly formed
ministry of 1862 was to solve the military question, for the
longer it had remained in abeyance the more complicated had
the matter become.
{3778}
The newly-elected diet had been in session since the 19th of
May. The majority was determined to draw the conclusion from
the provisional nature of the army-reorganization grants that
no such grants were any longer to be made. The battle cry of
the majority of the diet was that all further demands of the
government for the military reform were to be refused. … But
how would this result? … The new officers had an actionable,
legal claim to their salaries; who was to pay them? The budget
for 1862 was already in great part expended. … Were the
ministers themselves to pay the damages? Such seems to have
been the idea of the fanatics in the parliament. … By
September 1862 the belligerent and uncompromising attitude of
the liberal majority had induced King William to lay aside his
earlier distrust of Bismarck. He allowed him to be summoned
and placed him at the head of the ministry. Most stirring was
the first audience which Bismarck had with his king in the
Park of Babelsberg on September 23. The king first of all laid
before Bismarck the declaration of his abdication. Very much
startled, Bismarck said: 'To that it should never be allowed
to come!' The king replied that he had tried everything and
knew no other alternative. His convictions, contrary to which
he could not act, contrary to which he could not reign,
forbade him to relinquish the army-reorganization. Thereupon
Bismarck explained to the king his own different view of the
matter and closed with the request that his Majesty might
abandon all thoughts of abdication. The king then asked the
minister if he would undertake to carry on the government
without a majority and without a budget. Bismarck answered
both questions in the affirmative and with the utmost
decision. … The alliance between the king and his minister was
closed and cemented on that 23rd of September in Babelsberg to
endure for all time. … To this bond of allegiance which joined
king and minister, Prussia and Germany owe all the glory that
has fallen to their share. … In the summer of 1863 was
originated the famous Austrian project of reform. … The
proposals of Prussia that there should be one central head of
Germany with popular representation from the whole nation was
entirely thrust aside and, on the contrary, a federal
directory was recommended with a parliament of delegates from
the separate diets. … In spite of Prussia's absence the
assembly of princes took place at Frankfort. King John of
Saxony again travelled to Baden to urge King William to attend
but the latter again declined. Not but that this refusal cost
him a great struggle. … Bismarck had to threaten with his
resignation before he could make the king remain firm; … he
did not breathe freely again until the Saxon king had taken
his leave. Then with his powerful hand he demolished a plate
of glasses that stood before him; that cooled his anger and
his excitement and he was once more the polished courtier. …
Bismarck's policy now met with a great piece of good fortune.
Through the death of the king of Denmark, namely, the
Schleswig-Holstein question was forced to a final solution and
this offered Bismarck an opportunity of trying his diplomatic
skill, while at the same time it gave the Prussian army a
brilliant occasion for showing what it could accomplish. In a
series of bold moves Bismarck steered through the
complications of the Schleswig-Holstein question; it is the
first stage in his great career of victory. … But in spite of
all the successes of the Danish war the diet continued in its
opposition. A loan for the war was refused; any loan made
without the consent of the diet was declared unconstitutional
and not binding. … The subsequent grant for the costs of the
war was refused. … Naturally the Prussian war-budget could not
be made up, and the land continued to be governed without a
budget. The details of the debates on these subjects are today
only of minor interest. Much time was lost in mutual insults
between Bismarck on the one hand and Virchow and Gneist on the
other. Bismarck challenged Virchow to a duel, Virchow refused
the challenge. … By April 1866 Bismarck had cleared the
political field for his war against Austria; the necessity for
that war had long been apparent to him. … That the German
question could only be settled by the separation of Austria
from Germany and that this separation could only be brought
about by a war between Prussia and Austria had, in the course
of years, become clear to all patriots who knew anything of
history. With incomparable perspicuity the statesman who had
led Prussia's policy since the autumn of 1862 had grasped the
idea and had seen to carrying it out with the whole force of
his iron will. Already in the autumn of 1863 he had drawn up
the program of what he intended that the German Confederation
should be. … The history of the world had not for centuries
seen such a war as 1866. … It was then that King William and
his minister, crowned with victories, asked the Prussian diet
for indemnity: i. e. for an acknowledgment of their good
purposes in spite of their illegal acts. … In point of fact
the diet had been wrong and the king and his minister had
acted wisely and well; in point of form they had broken the
letter of the law. … In the years 1862-1866 Bismarck had held
off Napoleon with incomparable political skill. He had always
refused the French demands, but so that Napoleon in each case
could cherish some hope and could venture again and again to
approach Prussia with some new lure. Not until August 1866 did
Napoleon receive a thorough and open repulse. Bismarck then
answered every threat of the French with the counter-threat of
a German war. The refusal of Bismarck and his king brought
Napoleon into a very bad position as regarded the French
people. In the minds of the latter a war against Germany was a
foregone conclusion since 1866. … On the 8th of July (1870)
the French envoy came to King William in Ems and demanded that
he should forbid Prince Leopold to accept the crown of Spain.
… It is a popular fiction that the king turned his back on
Benedetti, or that he answered that he 'had nothing more to
say to him,' or that he out and out refused him an audience.
An extra of the German papers of July 14th did indeed read to
that effect: Bismarck himself had drawn up the notice for the
papers. He had made no false additions, but here and there he
had erased and omitted some of the words spoken at Ems, thus
rendering possible at least the whole false conception of the
matter. Bismarck ventured on such a step, having clearly
counted the costs; the result showed how closely he had made
his calculations. …
{3779}
It was the war of 1870 that fundamentally changed the
relations of the chancellor to the mass of the people. After
1871 he was immensely popular. … People believed that he could
do anything, that he could make possible what was impossible
for other men. … Bismarck was very soon surrounded with an
almost mythical halo."

_W. Maurenbrecher,
Gründung des Deutschen Reichs
(translated from the German),
pages 13-258._

See, also, GERMANY:
A. D. 1861-1866, and after (pages 1537-1548).

GERMANY: A. D. 1863.
Formation of the first Socialist party by Lassalle.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1862-1864 (page 2949).

GERMANY: A. D. 1870-1874.
The "Kulturkampf" in its first stages.
Speeches of Bismarck.

"For reasons relating to its own internal affairs the state,
even though it took no special attitude to the dogma of
infallibility in itself, could not avoid being drawn into the
conflicts which that dogma was bound to call forth between its
upholders and its opponents. It was the duty of the state to
prevent the evil results to its citizens of the anathema which
the bishops hurled at those who denied the infallibility; it
was necessary for it to interfere and, by introducing civil
marriages, to render marriage possible to those apostates who
were not allowed to receive the sacraments; it was necessary
for it to protect in the exercise of their office those of its
public teachers who rejected the new dogma, even if their
spiritual superiors should declare them unfit to hold such
office. In cases, finally, where whole congregations, or
majorities of them, remained true to the old teachings it was
necessary for the state to protect them in the possession of
their churches of which the bishops tried to deprive them.
Already in November and December 1870 the first cases had
occurred with regard to which the Prussian minister of
education had been obliged to draw these conclusions.
Professors of the Bonn and Breslau universities who, because
they denied the infallibility, had been forbidden to lecture
by Archbishop Melchers of Cologne and Prince-bishop Forster of
Breslau, appealed to the protection of the minister. Certain
pastors and teachers of gymnasiums, who had joined in a
declaration drawn up at Nuremberg (August 25, 1870) against
the new dogma, and who had in consequence been threatened with
ecclesiastical punishments, did the same. Mühler had no other
course than to declare that, so far as officials appointed by
the state were concerned, the state must maintain its
exclusive disciplinary power, and that he would continue in
future to regard as catholics those whom he had so regarded
before the decree of infallibility was passed, even if they
saw fit to reject that dogma. Similar conflicts broke out in
Bavaria where the minister, Lutz, upheld the pastor Renftle,
of Mering near Augsburg, in the enjoyment of his benefices in
the face of the bishop, and where the Munich professors,
Döllinger, Friedrich, Huber and others courageously refused
such assent to the dogma as the Archbishop Scherr, on October
20, 1870, demanded from them. Döllinger's written
justification of himself, published on March 20, 1871, seemed
to give a firm basis and a distinguished leader to the whole
movement. … Twelve thousand signatures were collected in a few
weeks for an address to the king of Bavaria and an appeal was
made to the catholics of Germany, Austria and Switzerland in
favor of common action. … Meanwhile the other party had been
busy enough. Hundreds and hundreds of ecclesiastics protested
against Döllinger's assertion that thousands of the clergy
thought as he did. A lay assembly in Munich, held on April 23,
which expressed itself in favor of infallibility, was the
forerunner of countless similar ones. … Already some weeks
earlier the archbishop of Munich had ventured to excommunicate
Döllinger. … On August 27 Lutz sent a writing to Archbishop
Scherr claiming the right to regulate afresh the relations
with the church as the dogma of infallibility was something
essentially new: at the same time he announced that the
government would do its utmost to protect the upholders of the
old teachings and to secure the independence of civil affairs
from ecclesiastical right of compulsion. In Munich such
decisive measures would probably not have been adopted had not
matters in Prussia taken a similar turn. The conflict had been
brought to a climax here by the demand of Bishops Krementz and
Ermeland that two teachers in Braunsberg, Wollmann and
Treibel, should be dismissed for denying the infallibility.
This demand the minister had refused on March 18, 1871, and on
June 29 had even given his approval to the regulation that
scholars who should obey the orders of the bishop to absent
themselves from the class in religious instruction of these
teachers should be expelled from the gymnasium. The bishop had
retaliated by excommunicating the two teachers in question, as
well as Professor Michelis, one of the chief opponents of
infallibility. In the dioceses of Cologne, Paderborn and
Breslau also, the conflicts had become more fierce on account
of excommunications imposed by the bishops. Still more
important was it that the chancellor of the empire had now
personally entered the lists. As his cool attitude already
before the council had given reason to expect, the Vatican
dogma did not much trouble him. All the more alarming seemed
to him the agitation which the clergy were stirring up among
the Polish nobles, and the league of Guelphism and Catholicism
as illustrated by Windhorst's position in the Centre. … He
[Bismarck] caused the announcement to be made in an article of
the Kreuzzeitung that the government would not only continue
on the defensive against the Centre, but in turn would proceed
to attack it. The ultramontanes had better consider whether
such a struggle could turn out to the advantage of the Roman
Church. If, he concluded, three hundred years ago Teutonism in
Germany was stronger than Romanism, how much stronger would it
be now when Rome is no longer the capital of the world, but on
the point of becoming the capital of Italy, and when the
German imperial crown no longer rests on the head of a
Spaniard but of a German prince. … In the Federal Council Lutz
moved an amendment to the criminal code which should threaten
any clergyman with imprisonment up to two years if he should
misuse his office and discuss state affairs so as to disturb
the peace. … This 'pulpit-paragraph' was accepted with 179 to
108 votes and became law December 14th 1871. … The Prussian
diet was opened on November 27, 1871, with the announcement of
four new laws which should regulate marriages, the
registration of civil personal matters, the withdrawal from
existing churches, and the supervision of schools. …
{3780}
The conservative party was in wild excitement over these
measures and the Kreuzzeitung became the organ of decided
opposition, especially against the school-supervision law
which was chosen as the first object of attack. The
conservatives collected petitions from all parts of the land
to kill this law which they prophesied would make the schools
a tool of atheism, a hot-bed of revolution, unnationality and
immorality. They succeeded in getting together more than
300,000 signatures. … At the first reading in the House of
Deputies the school-supervision law was passed, although by a
majority of only 25 votes. … At the second reading the
majority increased to 52. … The chief struggle was expected in
the House of Lords. … The vote here was favorable beyond all
hopes, resulting on March 8th in a majority in favor of the
law almost as great as that in the House of Deputies. … By no
means calm was the attitude of the pope towards the increasing
complications, and when, a few weeks later, on June 24th,
1872, he received the German 'Leseverein' in Rome he
complained bitterly of the prime minister of a powerful
government who, after marvellous successes in war, should have
placed himself at the head of a long-planned persecution of
the church; a step which would undoubtedly tarnish the glory
of his former triumphs. 'Who knows if the little stone shall
not soon be loosened from above that shall destroy the foot of
the Colossus!' The chief cause of this embitterment lay in the
expulsion of the Jesuits which had meanwhile been decreed by
the diet. … The more the national opposition to the Roman
claims increased, the more passionate did the frame of mind of
the ultramontanes become; and also, in no small degree, of the
pope. An allocution addressed to the cardinals on December 22,
1872, surpassed in violence anything that had yet been heard.
… Even Reichensperger found it advisable in excusing a
vehemence that thus went beyond all bounds to call to mind
that the Latinized style of the papal chancery was not to be
taken too literally. The German government, after such a
demonstration, had no other alternative than to recall the
last representative of its embassy to the papal court. …
Already in November Minister Falk had laid before the House a
draft of a law concerning the limits of ecclesiastical
punishments and disciplinary measures; on January 9, 1873,
followed the drafts of three new laws. … Still more
passionately than in the debate concerning the change in the
Constitution did Bismarck come forward in the discussion of
April 24-28. … Windhorst and Schorlemer-Alst answered him back
in kind. … With violent attacks on Bismarck they prophesied
that these Draconic laws would rebound against the passive
opposition of the people; that dawn was glimmering in men's
minds and that the victory of the Church was near. To the
great majority of the German people, who had followed the
political-ecclesiastical debates with the liveliest interest,
such assurances seemed almost laughable. They felt sure of
victory now that Bismarck himself had seized the standard with
such decision. The 'May Laws' which the king signed on May 11,
1873, were considered a weapon sure to be effectual, and even
the advanced-liberals, who had followed many of the steps of
the Government with hesitation and doubt, declared in an
appeal to their electors on March 23 that the conflict had
assumed the proportions of a great struggle for enlightenment
(Kulturkampf) in which all mankind were concerned, and that
they themselves, in junction with the other liberal parties,
would accordingly support the Government. … On August 7 (1873)
Pius IX sent a letter to the emperor under pretext of having
heard that the latter did not sympathize with the latest
measures of his government. He declared that such measures
seemed to aim at the annihilation of Catholicism and warned
him that their final result would be to undermine the throne.
He deduced his right to issue this warning from the fact that
he was bound to tell the truth to all, even to non-catholics:
for in one way or another—exactly how this was not the place
to make clear—everyone who had received baptism belonged to
the pope. The emperor answered on September 3rd in a most
dignified tone. … 'We can not pass over in silence the remark
that everyone who has been baptized belongs to the pope. The
evangelical faith which I, as your Holiness must know, like my
forefathers and together with the majority of my subjects,
confess, does not allow us to accept any other Mediator in our
relations with God save our Lord Jesus Christ.' … Among
protestants this royal answer was greeted with jubilant
acclamations and even in foreign lands it found a loud echo.
The aged Earl Russell organized a great meeting in London on
January 27, 1874. … Soon after the opening of the Prussian
diet Falk could bring forward the draft of a law which handed
over to state-officials [Standesbeamte] all matters referring
to the celebration of marriages and the registration of civil
personal matters. This draft was sure from the first of a good
majority. … On March 9th 1874 the law could be proclaimed. In
the same month still the deputies Hinschius and Völk made a
motion in the diet to introduce civil marriages throughout the
whole empire. … It furthermore seemed necessary to take
stronger measures against bishops and priests unlawfully
appointed and whom the state had either deposed or refused to
recognize. The mildest measure was to remove them from their
dioceses or parishes, to banish them to certain fixed places
and, in the worst cases, to expel them altogether from the
lands of the empire. … The draft of the law (to this effect)
was warmly supported and at last, April 25, 1874, was accepted
by a vote of 214 to 208. … On July 13th, 1874, as Prince
Bismarck, who had gone to take the cure in Kissingen, was
driving to the Saline the twenty-one year old
cooper's-apprentice Kullmann, of Magdeburg, fired a pistol at
him, and wounded him in his right hand which he had just
raised for the purpose of saluting. At once arrested, Kullmann
declared to the chancellor, who visited him an hour later in
his prison, that he had wished to murder him on account of the
laws against the church. … The reading of ultramontane papers
and the violent discourses of the catholic clergy had driven
him to the deed. He atoned for it with fourteen years in the
House of Correction. Not alone did public opinion make
ultramontanism accountable for the deed, but Bismarck himself
laid very strong emphasis on the fact that the criminal had
spoken of the Centre as 'his party.' 'You may try as hard as
you please to rid yourselves of this murderer,' he cried out
in the diet of December 4th, 'he none the less holds fast to
your coat-tails!'"

_C. Bulle,
Geschichte der neuesten Zeit
(translated from the German),
volume 4, pages 20-41._

{3781}

At the Session of the Lower House of the Prussian Diet January
30, 1872, Deputy Windthorst spoke in opposition to the royal
order for the abolition of the separate Roman Catholic section
of the department of worship and public instruction and Prince
Bismarck, in reply, said: "The party to which the gentleman
belongs has contributed its share to the difficulty of
obliterating the denominational standpoint in matters
political. I have always considered it one of the most
monstrous manifestations in politics, that a religious faction
should convert itself into a political party. If all the other
creeds were to adopt the same principle, it would bring
theology into the parliamentary sessions and would make it a
matter of public debate. … It has always been one of my
fundamental principles that every creed ought to have full
liberty of development, perfect liberty of conscience. But for
all that I did not think it was a necessary corollary that a
census of each denomination be taken merely for the purpose of
giving each its proportional share in the Civil Service. …
Where will you stop? You begin with a Cabinet; then you count
the Chiefs of Division. I do not know what your ratio is—I
think you claim four to seven—nor do I care to know. The
subordinates in the Civil Service follow next. It is a fact,
moreover, that the Evangelicals are by no means united in one
denomination. The contrast is not merely between Protestants
and Catholics. The United Prussian Established Church, the
Lutheran Church, the Reformed Church, all have claims
analogous to those of the Catholics. As soon as we cut up the
state into denominational sections, giving each creed its
proportional share, then the large Jewish population will come
in for its part, a majority of which, distinguished by its
special capacity, skill and intelligence, is peculiarly fitted
for the business of the State. … We cannot admit the claim of
the ecclesiastical authorities to a further share in the
administration and in the interest of peace we are obliged to
restrict the share they already have; so that we may have room
beside each other and be obliged, as little as possible, to
trouble ourselves about theology in this place."

_Die politischen Reden des Fürsten Bismarck
(translated from the German),
volume 5, pages 231-240._

In the German Parliament, May 14, 1872, on the question of a
grant of 19,350 thalers for the German embassy at the See of
Rome, Prince Bismarck spoke as follows: "I can easily
understand how in considering this item of the estimates, the
opinion may be held that the expenditure for this embassy was
superfluous, as it does no longer consider the protection of
German citizens in foreign parts. Still I am glad that no
motion for the striking out of this post was made, which would
be unpleasant to the Government. The duties of an embassy
consist not merely in affording protection to their
countrymen, but also in keeping up the political relations of
the Government which it represents with that to which it is
accredited. Now there is no foreign sovereign, who, in the
present state of our laws, might be called upon to exercise,
in accordance with those laws, prerogatives in the German
empire like those of His Holiness, approaching almost to
sovereignty, limited by no constitutional responsibility.
There is therefore great importance for the German empire in
the character that is given to our diplomatic relations with
the head of the Roman Church, wielding, as he does, an
influence in this country unusually extensive for a foreign
potentate. I scarcely believe, considering the spirit dominant
at present in the leading circles of the Catholic Church, that
any ambassador of the German empire could succeed, by the most
skilful diplomacy, or by persuasion (comminatory attitudes
conceivable between secular powers are out of the question
here)—I say no one could succeed by persuasion in exerting an
influence to bring about a modification of the position
assumed by His Holiness the Pope towards things secular. The
dogmas of the Catholic Church recently announced and publicly
promulgated make it impossible for any secular power to come
to an understanding with the church without its own
effacement, which the German empire, at least, cannot accept.
Have no fear; we shall not go to Canossa, either in body or in
spirit. Nevertheless it cannot be concealed that the state of
the German empire (it is not my task here to investigate the
motives and determine how much blame attaches to one party or
the other; I am only defending an item in the Budget)—that
the feeling within the German empire in regard to religious
peace, is one of disquietude. The governments of the German
empire are seeking, with all the solicitude they owe to their
Catholic as well as Lutheran subjects for the best way, the
most acceptable means, of changing the present unpleasant
state of affairs in matters of religion to a more agreeable
one, without disturbing to any degree the creedal relations of
the empire. This can only be done by way of legislation—of
general imperial legislation—for which the governments have to
rely upon the assistance of the Reichstag. That this
legislation must not in the least infringe upon the liberty of
conscience,—must proceed in the gentlest, most conciliatory
manner; that the government must bend all its energies in
order to prevent unnecessary retardation of its work, from
incorrect recording or errors in form, you all will admit.
That the governments must spare no efforts for the
establishment of our internal peace, in a manner least
offensive even to the religious sensitiveness of those whose
creed we do not share, you will also admit. To this end,
however, it is before all things needful that the Roman See be
at all times well informed of the intentions of the German
governments, much better than it has been hitherto. The
reports made in the past to His Holiness, the Pope, on the
state of affairs in Germany, and on the intentions of the
German governments, I consider as one of the chief causes of
the present disturbances of denominational relations; for
those presentations were both incorrect and perverted, either
by personal bias, or by baser motives. I had hoped that the
choice of an ambassador, who had the full confidence of both
parties, both on account of his love of truth and reliability,
and on account of the nature of his views and his
attitude—that the choice of such an ambassador as His Majesty
had made in the person of a distinguished prince of the church
[Cardinal Prince Hohenlohe] would be welcomed at Rome; that it
would be taken as an earnest of our peaceable and conciliatory
intentions; that it would be utilized as a means to our mutual
understanding.
{3782}
I had hoped that it would afford the assurance that we would
never ask anything of His Holiness, but what a prince of the
church, sustaining the most intimate relations to the Pope,
could present before him; that the forms with which one
sacerdotal dignitary confers with another would continue to
prevail and that all unnecessary friction in a matter so
difficult in itself would be avoided. … All this we had hoped
to attain. But alas! for reasons which have not yet been
submitted to us, a curt refusal on the part of the Papal See
frustrated the intentions of His Majesty. I dare say such an
incident does not often occur. It is customary, when a
sovereign has made choice of an ambassador, out of courtesy to
make inquiry at the court to which the chosen ambassador is to
be accredited, whether he be persona grata or not. The case of
a negative reply, however, is extremely rare, bringing about,
as it must, a revocation of the appointment made not
provisionally, but definitely, before the inquiry. Such a
negative reply is equal to a demand to annul what has been
done, to a declaration: 'You have chosen unwisely.' I have now
been Foreign Minister for ten years; have been busy in matters
of higher diplomacy for twenty-one years; and I can positively
assert that this is the first and only case in my experience
of such an inquiry receiving a negative reply." Deputy
Windthorst, in reply, criticised the procedure of the German
Government in this affair, and justified the position taken by
the papal court, saying: "I believe, gentlemen, for my part,
that it was the duty of the Cardinal to ask the permission of
his master, the Pope, before accepting the post. The Cardinal
was the servant of the Pope, and as such, could not accept an
office from another government without previous inquiry. … The
case would be the same if His Holiness had appointed an
adjutant general of His Majesty as papal nuncio, only more
flagrant, for you will admit that a Cardinal is quite a
different person from an adjutant general." Prince Bismarck
replied: "I do not wish to discuss here the personal criticism
which the gentleman made on His Eminence, the Cardinal, but I
would say a word about the expression 'master' which was used.
The gentleman is certainly well versed in history, especially
ecclesiastical history, and I wish to ask him, who was the
master of Cardinal Richelieu or Cardinal Mazarin. Both of
these dignitaries were engaged in controversies and had to
settle important differences with the See of Rome, in the
service of their sovereign, the king of France; and yet they
were Cardinals. … If it should please His Holiness to appoint
an adjutant general of His Majesty as papal nuncio, I should
unconditionally advise His Majesty to accept him. … I am an
enemy to all conjectural politics and all prophesies. That
will take care of itself. But I can assure the gentleman that
we will maintain the full integral sovereignty of the law with
all means at our disposal, against assumptions of individual
subjects of His Majesty, the king of Prussia, be they priests
or laymen, that there could be laws of the land not binding
upon them; and we are sure of the entire support of a great
majority of the members of all religious confessions. The
sovereignty can and must be one and integral,—the sovereignty
of the law; and he who declares the laws of his country as not
binding upon himself, places himself outside the pale of the
law."

_Die politischen Reden des Fürsten Bismarck
(translated from the German),
volume 5, pages 337-344._

The following is from a speech of Prince Bismarck in the Upper
House, March 10, 1873, during the discussion of the May Laws:
"The gentleman who spoke before me has entered on the same
path which the opponents of these bills followed in the other
house by ascribing to them a confessional, I might say, an
ecclesiastical character. The question we are considering is,
according to my view, misconstrued, and the light in which we
consider it, a false light if we look upon it as a
confessional, a church question. It is essentially a political
one; it is not, as our catholic fellow citizens are made to
believe, a contest of an evangelical dynasty against the
Catholic Church; it is not a struggle between faith and
unbelief; it is the perennial contest, as old as the human
race, between royalty and priestcraft, older than the
appearance of our Savior on earth. This contest was carried on
by Agamemnon at Aulis, which cost him his daughter and
hindered the Grecian fleet from going to sea. This contest has
filled the German history of the Middle Ages even to the
disintegration of the German Empire. It is known as the
struggles of the popes with the emperors, closing for the
Middle Ages when the last representative of the noble Suabian
imperial dynasty died on the block beneath the axe of the
French conqueror, that French conqueror being in league with
the then ruling pope. We were very near an analogous solution
of this question, translated into the manners of our own time.
Had the French war of conquest been successful, the outbreak
of which coincided with the publication of the Vatican
Decrees, I know not what would have been narrated in Church
circles of Germany of 'gestis Dei per Francos' ['Gesta Dei per
Francos,' 'Deeds of God by the French' is the title of a
collection by Bongars, containing the sources of the history
of the crusades.—Footnote]. … It is in my opinion a
falsification of history and politics, this attitude of
considering His Holiness, the Pope, exclusively as the high
priest of a religious denomination, or the Catholic Church as
the representative of Churchdom merely. The papacy has at all
times been a political power, interfering in the most resolute
manner and with the greatest success in the secular affairs of
this world, which interference it contended for and made its
program. These programs are well known. The aim which was
constantly present in its mind's eye, the program which in the
Middle Ages was near its realization, was the subjection of
the secular powers to the Church, an eminently political aim,
a striving as old as mankind itself. For there have always
been either some wise men, or some real priests who set up the
claim, that the will of God was better known to them than to
their fellow beings and in consequence of this claim they had
the right to rule over their fellowmen. And it cannot be
denied that this proposition contains the basis of the papal
claims for the exercise of sovereign rights. …
{3783}
The contention of priesthood against royalty, in our case, of
the Pope against the German Emperor, … is to be judged like
every other struggle; it has its alliances, its peace
conventions, its pauses, its armistices. There have been
peaceful popes, there have been popes militant, popes
conquerors. There have been even peace-loving kings of France,
though Louis XVI. was forced to carry on wars; so that even
our French neighbors have had monarchs who preferred peace to
war. Moreover in the struggles of the papal power it has not
always been the call that Catholic powers have been
exclusively the allies of the pope; nor have the priests
always sided with the pope. We have had cardinals as ministers
of great powers at a time when those great powers followed an
antipapal policy even to acts of violence. We have found
bishops in the military retinue of the German emperors, when
moving against the popes. This contest for power therefore is
subject to the same condition as every other political
contest, and it is a misrepresentation of the issue,
calculated to impress people without judgment of their own,
when it is characterized as aiming at the oppression of the
church. Its object is the defense of the State, to determine
the limits of priestly rule, of royal power, and this limit
must secure the existence of the State. For in the kingdom of
this world the rule and the precedence is the State's. We in
Prussia have not always been the pre-eminent object of this
struggle. The papal court for a long time did not consider us
as its principal opponent. Frederic the Great was at perfect
peace with the Roman See while the contemporary emperor of
Catholic Austria [Joseph II.] was engaged in the most violent
contention with the Catholic Church. I wish to prove thereby
that the question is entirely independent of creed. I will
further add that at the Vienna Congress it was King Frederic
William III., thoroughly and most strictly evangelical, nay,
it might be said, anticatholic in his belief, that it was he
who insisted upon and carried through the restoration of the
secular rule of the pope; nevertheless he departed this world
while engaged in a struggle with the Catholic Church. In the
paragraphs of the constitution we have under consideration we
found a 'modus vivendi,' an armistice, concluded at a time
when the State was in need of help and thought to obtain this
help or at least some support in the Catholic Church. This
hope was based upon the fact that at the election for the
national assembly of 1848 the districts in which the Catholic
population preponderated elected, if not royalists, yet
friends of order,—which was not the case in evangelical
districts. Under this impression the compromise between the
ecclesiastical and secular arms was concluded, though, as
subsequent events proved, in miscalculation as to its
practical effects. For it was not the support of the electors
who had thus voted but the Brandenburg ministry and the royal
army that restored order. In the end the State was obliged to
help itself; the aid that might have been given by the
different churches did not pull it through. But at that time
originated the 'modus vivendi' under which we lived in peace
for a number of years. To be sure, this peace was bought only
by an uninterrupted yielding of the State, by placing its
rights in regard to the Catholic Church, without reservation,
in the hands of a magistracy which was originally intended to
be the guardian of the royal Prussian prerogatives against the
Catholic Church, but which in fact ultimately became a
magistracy in the service of the pope, in order to guard the
rights of the church against the encroachments of the Prussian
State. Of course, I refer to the Catholic section in the
Supreme Church Council [the Church Council is a Protestant
body.—Foot-note]. I mean of the Ministry of worship. … When we
were yet in Versailles I was somewhat surprised to learn, that
Catholic members of parliamentary bodies were asked to declare
whether they were ready to join a religious party, such as we
have now in the Party of the Center, and whether they would
agree to vote and agitate for the insertion of the paragraphs
we are at present considering into the constitution of the
Empire. I was not much alarmed then at that program; I was a
lover of peace to such a degree. I knew from whom it emanated;
partly from an eminent prince of the church [Bishop Ketteler
of Mayence] whose chief task it was to do for the papal policy
what he could. … I was completely deceived. … When I returned
here I saw how strong was the organization of this party of
the church militant, against the state. … What, was this
program? Read it. There are pamphlets in everybody's hand,
written with spirit, pleasant to read. Its object was the
introduction of a state dualism in Prussia, the erection of a
state within the state to bring it about that all Catholics
should follow the guidance of this Party of the Center in
their private as well as their political conduct, a dualism of
the worst kind. Under different conditions a dualistic
constitution might work well in an empire. Witness the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy. But yonder it is no religious
dualism. With us the construction of two denominational states
is aimed at, to be engaged in a dualistic struggle, one of
which was to have for its supreme ruler a foreign church
potentate, whose seat is in Home, a potentate who by the
latest changes in the constitution of the Catholic Church has
become more powerful than ever before. If this program were
carried out, we were to have instead of the one formerly
integral state of Prussia, instead of the German Empire then
at the point of realization—we were to have two state
organizations, running side by side in parallel lines; one
with the Party of the Center as its general staff, the other
with its general staff in the guiding secular principle, in
the government and the person of his Majesty the Emperor. This
situation was absolutely unacceptable for the government whose
very duty it was to defend the state against such a danger. It
would have misunderstood and neglected this duty if it had
looked on calmly at the astounding progress which a closer
examination of the affair brought to light. … The Government
was obliged to terminate the armistice, based upon the
constitution of 1848, and create a new 'modus vivendi' between
the secular and sacerdotal power. The State cannot allow this
situation to continue without being driven into internal
struggles that may endanger its very existence. The question
is simply this: Are those paragraphs of the constitution [of
1848] dangerous to the State, as is contended for by the
government of His Majesty, or are they not?
{3784}
If they are, then it is your duty as conservatives to vote
against the retention of those paragraphs. If you think them
entirely harmless then you hold a conviction which the
government of His Majesty does not share, and as it is not
able to assume the responsibility for the administration of
the affairs of the State with these articles of the
constitution in force, it must surrender it to those who
consider them harmless. The Government, in its struggle for
the defense of the State, applies to the Upper House for aid
and assistance for the strengthening of the State and its
defense against attacks and machinations that undermine its
peace and endanger its future. We trust and believe that this
assistance will not fail us with the majority of the Upper
House."

_Die politischen Reden des Fürsten Bismarck
(translated from the German),
volume 5, pages 384-391._

GERMANY: A. D. 1871-1873.
Adoption of the gold standard.

See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1871-1873 (page 2220).

GERMANY: A. D. 1871-1895.
The organization of the modern German Empire.