The War Upon Religion / Being an Account of the Rise and Progress of Anti-Christianism in Europe

by Francis A. Cunningham

Thenceforth the new statesman began to be a power for the Kingdom of Prussia. His hatred of Austria seems to have dictated all his policies for the next twenty years. The war for the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864, the war against Austria in 1866, the question of the Duchy of Luxembourg, and even the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, were all inspired by the fear that Austria should become too powerful, and deprive the Protestant State of Prussia of that ascendancy which Bismarck more than any other determined that she should have.

It was in 1862 that Bismarck was called upon by the King to take up the post of Premier, a position which was to make him in a few years the most powerful statesman of Europe. At the ending of the Franco-Prussian War, on January 18, 1871, in the Palace of Versailles, it was the power of Bismarck that placed the imperial crown upon the head of the new Emperor, William I. of Germany. The union of German States against which the Chancellor had fought in years gone by, was now the creature of his own making. The time was propitious, France, Austria and the Papacy were all humbled. Prussia had become one of the Great Powers. If Bismarck had rested there, his name would have been greeted with the accumulated blessings of all the German people, even though all these triumphs had been won by the way of deceit, brutality and an absolute disregard of all the promptings of justice and humanity.

That Bismarck had been preparing for his persecution of the Catholics is sufficiently proven from documentary evidence, although after 1888 he spent much time and effort to disclaim his part in the Kulturkampf. The Crown Prince of Germany in his diary of the date of October 24, 1870, wrote: "Bismarck related to my brother-in-law that immediately after the war he would enter upon the campaign against infallibility." Again, the Abbe Majunke, the eminent historian of the Kulturkampf, published in the Historico Political Papers of Munich, a sensational article wherein he proved from existing documents that Bismarck was meditating the Kulturkampf before the opening of the Council: "The notes gathered together by Poschinger demonstrate that as early as 1850 the adversary of Windthorst has been the principal instigator of the Bavarian Kulturkampf," a fact which argued that he was the real instigator of the late Prussian persecution. Again Arnim, the former ambassador to Rome, shows that the Chancellor was projecting the conflict against infallibility at least while the Council was going on. Again, on September 13, 1870, Bismarck remarked to the deputy Werle, Mayor of Rheims: "When we have disposed of Catholicism, they (i. e. the Latin nations) will not be long in disappearing." All these and other evidences remain to show that the mind of Bismarck had been meditating the extermination of the Catholic religion before the actual hostilities began. His part in the conflict itself will be shown in discussing its events. In 1887, he made his peace with Pope Leo XIII., from whom he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Christ, and died in 1898, after witnessing the final collapse of the Kulturkampf and acknowledging its utter failure to accomplish the the end it had in view.

Directly opposed to Bismarck was another statesman in whom with all the energy and determination of his adversary were found the qualities of honor and justice united together in absolute loyalty to Catholic principles. This man was Louis Joseph Windthorst, born January 17, 1812, at Osterkapelln in the Kingdom of Hanover. After showing for some time an inclination for the ecclesiastical state, he finally decided his vocation in 1836 by entering the bar at Osnabrück. He was later made syndic of the Equestrian Order of the Nobility, and then lay President of the ecclesiastical tribunal. In 1838 he married and his union was blessed not only by conjugal happiness, but more than all by the birth of four children, the eldest of whom survived him.

WINDTHORST.

In 1848 there were in Germany two political parties; one defending the maintaining of Austria in the Confederation and desirous that she should be at its head; the other demanding the exclusion of Austria, and the preponderance of Prussia. Elected to the Diet from Hanover in 1849, Windthorst declared himself for Austria, a Catholic power which promised to permit the different States to retain their autonomy; and he combatted openly the members of the German Parliament at Frankfort when they offered the imperial crown to William IV. of Prussia. Windthorst had just been nominated to the Presidency of the Hanoverian Chamber of Deputies, in 1851, when upon the accession of George V. to the throne, he received the portfolio of Justice. He served in that capacity until 1853 when the ministry of which he formed a part was overturned.

It was during the period of comparative quiet that followed, that Windthorst rendered to his natal diocese a remarkable service. Both in the Chamber and at Court he pleaded for the ancient principality of Osnabrück, which had been in the hands of a lay administrator ever since the great secularization. His efforts were crowned with success. In 1857 the diocese of Osnabrück was re-established and the Abbe Melchers, then Vicar General of Münster, was made its bishop.

In 1862 Windthorst was again called to the ministry of Justice, and again pleaded the cause of Austria. In a short time, however, he again left the ministry and was made Procurator General of the Court of Appeals at Celle. Hitherto Windthorst had been the principal adviser of George V., the intrepid defender of his country's independence, and the influential protector of Catholic interests in the midst of a Protestant Court; when at length his powers in that direction were ended by the action of Prussia in taking possession of Hanover.

The little kingdom thus blotted out, Windthorst turned his attention to the larger interests of the whole country. In placing himself, however unwillingly upon the platform of accomplished facts, and in taking the oath of the Prussian Constitution, Windthorst accepted the ruling of the Prussian Landtag, and was elected first to the Constituent Assembly, and then to the Reichstag of the Confederation of Northern Germany, in 1871. He remained until his death the representative from Meppen, whence his soubriquet, the Pearl of Meppen. He was also sometimes termed His Little Excellency, from his slight stature, and also "the Guelph Leader," from his indomitable attitude in defending the interests of the weaker side against the aggressions of the unscrupulous majority.