Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire

by James Wycliffe Headlam

The result, however, was that a bitter feeling of opposition was created between Church and State. The secessionist priests were maintained in their positions by the Government, they were excommunicated by the bishops; students were forbidden to attend their lectures and the people to worship in the churches where they ministered. It spread even to the army, when the Minister of War required the army chaplain at Cologne to celebrate Mass in a church which was used also by the Old Catholics. He was forbidden to do so by his bishop, and the bishop was in consequence deprived of his salary and threatened with arrest.

The conflict having once begun soon spread; a new Minister of Culture was appointed; in the Reichstag a law was proposed expelling the Jesuits from Germany; and a number of important laws, the so-called May laws, were introduced into the Prussian Parliament, giving to the State great powers with regard to the education and appointment of priests; it was, for instance, ordered that no one should be appointed to a cure of souls who was not a German, and had not been brought up and educated in the State schools and universities of Prussia. Then other laws were introduced, to which we have already referred, making civil marriage compulsory, so as to cripple the very strong power which the Roman Catholic priests could exercise, not only by refusing their consent to mixed marriages, but also by refusing to marry Old Catholics; a law was introduced taking the inspection of elementary schools out of the hands of the clergy, and finally a change was made in those articles of the Prussian Constitution which ensured to each denomination the management of its own affairs. Bismarck was probably not responsible for the drafting of all these laws; he only occasionally took part in the discussion and was often away from Berlin.

The contrast between these proposals and the principles he had maintained in his earlier years was very marked; his old friend Kleist recalled the eloquent speech which in former years he had made against civil marriage. Bismarck did not attempt to defend himself against the charge of inconsistency; he did not even avow that he had changed his personal opinions; he had, however, he said, learnt to submit his personal convictions to the requirements of the State; he had only done so unwillingly and by a great struggle. This was to be the end of the doctrine of the Christian State. With Gneist, Lasker, Virchow, he was subduing the Church to this new idol of the State; he was doing that against which in the old days he had struggled with the greatest resolution and spoken with the greatest eloquence. Not many years were to go by before he began to repent of what he had done, for, as he saw the new danger from Social Democracy, he like many other Germans believed that the true means of defeating it was to be found in increased intensity of religious conviction. It was, however, then too late.

He, however, especially in the Prussian Upper House, threw all the weight of his authority into the conflict. It was, he said, not a religious conflict but a political one; they were not actuated by hatred of Catholicism, but they were protecting the rights of the State.

"The question at issue," he said, "is not a struggle of an Evangelical dynasty against the Catholic Church; it is the old struggle ... a struggle for power as old as the human race ... between king and priest ... a struggle which is much older than the appearance of our Redeemer in this world.... a struggle which has filled German history of the Middle Ages till the destruction of the German Empire, and which found its conclusion when the last representative of the glorious Swabian dynasty died on the scaffold, under the axe of a French conqueror who stood in alliance with the Pope.[^[12]] We are not far from an analogous solution of the situation, always translated into the customs of our time."

He assured the House that now, as always, he would defend the Empire against internal and external enemies. "Rest assured we will not go to Canossa," he said.

In undertaking this struggle with the Church he had two enemies to contend with—the Pope and the government of the Church on the one side, on the other the Catholic population of Germany. He tried to come to some agreement with the Pope and to separate the two; it seemed in fact as if the real enemy to be contended against was not the foreign priesthood, but the Catholic Democracy in Germany. All Bismarck's efforts to separate the two and to procure the assistance of the Pope against the party of the Centre were to be unavailing; for some years all official communication between the German Government and the Papal See was broken off. It was not till the death of Pius IX. and the accession of a more liberal-minded Pope that communication was restored; then we are surprised to find Bismarck appealing to the Pope to use his influence on the Centre in order to persuade them to vote for a proposed increase in the German army. This is a curious comment on the boast, "We will not go to Canossa."

The truth is that in undertaking the conflict and associating himself with the anti-Clerical party Bismarck had stirred up an enemy whom he was not able to overcome. He soon found that the priests and the Catholics were men of a different calibre to the Liberals. They dared to do what none of the Progressives had ventured on—they disobeyed the law. With them it was not likely that the conflict would be confined to Parliamentary debates. The Government attempted to meet this resistance, but in vain. The priests were deprived of their cures, bishops were thrown into prison, nearly half the Catholic parishes in Prussia were deprived of their spiritual shepherds, the churches were closed, there was no one to celebrate baptisms or weddings. Against this resistance what could the Government do? The people supported the leaders of the party, and a united body of one hundred members under Windhorst, ablest of Parliamentary leaders, was committed to absolute opposition to every Government measure so long as the conflict continued. Can we be surprised that as the years went on Bismarck looked with some concern on the result of the struggle he had brought about?

He attempted to conceal the failure: "The result will be," he said, "that we shall have two great parties—one which supports and maintains the State, and another which attacks it. The former will be the great majority and it will be formed in the school of conflict." These words are the strongest condemnation of his policy. It could not be wise for any statesman to arrange that party conflict should take the form of loyalty and disloyalty to the Empire.

There can be little doubt that his sense of failure helped to bring about a feeling of enmity towards the National Liberals. Suddenly in the spring of 1877 he sent in his resignation. There were, however, other reasons for doing this. He had become aware that the financial policy of the Empire had not been successful; on every side it seemed that new blood and new methods were required. In financial matters he had little experience or authority; he had to depend on his colleagues and he complained of their unfruitfulness. Influenced perhaps by his perception of this, under the pretext—a genuine pretext—of ill-health, he asked the Emperor to relieve him of his offices. The Emperor refused. "Never," he wrote on the side of the minute. Instead he granted to Bismarck unlimited leave of absence. In the month of April the Chancellor retired to Varzin; for ten months he was absent from Berlin, and when he returned, recruited in health, in February, 1878, it was soon apparent that a new period in his career and in the history of the Empire was to begin.