Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Germany" to "Gibson, William" / Volume 11, Slice 8

by Various

The unification of the railways caused greater difficulties. Nearly every state had its own system; there was the greatest variety in the methods of working and in the tariffs, and the through traffic, so important for the commercial Railways. prosperity of the country, was very ineffective. In Baden, Württemberg and Hanover the railways were almost entirely the property of the state, but in all other parts public and private lines existed side by side, an arrangement which seemed to combine the disadvantages of both systems. In 1871 three-quarters of the railway lines belonged to private companies, and the existence of these powerful private corporations, while they were defended by many of the Liberals, was, according to the national type of thought, something of an anomaly. Bismarck always attached great importance to the improvement of the railway service, and he saw that uniformity of working and of tariffs was very desirable. In the constitution of the empire he had introduced several clauses dealing with it. The independent administration of its lines by each state was left, but the empire received the power of legislating on railway matters; it could build lines necessary for military purposes even against the wish of the state in whose territory they lay, and the states bound themselves to administer their lines as part of a common system. In order to carry out these clauses a law was passed on the 27th of June 1873 creating an imperial railway office (Reichseisenbahnamt) for the purpose of exercising a general control over the railways. This office has done much in the matter of unifying the systems of various railways and of regulating their relations to the military, postal and telegraph organizations; it also took a leading part in the framing of the international laws regarding goods traffic; but the imperial code of railway law which it drafted has never been laid before the Reichstag. It effectively controls only the privately owned lines in Prussia. Yet, in setting it up, Bismarck had in mind the ultimate acquisition of all the railways by the empire. He found, however, that it was impossible to carry any Bill enforcing this. He therefore determined to begin by transferring to the imperial authority the Prussian state railways; had he been able to carry this out the influence of the imperial railways would have been so great that they would gradually have absorbed those of the other states. The Bill was carried through the Prussian parliament, but the opposition aroused in the other states was so great that he did not venture even to introduce in the Bundesrat a law empowering the empire to acquire the Prussian railways. In many of the state parliaments resolutions were carried protesting against the system of imperial railways, and from that time the preservation of the local railway management has been the chief object towards which, in Saxony, Bavaria and Württemberg, local feeling has been directed. The only imperial railways are those in Alsace-Lorraine.

The result of the legal reform and other laws has been greatly to diminish the duties of the state governments, for every new imperial law permanently deprives the local parliaments of part of their authority. Generally there remains to them the control of education and religion—their most important duty—police, all questions connected with land tenure, local government, the raising of direct taxes, and, in the larger states, the management of railways. The introduction of workmen’s insurance, factory legislation, and other measures dealing with the condition of the working classes by imperial legislation, was at a later period still further to limit the scope of state legislation.

Meanwhile the government was busy perfecting the administration of the national defences. From the war indemnity large sums had been expended on coast defence, on fortifications and on replacing the equipment and stores Army organization. destroyed during the war. A special fund, producing annually about a million pounds, was put aside, from which pensions to the wounded, and to the widows and orphans of those who had fallen, should be provided. It was also desirable to complete the military organization. It must be remembered that technically there is no German army, as there is no German minister of war. Each state, however small, maintains its own contingent, subject to its own prince, who has the right and the obligation of administering it according to the provisions of the treaty by which he entered the federation. Practically they are closely tied in every detail of military organization. The whole of the Prussian military system, including not only the obligation to military service, but the rules for recruiting, organization, drill and uniforms, has to be followed in all the states; all the contingents are under the command of the emperor, and the soldiers have to swear obedience to him in addition to the oath of allegiance to their own sovereign. It is therefore not surprising that, having so little freedom in the exercise of their command, all the princes and free cities (with the exception of the three kings) arranged separate treaties with the king of Prussia, transferring to him (except for certain formal rights) the administration of their contingents, which are thereby definitely incorporated in the Prussian army. The first of these treaties was arranged with Saxe-Coburg Gotha in 1861; those with the other North German states followed at short intervals after 1866. The last was that with Brunswick, which was arranged in 1885; Duke William had always refused to surrender the separate existence of his army. Owing to the local organization, this does not prevent the contingent of each state from preserving its separate identity; it is stationed in its own district, each state contributing so many regiments.

In 1872 a common system of military jurisprudence was introduced for the whole empire except Bavaria (a revised code of procedure in military courts was accepted by Bavaria in 1898); finally, in February 1874, an important The Septennat. law was laid before the Reichstag codifying the administrative rules. This superseded the complicated system of laws and royal ordinances which had accumulated in Prussia during the fifty years that had elapsed since the system of short service had been introduced; the application to other states of course made a clearer statement of the laws desirable. Most of this was accepted without opposition or debate. On one clause a serious constitutional conflict arose. In 1867 the peace establishment had been provisionally fixed by the constitution at 1% of the population, and a sum of 225 thalers (£33, 15s.) had been voted for each soldier. This arrangement had in 1871 been again continued to the end of 1874, and the peace establishment fixed at 401,659. The new law would have made this permanent. If this had been done the power of the Reichstag over the administration would have been seriously weakened; its assent would no longer have been required for either the number of the army or the money. The government attached great importance to the clause, but the Centre and the Liberal parties combined to throw it out. A disastrous struggle was averted by a compromise suggested by Bennigsen. The numbers were fixed for the next seven years (the so-called Septennat); this was accepted by the government, and carried against the votes of the Centre and some of the Progressives. On this occasion the Fortschrittpartei, already much diminished, split up into two sections. The principle then established has since been maintained; the periodical votes on the army have become the occasion for formally testing the strength of the Government.

The influence of Liberalism, which served the government so well in this work of construction, brought about also the conflict with the Roman Catholic Church which distracted Germany for many years. The causes were, indeed, Kulturkampf. partly political. The Ultramontane party in Austria, France and Bavaria had, after 1866, been hostile to Prussia; there was some ground to fear that it might still succeed in bringing about a Catholic coalition against the empire, and Bismarck lived in constant dread of European coalitions. The Polish sympathies of the Church in Germany made him regard it as an anti-German power, and the formation of the Catholic faction in parliament, supported by Poles and Hanoverians, appeared to justify his apprehensions. But besides these reasons of state there was a growing hostility between the triumphant National parties and the Ultramontanes, who taught that the pope was greater than the emperor and the Church than the nation. The conflict had already begun in Baden. As in every other country, the control of the schools was the chief object of contention, but the government also claimed a control over the education and training of the clergy. With the formation of the empire the conflict was transferred from Baden to Prussia, where there had been for thirty years absolute peace, a peace gained, indeed, by allowing to the Catholics complete freedom; the Prussian constitution ensured them absolute liberty in the management of ecclesiastical affairs; in the ministry for religion and education there was a separate department for Catholic affairs, and (owing to the influence of the great family of the Radziwills) they enjoyed considerable power at court.

The latent opposition was aroused by the Vatican decrees. A small number of Catholics, including several men of learning and distinction, refused to accept Papal Infallibility. They were encouraged by the Bavarian court, which Old Catholics. maintained the Febronian tradition and was jealous of any encroachment of the Papacy (see [Febrionianism]); but besides this the Protestants throughout Germany and all opponents of the Papacy joined in the agitation. They made it the occasion for an attack on the Jesuits; even in 1869 there had been almost a riot in Berlin when a chapel belonging to a religious order was opened there. During 1870 and 1871 meetings were held by the Gustavus Adolphus Verein, and a great Protestant conference was called, at which resolutions were passed demanding the expulsion of the Jesuits and condemning the Vatican decrees. As the leaders in these meetings were men like Virchow and Bluntschli, who had been lifelong opponents of Catholicism in every form, the result was disastrous to the Liberal party among the Catholics, for a Liberal Catholic would appear as the ally of the bitterest enemies of the Church; whatever possibility of success the Old Catholic movement might have had was destroyed by the fact that it was supported by those who avowedly wished to destroy the influence of Catholicism. No bishop joined it in Germany or in Austria, and few priests, though the governments were ready to protect them in the enjoyment of the privileges secured to Catholics, and to maintain them in the use of the temporalities. There was no great following among the people; it was only in isolated places that priests and congregation together asserted their rights to refuse to accept the decrees of the Church. Without the help of the bishops, the leaders had no legal basis; unsupported by the people, they were generals without an army, and the attempt to use the movement for political purposes failed.

None the less this was the occasion for the first proceedings against the Catholics, and curiously enough the campaign began in Bavaria. The archbishop of Munich had published the Vatican decrees without the Regium placetum, which was required by the constitution, and the government continued to treat Old Catholics as members of the Church. In the controversy which ensued, Lutz, the chief member of the ministry, found himself confronted by an Ultramontane majority, and the priests used their influence to stir up the people. He therefore turned for help to the imperial government, and at his instance a clause was added to the penal code forbidding priests in their official capacity to deal with political matters. (This law, which still exists, is popularly known as the Kanzlei or Pulpit-paragraph.) It was of course opposed by the Centre, who declared that the Reichstag had no right to interfere in what was after all a religious question, and the Bavarian Opposition expressed much indignation that their government should turn for help to the Protestants of the North in order to force upon the Catholics of Bavaria a law which they could not have carried in that state.

For twenty years the Old Catholics continued to be a cause of contention in Bavaria, until the struggle ended in the victory of the Ultramontanes. In 1875 the parliament which had been elected in 1869 for six years came to an end. In order to strengthen their position for the new elections, the Liberal ministry, who owed their position chiefly to the support of the king, by royal ordinance ordered a redistribution of seats. By the constitution this was within their power, and by clever manipulation of the constituencies they brought it about that the Ultramontane majority was reduced to two. It does not appear that this change represented any change of feeling in the majority of the people. The action of the government, however, caused great indignation, and in a debate on the address an amendment was carried petitioning the king to dismiss his ministry. They offered their resignation, but the king refused to accept it, publicly expressed his confidence in them, and they continued in office during the lifetime of the king, although in 1881 the growing reaction gave a considerable majority to the Ultramontane party. After the death of the king the prince-regent, Luitpold, still retained the old administration, but several concessions were made to the Catholics in regard to the schools and universities, and in 1890 it was decided that the claim of the Old Catholics to be regarded officially as members of the Church should no longer be recognized.

Meanwhile at Berlin petitions to the Reichstag demanded the expulsion of the Jesuits, and in 1872 an imperial law to this effect was carried; this was again a serious interference with the control over religious matters reserved to May Laws. the states. In Prussia the government, having determined to embark on an anti-Catholic policy, suppressed the Catholic division in the ministry, and appointed a new minister, Falk, a Liberal lawyer of uncompromising character. A law was carried placing the inspection of schools entirely in the hands of the state; hitherto in many provinces it had belonged to the clergy, Catholic or Protestant. This was followed by the measures to which the name Kulturkampf really applied (an expression used first by Virchow to imply that it was a struggle of principle between the teaching of the Church and that of modern society). They were measures in which the state no longer, as in the school inspection law or in the introduction of civil marriage, defended its prerogatives against the Church, but assumed itself a direct control over ecclesiastical matters.