GERMANY. 



pond power, and more especially with the German 

 Kmplre. The spirit intimating the 1'upucy in this 

 .iign wan t<> well known to require COIHMH -nt ; 

 utill, he would tell the House a utory which hod been 

 long kept .-.en t, but which, after all that hud hap- 

 I'linM, tiad better b made public. In 1S(J'J, when 

 iberg[ Government hud occasion to com- 

 plain <>f the action of the Papacy, the Wurtomberg 

 envoy at Munich was instructed to make reprosenta- 

 aiiil in 11 conversation which passed between 

 iii.- envoy im<l the nuiieio, the latter Haid the Komun 

 Church wan Tree only in America, and purhups Eng- 

 land ai.-l Belgium. In all other countries the Roman 

 Church ini.l to look to revolution oa the sole means 

 of securing her rightful position. This, then, was 

 the view of the priestly diplomatist stationed at 

 Munich in 1869, and formerly representing the Vati- 

 can at Paris. Well, the revolution so ardently de- 

 Mivil by the Vatican did not come to pass, but we 

 had the war of 1870 instead. Gentlemen, I am in 

 possession of conclusive evidence proving that the 

 war of 1870 was the combined work of Kome and 

 France ; that the Oecumenical Council was cut short 

 on account of the war ; and that very different votes 

 would have been taken by the Council had the 

 French been victorious. I know from the very best 

 sources that the Emperor Napoleon was dragged into 

 the war very much against his will by the Jesuiti- 

 cal influences rampant at his court ; that he strove 

 hard to resist these influences ; that in the eleventh 

 hour he determined to maintain peace; that he stuck 

 to this determination for half an hour, and that he 

 was ultimately overpowered by persons representing 

 Borne. 



Herr von Varnbuler (Wurtemberg premier 

 in 1869) then confirmed all Prince Bismarck 

 had related of his negotiations with Rome and 

 the statement of Monsignor Meglia. The ne- 

 gotiations, he said, originated in an attempt of 

 the Pope to deprive Wurtemberg students of 

 Catholic lectures, the Vatican being of opinion 

 that the less educated a priest, the more fitted 

 he was for his vocation in life. Dr. Lowe, a 

 Liberal member, who had moved that the Ger- 

 man legation be abolished, closed the debate 

 by reminding the House of the truth expressed 

 by their great philosopher Fichte, when he 

 said that the commonwealth of united Ger- 

 many could be established only upon the basis 

 of personal and intellectual liberty. The ar- 

 rest of a member of the Reichstag, Majunke, 

 led to the adoption of a resolution, moved by 

 Hoverbeck, to request the Imperial Chancellor 

 for an interpretation of Art. XXXI. of the Con- 

 stitution, in order to prevent the arrest of mem- 

 bers of the Reichstag during the session with- 

 out the consent of the Reichstag. Prince 

 Bismarck regarded this resolution as the ex- 

 pression of a want of confidence, and therefore 

 tendered his resignation, which the Emperor, 

 however, refused to accept. The Reichstag 

 soon after expressed its continuing confidence 

 in the Chancellor by a vote of 199 against 71. 

 On December 19th, the Reichstag adjourned to 

 January 9, 1875. 



The foreign relations of Germany were on 

 the whole of a friendly character. The lan- 

 guage used by some French bishops and some 

 orirans of the Catholic party against the Gor- 

 man Government, led to remonstrances in 

 Paris, which had the desired effect. The ap- 

 pointment in May of Prince Hohenlohe as Ger- 



man embassador in Paris in pluco of Count 

 J lurry von A mini, who, contrary to Inn infrac- 

 tions, had favored the plans of the Legitimist*, 

 and the appointment of the Duke do Decazea 

 as French Minister of Foreign Atiuira, greatly 

 strengthened the hope for the continuance of 

 iri.-inlly relations. The Emperor of Russia, in 

 May, paid another visit to Berlin, when he gave 

 free and emphatic expression to the feelings of 

 sympathy which he has always felt for Germany. 

 Tho report that the attitude of Germany with 

 regard to Denmark had given great offense 

 in St. Petersburg was explicitly denied by 

 Prince Bismarck in the German Reichstag. In 

 consequence of the shooting, by order of the 

 Spanish Pretender Don Carlos, of the German 

 captain Hermann Schmidt, who was a cor- 

 respondent of German papers with the republi- 

 can army, two German gunboats, the Nautilus 

 and the Albatross, were sent from Kiel to the 

 Spanish waters for the protection of the life 

 and property of German subjects from the Car- 

 lists. As it was deemed too difficult to inflict 

 a direct retaliation upon the Carlists for the 

 outrage, Prince Bismarck had to content him- 

 self with punishing the Carlists by a recogni- 

 tion of the Republican Government of Spain, 

 and by securing its recognition by all other 

 European powers, except Russia. On Decem- 

 ber llth and 12th the Carlists committed a 

 new outrage against Germany fey the capture 

 of the brig Gustav, belonging to Messrs. Koch 

 & Son of Rostock. From the account of the 

 incident given by Herr Rudolph Sprenger, Ger- 

 man acting consul at San Sebastian, it appears 

 that while the crew were trying to escape the 

 fury of the sea and enter the harbor of Gueta- 

 ria, they were forced out to sea again by the 

 Carlists firing more than two thousand rounds 

 at them. The ship soon after ran ashore, one 

 portion of the crew being saved by Republican 

 boats and another falling into the hands of the 

 Carlists, who appropriated to them every thing 

 that could be saved, private property of the 

 crew no less than the freight. The contin- 

 uance of friendly relations with Denmark 

 eeemed for a time to be threatened by the ex- 

 pulsion of some Danes from Northern Schles- 

 wig, but the difficulty was peaceably adjusted. 

 Prince Bismarck, on this occasion, was again 

 charged with entertaining the desire that 

 Denmark itself should enter the German Fed- 

 eration. It is asserted positively that Prince 

 Bismarck had submitted to the Danish King a 

 project for entering the German Empire with 

 the whole of his territory. In accordance with 

 this plan, Germany would guarantee the integ- 

 rity of Denmark and cede the whole of Schles- 

 wig to King Ch.-istian, in return for which the 

 Danish fleet would become an integral part of 

 the German fleet, and German ports would be 

 established in the different Danish colonies. 

 King Christian was said to have rejected these 

 propositions. It was added that Rnssia felt 

 greatly irritated on receiving this intelligence, 

 and would never allow Germany to hold the 



