(; K K.MAN Y 



177 



which must contain four councillors unil a |.i---i 

 drill. I 'In' supreme court of appeal for the whole, 

 empiic i> tin- ReuJugeriekt at Leip/ig, to which 

 appeals lii- even from the jury trials. It pofiHOMQt 

 an original jurisdiction in the cose of treason 



against tl mpire. It also is divided into civil 



ami criminal senates, with a general president, 

 senate presidents, and councillors, appointed by 



il mpenir on the recommendation of the Bundes- 



null. Seven members are required to \te present 

 in order to give a vali<l decision in any of the 

 senates ; and in the plenum one-third of the 

 memlM'is must he present. 



The penal ami commercial codes are now uni- 

 form throughout Germany; hut the Code Civil is 

 still administered in A Isjice- Lorraine and Rhenish 

 Prussia, the Prussian land laws in the greater 

 part of Prussia, and German common law in 

 Saxony, parts of Prussia, Bavaria, &c. 



Army. In 1871 the Prussian military system 

 was extended to the whole empire ; alterations were 

 introduced in 1888 and 1893. The Arniy Act of 

 1893 raised the annual levies by about 60,000 men, 

 and reduced the term of service with the colours 

 from three to two years for the infantry, that for 

 cavalry and horse artillery remaining three years 

 as before. About 400,000 young men annually 

 reach the age of twenty, and, deductions made for 

 physical unntness, &c., about 360,000 are annually 

 Available more than is required in all cases by 

 the legal limitations. The required numbers are 

 obtained by lot, the rest serve twelve years in the 

 Ersatz, a kind of reserve. By the regulations in 

 force, every German who is capable of bearing arms 

 must be in the standing army for six years (gener- 

 ally his twenty-first to his twenty-seventh year). 

 Two years must be spent in active service and the 

 remainder in the army of reserve. He then spends 

 five years in the first class of the Landwehr (q.v.), 

 after which he belongs to the second class till his 

 thirty-ninth year. Besides this, every German, 

 from seventeen to twenty-one and from thirty-nine 

 to forty-five is a member of the Landsturm, a 

 force only to be called out in the last necessity. 

 Those who pass certain examinations require to 

 serve only one year with the colours, and are 

 known as 'volunteers.' The land forces of the 

 empire form a united army under the command of 

 the emperor in war and peace. The sovereigns of 

 the principal states have the right to select the 

 lower grades of officers ; but even their selections 

 require to obtain the approval of the emperor, 

 whose authority is paramount. The imperial 

 army is divided into 18 army corps, and on the 

 peace footing of 1896-96 contained 22,618 officers, 

 562,116 rank and file, and 97,280 horses. There 

 are 173 regiments of infantry, besides 19 battalions 

 of jiiger or riflemen ; 93 regiments of cavalry ; 

 60 regiments of artillery ; 23 battalions of engi- 

 neers ; and 21 battalions of military train. On its 

 war footing, the total is about 3,000,000 men, 

 besides the Landsturm. The cost of the army for 

 1895-96 was 23,600,000. 



Navy. The formation of a German navy, due 

 to the initiative of Prussia, dates from 1848, 

 and of late years rapid progress has been made. 

 In 1889 the imperial fleet consisted of 77 vessels, 

 with a total tonnage of 186,196 tons. Of these, 

 12 were sea-going ironclads, 14 armour-clad 

 boats, 18 frigates and corvettes, 3 gunboats, 7 

 avisos or despatch-boats, 4 unarmoured cruisers, 

 10 training-ships and boats, and 9 others. This 

 fleet was manned by 15,246 seamen and IM>\S, 

 and officered by 10 admirals and 688 other officers, 

 l>esides 90 surgeons. The seafaring population of 

 Germany are liable to service in the navy instead 

 of in the army. They are estimated at 80,000, of 

 whom 48,000 are serving in the merchant navy at 

 220 



home, and about 6000 in foreign navies. After 

 three years' active service, four yearn are upent in 

 tin- naval reserve and five more in the fin*t da** of 

 the Seeweltr, which corresponds to the Landwehr 

 of the land forces. Seamen who have not nerved 

 in the naw belong from seventeen to thirty- 

 one years of age to the second clam of the 

 wclu. The i-nii'iie has two ports of war: Kiel 

 (q.v.), and \VilnelniHhaven (q.v.) in the Bay of 

 Jahde on the North Sea ; and there i- a naval 

 dockyard at Danzig. In 1895 there were 87 ships 

 with 21,890 men, and the cost of the navy wan 

 2,763,000. 



Revenue. The revenue of the German empire is 

 derived ( 1 ) from the customs dues on tobacco, salt , 

 and l>eet-root sugar, which are entirely made over to 

 it by all the states ; from those on brandy and 

 malt, which are also assigned by most of the states; 

 from taxes on playing-cards and stamps, from posts, 

 telegraphs, and railways, the imperial bank, and 

 various miscellaneous sources; (2) from extra- 

 ordinary sources as votes for public buildings and 

 loans ; and ( 3 ) from the proportional contributions 

 (Matrikular-beitrage) of the various states. The 

 chief items of expenditure are the maintenance of 

 the Reichstag and various government offices, the 

 army and navy, posts anu telegraphs, railways, 

 justice, pensions, and other miscellaneous claims. 

 The average income for the five years 1881-82 to 

 1885-86 was 30,121,470, and the average expendi- 

 ture 30,564,200. In 1891-96 the revenue increased 

 from 54,573,000 to 58,919,700; in 1894-95 the 

 expenditurewas 64,327,000, in 1895-96 61,962,500. 

 In 1894-95 the total funded debt of the empire, 

 95,785,700 partly at 3 and partly at 4 per cent. 

 There is also an unfunded debt of 60,000,000. 

 Against? this there are large invested funds, as 

 22,800,000 of an invalid fund ; while the war 

 treasure of 6,000,000 is kept in gold at Spandau. 

 The ' matricular ' contributions of the several 

 states amounted in all to 17,842,115 in 1895; 

 of which Prussia paid 11,659,000, Saxe-Weimar 

 only 126,900. 



Social Organisation. All the states of the 

 empire recognise four distinct orders viz. the 

 nobility, clergy, burghers, and peasantry, and all 

 distinguish three distinct grades of nobility. The 

 highest of these includes the meml>er8 of reigning 

 houses, and the descendants of families who 

 belonged at the time of the old empire to the 

 sovereign nobility of the state, and were reichs- 

 uninittelbur, or directly connected with the empire, 

 as holding their domains directly under the 

 emperor, but whose houses have subsequently 

 been mediatised, or deprived of sovereign power 

 in accordance with special treaties between the 

 state and the princes. There are at present fifty 

 princely and fifty -one grafliche (countly) media- 

 tised families, who, in accordance with the act of 

 the diet of 1806, have equality of rank with reign- 

 ing houses, and enjoy many of the special privi- 

 leges which were accorded to the high nobles of 

 the empire. The second grade of nobility is com- 

 posed of counts and barons not belonging to reign- 

 ing or mediatised houses, whilst the third and 

 lowest grade includes the knights and hereditary 

 patrimonial proprietors of Germany. 



Before we proceed to consider the political 

 organisation of the new German empire, we shall 

 briefly describe (1) the principal features of the 

 constitution of the old Germanic empire, which 

 was overthrown by the first Napoleon in 1806; 

 and (2) that Bund or federal government which 

 lasted from 1815 to 1866, when Austria was ex- 

 cluded from the Confederation, and the hegemony 

 of Germany was transferred to Prussia. 



The Old Germanic Empire . The states of this 

 empire comprised three chambers or colleges: (1) 



