BISMARCK-SCHONHAUSEN, OTTO EDUARD LEOPOLD, VOtf. 



83 



title of Furst, or Prince of the Empire, and the 

 princely estates of Frieclrichsruh arid Varzin as the 

 gift of a grateful nation. 



The danger of a coalition of powers against the 

 newly founded empire was ever present to Prince 

 Bismarck's mind. To avert this he brought about 

 the Drei Kaiser Bund, the league of the Emperors 

 of Austria, Germany, and Russia, ostensibly against 

 t"he forces of revolution. The policy of Germany 

 was henceforth peace. She did not want another 

 'inch of territory. To keep France completely 

 isolated was the chief object of his machinations, 

 and to have the German army always stronger than 

 the French was the policy accepted by the nation. 

 "When the spirit of revenge was stimulated by the 

 Boulangist agitators in France Bismarck contem- 

 plated another war, but feared to outrage the senti- 

 ment of Europe. He egged Russia on to the 

 Turkish war, and then ostentatiously asserted the 

 neutrality of Germany, declaring that the whole 

 Eastern question was not worth the bones of a 

 Pomeranian grenadier. Yet the Congress of Berlin 

 witnessed the zenith of his power and of German 

 influence in Europe. It was as an " honest broker " 

 that he assumed to dispose of the fortunes of 

 nations. The triple alliance of Austria, Germany, 

 and Italy succeeded the league of the three Em- 

 perors, and was founded on more real interests. If 

 France attacked Germany or Italy, if Russia 

 attacked Austria or Germany, the combined mili- 

 tary forces of the league were bound to repel the 

 aggression. Yet, unknown to the Austrian Govern- 

 ment, Prince Bismarck came to a secret under- 

 standing with the Czar, binding Germany to 

 neutrality in case Austria began war against 

 Russia in return for Russia's neutrality in case 

 France should attack Germany. This agreement 

 lasted from 1884 to 1890, lapsing when France and 

 Russia began to arrange a counter-alliance against 

 the allied powers of central Europe. 



In the first session of the German Reichstag the 

 Reichskahzler declared war on the Roman Catholic 

 Church. If in foreign politics he was always 

 earnest, prudent, prescient, if he made use of the 

 most questionable expedients and the most trivial 

 instrumentalities always with a serious purpose and 

 a stern sense of responsibility, in internal politics 

 he seemed to rejoice in the combat rather than in 

 the victory, to fritter away valuable forces in seek- 

 ing momentary tactical advantages, to confound 

 the great and the small, the lasting and the fleet- 

 ing. In the consolidation of the national spirit, 

 the unification of laws, education, commerce, etc., 

 the bulk of the nation and the majority of its best 

 intellects worked with him, and the friction, the 

 delays, and the failures were partly due to his 

 methods. He used up the men and dissipated the 

 parties who supported him, while those whom he 

 assailed gained strength. He was too masterful and 

 arbitrary by nature, too aristocratic in principle, 

 too ingrained with the traditions of the old abso- 

 lutist regime to accommodate himself to the consti- 

 tutional system of representative government and 

 either lead or follow the popular will, too loyal and 

 upright to violate or pervert the laws to which he 

 had set his hand or to -attempt to corrupt, coerce, or 

 defraud the electorate. He saw in the Roman 

 Catholic hierarchy an imperium in imperio, a 

 stronghold of particularism, and by reason of its 

 vested rights and privileges the chief obstacle in 

 the way of a national system of education and uni- 

 fied administration. These rights and privileges 

 were swept away by the May laws, and the Kultur- 

 kantpf was begun. In the next Reichstag the 

 Clericals returned in double the numbers. He had 

 so wide an acquaintance with the world's polit- 

 ical and social forces that he was not tempted to 



trust, too much in the Old Catholic movement, but 

 the spirit of battle carried him away. The thor- 

 ough enforcement of state control of primary edu- 

 cation and the main lines of his policy were ap- 

 proved by a great majority of the people. The 

 expulsion of the Jesuits was a popular demand. 

 The retaliatory measures taken against individuals 

 degenerated into persecution ami provoked need- 

 less hostility and resistance. Cardinal Ledochowski 

 and numberless less important prelates and clergy 

 were thrown into prison. Newspapers were sup- 

 pressed, theological professors dismissed, religious 

 services interdicted, church revenues impounded, 

 schools shut, marriages and burials stopped, and 

 the Roman Catholic districts plunged into chaos. 

 When Pius IX declined to receive Cardinal Ilohen- 

 lohe as German ambassador to the Vatican. Prince 

 Bismarck uttered his defiance, "We will not go to 

 Canossa." He tried to fasten on the Clericals the 

 blame for Kullmann's attempt upon his life in 

 1874, and made it the pretext for more relentless 

 persecutions. The Pope rejoined with the declara- 

 tion that the Prussian anti-Catholic laws were null 

 and void. Bismarck retorted with the "bread- 

 basket " law, stopping the stipends of recalcitrant 

 priests. The Centrum grew to be the most numer- 

 ous party in the Reichstag. First the Progressists, 

 then the Conservatives, and at length, in 1877, 

 the National Liberals demanded the repeal of the 

 Falk laws. In 1878, on the succession of Pope Leo 

 XIII, began his long journey to Canossa, first open- 

 ing negotiations with the new Pope ; then, in 1879, 

 forming a coalition with Dr. Windhorst and the 

 Clericals, dismissing Dr. Falk and calling to his 

 place Herr von Puttkamer to carry out a concilia- 

 tory policy ; next passing a law in 1880 allowing a 

 partial suspension of the anti-Catholic laws ; after- 

 ward sending an ambassador to the Vatican in 

 1882, and in 1883 modifying the May laws; and 

 finally, in 1887, striking from the statute book the 

 last vestige of hostile legislation. 



Bismarck's struggle with the Social Democrats 

 was even more ruthless and bitter, and scarcely 

 more successful in its outcome. After the attempts 

 on the Emperor's and his own life in 1878 he carried 

 through the first rigorous anti-Socialist law, pro- 

 voking the excitable element of the party to take 

 the subversive and revolutionary attitude that he 

 ascribed to the whole. Persecution only attracted 

 interest and sympathy, so that the Social Democrats, 

 denied the rights of free speech and association, 

 gained new adherents constantly by the quiet propa- 

 ganda that they carried on within the law. He 

 was in the end compelled to relax and finally repeal 

 the exceptional legislation. He even tried to make 

 peace with the Social Democrats, adopted Social- 

 ist doctrines himself, and worked out the elabo- 

 rate system of state insurance against sickness, 

 accidents, and old age. The colonial policy that he 

 adopted and prosecuted with energy in 1884 and sub- 

 sequent years establishing protectorates in West, 

 Southwest, and East Africa and in the south seas 

 was one which he had previously opposed. After 

 embarking in these enterprises, which incurred the 

 antagonism of England, he conducted them with 

 his unrivaled diplomatic skill, and eventually 

 turned British hostility into friendship and sup- 

 port. His system of high protection for German 

 manufactures and agriculture, which encountered 

 the strong opposition of the commercial classes, 

 was almost the only part of his domestic policy that 

 gathered strength, excepting the political and' mili- 

 tary measures for the protection and consolidation 

 of the German Empire, for which he bent all his 

 efforts to gain a majority. On this ground his 

 step was sure, his perception unfailing, but his 

 methods of attaining his end were calculated to de- 



