Napoleon's own prestige demanded that France, too, should have some annexations to show. He begged for the Rhenish provinces, he tried to buy Luxemburg. But Bismarck was inexorable. Hatred of Prussia became a domi nant passion with the French, and when, in 1870, a pretext was found in the candidacy of a Hohenzollern to the vacant throne of Spain, the nation rushed joyously into war. When the candidacy was withdrawn the chamber sent an insulting demand that the king of Prussia should promise that it should never be renewed. Bismarck's publication of a terse version of the incident aroused intense excitement in Ger many; but it was the French who'began hostili ties. Their total want of preparation and the wonderful organization of the Germans, for which Moltke was largely responsible, brought about the long series of French defeats and re sulted in the capture of the two main armies, as Well as of the emperor's own person (Metz and Sedan). After the successful siege of Paris the war closed with the treaty of Frank fort (May 10, 1871). Already on 18 January, by invitation of all the states, King William of Prussia had assumed the Crown as German emperor.
Later Middle (ib. 1908) ; Seignobos, 'Political History of Europe Since 1814' (ib. 1900) ; Seeley, 'Life and Times of Stein) (London 1879) ; Treitschke, 'Deutsche Gesch ichte im neunzehnten (Leipzig 1879.94) ; Tout, T. F., 'The Empire and the .Papacy) (1898) ; Tuttle, 'History of (3 vols., Boston 1888); Von Billow, 'Imperial (New York 1914)._ After the foundation of the new German Empire, on 18 Jan. 1871, Bismarck (q.v.) was at the helm and directed national affairs al most according to his own supreme will. The old king of Prussia, William I, now Ger man emperor by the grace of the other rulers of the non-Prussian parts of the territory, had an almost blind confidence in the wisdom and energy of his Chancellor, and merely lent the great weight of his personal prestige to Bis marck in directing affairs, and the young na tion, still in the process of consolidation, fol lowed more or less reluctantly the lead of the "Man of Blood and Iron,* being thoroughly cowed by the glittering successes on battle field and in statecraft with which he curtly silenced his opponents on all critical occa sions. From a mere °geographical idea,* which Germany had been up to 1866, she had suddenly and portentously risen to be a most powerful and aggressive entity before the eyes of amazed contemporaries. Yet the task of internal consolidation was a herculean one, requiring not alone almost autocratic prerog atives—such as, indeed, the new imperial con stitution, being of Bismarck's own drafting, clothed the Chancellor's office with—but in finite tact, patience and sympathetic insight But Bismarck, after all, was a Prussian, even a a junker" (younker) by descent and practical training, and tact and patience were scarcely a part of his equipment. He certainly had spared the finer susceptibilities of the minor crowned heads of Germany very skilfully to enable the establishment of an imperial ruler at all, notably in the case of those of Bavaria and Wurttemberg, and during his regime he did not depart from this line of internal pol icy. But it was otherwise in sundry other
respects.He certainly proved not nearly so i effective in his internal policy as he had been as a state-builder. This came to be seen very soon after the' Peace of Frankfort had ratified the successes of 1870-71. The so-called Kultur kampf (q.v.) broke out in 1873 and• continued virulently till 1879. This split the whole nation into two unequal halves, the Protestant and the Catholic, antagonizing each other and bearing th• seed of bitter and ceaseless internecine strife. It came soon after, and as an out cropping consequence of, the declaration of papal infallibility by the Vatican Council, this novel dogma having undoubtedly a tend ency in Germany of arraying the spiritual against the temporal power. The so-called Maigesetze, or May laws, were passed by the Reichstag, and these amongst other thinp de creed the expulsion of the Jesuits and similar from German soil. They also denied, in a number of crucial points, the right of the Catholic hierarchy of interfering in many ad ministrative state matters, in and civil marriages and in the intimate supervision by bishops of the family life of their flocks. High tension prevailed for years; under the surface a religious war was waged in every town and hamlet. Several unyielding archbishops in Prussia were incarcerated. Bismarck, in one of his embittered moods, declared in a Reich stag speech that he was firmly bent on uphold ing the supremacy of the state, and that he should never "go to Canossa" (a historical reminiscence of the time of Emperor Henry IV). But in the end, after the lapse of six implacable years, he yielded nevertheless in a measure to papal diplomacy, and a compromise with the Vatican was effected, Leo XIII mean while having succeeded Pius IX. In part this was due to a new and just as formidable in ternal foe having loomed up, requiring all the strategical ruthlessness of the dreaded Chan cellor; namely, the Socialists. Against their passionate agitation Bismarck got the Reich stag to enact the so-called Ausnahmegesetze (or exceptional laws), which put millions of Germans, both men and women, under the ban. These drastic laws, too, were passed for a speci fied term of years. They drove many thou sands of Germany's skilled artisans, small tradesmen, etc., Socialists by faith, into neigh boring and less autocratically administered countries, and also to the United States, where most of them became good and useful citizens. The entire Socialist press was suppressed throughout Germany, but a vigorous contra band trade in Socialist literature was, just the same, carried on constantly, especially across the Swiss border.