Part 15 (2/2)

Had King William received no indemnity in cash or territory from France, he must still have felt himself amply repaid for the cost of the brief but sanguinary war, for it brought him a power and prestige with which the astute diplomatist Bismarck had long been seeking to invest his name. Political changes move slowly in times of peace, rapidly in times of war. The whole of Germany, with the exception of Austria, had sent troops to the conquest of France, and every state, north and south alike, shared in the pride and glory of the result. South and North Germany had marched side by side to the battle-field, every difference of race or creed forgotten, and the honor of the German fatherland the sole watchword. The time seemed to have arrived to close the breach between north and south, and obliterate the line of the Main, which had divided the two sections. North Germany was united under the leaders.h.i.+p of Prussia, and the honor in which all alike shared now brought South Germany into line for a similar union.

The first appeal in this direction came from Baden. Later in the year plenipotentiaries sought Versailles from the kingdoms of Bavaria and Wurtemberg and the grand duchies of Baden and Hesse, their purpose being to arrange for and define the conditions of union between the South and the North German states. For weeks, this momentous question filled all Germany with excitement and public opinion was in a state of high tension. The scheme of union was by no means universally approved, there being a large party in opposition, but the majority in its favor in Chambers proved sufficient to enable Bismarck to carry out his plan.

Chapter XII. BISMARCK AND THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE

Building the Bulwarks of the Twentieth Century Nation

Bismarck as a Statesman - Uniting the German States - William I Crowned at Versailles - A Significant Decade - The Problem of Church Power - Progress of Socialism - William II and the Resignation of Bismarck - Old Age Insurance - Political and Industrial Conditions in Germany

Throughout the various events narrated in the two preceding chapters the hand of Bismarck was everywhere visible. He had proved himself a statesman of the highest powers, and these powers were devoted without stint to the aggrandizement of Prussia. As for the surrounding nations and their rights and immunities, these did not count as against his policies.

Conscience did not trouble him. The slaughter of thousands of men on the battle-field did not disturb his equanimity. He was unalterably fixed in his purposes, unscrupulous in the means employed, shrewd, keen and far-sighted in his measures, Europe being to him but a great chess-board, on which his hand moved kings, knights, and p.a.w.ns with mechanical inflexibility. To him the end justified the means, however lacking in justice or mercy these means might prove.

Denmark was despoiled to extend the territory of Prussia to the north. Austria, Bismarck's unwary accomplice in this act of spoliation, was robbed of its share of the spoils, and drawn into a war in which it met with disastrous defeat, the prestige of Prussia being vastly increased on the field of Sadowa.

Subsequently came the great struggle with France, fomented by his wiles and ending in triumph for his policies So far all had gone well for him, the final outcome of his schemes resulting in the unification of the minor German states into one powerful empire.

BISMARCK AS A STATESMAN

It was in the formation of the modern German Empire that the far-sighted plans of Bismarck culminated. King William was a willing partner for this purpose, moving as he suggested and doing as he wished. The states of Germany, aside from Austria, had actively partic.i.p.ated in the recent war, the steps towards unification which had been taken during the few preceding years having now reached the point in which a complete amalgamation might be effected.

The Holy Roman Empire, which had lasted throughout the medieval period in some phase of strength and power, at times predominant, at times little more than a t.i.tle, had received its death-blow from the hands of Napoleon and vanished from the historic stage.

It was Bismarck's design to restore the German Empire - not the old, moth-eaten fiction of the past, but an entirely new one - and give Prussia the position it had earned, that of the great center of German racial unity. In this project Austria, long at the head of the old empire, was to have no part, the imperial dignity being conferred upon the venerable King William of Prussia, a monarch whose birth dated back to the eighteenth century, and who had lived throughout the Napoleonic wars.

UNITING THE GERMAN STATES

Near the close of 1870 Bismarck concluded treaties with the amba.s.sadors of the South German States, in which they agreed to accept the const.i.tution of the North German Union. These treaties were ratified, after some opposition from members of the lower house, by the legislatures of the four states involved. The next step in the proceeding was a suggestion from the king of Bavaria to the other princes that the imperial crown of Germany should be offered to King William of Prussia.

When the North German diet at Berlin had given its consent to the new const.i.tution, a congratulatory address was despatched to the Prussian monarch at Versailles. It announced to the aged hero-king the nation's wish that he should accept the new dignity. He replied to the deputation in solemn audience that he accepted the imperial dignity which the German nation and its princes had offered him. On the 1st of January, 1871, the new const.i.tution was to come into operation.

WILLIAM I CROWNED AT VERSAILLES

The solemn a.s.sumption of the imperial office did not take place, however, until the 18th of January, the day on which, one hundred and seventy years before, the new emperor's ancestor, Frederick I, had placed the Prussian crown on his head at Konigsberg, and thus laid the basis of the growing greatness of his house. It was an ever-memorable coincidence that, in the superb-mirrored hall of the Versailles palace, where since the days of Richelieu so many plans had been concocted for the humiliation of Germany, King William should now proclaim himself German emperor. After the reading of the imperial proclamation to the German people by Count Bismarck, the Grand Duke led a cheer, in which the whole a.s.sembly joined amid the singing of national hymns. Thus the important event had taken place which again summoned the German Empire to life, and made over the imperial crown with renewed splendor to another royal house. Barbarossa's old legend, that the dominion of the empire was, after long tribulation, to pa.s.s from the Hohenstaufen to the Hohenzollern, was now fulfilled; the dream long aspired after by German youth had now become a reality and a living fact.

The tidings of the conclusion of peace with France, whose preliminaries were completed at Frankfort on the 10th of May, 1871, filled all Germany with joy, and peace festivals on the most splendid scale extended from end to end of the new empire, in all parts of which an earnest spirit of patriotism was shown, while Germans from all regions of the world sent home expressions of warm sympathy with the new national organization of their fatherland.

A SIGNIFICANT DECADE

The decade just completed had been one of remarkable political changes in Europe, unsurpa.s.sed in significance during any other period of equal length. The temporal dominion of the pope had vanished and all Italy had been united under the rule of a single king. The empire of France had been overthrown and a republic established in its place, while that country had sunk greatly in prominence among the European states. Austria had been utterly defeated in war, had lost its last hold on Italy and its position of influence among the German states. And all the remaining German lands had united into a great and powerful empire, promising to gain such extraordinary military strength that the surrounding nations looked on in doubt, full of vague fears of trouble from this new and potent power introduced into their midst.

Bismarck, however, showed an earnest desire to maintain international peace and good relations, seeking to win the confidence of foreign governments, while at the same time improving and increasing that military force which had been proved to be so mighty an engine of war.

In the const.i.tution of the new empire two legislative bodies, already possessed by the Confederation of North German States were provided for - the BUNDESRATH or Federal Council, whose members are annually appointed by the respective state governments and the REICHSTAG or representative body. whose members are elected by universal suffrage for a period of three years, an annual session being required. Germany, therefore, in its present organization, is practically a federal union of states, each with its own powers of internal government, and with a common legislature approximating to our Senate and House of Representatives. But this did not make the German emperor a parliamentary monarch. From the fact that the consent of both a.s.semblies was necessary to change the law, he governed as he pleased and had no other ministerial representative than the high chancellor of the empire, depending solely on the sovereign.

After 1870 he was in the empire what he had been previously in Prussia, the essential representative of the country and the supreme head of the military forces.

The remaining incidents of Bismarck's remarkable career may be briefly given. It consisted largely in a struggle with the Catholic Church organization, which had attained to great power in Germany, and was aggressive to an extent that roused the vigorous opposition of the chancellor of the empire, who was not willing to acknowledge any power in Germany other than that of the emperor.

King Frederick William IV, the predecessor of the reigning monarch, had made active efforts to strengthen the Catholic Church in Prussia, its clergy gaining greater privileges in that Protestant state than they possessed in any of the Catholic states. They had established everywhere in North Germany their congregations and monasteries, and by their control of public education seemed in a fair way eventually to make Catholicism supreme in the empire.

THE PROBLEM OF CHURCH POWER

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