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Though the war was perhaps not planned by Bismarck, it was certainly not unwelcome to him. It solved at a stroke the problem of southern Germany, since all the southern German states at once acknowledged their treaty obligations to Prussia and placed their troops under William’s command. Austria dared not join France, Russia was won to benevolent neutrality by Bismarck’s support of Russian designs in the Black Sea, and Great Britain cared only for the neutrality of Belgium. The French had supposed that they would take the offensive. Instead, after a trivial victory at Saarbrücken, the French armies under Patrice de Mac-Mahon were defeated on the frontiers at Wissembourg (August 4) and Wörth (August 6). One French army under Achille François Bazaine was driven into Metz and failed to break out in the two fierce battles of Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte (August 16 and 18).

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The main French army under Mac-Mahon at first retreated and then attempted to pass the flank of the German forces in order to relieve Metz. This army was surrounded at Sedan and on September 2 forced to surrender. That brought the overthrow of Napoleon and the establishment of a provisional government in Paris. The new government was resolved not to surrender any French territory, and the war was therefore continued. Strasbourg surrendered on September 28 and Metz on October 27. The German armies were then free to press the siege of Paris throughout the winter. Though the French, under the inspiration of Léon Gambetta, made an amazing recovery, they were unable to relieve Paris, which was compelled to capitulate on January 28, 1871. An armistice was then concluded and a French national assembly elected which had to authorize the conclusion of peace. Preliminary terms were agreed to by Jules Favre on February 26, and the final peace treaty was signed at Frankfurt am Main on May 10. France had to cede Alsace and most of Lorraine, including Metz, its capital. Bismarck seems to have doubted the wisdom of such excessive demands but was overborne by the German generals. On their prompting he also demanded Belfort, but he abandoned this demand in exchange for a victory march by the German army through the streets of Paris. France had also to pay an indemnity of five billion francs, and the Germans remained in occupation of part of France until the amount was paid.

Bismarck’s liberal period and the Kulturkampf

Bismarck had been on bad terms with the Prussian Junkers, represented by the conservative parties, since 1866, and the estrangement was completed by the creation of the empire. Only a small group, the Deutsche Reichspartei (German Imperial Party), composed mainly of officials, remained loyal to him. On the other hand, the National Liberals were more enthusiastic for Bismarck than ever before, and from 1871 to 1879 they formed almost a government party. Bismarck discussed proposals for legislation with their leader, Rudolf von Bennigsen, and the National Liberals supported his general conduct of policy. Moreover, in the first years, the National Liberals managed to win more votes than any other single party despite universal suffrage. Only in 1879 did it become clear that a purely middle-class party could not keep its hold on peasant and working-class voters.

Thus the first period of the empire was the great age of liberal reform. Germany was given at a stroke uniform legal procedure, uniform coinage, and uniform administration. An imperial bank was created, most restrictions on freedom of enterprise and freedom of movement were removed, and limited companies and trade combinations were allowed. Freedom of the press was secured in 1874. Work was begun on an imperial civil code, which finally extended to all Germany in 1900. Particularly important was the establishment of municipal autonomy in 1873. This freed the towns from the control of the Landrat (usually a large landowner) and cleared the way for the development of local government, in which Germany led the world.

Bismarck’s alliance with the National Liberals led him into conflict with Roman Catholics, who made up more than a third of the population of the new empire. The conflict began after the First Vatican Council of 1870 had declared the infallibility of the pope. Some leading German Roman Catholics, known as Old Catholics, opposed this decree, and the church demanded that the German states dismiss all Old Catholic teachers. Thus a struggle began over the clerical control of education and soon turned into a general attack on the independence of the Roman Catholic Church. The conflict was also political. The German Roman Catholics were anti-Prussian both by tradition and by geography. They were at once particularist and “great German,” in that they favoured both the small states and the German Austrians. As the struggle developed, the Roman Catholics strengthened their political organization, the Centre Party, and this party cut across class and state lines. The Centre was, in fact, the first mass party of imperial Germany, though it could never win a majority. It was, however, strong enough to menace the stability of Bismarck’s political system.

The conflict with the Roman church, the so-called Kulturkampf (“culture struggle”), was fought by Bismarck with all his usual exaggeration and violence. He abolished the special section in the Prussian ministry which dealt with Roman Catholic affairs, made marriage an exclusively civil proceeding, and insisted on a state degree before a priest was appointed to a benefice. When the church excommunicated all Old Catholic teachers, Bismarck answered by expelling the Jesuits from Germany. The church only increased its resistance. The clergy refused to appear before the state courts or to pay the fines which were imposed. The archbishops of Posen (Poznań) and Cologne were imprisoned, and the former was deposed.

These penal measures were expressed in the “May laws,” which the Prussian Landtag (state parliament) passed in 1873. They were expanded in further measures promoted by Adalbert Falk, the Prussian minister of ecclesiastical affairs, in 1874 and 1875. By then it was clear that Bismarck would not achieve victory. The Old Catholics carried no weight, and even many Protestants, particularly among the Junkers, disliked this attack on religious teaching. Though Bismarck still allowed the struggle to continue, he put increasing responsibility on Falk and thus made it easy to distance himself from it when the time came for a change of course. The conflict also served a purpose in foreign policy. It was a move against the Roman Catholic powers, France and Austria-Hungary, and a gesture in favour of Protestant England and Orthodox Russia. By 1877 the needs of Bismarck’s foreign policy were changing. The danger of an ultramontane bloc had disappeared, if it had ever existed, and here too the way was open for a change of course.