PRINCE BISMARCK ON THE ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF I870. (JCTTBNAL DEB DBBlXft.)

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 442, 18 March 1875, Page 2

PRINCE BISMARCK ON THE ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1870. (JCTTBNAL DEB DBBlXft.)

Recent discussions in the Parliament at Berlin are* highly interesting (writes M. John Lemoinne) to , the whole of Europe, and broach questions affecting the whole world. For this reason we turn once more to the declarations which have- been made by the great director of German policy It is known that M. de Bismarck has, as a sign of a final rupture with the Papacy, suppressed in the Estimates the salary of the Prussian envoy toRome. He does not affect to deny the sovereignty and supremacy of the Pope over the Catholic Church, but he regards it as useless to send a political representative to a merely spiritual power. In adopting this course the German Chancellor dogs-^ not declare war. He merely places Germany in tte / same position as England, which, at the time of fhe Reformation, ceasecl to recognise the Pope. England, however, subsequently felt that in the absence of her own internal government and of her Catholic subjects, it was better to recognise that there was a Pope fa the world. She therefore made a compromise- with the scarlet Babylon, and has long: kept at & semi-official representative to attend to the ne&ssary relations between the Holy See and the English Government. There would be nothing extraordinary in the resolution arrived at by the German Government ta suppress the post cf envoy to Rome, if M. de' Bismarck had not made that resolution the occasion and object of comments, which interest us as much as the Germans. After saying that it was useless to send a representative to the Holy See, the Chancellor added :—: — " Another reason favors 1 the suppression of this embassy. So long as the head of the Catholic Church persists in an attitude which renders the working of a^y &jthority in foreign States absolutely impossilill, s% long as we see him exciting and encouraging everywhere the rebellion of hia clergy against the -laws of the State, the German Empire cannot even appear to enter into relations with him. Thevwar was not commenced by us f but by the warlike* successor of many peaceful Popes. It was the present Pope, a true member of the Church Militant, who thought fit to revive the ancient struggle of the Papacy with the Temporal Power, and especially with the German Empire, Upon this subject I can tell something of which I have not yet spoken, but which it is better to telL In 1869 the Wurtemberg Government had occasion to complain of certain actions of the Court of Rome ; the Wiirteniberg Minister made the complaint to the Papal Nuncio at Munich, who replied that the Roman Church had no liberty except in America, and^ perhaps in England and Belgium. In all other countries the Roman Church had to look ip revolution only means of securing her rights. Well, it was not revolution that came, but the Franco-German war of 1870. I have positive proofs that the war of 1870 was inspired by Rome, and that Tt was the war that cut short the (Ecumenical Council. I know, from a most certain source, that the Emperor Napoleon was dragged into the war altogether against his will, by the Jesuitical influences which surrounded his Court - f that he struggled as hard as he could against those influences ; that in the eleventh hour he determined to maintain peace ; that he maintained this resolution for half an hour, and that his will was at last overpowered by persons representing Rome." These explanations are very interesting, but M. ■-de Bismarck is wrong in thinking that they ar^disclosures. Those in France and Europe who are at all well informed know well on whom ought to fall the responsibility of the fatal war which has . crushed and prostrated us. It is well known that on the day when tfc} despatch arrived announcing that the German candidate for the throne of Spain^ had retired, peace was considered as made, and vrimm publicly declared to have been made. It is also known that peace was undone thai evening at Saint Cloud, and that, on the next da/, Paris which had gone to sleep in tranquility, awoke in tumult, which ended in blood and ruins — ruins of which many generations will have to bear the burden. The violent speeches of the German Chancellor may inflict wounds, but they are also lessons, and it is for usUo^mnfc^Jbj^them.