France and Germany

France and Germany.

“It is just possible that there may be a second, Franco-Prussian war. It would seem indeed that Bismarck, if not Germany, desires it, and is bent on forcing it if he can. He is evidently looking for a pretext to begin hostilities against the neighboring country; and so fertile is he in pretexts and other resources that we can see no reason why he should not succeed. France, spite of the drain of five milliards and the reverses of the war, is recuperating. She is growing stronger every day, and her continuous growth is an ever-increasing menace to Germany. Better strike France down now, thinks Bismarck, than to wait till she has grown again to be the peer of Germany as a military power. So, too, seems to think the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Bismarck’s reputed organ, although it does not say it in so many words. It has discovered a reason for interfering with France. The Catholic press and the Catholic clergy of France have decried Bismarck’s course toward their fellow-Catholics in Germany; and this is the casus belli. With the French Government as a Government, they—Bismarck and his organs—say they have nothing to do; no reason to complain of it. But with the French Government as the satellite or ally of Rome, Germany has everything to do. Germany is at present the avowed enemy of the Roman Catholic church. Therefore, the friends of Rome are its enemies, and in declaring war against Rome it must declare war against them.”

“While endeavoring, however, to bring on a war with France, Germany professes to be most anxious for peace. She professes to object to the course of the French clergy and French Catholics only on the ground that their course has a tendency to disturb the present comparative cordial relations between the two countries, and precipitate a conflict. To prevent such an event, Germany thinks she had better begin a war herself, and put France, while yet in a state of convalescence, in a position where she will not be able to take the offensive; in other words, that to discourage so ungodly a thing as a war, it had better commence one now. If France would only tell her bishops to hold their tongues, and not to whine in so unearthly a fashion over Bismarck’s treatment of their brother bishops in Germany, he avers he would have no fault to find with her; that he would allow her to recover from defeat, put her army on any footing she wished, and restore her war-material to a better condition than before 1870. If, however, she is not willing to bridle the tongues of these apostles of dissension, he must, in the interests of civilization and humanity, interfere. Such is Bismarck’s present attitude toward France. The recent elections have demonstrated that his power is not so great as it was, while that of the Catholic party in the empire and in France is on the increase. He knows, too, that a breach must occur sometime; and it is not at all improbable that he prefers that it should occur now, ere his own influence grows less or that of Rome greater.” J. W. B.