The truth is that in undertaking the conflict and associating himself with the anti-Clerical party Bismarck had stirred up an enemy whom he was not able to overcome.  He soon found that the priests and the Catholics were men of a different calibre to the Liberals.  They dared to do what none of the Progressives had ventured on—­they disobeyed the law.  With them it was not likely that the conflict would be confined to Parliamentary debates.  The Government attempted to meet this resistance, but in vain.  The priests were deprived of their cures, bishops were thrown into prison, nearly half the Catholic parishes in Prussia were deprived of their spiritual shepherds, the churches were closed, there was no one to celebrate baptisms or weddings.  Against this resistance what could the Government do?  The people supported the leaders of the party, and a united body of one hundred members under Windhorst, ablest of Parliamentary leaders, was committed to absolute opposition to every Government measure so long as the conflict continued.  Can we be surprised that as the years went on Bismarck looked with some concern on the result of the struggle he had brought about?

He attempted to conceal the failure:  “The result will be,” he said, “that we shall have two great parties—­one which supports and maintains the State, and another which attacks it.  The former will be the great majority and it will be formed in the school of conflict.”  These words are the strongest condemnation of his policy.  It could not be wise for any statesman to arrange that party conflict should take the form of loyalty and disloyalty to the Empire.

There can be little doubt that his sense of failure helped to bring about a feeling of enmity towards the National Liberals.  Suddenly in the spring of 1877 he sent in his resignation.  There were, however, other reasons for doing this.  He had become aware that the financial policy of the Empire had not been successful; on every side it seemed that new blood and new methods were required.  In financial matters he had little experience or authority; he had to depend on his colleagues and he complained of their unfruitfulness.  Influenced perhaps by his perception of this, under the pretext—­a genuine pretext—­of ill-health, he asked the Emperor to relieve him of his offices.  The Emperor refused.  “Never,” he wrote on the side of the minute.  Instead he granted to Bismarck unlimited leave of absence.  In the month of April the Chancellor retired to Varzin; for ten months he was absent from Berlin, and when he returned, recruited in health, in February, 1878, it was soon apparent that a new period in his career and in the history of the Empire was to begin.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE AND ECONOMIC REFORM.

1878-1887.