WE SHALL NEVER GO TO CANOSSA!
May 14, 1872
TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D.
[Early in 1872 the German government tried to bring about a peaceful understanding with the ultramontane (i. e., Catholic) party by courteous advances made to the pope. The cardinal prince Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst was designated as ambassador to His Holiness the Pope who was asked whether the prince would be acceptable. The pope replied in the negative, and thereby deeply hurt the emperor. When the expenses of this post in the budget were under discussion in the Reichstag, Mr. von Bennigsen expressed the hope that they would be struck from the budget in future, to which Bismarck replied as follows:]
CAN readily understand how the idea may arise that the expenses for this embassy have become unnecessary, because there is no longer a question here of protecting German subjects in those parts. I am, nevertheless, glad that no motion has been made to abolish this position, for it would have been unwelcome to the government.
The duties of an embassy are in part, it is true, the protection of its countrymen, but in part also the mediation of the political relations which the government of the empire happens to maintain with the court where the ambassador is accredited. There is no foreign sovereign authorized by the present state of our legislation to exercise as extensive rights within the German empire as the pope. While these rights are almost those of a sovereign, they are not guarded by any constitutional responsibility. Considerable importance, therefore, attaches to the kind of diplomatic relations which the German empire is able to
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