Out of some 10,000 Roman Catholic priests in Prussia (to which kingdom alone the severest of these laws applied) only about thirty bowed the knee to the State.

In 800 parishes the strife went so far that all religious services came to an end.

In the year 1875, fines amounting to 28,000 marks (L2800) were imposed, and 103 clerics or their supporters were expelled from the Empire[80].

Clearly this state of things could not continue without grave danger to the Empire; for the Church held on her way with her usual doggedness, strengthened by the "protesting" deputies from the Reichsland on the south-west, from Hanover (where the Guelph feeling was still uppermost), as well as those from Polish Posen and Danish Schleswig.

Bismarck and the anti-clerical majority of the Reichstag scorned any thoughts of surrender.