Bismarck has often explained his motives, but we cannot be sure that those he puts forward were the only considerations by which he was moved.

He, however, insisted that the struggle was not religious but political; he was not moved by Protestant animosity to the Catholic Church, but by his alarm lest in the organisation of the Roman hierarchy a power might arise within the Empire which would be hostile to the State.

But even if the Chancellor himself was at first free from Protestant hatred to Catholicism,--and this is not quite clear,--he was forced into alliance with a large party who appealed at once to the memories of the Reformation, who stirred up all that latent hatred of Rome which is as strong a force in North Germany as in England; and with others who saw in this an opportunity for more completely subduing all, Protestant and Catholic alike, to the triumphant power of the State, and making one more step towards the dissociation of the State from any religious body.
The immediate cause of the struggle was the proclamation of the infallibility of the Pope.

It might be thought that this change or development in the Constitution of the Roman Church was one which concerned chiefly Roman Catholics.

This is the view which Bismarck seems to have taken during the meetings of the Vatican Council.