It spread even to the army, when the Minister of War required the army chaplain at Cologne to celebrate Mass in a church which was used also by the Old Catholics.

He was forbidden to do so by his bishop, and the bishop was in consequence deprived of his salary and threatened with arrest.
The conflict having once begun soon spread; a new Minister of Culture was appointed; in the Reichstag a law was proposed expelling the Jesuits from Germany; and a number of important laws, the so-called May laws, were introduced into the Prussian Parliament, giving to the State great powers with regard to the education and appointment of priests; it was, for instance, ordered that no one should be appointed to a cure of souls who was not a German, and had not been brought up and educated in the State schools and universities of Prussia.

Then other laws were introduced, to which we have already referred, making civil marriage compulsory, so as to cripple the very strong power which the Roman Catholic priests could exercise, not only by refusing their consent to mixed marriages, but also by refusing to marry Old Catholics; a law was introduced taking the inspection of elementary schools out of the hands of the clergy, and finally a change was made in those articles of the Prussian Constitution which ensured to each denomination the management of its own affairs.

Bismarck was probably not responsible for the drafting of all these laws; he only occasionally took part in the discussion and was often away from Berlin.
The contrast between these proposals and the principles he had maintained in his earlier years was very marked; his old friend Kleist recalled the eloquent speech which in former years he had made against civil marriage.

Bismarck did not attempt to defend himself against the charge of inconsistency; he did not even avow that he had changed his personal opinions; he had, however, he said, learnt to submit his personal convictions to the requirements of the State; he had only done so unwillingly and by a great struggle.