Berlin. At this moment the Emperor is still delivering his speech in Parliament, declaring that he knows neither Catholics nor Protestants, but only Germans. The North German forces are said to be concentrated along the Erfurt-Gotha-Kassel line. The Catholic forces are advancing in the general direction of Zwickau and Rudolfstadt, meeting with no opposition but that of the civilian population. The town of Greiz has been burned down and the citizens either killed or dragged into slavery. The reports of a great battle have not so far been confirmed. Refugees from Bayreuth state that the firing of heavy artillery could be heard from the north. The railway station at Madgeburg is said to have been blown up by the bombs of Bavarian airmen. Weimar is on fire.
Indescribable enthusiasm prevails here in Munich. Attestation commissions are at work in all the schools; crowds of volunteers wait as long as twenty hours in the streets. The heads of twenty decapitated pastors are exposed on the Rathaus. The Catholic clergy have to serve mass day and night in overcrowded churches; the Reverend Father Grosshube, who was also a member of Parliament, died of exhaustion at the altar. Jews, Monists, Abstinents, and other heretics have barricaded themselves in their houses. Rosenheim, the banker, the oldest member of the Jewish community, was publicly burned at the stake this morning.
The Dutch and Danish ambassadors have asked for their passports. The American representative has lodged a protest against the disturbance of the peace; on the other hand, the Italian Government has assured Bavaria of its particularly benevolent neutrality.
Bands of recruits march through the streets carrying flags with a white cross on a red ground, and shouting "God wills it." Ladies are entering the nursing service and getting hospitals ready. Business houses are for the most part closed. So is the Stock Exchange.
