the appointment of minor officers, and
some other matters, powers of jurisdiction were left, however, to the
individual states. These powers were in themselves worth little, and
in the course of time all of the states save Bavaria, Saxony, and
Wuerttemberg were brought to the point of yielding to Prussia the
slender military authority that remained to them.[294] In this manner
Prussia acquired the right to recruit, drill, and officer the
contingents of twenty-one states--a right which appreciably increased
her already preponderant authority in all matters of a military
character. Technically, there is no _German_ army, just as there is no
_German_ minister of war. Each state maintains its own contingent, and
the contingent maintained by the state is stationed normally within
that state. By virtue of the treaties, however, all contingents save
those of Bavaria, Saxony, and Wuerttemburg are administered precisely
as if they comprised integral parts of the Prussian establishment.[295]

[Footnote 293: Arts. 61, 63, 64. Dodd, Modern
Constitutions, I., 345-347.]

[Footnote 294: The first of the Prussian military
treaties, that concluded with Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,
dates from 1861; the last, that with Brunswick,
from 1885.]

[Footnote 295: Howard, The German Empire, Chap. 12;
Laband, Das Staatsrecht des deutschen Reiches, Secs.
95-113; C. Morhain, De l'empire allemand (Paris,
1886), Chap. 15.]

*218. The Sonderrechte.*--In the possession of special privileges
Prussia, however, is not alone. When the states of the south became
members of the federation all of them stipulated certain
_Sonderrechte_, or reserved rights, whose acknowledgment was made the
condition upon which they came into the union. Wuerttemberg and Bavaria,
for example, retain on this basis the administration of posts and
telegraphs within their boundaries, and Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, and
Baden possess the exclusive right to tax beers and brandies produced
within each state respectively. Bavaria retains the administration of
her own railways. At one time it was feared that the special privileges
accorded the southern states would constitute a menace to the stability
of the Empire. Such apprehension, however, has proved largely
groundless.[296] In this connection it is worth po