Accounts of 20th-century diplomatic relations between Germany and the Vatican commonly take as their starting point the political scene in the late 19th century.[7] German Chancellor Bismarck's Kulturkampf ("Battle for Culture") of 1871–78 saw an attempt to assert a Protestant vision of nationalism over the new German Empire, and fused anticlericalism with suspicion of the Catholic population, whose loyalty was presumed to lie with Austria and France. The Catholic Centre Party had formed in 1870, initially to represent the religious interests of Catholics and Protestants, but was transformed by the Kulturkampf into the "political voice of Catholics".[8] Bismarck's Culture Struggle was largely a failure.[9]