As head of the Bavarian government Hohenlohe's principal task was to discover some basis for an effective union of the South German states with the North German Confederation, and during the three critical years of his tenure of office he was, next to Bismarck, the most important statesman in Germany. He carried out the reorganization of the Bavarian army on the Prussian model, brought about the military union of the southern states, and took a leading share in the creation of the customs parliament (_Zollparlament_), of which on the 28th of April 1868 he was elected a vice-president. During the agitation that arose in connexion with the summoning of the Vatican council Hohenlohe took up an attitude of strong opposition to the ultramontane position. In common with his brothers, the duke of Ratibor and the cardinal, he believed that the policy of Pius IX.--inspired by the Jesuits (that "devil's society," as he once called it)--of setting the Church in opposition to the modern State would prove ruinous to both, and that the definition of the dogma of papal infallibility, by raising the pronouncements of the Syllabus of 1864 into articles of faith, would commit the Church to this policy irrevocably. This view he embodied into a circular note to the Catholic powers (April 9, 1869), drawn up by Dollinger, inviting them to exercise the right of sending ambassadors to the council and to combine to prevent the definition of the dogma. The greater powers, however, were for one reason or another unwilling to intervene, and the only practical outcome of Hohenlohe's action was that in Bavaria the powerful ultramontane party combined against him with the Bavarian "patriots" who accused him of bartering away Bavarian independence to Prussia. The combination was too strong for him; a bill which he brought in for curbing the influence of the Church over education was defeated, the elections of 1869 went against him, and in spite of the continued support of the king he was forced to resign (March 7, 1870).