Among the states, however, there is a glaring lack of equality of status and privilege. When the Empire was formed the component states differed widely in area, population, and traditional rights, and there was no attempt to reduce them to a footing that should be absolutely uniform. Prussia, besides comprising the moving spirit in the new affiliation, contained a population considerably in excess of that of the other twenty-four states combined. The consequence was that Prussia became inevitably the preponderating power in the Empire. The king of Prussia is _ex-officio_ German Emperor; the Prussian votes in the Bundesrath can defeat any proposed amendment of the constitution, and likewise any measure looking toward a change in the army, the navy, or the taxes; and Prussia controls the chairmanship of all standing committees in the Bundesrath.[292] [Footnote 292: A. Lebon, La constitution allemande et l'hegemonie prussienne, in _Annales de l'Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques_, Jan., 1887.] *217. Military Arrangements.*--Other privileges Prussia possesses (p. 208) by virtue, not of the constitution, but of agreements with her sister states. The most important of these relates to the army. By the constitution it was provided at the outset that the armed forces of the Empire should be organized into a single establishment, to be governed by Imperial law and to be under the supreme command of the Emperor.[293] In respect to 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.]