1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ems (town)

EMS, a town and watering-place of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, romantically situated on both banks of the Lahn, in a valley surrounded by wooded mountains and vine-clad hills, 11 m. E. from Coblenz on the railway to Cassel and Berlin. Pop. 6500. It has two Evangelical, a Roman Catholic, an English and a Russian church. There is some mining industry (silver and lead). Ems is one of the most delightful and fashionable watering-places of Europe. Its waters—hot alkaline springs about twenty in number—are used both for drinking and bathing, and are efficacious in chronic nervous disorders, feminine complaints and affections of the liver and respiratory organs. On the right bank of the river lies the Kursaal with pretty gardens. A stone let into the promenade close by marks the spot where, on the 13th of July 1870, King William of Prussia had the famous interview with the French ambassador Count Benedetti (q.v.) which resulted in the war of 1870–1871. A funicular railway runs up to the Malberg (1000 ft.), where is a sanatorium and whence extensive views are obtained over the Rhine valley. Ems is largely frequented in the summer months by visitors from all parts of the world—the numbers amounting to about 11,000 annually—and many handsome villas have been erected for their accommodation. In August 1786 Ems was the scene of the conference of the delegates of the four German archbishops, known as the congress of Ems, which issued (August 25) in the famous joint pronouncement, known as the Punctation of Ems, against the interference of the papacy in the affairs of the Catholic Church in Germany (see Febronianism).

See Vogler, Ems, seine Heilquellen, Kureinrichtungen, &c. (Ems, 1888); and Hess, Zur Geschichte der Stadt Ems (Ems, 1895).