THE MOROCCAN QUESTION.

I.

THE German Government had not taken advantage of the Boer War, which broke out only a year after the Fashoda incident, to draw closer to France. The bitter animosity towards England which found noisy expression at that time in Germany enabled it to obtain from the Reichstag the credits required for building a powerful navy. Suddenly, however, it awoke to the necessity of discouraging these tirades by itself adopting towards the British Government a more correct attitude than the Imperial telegram sent to President Kruger had seemed to promise. As all the world knows, it wished to have a free hand for launching its warships, that main object of William II. during the early years of his reign, without the risk of a naval conflict.

After the South African question had been settled, there occurred from year to year a series of events which had no small share in bringing on the present conflagration, and certainly made it come all the sooner. These events are connected by an unbroken, though scarcely visible, thread. They developed in two widely different theatres—Morocco and the Near East.

The English and the French are at one to-day in applauding Edward VII.’s generous and far-sighted notion of holding out his hand to France, so soon as peace was restored in South Africa. This noble action, so consonant with the feelings he had entertained towards France since early youth, and with the respectful but sympathetic welcome he had always received in French society, paved the way for the Entente Cordiale. The first visit that he paid to Paris as King, after an interval that must have seemed unduly long to this old Parisian, took place in the spring of 1903, after his return from a cruise in the Mediterranean. A high-placed member of the Foreign Office in His Majesty’s retinue had written to me from Malta some weeks earlier: “I don’t quite know what sort of reception the people of Paris intend to give our King.” The reception, as it turned out, was in the right key, both deferential and friendly. One year later, on April 8, 1904, were signed those agreements which laid the foundations of the Entente Cordiale, and at the same time ushered in the Moroccan question.

I do not pretend to give here a complete history of this question: to study it under its successive aspects, French, Spanish, Mediterranean, European; to unfold it in all its different phases, from the Convention of Madrid to that of Berlin. A volume at least would be needed for that; the Morocco affair is a sea in which I should drown both my reader and myself. All that I propose doing is to show its effects upon Franco-German relations, since I was able, from personal observation, to gauge the width of the irreparable breach that it made between the two countries.

The treaties or agreements of April 8, 1904, are a general settlement of all the matters that caused friction between England and France in various parts of the globe. These compacts put an end to their long and barren African antagonism, and thus removed the chief bar to an understanding between the two great Western Powers—an understanding that had become vital, now that the balance of Europe was endangered by the preponderant might of Germany. The de facto authority held by England in Egypt since the suppression of Arabi Pasha’s revolt was formally recognized; and, as an offset, the rights of France in Morocco, as regards political influence and financial and commercial development, were acknowledged. In signing these diplomatic contracts, M. DelcassÉ signed the charter for the future French protectorate in the richest section of North-West Africa, and rounded off, with a stroke of the pen, that magnificent colonial domain of which Algeria had formed the nucleus. An entente, which required more delicate handling, assigned to Spain her time-honoured rights and claims in the portion of Morocco opposite her shores. A convention had already settled that Italy should forgo her interests in this region; in return, she had obtained recognition for her sphere of influence on another strip of the Mediterranean littoral. In this way, the adhesion of the Western Mediterranean Powers was assured. The other great Powers were apprised of the covenants between England and France, and of the arrangements made by the latter with the Makhzen, in keeping with these covenants.

II.

Germany was not satisfied with being informed of the Moroccan agreements by diplomatic channels. She “considered that her interests had entitled her to be consulted in a more direct manner.”11 The signatories to the treaty of 8th April might well have sent a simple notification beforehand, to prevent the Imperial Government from throwing any obstacles in the way of their proceedings. This was the view held in Berlin, where on several occasions I heard it expanded, not without bitterness, in such terms as these:—

“Germany is not a Mediterranean Power; but she was a party to the Madrid Convention of 1880, which regulated the status of protected Europeans in the Shereefian Empire, and in 1890 she concluded by herself a commercial treaty with the Makhzen. Her trade in this region, it is true, is still much less in bulk than that of England and France, but in the movement for the extension of German commerce—a movement that has been developing on a grand scale for the past twenty-five years—Morocco is not regarded by manufacturers and traders as a negligible quantity. On the contrary, they not only aim at enlarging their business transactions with that country, but they have their eye upon its mineral wealth. It is accordingly to their advantage that Morocco should remain an entirely unrestricted field for European competition. That the country is in a state of anarchy is a matter of indifference to them; this, after all, is its normal condition, its endemic disease, and must inevitably last for a long time to come. From a political point of view, the Imperial Government cannot help regarding the negotiations carried on with other States, for the purpose of inducing them to recognize the validity of the Anglo-French treaties, as a slur on its prestige. The Emperor clearly stated, in a speech delivered on July 3, 1900, that he would not allow the German nation to be ignored when any important step was to be taken in the realm of international affairs. The decision as to the future of Morocco certainly comes under this head. Most questions can be settled by a compromise or a bargain. Germany’s consent would have been obtained if a reasonable price had been offered—e.g., territorial compensations in some other part of Africa, since she is burning with an irrepressible desire to colonize, a desire that, through Bismarck’s lack of foresight, she was unable to gratify while there was still time.”

Would the war of 1914 have been averted if, ten years earlier, the Moroccan question had been settled, almost as soon as it was raised, by an agreement with the Imperial Government? There is no reason to think so. Quite apart from the secret designs of the Imperial Government, which have since come to light, several of the factors contributing towards the 1914 crisis were non-existent in 1904 and had nothing to do with Morocco. The Balkan conflicts, the Austro-Serbian disputes, were in themselves quite enough to ignite the powder-magazine. But we may fairly assume that, but for Morocco, the dangerous tensions of 1905 and 1911 would not have arisen; that Europe would have enjoyed a more restful life than during those two years; and that the hostile feeling reawakened on both sides of the Vosges would not have reached the same degree of acuteness. The Moroccan imbroglios led many Germans, peacefully minded till then, to look upon a new war as a necessary evil.

Only those who fail to realize the pride and malice of the German temperament, and who are utterly ignorant as to the sinister aspects of William II.’s pacifism, can imagine that this Sovereign and his people were ever capable of pardoning the intentional slight that had been put upon them. France and England would therefore have been wise in augmenting their military forces from this time onward, in order not to fall a prey, later on, to the resentment of a greedy rival whom they had deliberately excluded from the Shereefian Empire.

As regards territorial compensations in Africa, it was forgotten at Berlin that Germany, through her own fault, was scarcely entitled to ask for them or even decently to accept an offer. During his tour in Syria in the autumn of 1898, William II. had been guilty of an indiscretion. He had invited the three hundred million Moslems scattered all over the world to count at all times upon the friendship of the German Emperor. It was quite unnecessary for him to declare himself the protector of Islam, with the risk of causing anxiety to States with Mohammedan subjects. Instead of assuming this pose of guardian angel, William II. need only have proclaimed himself the friend of the Turks and Syrians, since the main object of his journey was to pave the way for the invasion of Turkey by German industry and finance. As it was, the Emperor, after this solemn promise, would have laid himself open to the indignation or the ridicule of all Islam, if he had suggested to France that he should cede to her Germany’s claims on Morocco and the suzerainty over the Moroccans (those peculiarly bigoted Moslems) in exchange for an African mess of pottage.

III.

For nearly a year after the Anglo-French agreement, the Imperial Government refused to show its hand. It gave itself time for thinking matters over, before taking a definite stand against France in Morocco. French publicists have not omitted to point out that this period of reflection ended with the Battle of Mukden. From that moment, Germany’s mind was set at rest as to the support that Russia could give, in the event of a conflict, to her Western ally.

Prince von BÜlow plumes himself on having suggested to his master, in the spring of 1905, the dramatic coup of Tangier. William II., despite his love for spectacular effects, hesitated up to the last moment before taking so hazardous a step. In the end, he landed on 31st March, with a large retinue, at the old Maghrib city, where he made a promise to the Sultan’s envoys that he would defend the latter’s sovereignty and the independence of his States. He was not destined to keep this promise, and its only result was to prolong the illusions of the sheikhs and their resistance to France. It was a repetition, in a more clumsy form, of the blunder he had committed in sending his telegram to Kruger; for in the eyes of the Christian and Mohammedan world it compromised the Emperor personally far more than any telegraphic message could have done.

The die was cast. The attitude of the Imperial Government towards French activities became menacing; it took up a determined attitude as champion of Morocco’s integrity and of the Sultan’s rights, while the whole German Press, waxing indignant to order, raised an outcry against the attempt to make another Tunis of the Maghrib Empire. The stubborn policy of the Emperor and the Chancellor at first met with success, forcing M. DelcassÉ to resign and the Paris and London Cabinets to call a conference at Algeciras. For his share in this triumph, Herr von BÜlow was rewarded with the title of Prince. But the Conference itself frustrated German hopes.

The Berlin Cabinet, in commenting before the Reichstag and through the medium of its official editors on the results obtained at Algeciras, claimed the merit of having upheld the sovereignty of the Sultan and freedom of trade with its natural concomitant, the principle that all concessions should be put up to public tender without distinction of nationality. This was merely breaking through a door which was already open, and which the Conference would not have consented to shut at any one’s bidding. Germany did, indeed, succeed in getting the police and the State Bank put under international control. France, for her part, managed to secure an undisputed title to her rights in the frontier region and a predominant share in the organization of the State Bank. Her most signal success lay in the arrangement that no third Power should be allowed to occupy, in any part of Morocco, a position similar to that which she and Spain held by virtue of their geographical situation and their political interests. The Shereefian police in the ports remained under the direction of French and Spanish officers.

Did Prince von BÜlow seriously believe at the time that Edward VII. and M. DelcassÉ had devised the Machiavellian scheme of isolating Germany and encircling her with a network of alliances, in order to crush her one day under the weight of a European coalition? At all events, he succeeded in making the German public adopt this theory, and it still prevails to-day in Berlin. A very different impression is conveyed to those who have carefully followed the tortuous path of Imperial statesmanship. William II. was furious at the Anglo-French understanding, which he must have previously regarded as a hopeless prospect so far as Africa, the field of their old rivalries, was concerned; and at Algeciras he tried to shatter it in brutal fashion, by proving to the two Western Powers the futility of their diplomatic work—a mere house of cards that would fall to the ground at the slightest breath from Germany. He wished to see them leave the Conference at daggers drawn, dissatisfied with each other and convinced that their efforts were vain, at the very moment when the Franco-Russian alliance was showing itself incapable of bearing fruit.

The visit to Tangier was the first outward sign of that moral transformation in the Emperor of which I have already spoken. The weight assigned in Europe to Germanism, with its growing resources, its constant increase in wealth and population, did not seem to him commensurate with its power. And now, just when his ambitious dreams were beginning to take shape, he saw Germany cleverly thrust aside from Morocco, instead of acquiring the foremost place in that refuge of Moslem barbarism which civilization was trying to invade. The Emperor, together with his people, had hoped by means of the Conference to gain a foothold in Morocco. The disappointment left behind it in his soul an unhappy leaven of spite and anger.

It is not surprising, therefore, that before the meeting of the Conference, on which he set such great store, and in order to carry the day against the two Western Powers, William II. for the first time openly behaved in a high-handed manner towards his neighbours. His threats were still in a rather subdued key, but in the language of his envoys, at the informal diplomatic discussions, there loomed up the vision of a Germany clad in all her panoply of war, helmet on head and sword in hand, ready for use at any moment. Later on, we had other opportunities of seeing this vision, before it became a pitiless reality.

The Conference produced upon the European stage the striking scene that was destined to be repeated in 1914—the German Empire isolated, save for its “brilliant second,” Austria-Hungary; and France, Russia, and England grouped together, as if with a presage of the coming danger, to form a barrier against the rising tide of Germanism. Such was the first rough outline of the Triple Entente, though not yet invested with that name. Finally, the Conference revealed to us, then as now, a deserter who went over from the Triplice into the opposite camp. Prince von BÜlow alluded to this startling defection on Italy’s part as a “waltz turn,”12 but it did not deserve to be so airily dismissed. After her first breach of the Triple Alliance contract, Italy did not scruple to resume her freedom of action, whenever her personal interest appeared to warrant such a course.

IV.

Yet the infant brought into the world by the Conference with such painful effort seemed to have little chance of surviving. To instil a respect for law and order into the Moorish and Kabyle tribes, savage from time immemorial, to repress anarchy, to establish a security hitherto unknown, to build harbours, roads, and railways—all these tasks called for a European Power that possessed the requisite military strength, and had received a mandate to act entirely as it pleased in the zone set apart for its operations. Above all, it was essential that the Power in question should not encounter the ever-wakeful hostility of the German consuls, nor be thwarted at every turn by the intrigues of German subjects and protÉgÉs, of whom the brothers Mannesmann were the most consummate type. For nearly two years after Algeciras, eighteen months of countless difficulties and explanations with the Berlin Cabinet, which would fain have adhered strictly to the letter of the Conference treaty, France, having been driven to set up military stations at various points of the Maghrib Empire, was forced to disperse with her guns the attacks of the rebellious tribes. But for Germany’s policy of pin-pricks and the instigations of her agents, would there have been an occupation of Chaouia after the Casablanca ambuscade, and would the incident of the German desertions from the Foreign Legion, which nearly led to a conflict, have taken place? The Republic, having put its hand to the plough in Morocco, was evidently obliged to go on until the end, whatever might be the cost in men and money, on pain of losing her prestige and jeopardizing her authority among the Mussulmans of French Africa.

Towards the end of 1908, a more sober and rational policy began to prevail at the Wilhelmstrasse. The idea of French paramountcy in Morocco, which had seemed intolerable three years before, had gained some ground among the authorities at the Imperial Foreign Office. They were coming round to the view that it was an unavoidable sacrifice. In an exchange of communications between Herr von Kiderlen-WÄchter, interim chief of the department, and M. Jules Cambon, the French ambassador, on February 9, 1909, the Imperial Government declared that the only aims it pursued in Morocco were economic, and recognized that the special political interests of France in Morocco were closely bound up with the establishment of law and order. Determined not to hamper these interests, it undertook to join hands with the Republican Government in an attempt to associate their respective subjects in enterprises of which the French might obtain the management.

In this way Berlin, seeing that there was no hope of exercising a political influence in the Shereefian Empire, fell back upon the scheme of an economic exploitation, to be carried out in company with France. After the incidents of the preceding years, complicated by the unsettled state of Europe, no improvement was to be noted in Franco-German relations. Opinion in Paris, among the public no less than in Parliament, was largely adverse to any system of co-operation that would have looked like giving way to Germany. Moreover, the German Press had not retired from the fray; it continued to denounce, as violations of the Algeciras Act, every forward step taken by the French troops in Morocco. Under these circumstances, the French ministers did not consider it wise or opportune, at the moment, to encourage the proposals for associating the subjects of the two countries in the joint handling of economic enterprises.

V.

The second Moroccan crisis came in 1911, towards the close of spring, after the march of General Brulard’s column on Fez and its entry into that city. The German Government always denied that this expedition was necessary: it claimed that the safety of foreigners settled in the Shereefian capital was in no way threatened. The version put forward by the French authorities was totally different: they affirmed—and we must perforce believe them—that the lives of the Europeans were seriously in danger. Notwithstanding the frantic excitement of public opinion in Germany and the violent language of the newspapers, the diplomatic conversations opened in Paris and Berlin on the morrow of this military episode took a fairly reassuring turn. It is difficult, therefore, to grasp why Herr von Kiderlen-WÄchter should have struck his sudden blow at the unsuspecting French Government—the dispatch of the Panther to Agadir. A little patience on his part would have enabled him to reach a satisfactory result. He knew that the time had come for a final settlement of the Moroccan question. The redoubtable word “protectorate,” as a term for France’s political action in Morocco, was no longer one that he could not bring himself to pronounce. In return, however, he demanded territorial compensations for Germany. “If one wants to eat peaches in January,” he remarked, “one must pay for them.” And it was at the moment when the Foreign Secretary had thrown down his cards and shown his hand, and after he had said to M. Cambon, in taking leave of him at Kissingen, “Bring us back something from Paris!” that he issued a brutal challenge, which might well have proved fatal to the peace of Europe.

For more than eight years I had been a colleague of Herr von Kiderlen-WÄchter at Bucharest, before meeting him again in Berlin. Our cordial relations of those days gave me the right to ply him with questions that I should not have put to any other Foreign Secretary so soon after entering upon a diplomatic post. I asked why he had ventured on the Agadir coup. On leaving him, I was careful to make a written report of his explanation. It ran as follows:—

“When I first came to the Wilhelmstrasse I witnessed, without being able to raise any protests, the successive encroachments of France in Morocco, which assuredly were breaches of the Algeciras Act, a basic covenant for the relations of the great Powers with the Shereefian Empire. If the Republican Government had continued to show prudence and to advance at a leisurely pace, we should have been compelled to put up with its pretensions and to champ our bit in silence. At one time it would have pleaded the hostility of a village which formed an important strategical point as an excuse for a military occupation; at another time it would have alleged the vagueness of the geographical boundaries marked out on the map as a pretext for going beyond them. The invasion would have crept on slowly, like a sheet of oil. I thanked Heaven” (here he gave his malicious little smile) “when I learnt of the march on Fez, a flagrant violation of the Algeciras Act.

“This drastic proceeding, which the position of Europeans in the Moroccan capital did not justify, restored to us our freedom of action. Still, we were unwilling to move without making a last effort to arrive at an understanding. To the dispatch notifying the Imperial Government I replied with a simple acknowledgment of receipt. A little later on, however, at Kissingen, where M. Cambon had come to pay me a visit, I spoke for the first time of Germany’s claim to a compensation. We admitted that it was out of the question to make France draw back and conform to the Algeciras treaty. We consented to give up Morocco to her, on certain conditions, but we demanded in return a cession of territory in Africa.

“Since this friendly conversation led to no result, just as our proposals, in accordance with the 1909 agreement, for a joint working of economic enterprises in Morocco by our respective nationals met with no direct answer from Paris, we decided to send the Panther to Agadir.

“By this action we made it clear to France that we regarded the Algeciras compact—which she had been the first to evade—as no longer binding. Germany, having protÉgÉs in the south of Morocco, wished henceforth to assume the right of protecting them. Still, she was perfectly willing, in the meantime, to converse with France and to settle, once for all, the terms on which the French suzerainty over the Shereefian Empire should be recognized.

“All this was fully realized by M. Cambon,” Herr von Kiderlen-WÄchter went on, adding a high tribute of praise to the Republican envoy. “Unfortunately, the various projects for an agreement, after being drawn up in Berlin, were always recast at the Quai d’Orsay. That is why the diplomatic conversations, instead of lasting a fortnight, dragged on for four months—a delay that unsettled the public mind and gave rise to a dangerous Press campaign in both countries.”

Herr von Kiderlen-WÄchter did not know the French, otherwise he would have foreseen the inevitable sequel of such an outrage to the national sentiment—a truce to the feuds of political parties, a single wave of patriotism sweeping from one end of France to the other, and a determination, which the most moderate would share with the most hot-headed, to face a war, no matter how terrible it might be, rather than continue to be goaded beyond endurance by German insults. Personally, he was not inclined for war. The Emperor, who at that time also seemed anxious to keep the peace, had markedly been held aloof from the negotiations. The German army, although greatly strengthened by the 1911 bill, had not yet reached its highest pitch of readiness for fighting. The French army had no little advantage over its rival in the development of machine-guns and of aviation. Moreover, Germany would once more have found England, as at Algeciras, ranged on the side of France; the speeches of English ministers, Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd-George, which caused no less surprise than irritation in Berlin, left no room for doubt on that score. To the German commercial world the prospect of a naval war was more distasteful than ever. For all these reasons, it was necessary to come to an agreement, and in the end peace was signed, in the shape of the Convention of 4th November.

VI.

The guarantees obtained by Germany for her subjects and protÉgÉs consisted mainly in freedom of trade and economic liberty, and consequently in being on an equal footing with the French in the matter of concessions. She was assured, furthermore, that her manufacturers could draw on Morocco for iron ore (in which the subsoil there is very abundant), since no export duty would be imposed on this product. On her side, she promised not to fetter the action of France as regards aiding the Sultan to introduce administrative, judicial, economic, financial, and military reforms. The expository letters interchanged on the same day between the ambassador and the Secretary of State were still more definite. “Should the French Government,” wrote Herr von Kiderlen-WÄchter, “think it advisable to assume the protectorate of Morocco, the Imperial Government would do nothing to impede such action.” An inevitable result of this promise was the disappearance of consular jurisdiction. “The German Government,” said Kiderlen-WÄchter’s dispatch, “from the day that the new judicial system comes into force, after due arrangement with the Powers, will consent at the same time as the other Powers to the abolition of its consular courts.”

The territorial concessions in Africa demanded by Germany seemed at first sight rather trifling: a stretch of country with two projecting arms, which shot out from the Atlantic coast, the one reaching to the right bank of the Lower Congo, up to the mouth of the Sanga, with a breadth (to be fixed later) of some four to eight miles; the other, with a corresponding breadth, to Lobay, where the Congo is met by its great tributary, the Oubanghi. Yet these antennÆ or “tentacles,” as they were called later, were strong enough to rivet the Germans on to the Congo basin, whence they had till then been excluded. This is what made the acquisition an important one, with the prospect of serious consequences in the future. In the course of the negotiations, Herr von Kiderlen-WÄchter had declared that his Government regarded access to the Congo as a condition sine qua non of the agreement.

At the last moment, he even demanded the cession to Germany of the preferential or pre-emptive right possessed by France over the territories of the old Congo Free State. This right she had retained when the territories passed into the hands of Belgium. The latter could not acquiesce in the ceding of such a privilege to a third Power without her assent, without her being even consulted. A preferential right is not a bill of exchange or a mortgage, transferable at pleasure to a third party. The prerogative had been granted to France alone by King Leopold, under special circumstances, with a view to ultimate advantages and as a return for waiving the right of first settlement in certain districts of the Lower Congo valley, over which Stanley and Brazza had had a dispute as to priority of occupation. Still less would Belgium have understood why the renunciation of so personal a privilege, and one connected with a Belgian colony, should be among the clauses of a treaty relating to Morocco. The Republican Government, foreseeing Belgium’s opposition and appreciating the reasons for it, would not allow this preferential right to be mentioned in the expository letters. At M. Cambon’s advice, the following Article XVI., which, in his opinion, should prove a guarantee to Belgium against any expropriation, was inserted in the text of the Convention: “Should the territorial statute for the Congo Basin as defined by the Berlin treaty of 26th February 1884 come to be modified by one or other of the high contracting parties, the latter must confer on the subject among themselves, as well as with the other Powers that have signed the instrument.” In point of fact, on the strength of this article, the exercise of preferential right was subjected to German control.

The Belgian public learnt with painful surprise of the German designs on the Congo State, and the Press gave free utterance to its anger and its dismay. Herr von Kiderlen-WÄchter was exceedingly vexed, not only at Belgian comment on his demands, but at the fact that they had been made known to us at all. He did not hide his annoyance from my predecessor, but vented it with a good deal of bluster, and consciously exaggerated his fears, after our display of feeling, for the future good relations between the two countries.

It was thus that Belgium, while quietly pursuing her work of colonial development, became involved in the dispute arising out of the Agadir affair. The effect of the German claims on Morocco was felt, like the shock from some distant explosion, in the Congo basin, where we were to be faced at two points with a neighbour whose cupidity and daring gave us good cause to be uneasy. That our apprehensions were well grounded is, I think, fairly clear from my account, in another chapter, of the African policy approved by official circles in Berlin.

VII.

“You are the masters in Morocco,” the Chancellor had said to the French ambassador, after the signing of the Convention.13 Was this really true? Would the German public endorse the statement? It had expected something very different from a recognition of French suzerainty. It had anticipated a partition of Morocco between France and Germany; the latter would have obtained the fertile southern regions washed by the Atlantic. The more the discussions were drawn out, breeding an excitement which the most trivial episode might have changed into war-fever, the stronger grew the hope of a partition. To dream of a colony, rich in natural resources of every kind, and to wake up amid the swamps of the Sanga and the Oubanghi—what a disillusion! And Germany, on her side, was ceding some territories in the region of Lake Tchad! Public opinion, now that its eyes were opened, turned its wrath against the unwilling author of this “sell.” No one was more unpopular in Germany, during the autumn of 1911, than the ill-starred Kiderlen-WÄchter. After the Agadir coup, which had a faint Bismarckian touch about it, too much reliance had been placed on his shrewdness and energy; and now came the reaction. Not only was German diplomacy pilloried by the whole bourgeois Press and scornfully compared with that of France, but even in the Reichstag the galling Convention of November 4th was spoken of in terms that suggested a national humiliation.

It is quite certain that, apart from the Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary, no German who took an interest in politics considered this diplomatic instrument as a final treaty. As a provisional armistice, allowing for a breathing-space before Germany plunged into Africa, it might pass; but no more than that. When it came to putting the Convention into practice, nothing was done beyond a few initial measures. The Wilhelmstrasse proclaimed its sincere wish to carry out the compact, but refused to specify when, if ever, the minister at Tangier would be superseded by a consul-general, and when (a point that was taken for granted) the consular jurisdiction would be abolished. Morocco was far from being pacified; in the interests even of the Republican Government, it was asserted, no hasty conclusions must be drawn as to the achievement of progress or reform.

In Germany the peaceful settlement of the 1911 crisis gave a mighty impetus to the war party, to the propaganda of the Union of Defence and the Navy League, and added considerable weight to their demands. Their visions of supremacy and domination were now blended with a fierce desire for revenge on France. A diplomatic success, won in a clandestine struggle, meant nothing. In the eyes of this rancorous tribe, only a war, a fight in the open, could solve the Moroccan problem for good and all, by incorporating Morocco and all French Africa in that colonial empire which they hoped to build up on the shores of the Mediterranean and in the heart of the Dark Continent.