Side by side with Treitschke and his pupils (of whom the most conspicuous, at the moment, is Bernhardi) discerning critics are apt to place, as furnishing inspiration for the war, the German philosophers of the nineteenth century, even the poets and musicians, whose posthumous influence is still strongly felt in Germany. They attempt to prove that these representatives of the Teutonic genius are the prime agents, whether consciously or no, in the calamities from which Europe in general, and the Latin race in particular, are suffering to-day. The idolatrous worship paid to these artists by their countrymen is reckoned amongthe chief causes of that insensate pride and ambition which have entered so deeply into the national soul.
The German people, believing that it possesses in Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche the greatest thinkers, in Goethe and Schiller the greatest poets, in Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, and Wagner the greatest musicians, and convinced that it holds the foremost place in every branch of science and learning, looks upon itself as a superior race, destined to a material sway over the entire world, just as it reigns supreme at present, through the glory of its men of genius, in the intellectual sphere. “Nation of thinkers, poets, and heroes,” such is the refrain dinned into its ears by its writers and acolytes—“nation whose supremacy none can question, thou shalt fill the world with the inexhaustible treasures of thy culture!” In plain language, this means that material power must go hand in hand with spiritual rule; the strength and intelligence of Germany shall dominate all other nations, and stamp them with the ineffaceable imprint of GermanKultur.
Other inquirers have deciphered the apocalyptic book of Nietzsche, and have found, to their amazement, Sibylline oracles that apply with wonderful force to the campaign carried on by the Kaiser’s troops and the feelings that these troops seem to harbour in their pitiless souls. The opening of the era of great wars, the appearance of the superb blond beast of prey, the glorifying of evil, the contemptfor pity, all that we are now witnessing with horror, is already implied in the prophecies of Zarathustra. From this they infer, not only that Nietzsche was a great seer, but that the cruel philosophy of this visionary, for whom madness lay in wait, has intoxicated Germany and inspired her actions.
All these critics, I venture to say, have been too liable to make the facts fit in with a cast-iron system. It cannot be disputed, indeed, that the teachings of historians and philosophers, poets and musicians, have helped to inflame German pride, to create a blind faith in the civilizing mission of the German race, to induce that unbalanced, dangerous state of soul which already existed before the war, and has since then revealed itself to the world at large. It is probable, also, that this state of soul will have no little weight in determining the duration of the war. If it retains its ascendancy, it will keep the intellectuals arrayed in a solid phalanx round the Emperor, until all the best blood of the nation has ebbed away, until the final victory or defeat. Nevertheless, we must beware of building up a theory, of extending to a whole community the wild dreams of a certain class, and of exaggerating their influence upon the events of yesterday and to-day.
Although some two-thirds of the Empire’s inhabitants live in urban centres, the number of those who have been educated at universities and higher schools is only a small minority in a total of sixtyseven millions. I admit that this small minority directs the mass, in the same way as the brain directs the whole human machine; I recognize, too, that when the fatal hour struck, it had no difficulty in winning over those Socialist leaders who, tainted though they are with imperialist ideas, would never of themselves have declared war on their brethren, the working-men in other countries. Moreover, one must assume that the warlike passions, stimulated by a peculiar teaching of history and by scientific vanity, met with approval and encouragement from high quarters, from the political authority embodied in one individual. If the Imperial Government and its supreme head had sincerely wanted peace, the aggressive movement that went forth from the schools and universities might have been checked in time, or turned off into peaceful paths by the same disciplinary methods that obtain in the Prussian army. William II. was not the man to let himself be forced into a foreign war by civilian Pan-Germans, after the manner in which Alexander had yielded to Pan-Slavic pressure in 1877. By resisting, it may be argued, William II. would have lost all popularity. This would be true if the voice of the mob—the only voice that could make any impression on so self-willed a monarch—had at any time been raised for war; but the masses were peacefully inclined, or else indifferent. The Emperor has always been the autocrat, with a full sense of his rights, as may beseen from the proud motto that he wrote in the “golden book” of the Munich town-hall: “Suprema lex regis voluntas esto!” (“May the King’s will be the supreme law!”) He expects his wishes to be taken as commands. At a word from him, the dreams of world-dominion, born in the brains of scholars and men of science, would have been scattered to the four winds, or buried in a vast heap of unreadable books and articles.
In my opinion, therefore, it is far more accurate to say, generally speaking, that the writers, the artists, and the savants who signed the famous manifesto of the “Ninety-three”—we honour them too much by still speaking of it to-day—all those who exploited the historical and intellectual glories and the great scientific renown of Germany for purposes of political ambition, were only the auxiliaries and catspaws of the Imperial policy.
The incessant growth in the Empire’s population demanded a widening of its territory. Cooped up within a narrow space, the Germans could not breathe freely; they needed new lands that could be peopled, new outlets to drain off some of this superabundant vitality. This, it is claimed by certain economists, is a biological law, and at the same time one of the causes that made the war inevitable. It was inthe nature of things that Germany, sooner or later, should overflow her borders. Another legend! Let us examine the facts.
The population, it is true, was growing by more than 800,000 every year. But emigration, the usual remedy for overcrowded countries, had for the past fifteen years been constantly decreasing. The average number of German emigrants, in the period 1908-1913, was 23,312 a year, three-fourths going to the United States. During these same five years, the annual average of foreign emigrants passing through German ports rose to 215,314! The extraordinary progress of industry, requiring a larger and larger complement of hands every year, explains why emigration dwindled almost to vanishing-point. The German, finding it easy to earn his bread and even live in comfort at home, had no longer any reason for seeking occupation elsewhere.
The spread of industrialism in Germany has had another result besides that of drying up the sources of emigration. It has tended to deplete the countryside. In 1912 no more than 28·6 per cent. of the population were engaged in agriculture. On this account the farmer now has recourse to cheap foreign labour in large quantities. Had it not been for the annual influx of six or seven hundred thousand farm-labourers from Poland, Lithuania, and Russia, the fields of Brandenburg and of East and West Prussia would have lain fallow, and the squires of the easternmarches would have been unable to harvest their crops. This hardly accords with the picture of an over-populous, famished race, compelled to hurl itself upon the more fertile lands of its neighbours, just as the Teutonic hordes of old grasped at the tempting prize of the Roman world.
The enormous development of industry has been accompanied everywhere by a feature more or less marked, according as the country has attained wealth or a modest competence—a falling off in the birth-rate. Germany believed that she would remain free from this scourge. She was mistaken; nowadays, as a rule, it is only the poor nations that go on multiplying. German medical science and hygiene have succeeded, for the time being, in making up for the decrease in births by a reduction of the death-rate, especially of infant mortality. But the proportion of children born, more particularly in the towns (as is shown by statistics from 1906 onwards), is steadily declining, and this will end by having serious effects on the growth of population, bringing it down, in all probability, to the normal level maintained by other industrial nations.
Despite these evils, there was no cause for any real alarm as to the future of Germany. Yet the powers that be looked askance at her industrialism, which is the prime agent in this weakening of the fertility of the race. From motives of a military nature, they are anxious that the males should be healthy andthe females prolific. The cities and manufacturing centres supply the army with a lower average of men fit for service than the country districts; all the more reason for encouraging agriculture. In the calculations of German statesmen, the needs of war take precedence of all others.
As for the Imperial Government, its most obvious concern has been, not to look for territories that may be peopled with emigrants, but to see that the mother-country shall not lose hold of her children in foreign lands. Among those who had long since left their native soil, and had become more or less merged in other races, it tried to revive the national sentiment. To reunite the scattered forces of Germanism and bind them to the Empire by hidden cables stretched across the sea, like the unseen waves of an electric current, was the unmistakable purpose of the legislative work achieved by the Reichstag in 1913, and such also has been the task imposed upon diplomatic and consular agents abroad.
The Nationality Act of 1st June 1870 had laid down that German citizenship would be lost by any one who lived for a continuous period of ten years in another country. The bill of 22nd July 1913, based on the principle ofjus sanguinis(right of blood), and not ofjus loci(right of domicile), abolished this forfeiture of civic rights. Furthermore, it allowed a German to become naturalized in another country without losing his original nationality. There arecases where a change of nationality is prompted solely by pecuniary motives. In such cases, naturalization is regarded by the new law as fictitious; it does not bind one who remains a German at heart and obtains permission to retain his German citizenship. This permission is granted by the authorities in the State of his origin, provided he is vouched for by the nearest German consul (art. 25). Finally, Imperial citizenship may be conferred upon former Germans and on their descendants, even if they are not settled on German soil (art. 33).
In thus consolidating the centres of German influence wherever they existed—in the United States and in South America, in the Far East and in Turkey—the Government was not thinking only of gaining for the national products an easier access to the local markets. Its aim was no less political than commercial. By establishing these colonies of a new type in the heart of foreign countries, it endeavoured to set up a sort of Germanic Empire across the seas, as a counterpoise to that British Empire which was the object of its unceasing envy. Henceforth the Imperial eagle wished to have German eaglets hatched from all the eggs it had laid in alien nests.
I come, finally, to the economic causes of the war. I must reluctantly confess that I do not share theopinion of some eminent writers, who regard these causes as the most prominent and the most decisive. Germany, according to them, determined to make war—on Russia and France, be it noted, for prior to the invasion of Belgium there was no thought of other opponents—in order to secure indispensable markets for her goods and to avert an imminent economic crisis.
It would be superfluous here to give the figures recorded in all the tables of statistics, proving the enormous development of German industry throughout the forty-four years of peace that have elapsed since the Treaty of Frankfort. Like all growths that are too speedy, this development had its weak points, its alarming symptoms; it did not bear the look of perfect health. In an organism that was shooting up so rapidly, a sudden crisis, a violent illness, was likely to produce fatal complications. Too many enterprises were being founded on advances from banks. The great financial and industrial companies were inflating their share and debenture capital to such an extent that any slackening in production would have threatened to suspend the payment of dividends. Two-thirds of the population lived on the wages earned in workshops and factories. A stoppage in the activity of the latter, involving prolonged loss of work, would have meant a dearth of bread in countless homes and a great outcry of distress from countless throats. It was therefore the imperative duty of the Government, not only to see that the existing outlets for the national industry were kept open, but to provide for the acquisition of new ones. Already some ominous bankruptcies had warned the authorities of what might happen. Over-production would inevitably lead to extreme measures, in order that there might be no congestion. Among these measures, the only infallible one was war, with its invasion of foreign markets by force, its wiping out of those competitors who would not let German labour enjoy the monopoly that it needed. Such, in a crude outline, are the arguments adduced to show the overwhelming importance of economic causes.
If from industry we pass to farming on a large scale, which is organized in Prussia on industrial lines, we observe a specious prosperity, depending in no small degree on the renewal of the commercial treaty with Russia. This treaty, concluded at a critical moment, after the Russo-Japanese war, empowered the great Prussian landowners, thanks to surreptitious export bounties, to send their wheat and their rye even to Finland, whereas Russian agricultural produce could only enter Germany after the sale of the German crops.
Well, in my opinion, it would have been a very bad stroke of policy to begin the capture of the French markets by ruining France—this being the most likely result of a successful war. Before leavingBerlin, I already heard some talk of an indemnity of £1,200,000,000 to be extorted from the vanquished Republic. Bismarck had bitterly repented having asked for no more than £200,000,000 in 1871, and there was to be no repetition of that blunder. To this enormous ransom must be added the vast sums that the war would have cost France, the ruin of the departments invaded, the havoc wrought by the victors, all the appalling balance-sheet of a national disaster. How would the sufferers have been able to pay for the goods with which German industry proposed to flood their country? The purchasing power of France after the restoration of peace would have been reduced to the barest minimum. New markets would have been of little use to Germany, if they had lost much of their vitality and absorbing power, as would certainly have been the case in a country that she had bled almost to death. One can hardly see the necessity of capturing the French home trade on such terms as these.
Another plan that I have heard ascribed to the great German manufacturers was that of industrializing France after her defeat, setting up workshops and factories under the control of German engineers and overseers, introducing the methods of work, the technical improvements and the organization that had made Germany the wonder of the world, and developing by intensive culture the wealth of that admirable French soil. Why, by so doing they wouldhave breathed fresh life into an ancient rivalry which they had almost succeeded in sweeping from their path! At the moment when German industry was suffering from over-production and plethora, they would have aroused a competition favoured in many respects with peculiar natural advantages. I really cannot hold them capable of so signal a miscalculation. I will readily admit, however, that they might have hoped to oust a ravaged and ruined France from those foreign markets in which she still held a strong position. Still, this project would have been difficult to carry out as regards the special articles for which the French are noted.
Russia, if beaten, would probably have been forced to sign a new commercial treaty, even more profitable to German agriculture and industry than the previous compact. Yet I am inclined to doubt whether, with the great Empire of the Tsars impoverished, the Germans would have done better business there than before the war, or have found the new openings that they required. Moreover, can we feel convinced that the Slav farm-labourers would have flocked in such great numbers as of old to the land of their conquerors, in order to offer them their indispensable labour-power? We must not underrate the force of the hatred and rancour that a devastating war will leave behind it, a war carried on after the methods of the Berlin Staff. Furthermore, I cannot believe that economic causes had the slightest influence on the attack prepared by that Staff against Russia.
There remains the question of colonies. For twenty-five years Germany had been obsessed with the desire to own a wide domain outside Europe. The fairly extensive territories that she ruled in Africa, so far from satisfying her, had only served to whet her appetite. A huge Continental empire, without adequate oversea possessions, did not fit in with the plan that the architects of her future greatness were drawing up. The idea of an empire provided with vast colonies was suggested to them, above all, by the example of England; but as there was no longer any unoccupied space worth mentioning in Africa, they dreamed of stripping France, Portugal, and Belgium of their African dominions, and establishing a black Germany which should become the handmaid and slave of their own blond Germany.
As regards the colonies, I grant that economic motives have counted for something in the ambitions of the Imperial Government. The influence of these motives is not hard to trace. The manufacturers wished to possess in Africa the raw materials that they could not obtain at home, such as phosphates, ores, rubber, and the like, instead of having recourse to foreign ports. They could not shut their eyes to the splendid vision of French Africa, Algeria, and Tunis (to say nothing of Morocco), whence Franceannually imported goods to the value of twenty to twenty-four million pounds sterling. This magnificent region was already fully colonized, and the only way of supplanting her trade there was to wrest the colonies from her by force. Indo-China did not seem to tempt German greed, perhaps on account of the Yellow Peril, which William II. had slightly on the brain, and which he was peculiarly fond of discussing.
On the other hand, the position of German industry, hazardous though it appeared to more expert eyes than mine, by no means demanded the use of so heroic a remedy as a European war. What would the United States do, we may ask—they who have been the educators of Germany in industrial matters—in the event of a glut in the products of their foundries and steelworks, and a partial choking up of the vital outlets? They would let their trusts readjust the market, drain off the excess of output, close the superfluous workshops, relieve the situation generally, but they would not declare war on any foreign nation. Economic competition, in all its stages, is a war not fought with the soldier’s weapons. It brings ruin in its train, too, but the ruin is not beyond repair. A series of costly victories in battle would not deliver German industry from the constant nightmare of the struggle for existence, any more than they would make Germany the serene and unquestioned mistress of the entire globe. The commercial and industrialwelfare of a nation is always menaced by the progress of others, by the relaxation of its own efforts, and by various incalculable factors.
The merciless war waged against us by the Kaiser’s troops is above all, in my humble opinion, a political campaign. Economic causes have been grafted upon the primary cause, but the part they have played is a subordinate one. The schemes framed in Berlin are no longer wrapped in the haze that once surrounded them, but reveal themselves to us in clear outline. What was the object of hurling two million men at France, while the Russian armies were held in check and the Austrians were sent to annihilate Serbia? To crush once for all the military Power that stood in the way of German imperialism; to deprive Russia of all concern in European affairs; to seize for Germany the whole coast-line of the North Sea; to make her a Mediterranean Power by annexing French Africa; to dissolve the Balkan alliances and deal the death-blow to Slav hopes; to give Austria the suzerainty of the Balkan peninsula; finally, to hold undisputed sway at Constantinople and in Asiatic Turkey as far as the Persian Gulf. The exploitation of Central Africa, requiring as it did vast capital, was an economic task that could not be carried out in a day, and was therefore reserved for an early future date. The same remark applies to the completion and utilization of the Bagdad Railway. A few decisive battles, it was thought,would be enough to enslave Continental Europe, and to build up, on the basis of that “Mid-European Confederation” of which the German intellectuals speak quite openly to-day, the political supremacy of Germany, while England would be left isolated, an easy prey to her rival in a later campaign.
THE MOROCCAN QUESTION.
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 theConvention 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. Thede factoauthority 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. Anentente, which required more delicate handling, assigned to Spainher 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.
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.”11The 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 theShereefian 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 havebeen 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.’spacifism, 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.
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 rightsin 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 theirefforts 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,”12but 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.
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 forlaw 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 prestigeand 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.
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-Wächtershould have struck his sudden blow at the unsuspecting French Government—the dispatch of thePantherto 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 andconform 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 thePantherto 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.
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, whichshot 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 conditionsine qua nonof 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 LowerCongo 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, andconsciously 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.
“You are the masters in Morocco,” the Chancellor had said to the French ambassador, after the signing of the Convention.13Was 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 tocarry 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.
THE EASTERN QUESTION.
THE revolution of 1908 had set up in Turkey a constitutional system or, more properly speaking, a travesty of one, by unearthing the 1876 constitution from the dust in which it lay buried. Count von Aehrenthal, who in Vienna aimed at politics on the grand scale—a personal policy, modelled on that of the statesmen of Berlin—took advantage of the internal troubles arising from the overthrow of the Hamidian despotism to convert into a formal annexation (7th October 1908) the right of occupying Bosnia-Herzegovina granted to the Dual Monarchy by the Congress of Berlin. The pretext was ready to hand: Francis Joseph could not allow the inhabitants of provinces under his control to send deputies to a Parliament assembling at Constantinople. The Austrian minister thought to disarm the opposition of the Young Turks by withdrawing the Austro-Hungarian garrisons from the Sandjak of Novibazar. All he did, in reality, was to weaken the position of his Government in the ensuing conflict.
This conflict lasted through the winter of 1908-1909, and came near to provoking a European war. On the one side was Austria-Hungary, supported by Germany; on the other, not only Turkey, but also Serbia, with Russia at her back.
The Belgrade Cabinet had sent to the Powers a protest against the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, describing it as “a serious injury to the feelings, the interests, and the rights of the Serbian people.” Serbia’s concern in the Austro-Turkish quarrel, which was marked by a Turkish boycott of Austrian and Hungarian goods, is easily explained. The arbitrary act of the Vienna Cabinet threatened to cut off the Bosnian people forever from that of Serbia, to which it was attached by a common origin. The Serbians could not calmly endure the severing of these blood-ties, since it boded the ruin of their dearest national aspirations and the end of their dreams of a wider empire to come.
As regards the Cabinet of Berlin, we do not know whether it was consulted by Count von Aehrenthal as to the advisability of annexation, or merely informed that the step was about to be taken. We must entirely dismiss the view that Berlin itself suggested the playing of this shabby trick on Turkey. But did it more or less approve of what had been done? Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter, who was then interim chief at the Wilhelmstrasse, and who had not the art of concealing his dislikes, always spokeof the Austrian minister in a sarcastic tone. He was certainly no supporter of Aehrenthal’s adventurous policy, nor can the Imperial Government have looked upon it with favour. The fall of absolutism at Constantinople was in itself a serious blow to German influence there, which was based upon Abdul Hamid’s friendship. This critical moment in William II.’s diplomacy was chosen by the minister of his most loyal ally for tearing up the Treaty of Berlin, for annulling with a stroke of the pen the Sultan’s shadowy rule over two ancient Ottoman provinces, and for thus lowering his religious prestige as Caliph in the eyes of Mussulmans and kindling the wrath of the Young Turks against Germanism. At the same time, the Prince of Bulgaria, acting in agreement with the Cabinet of Vienna, declared himself independent.
When Germany, however, saw Austria-Hungary at loggerheads with Russia, who had flown to the rescue of Serbia, she did not hesitate to stand firmly by her ally, and Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter was the first to suggest that the German ambassador in St. Petersburg should show a menacing front, in order to end the dispute as soon as possible. Doubtless the Foreign Secretary was not loath to show the presumptuous Aehrenthal that he could not get out of the scrape by his own unaided efforts. The successful result of his counsels, the retreat of Russia, followed by Belgrade’s resolve to drop its protestagainst the annexation, made Kiderlen-Wächter very popular in Court circles, and caused him to be looked upon as the coming man. From now onward, those best qualified to judge expected great things of this former welcome guest at Bismarck’s house and favourite pupil of the old professor of Teuton diplomacy, the celebrated Holstein.
The motives for Germany’s interference are well-known. She could not allow the solidity of the Triplice to be shaken. She owed a debt of gratitude to her ally, who had not withheld her support at the Algeciras Conference. Finally, since she fancied that England, Russia, and France were attempting to encircle her, she was anxious to prove that the mere gesture of putting her hand to her sword would be enough to dispel the illusions of her foes. The machinations of Paris and London would break down, she thought, at the touch of reality, at the collision with German military power. The risk of war, whatever may have been said at the time, was not very great. Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter, who, as I have already said, was not at heart a fighter, though he humoured the Emperor’s newly-acquired taste for warlike phrases in diplomatic conversations, had seen this clearly enough. Russia had not yet recovered from the wounds inflicted on her by the struggle with Japan and by the revolutionary outbreaks to which that struggle gave rise. In France,the national sentiment, which had scarcely yet rallied from the shocks of the Moroccan disputes, was not likely to be roused by the call of Serbian aspirations. In London, it is true, the Government and public opinion had roundly condemned the infringement of the Treaty of Berlin by Austrian diplomacy. But it is a long way from an academic reproof to an effective intervention.
Yet the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the pressure brought to bear by the Count de Pourtalès at St. Petersburg had far more serious results than had been anticipated at Berlin. These moves exercised a far-reaching influence on all the later conduct of the Tsar’s Government, and their rebound could be clearly traced in the rigid attitude shown by that Government when a new Austro-Serbian conflict came to trouble the peace of Europe. The crisis of 1909 enabled Russia to realize the full value of M. Isvolsky’s skill and foresight, in that he had managed, since 1907, to draw her close both to her recent enemy in the Far East and to her age-long rival in Central Asia. But for the agreements formed by this statesman with Japan and England, the alliances of to-day would have been impossible. Another outcome of the 1909 crisis was that of revealing to the Slav Empire the need for being armed to the teeth against its arrogant neighbour, and thus of hastening on its military reorganization. If the Emperor William and his advisers had not hadsuch short memories, they would have been less astonished than they seemed to be afterwards at the rapid progress of Russia’s armaments.
The annexation policy of Count von Aehrenthal, which may well be regarded as one of the indirect causes of the present war, had other unfortunate effects on the Dual Monarchy. The ease with which the triumph had been won led the bullies of Vienna and Buda-Pesth to imagine that high-handed methods would always be successful. They fancied that the Tsar’s Government, from fear of seeing the two Germanic Empires ranged against it, would not dare to cross Austria-Hungary’s path, if the latter set herself one day to chastise Serbia.
The clash of the Habsburg monarchy with the valiant people of Kara George over the Bosnian question was only the first lunge in a duel where the weaker of the two adversaries, compelled to be wary, became all the more dangerous in that he shifted his ground. A subterranean movement carried on by Pan-Serb societies which had long been at work with alternating fits of activity and quiescence began from this time forth to excite, without respite, the separatist feeling of the Bosnian and Croat communities. This was the most definite result of Aehrenthal’s rash policy, but he did not live to see it come to pass. He had tried to pour fresh blood into the veins of that great emaciated body, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to make thisdotard, racked with incurable diseases, play an active part on the European stage. All that he did was to embitter the mutual hatred of Austria and Serbia, and, by laying rash hands upon the work of Bismarck, Beaconsfield, and Andrassy, to revive the Eastern question—that fiery furnace, dreaded by several generations of diplomats, which still smouldered beneath the ashes of the Treaty of Berlin.
Two years passed. Germany spent them in recovering, bit by bit, the ground she had lost at Constantinople after the dethronement of Abdul Hamid. Her dexterous ambassador succeeded in winning the elusive confidence of the Committee of Union and Progress, just as he had won that of the despot. The enterprises of German finance and industry were spreading their tentacles further and further in Asiatic Turkey. The Turkish army acquired the obvious stamp of Prussian discipline, although the corps of officers, in losing the old Ottoman spirit handed down by its forbears, was somewhat shorn of its martial qualities; it concerned itself too much with politics, and not enough with the men under its command. During the Agadir crisis the Near East remained outwardly quiet, except in Crete, where the people’s eagerness to be reunited with the Hellenic mother-country became more and more difficult to curb.
The first Power that broke in upon this deceptive calm was again an ally of Germany—Italy. She knew that at Constantinople the sham constitutional system had done nothing more than substitute the tyranny of a faction for that of an individual. It was only the Young Turks, with their blatant ineptitude, that had any illusions as to the real weakness of their country, the rottenness at its core. After Agadir and the Franco-German Convention, Italy hastened to seize the portion that had been allotted to her in her agreements with France. The fear of seeing German traders securely planted at Tripoli and Bengazi perhaps made her decide all the more quickly. The Libyan expedition was prepared in secret, in order to baffle both the vigilance of Turkey and the suspicions of Germany, who learnt, when it was too late to demur, of the proposed assault on the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. That empire was still a trump card for Germany in the game to be played later against the Dual Alliance—a steadfast auxiliary, whose task it would be to divert a large part of the enemy’s forces.
Such was the mutual confidence prevailing in 1911 among the members of the Triple Alliance! But the Libyan campaign, contrary to the hopes entertained in Rome at the outset, degenerated into a weary round of guerrilla warfare. It seemed impossible for the two sides to come to grips, and for one or the other to strike decisive blows. Turkeywas in a position to continue the struggle, outside Africa, without fatigue or vital losses, up to the moment when Italy transferred the theatre of her operations to the Ægean sea, and occupied Rhodes and the islands of the Dodecanese. She thus obtained a hostage of which she would not let go, and an excellent naval base in the Eastern Mediterranean. The capture of the Greek islands had certain effects upon the peace of Europe: it aroused the patriotic jealousy of Greece, and helped to bring about the formation of the Balkan League. When the latter came down in full array from the Balkan heights, Turkey and Italy, at the instance of Germany, resolved to sign the Peace of Ouchy.
If the Vienna Cabinet resuscitated the Eastern question in 1909, the Quirinal Cabinet in 1911 certainly contributed towards keeping it alive. Moreover, it was the inventor of a process for making war inevitable—the ultimatum sent when all is at peace, couched in such imperious terms, and with such a brief interval for reply, that the only possible answer is a resort to arms. The Balkan States, and above all Austria-Hungary, were careful to study this model.