FOOTNOTE:

FOOTNOTE:[5]Sir E. Grey and Lord Haldane.

[5]Sir E. Grey and Lord Haldane.

If the official theory of German responsibility were correct, it would be impossible to explain the German Government's choice of the year 1914 as a time to strike at "an unsuspecting and defenceless Europe." The figures quoted in Chapter III show that the military strength of Germany, relatively to that of the French-Russian-English combination, had been decreasing since 1910. If Germany had wished to strike at Europe, she had two first-rate chances, one in 1908 and another in 1912, and not only let them both go by, but threw all her weight on the side of peace. This is inexplicable upon the theory that animates the treaty of Versailles. Germany was then in a position of advantage. The occasion presented itself in 1908, in Serbia's quarrel with Austria over the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina. Russia, which was backing Serbia, was in no shape to fight; her military strength, used up in the Russo-Japanese war, had not recovered. France would not at this time have been willing to go towar with Germany over her weak ally's commitments in the Danube States. Germany, however, contented herself with serving notice on the Tsar of her unequivocal support of Austria; and this was enough. The Tsar accepted thefait accompliof the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina; Serbia retired and cooled off; and Turkey, from whom the annexed province was ravished, was compensated by Austria. It is not to the point to scrutinize the propriety of these transactions; the point is that Germany held the peace of Europe in the hollow of her hand, with immense advantages in her favour, and chose not to close her hand. The comment of a neutral diplomat, the Belgian Minister in Berlin, is interesting. In his report of 1 April, 1909, to the Belgian Foreign Office, he says:

The conference scheme elaborated by M. Isvolsky and Sir Edward Grey; the negotiations for collective representations in Vienna; and the whole exchange of ideas among London, Paris and Petersburg, were steadily aimed at forcing Austria-Hungary into a transaction which would strongly have resembled a humiliation. This humiliation would have affected Germany as directly and as sensibly as Austria-Hungary, and would have struck a heavy blow at the confidence which is inspired in Vienna by the alliance with Germany. These machinations were frustrated by Germany's absolutelyunequivocal and decided attitude, from which she has never departed in spite of all the urgings with which she has been harassed. Germany alone has accomplished the preservation of peace. The new grouping of the Powers, organized by the King of England, has measured its forces with the alliance of the Central European Powers, and has shown itself incapable of impairing the same. Hence the vexation which is manifested.

The last two sentences of the foregoing seem to show—putting it mildly—that the Belgian Minister did not suspect the German Government of any aggressive spirit. In the same dispatch, moreover, he remarks:

As always, when everything does not go as the French, English or Russian politicians want it to, theTempsshows its bad temper. Germany is the scapegoat.

Again, at the time of the Balkan War in 1912, Germany had an excellent opportunity to gratify her military ambition, if she had any, at the expense of an "unsuspecting and unprepared Europe"; not as advantageous as in 1908 but more advantageous than in 1914. Serbia's provocations against Austria-Hungary had become so great that the Austrian Archduke (assassinated in 1914 at Sarajevo) told the German Emperor personally that they had reached the limit of endurance.On this occasion also, however, William II put himself definitely on the side of peace, and in so doing left the Austrian Government somewhat disappointed and discontented. Another neutral diplomat reports of the German Foreign Minister that

whatever plans he may have in his head (and he has big ideas), for winning the sympathies of the young Balkan Powers over to Germany, one thing is absolutely certain, and that is that he is rigidly determined to avoid a European conflagration. On this point the policy of Germany is similar to that of England and France, both of which countries are determinedly pacifist.

This is a fair statement of the English and French position in 1912. There was a great revulsion of feeling in England after her close shave of being dragged into war over Morocco and her sentiment was all for attending to certain pressing, domestic problems. Besides, it was only in November, 1911, and only through the indiscretion of a French newspaper, that the British public (and the British Parliament as well) had learned that the Anglo-French agreement of 1904 had secret articles attached to it, out of which had emanated the imbroglio over Morocco; and there was a considerable feeling of distrust towards the Foreign Office. In fact, SirE. Grey, the Foreign Minister, was so unpopular with his own party that quite probably he would have had to get out of office if he had not been sustained by Tory influence. Mr. W. T. Stead expressed a quite general sentiment in theReview of Reviewsfor December, 1911:

The fact remains that in order to put France in possession of Morocco, we all but went to war with Germany. We have escaped war, but we have not escaped the national and abiding enmity of the German people. Is it possible to frame a heavier indictment of the foreign policy of any British Ministry? The secret, the open secret, of this almost incredible crime against treaty-faith, British interests and the peace of the world, is the unfortunate fact that Sir Edward Grey has been dominated by men in the Foreign Office who believe all considerations must be subordinated to the one supreme duty of thwarting Germany at every turn, even if in doing so British interests, treaty-faith and the peace of the world are trampled underfoot. I speak that of which I know.

This was strong language and it went without challenge, for too many Englishmen felt that way. In France, the Poincaré-Millerand-Delcassé combination was getting well into the saddle; but with English public opinion in this notably undependable condition, English support of France, in spite of the secret agreement bindingthe two governments, was decidedly risky. Thereupon France also was "determinedly pacifist." Now if Germany had been the prime mover in "the most dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of nations," why did she not take advantage of that situation?

Russia, too, was "determinedly pacifist" in 1912, and with good reason. There was a party of considerable influence in the Tsar's court that was strongly for going to war in behalf of Serbia, but it was finally headed off by the Foreign Minister, Sazonov, who knew the state of public opinion in England and its effect on France, and knew therefore that the French-Russian-English alliance was not yet in shape to take on large orders. It is true that the Poincaré-Millerand-Delcassé war-party in France had proof enough in 1912 that it could count on the British Government's support; and what France knew, Russia knew. Undoubtedly, too, the British Government would somehow, under some pretext or other, possibly Belgian neutrality, have contrived to redeem its obligations as it did in 1914. But the atmosphere of the country was not favourable and the thing would have been difficult. Accordingly, Sazonov saw that it was best for him to restrain Serbia's impetuosity and truculencefor the time being—Russia herself being none too ready—and accordingly he did so.

But how? The Serbian Minister at Petersburg says that Sazonov told him that in view of Serbia's successes "he had confidence in our strength and believed that we would be able to deliver a blow at Austria. For that reason we should feel satisfied with what we were to receive, and consider it merely as a temporary halting-place on the road to further gains." On another occasion "Sazonov told me that we must work for the future because we would acquire a great deal of territory from Austria." The Serbian Minister at Bucharest says that his Russian and French colleagues counselled a policy of waiting "with as great a degree of preparedness as possible the important events which must make their appearance among the Great Powers." How, one may ask, was the Russian Foreign Office able to look so far and so clearly into the future? If German responsibility for the war is fundamental, achose jugée, as Mr. Lloyd George said it is, this seems a strange way for the Russian Foreign Minister to be talking, as far back as 1912. But stranger still is the fact that the German Government did not jump in at this juncture instead of postponing its blow until 1914when every one was apparently quite ready to receive it. When the historian of the future considers the theory of the Versailles treaty and considers the behaviour of the German Government in the crisis of 1908 and in the crisis of 1912, he will have to scratch his head a great deal to make them harmonize.

By the spring of 1913, the diplomatic representatives of the Allied Danube States made no secret of the relations in which their Governments stood to the Tsar's Foreign Office. The Balkan League was put through by Russian influence and Russia controlled its diplomacy. Serbia was as completely the instrument of Russia as Poland is now the instrument of France. "If the Austrian troops invade Balkan territory," wrote Baron Beyens on 4 April, 1913, "it would give cause for Russia to intervene, and might let loose a universal war." Now, if Germany had been plotting "with ruthless, cynical determination," as Mr. Lloyd George said, against the peace of Europe, what inconceivable stupidity for her not to push Austria along rather than do everything possible to hold her back! Why give Russia the benefit of eighteen months of valuable time for the feverish campaign of "preparedness" that she carried on? Those eighteen months meant a great deal. In February, 1914, the Tsararranged to provide the Serbian army with rifles and artillery, Serbia agreeing to put half a million soldiers in the field. In the same month Russia negotiated a French loan of about $100 million for improvements on her strategic railways and frontier-roads. During the spring, she made "test" mobilizations of large bodies of troops which were never demobilized, and these "test" mobilizations continued down to the outbreak of the war; and in April Russian agents made technical arrangements with agents of the British and French Admiralties for possible combined naval action.

Yes, those eighteen months were very busy months for Russia. True, she came out at the end of them an "unprepared and unsuspecting" nation, presumably, for was not all Europe unprepared and unsuspecting? Is it not so nominated in the Versailles treaty? One can not help wondering, however, how it is that Germany, "carefully, skilfully, insidiously, clandestinely planning in every detail" a murderous attack on the peace of Europe, should have given Russia the inestimable advantage of those eighteen months.

Mr. E. D. Morel, editor of the British monthly,Foreign Affairs, performed more than a distinguished service—it is a splendid, an illustrious service—to the disparaged cause of justice, when recently he translated and published in England through the National Labour Press, a series of remarkable State documents.[6]This consists of reports made by the Belgian diplomatic representatives at Paris, London and Berlin, to the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, covering the period from 7 February, 1905 to 2 July, 1914. Their authenticity has never been questioned. They have received no notice in this country; their content and import were carefully kept from the American people as long as it was possible to do so, and consequently they remain unknown except to a few who are students of international affairs or who have some similar special interest.

It can hardly be pretended by anyone that Belgian officials had, during that decade, any particular love or leaning towards Germany. The Belgian Foreign Office has always been as free from sentimental attachments as any other. It has always been governed by the same motives that govern the British, French, German and Russian Foreign Offices. Its number, like theirs, was number one; it was out, first and last, for the interests of the Belgian Government, and it scrutinized every international transaction from the viewpoint of those interests and those only. It was fully aware of the position of Belgium as a mere "strategic corridor" and battle-ground for alien armies in case of a general European war, and aware that Belgium had simply to make the best of its bad outlook, for nothing else could be done. If the Belgian Foreign Office and its agents, moreover, had no special love for Germany, neither had they any special fear of her. They were in no more or deeper dread of a German invasion than of a British or French invasion. In fact, in 1911, the Belgian Minister at Berlin set forth in a most matter-of-fact way his belief that in the event of war, Belgian neutrality would be first violated by Great Britain.[7]Theseobservers, in short, may on all accounts, as far as one can see, be accepted as neutral and disinterested, with the peculiar disinterestedness of one who has no choice between two evils.

Well, then, under the circumstances it is remarkable that if Germany during the ten years preceding August, 1914, were plotting against the peace of the world, these Belgian observers seem unaware of it. It is equally noteworthy that if Germany's assault were unprovoked, they seem unaware of that also. These documents relate in an extremely matter-of-fact way a continuous series of extraordinary provocations put upon the German Government, and moreover, they represent the behaviour of the German Government, under these provocations, in a very favourable light. On the other hand, they show from beginning to end a most profound distrust of English diplomacy. If there is any uncertainty about the causes of ill-feeling between England and Germany, these Belgian officials certainly do not share it. They regularly speakof England's jealousy of Germany's economic competition, and the provocative attitude to which this jealousy gave rise. They speak of it, moreover, as though it were something that the Belgian Government were already well aware of; they speak of it in the tone of pure commonplace, such as one might use in an incidental reference to the weather or to a tariff-schedule or to any other matter that is well understood and about which there is no difference of opinion and nothing new to be said. This is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that it was nominally to save Belgium and to defend the sanctity of Belgian neutrality that England entered the war in August, 1914. These Belgian agents are invariably suspicious of English diplomacy, as Mr. E. D. Morel points out, "mainly because they feel that it is tending to make the war which they dread for their country." They persistently and unanimously "insinuate that if left to themselves, France and Germany would reach a settlement of their differences, and that British diplomacy was being continually exercised to envenom the controversy and to draw a circle of hostile alliances round Germany." This, indeed, under a specious concern for the "balance of power," has been the historic rôle of Englishdiplomacy. Every one remembers how in 1866, just before the Franco-Prussian war, Mr. Matthew Arnold's imaginary Prussian, Arminius von Thunder-ten-Tronckh, wrote to the editor of thePall Mall Gazette, begging him to prevail upon his fellow-countrymen "for Heaven's sake not to go on biting, first the French Emperor's tail, and then ours."

On 18 February, 1905, the Belgian Minister in Berlin reported thus:

The real cause of the English hatred of Germany is the jealousy aroused by the astonishing development of Germany's merchant navy and of her commerce and manufactures. This hatred will last until the English have thoroughly learned to understand that the world's trade is not by rights an exclusively English monopoly. Moreover, it is studiously fostered by theTimesand a whole string of other daily papers and periodicals that do not stop short of calumny in order to pander to the tastes of their readers.

At that time the centre of the English navy had just been shifted to the North Sea, to the accompaniment of a very disturbing and, as at first reported, a very flamboyant speech from the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Lee. Of the sensation thereby created in Germany, the Belgian Minister says:

In informing the British public that Germany does not dream of any aggression against England, Count Bülow [the German Chancellor] said no more than what is recognized by every one who considers the matter dispassionately. Germany would have nothing to gain from a contest.... The German fleet has been created with a purely defensive object. The small capacity of the coal-bunkers in her High Seas Fleet, and the small number of her cruisers, prove besides that her fleet is not intended for use at any distance from the coast.

On the other hand, he remarks in the same report:

It was obvious that the new disposition of the English navy was aimed at Germany ... it certainly is not because of Russia, whose material stock is to a great extent destroyed and whose navy has just given striking proof of incompetence [in the Russo-Japanese war].

Such is the tone uniformly adopted by these neutral observers throughout their reports from 1905 to 1914. On 24 October, 1905, the Belgian Minister in Paris wrote:

England, in her efforts to maintain her supremacy and to hinder the development of her great German rival, is evidently inspired by the wish to avoid a conflict, but are not her selfish aims in themselves bringing it upon us?... She thought, when she concluded the Japanese alliance and gradually drew France into similar ties, that she had found the means to her end, by sufficientlyparalysing Germany's powers as to make war impossible.

This view of the Anglo-Japanese alliance is interesting and significant, especially now when that instrument is coming up for renewal, with the United States standing towards England in the same relation of economic competitorship that Germany occupied in 1905. True, Viscount Bryce assured the Institute of Politics at Williams College last summer that it was not Germany's economic rivalry that disturbed England; but on this point it would be highly advantageous for the people of the United States, while there is yet time, to read what the Belgian Minister in Berlin had to say on 27 October, 1905:

A very large number of Germans are convinced that England is either seeking allies for an attack upon Germany, or else, which would be more in accordance with British tradition, that she is labouring to provoke a Continental war in which she would not join, but of which she would reap the profit.I am told that many English people are troubled with similar fears and go in dread of German aggression.I am puzzled upon what foundations such an impression in London can be based. Germany is absolutely incapable of attacking England.... Are these people in England really sincere who go about expressing fears of a German invasion which could not materialize?Are they not rather pretending to be afraid of it in order to bring on a war which would annihilate Germany's navy, her merchant-fleet and her foreign commerce? Germany is as vulnerable to attack as England is safe from it; and if England were to attack Germany merely for the sake of extinguishing a rival, it would only be in accordance with her old precedents.In turn she wiped out the Dutch fleet, with the assistance of Louis XIV; then the French fleet; and the Danish fleet she even destroyed in time of peace and without any provocation, simply because it constituted a naval force of some magnitude.There are no ostensible grounds for war between Germany and England. The English hatred for Germany arises solely from jealousy of Germany's progress in shipping, in commerce and in manufacture.

I am told that many English people are troubled with similar fears and go in dread of German aggression.

I am puzzled upon what foundations such an impression in London can be based. Germany is absolutely incapable of attacking England.... Are these people in England really sincere who go about expressing fears of a German invasion which could not materialize?Are they not rather pretending to be afraid of it in order to bring on a war which would annihilate Germany's navy, her merchant-fleet and her foreign commerce? Germany is as vulnerable to attack as England is safe from it; and if England were to attack Germany merely for the sake of extinguishing a rival, it would only be in accordance with her old precedents.

In turn she wiped out the Dutch fleet, with the assistance of Louis XIV; then the French fleet; and the Danish fleet she even destroyed in time of peace and without any provocation, simply because it constituted a naval force of some magnitude.

There are no ostensible grounds for war between Germany and England. The English hatred for Germany arises solely from jealousy of Germany's progress in shipping, in commerce and in manufacture.

Baron Greindl here presents an opinion very different from that in which the majority of Americans have been instructed; and before they accept further instruction at the hands of Viscount Bryce, they had better look into the matter somewhat for themselves.

Baron Greindl wrote the foregoing in October. In December, the head of the British Admiralty, Sir John Fisher, assured Colonel Repington that "Admiral Wilson's Channel fleet was alone strong enough to smash the whole German fleet."Two yearslater, Sir John Fisher wrote to KingEdward VII that "it is an absolute fact that Germany has not laid down a single dreadnaught, nor has she commenced building a single battleship or big cruiser for eighteen months.... England has ... ten dreadnaughts built and building, while Germany in March last had not even begun one dreadnaught ... we have 123 destroyers and forty submarines. The Germans have forty-eight destroyers and one submarine." Hence, if Sir John Fisher knew what he was talking about, and in such matters he usually did, he furnishes a very considerable corroboration of Baron Greindl's view of the German navy up to 1905. Looking back at the third chapter of this book, which deals with the comparative strength of the two navies and naval groups as developed from 1905 to 1914, the reader may well raise again Baron Greindl's question, "Are those people in England really sincere?"

FOOTNOTES:[6]Under the title "Diplomacy Revealed." National Labour Press. 8 and 9 Johnson's Court, London, E.C., 4, England.[7]This belief received some corroboration in the spring of 1912, when in the course of military "conversations," the British Military Attaché, Lieutenant-Colonel Bridges, told the Belgian Minister of War that if war had broken out over the Agadir incident in 1911, the British Government would have landed troops in Belgium with or without the Belgian Government's consent. So much did the British Government think of the "scrap of paper!"

[6]Under the title "Diplomacy Revealed." National Labour Press. 8 and 9 Johnson's Court, London, E.C., 4, England.

[7]This belief received some corroboration in the spring of 1912, when in the course of military "conversations," the British Military Attaché, Lieutenant-Colonel Bridges, told the Belgian Minister of War that if war had broken out over the Agadir incident in 1911, the British Government would have landed troops in Belgium with or without the Belgian Government's consent. So much did the British Government think of the "scrap of paper!"

Such is the inveterate suspicion, the melancholy distrust, put upon English diplomacy by these foreign and neutral observers who could see so plainly what would befall their own country in the event of a European war. Such too, was the responsibility which these observers regularly imputed to the British Foreign Office—the British Foreign Office which was so soon to fix upon the neutrality of Belgium as acasus belliand pour out streams of propaganda about the sanctity of treaties and the rights of small nations! Every one of these observers exhibits this suspicion and distrust. In March, 1906, when Edward VII visited Paris and invited the discredited ex-Minister Delcassé to breakfast, the Belgian Minister at Paris wrote:

It looks as though the king wished to demonstrate that the policy which called forth Germany's active intervention [over Morocco] has nevertheless remained unchanged.... In French circles it is not over well received; Frenchmen feeling that they are being dragged against their will in the orbit of English policy, a policywhose consequences they dread, and which they generally condemned by throwing over M. Delcassé. In short, people fear that this is a sign that England wants so to envenom the situation that war will become inevitable.

On 10 February, 1907, when the English King and Queen visited Paris, he says: "One can not conceal from oneself that these tactics, though their ostensible object is to prevent war, are likely to arouse great dissatisfaction in Berlin and to stir up a desire to risk anything that may enable Germany to burst the ring which England's policy is tightening around her." On 28 March, 1907, the Belgianchargé d'affairesin London speaks of "English diplomacy, whose whole effort is directed to the isolation of Germany." On the same date, by a curious coincidence, the Minister at Berlin, in the course of a blistering arraignment of French policy in Morocco, says: "But at the bottom of every settlement that has been made, or is going to be made, there lurks always that hatred of Germany.... It is a sequence of the campaign very cleverly conducted with the object of isolating Germany.... The English press is carrying on its campaign of calumny more implacably than ever. It sees the finger of Germany in everything that goes contrary to English wishes." On 18 April, 1907, BaronGreindl says of the King of England's visit to the King of Spain that, like the alliances with Japan and France and the negotiations with Russia, it is "one of the moves in the campaign to isolate Germany that is being personally directed with as much perseverance as success by His Majesty King Edward VII." In the same dispatch he remarks: "There is some right to regard with suspicion this eagerness to unite, for a so-called defensive object, Powers who are menaced by nobody. At Berlin they can not forget that offer of 100,000 men made by the King of England to M. Delcassé."

On 24 May, 1907, the Minister at London reported that "it is plain that official England is pursuing a policy that is covertly hostile, and tending to result in the isolation of Germany, and that King Edward has not been above putting his personal influence at the service of this cause." On 19 June, 1907, Count de Lalaing again writes from London of the Anglo-Franco-Spanish agreement concerning thestatus quoin the Mediterranean region, that "it is, however, difficult to imagine that Germany will not regard it as a further step in England's policy, which is determined, by every sort of means, to isolate the German Empire."

Perusal of these documents from beginning to end will show nothing to offset against the view of English diplomacy exhibited in the foregoing quotations; nothing to modify or qualify that view in any way. Baron Greindl, however, speaks highly of the British Ambassador at Berlin, Sir F. Lascelles, and praises his personal and unsupported attempt to establish friendly relations between England and Germany. Of this he says: "I have been a witness for the last twelve years of the efforts he has made to accomplish it. And yet, possessing as he justly does the absolute confidence of the Emperor and the German Government, and eminently gifted with the qualities of a statesman, he has nevertheless not succeeded very well so far." The next year, 1908, when Sir F. Lascelles was forced to resign his post, Baron Greindl does not hesitate to say that "the zeal with which he has worked to dispel misunderstandings that he thought absurd and highly mischievous for both countries, does not fall in with the political views of his sovereign."

King Edward VII died 6 May, 1910. During the early part of 1911, the Belgian Ministers in London, Paris and Berlin report some indications of a less unfriendly policy towards Germany on the part of the British Government. In March of that year, Sir Edward Grey delivered a reassuring speech on British foreign policy, on the occasion of the debate on the naval budget. The Belgian Minister in Berlin says of this that it should have produced the most agreeable impression in Germany if one could confidently believe that it really entirely reflected the ideas of the British Government. It would imply, he says, that "England no longer wishes to give to the Triple Entente the aggressive character which was stamped upon it by its creator, King Edward VII." He remarks, however, the slight effect produced in Berlin by Sir E. Grey's speech, and infers that German public feeling may have "become dulled by the innumerable meetings and mutual demonstrations of courtesy which have neverproduced any positive result," and he adds significantly that "this distrust is comprehensible."

It must be remembered that at the time this speech was delivered, England was under a secret agreement dating from 1904 to secure France's economic monopoly in Morocco. England was also under a secret obligation to France, dating from 1906, to support her in case of war with Germany. It must be above all remembered that this latter obligation carried with it a contingent liability for the Franco-Russian military alliance that had been in effect for many years. Thus if Russia went to war with Germany, France was committed, and in turn England was committed. The whole force of the Triple Entente lay in these agreements; and it can not be too often pointed out that they weresecretagreements. No one in England knew until November, 1911, that in 1904 the British Government had bargained with the French Government, in return for a free hand in Egypt, to permit France to squeeze German economic interests out of Morocco—in violation of a published agreement, signed by all the interested nations, concerning the status of Morocco. No one in England knew until 3 August, 1914, that England had for several years been under a military and navalagreement with France which carried the enormous contingent liability of the Franco-Russian military alliance. No matter what appeared on the surface of politics; no matter how many pacific speeches were made by Sir E. Grey and Mr. Asquith, no matter what the newspapers said, no matter how often and how impressively Lord Haldane might visit Berlin in behalf of peace and good feeling;those secret agreements held, they were the only things that did hold, and everything worked out in strict accordance with them and with nothing else, least of all with any public understanding or any statement of policy put out for public consumption. It was just as in the subsequent case of the armistice and the peace—and this is something that has been far too little noticed in this country. The real terms of the armistice and of the peace were not the terms of the Fourteen Points or of any of the multitudinous published statements of Allied war aims. On the contrary, they were the precise terms of the secret treaties made among the Allied belligerents during the war, and made public on their discovery by the Soviet Government in the archives of the Tsarist Foreign Office.

It is no wonder then, that the German Government was not particularly impressed by Sir E.Grey's speech, especially as Germany saw France helping herself to Moroccan territory with both hands, and England looking on in indifferent complacency. In May, 1911, on a most transparent and preposterous pretext, a French army was ordered to march on Fez, the capital of Morocco. The German Government then informed France that as the Algeciras Act, which guaranteed the integrity and independence of Morocco, had thereby gone by the board, Germany would no longer consider herself bound by its provisions. In June, 30,000 French troops "relieved" Fez, occupied it and stayed there, evincing no intention whatever of getting out again, notwithstanding that the ostensible purpose of the expedition was accomplished; in reality, there was nothing to accomplish. Two months before thiscoup d'état, Baron Greindl, the Belgian Minister at Berlin, wrote to the Belgian Foreign Office as follows:

Every illusion, if ever entertained on the value of the Algeciras Act, which France signed with the firm intention of never observing, must long since have vanished. She has not ceased for one moment to pursue her plans of annexation; either by seizing opportunities for provisional occupations destined to last for ever or by extorting concessions which have placed the Sultan in aposition of dependence upon France, and which have gradually lowered him to the level of the Bey of Tunis.

A week later, 29 April, Baron Guillaume, who had succeeded M. Leghait as Belgian Minister in Paris, reported that "there are, so far, no grounds for fearing that the French expedition will bring about any disturbance of international policy. Germany is a calm spectator of events." He adds, significantly, "England, having thrust France into the Moroccan bog, is contemplating her work with satisfaction."

France professed publicly that the object of this expedition was to extricate certain foreigners who were imperilled at Fez; and having done so, she would withdraw her forces. The precious crew of concessionaires, profiteers, and dividend-hunters known as theComité du Marochad suddenly discovered a whole French colony living in Fez in a state of terror and distress. There was, in fact, nothing of the sort. Fez was never menaced, it was never short of provisions, and there were no foreigners in trouble. When the expeditionary force arrived, it found no one to shoot at. As M. Francis de Pressensé says:

Those redoubtable rebels who were threatening Fez had disappeared like dew in the morning. Barely dida few ragged horsemen fire off a shot or two before turning around and riding away at a furious gallop. A too disingenuous, or too truthful, correspondent gave the show away. The expeditionary force complains, he gravely records, of the absence of the enemy; the approaching harvest season is keeping all the healthy males in the fields! Thus did the phantom so dexterously conjured by theComité du Marocfor the benefit of its aims, disappear in a night.

Nevertheless, the expeditionary force did not, in accordance with the public professions of the French Government, march out of Fez as soon as it discovered this ridiculous mare's nest. It remained there and held possession of the Moorish capital. What was the attitude of the British Government in the premises? On 2 May, in the House of Commons, Sir Edward Grey said that "the action taken by France is not intended to alter the political status of Morocco, and His Majesty's Government can not see why any objection should be taken to it."

Germany had remained for eight years a tolerant observer of French encroachments in Morocco, and quite clearly, as Baron Greindl observes in his report of 21 April, 1911, could not "after eight years of tolerance, change her attitude unless she were determined to go to war, and waris immeasurably more than Morocco is worth." In July, 1911, however, while the French force of 30,000 was still occupying Fez, Germany dispatched a gunboat, the "Panther," which anchored off the coast of Agadir.

This was the famous "Agadir incident," of which we have all heard. Did it mean that the worm had turned, that Germany had changed her attitude and was determined to go to war? It has been so represented; but there are many difficult inconsistencies involved in that explanation of the German Government's act, and there is also an alternative explanation which fits the facts far better. In the first place the "Panther" was hardly more than an ocean-going tug. She was of 1000 tons burden, mounting two small naval guns, six machine-guns, and she carried a complement of only 125 men. Second, she never landed a man upon the coast of Morocco. She chose for her anchorage a point where the coast is practically inaccessible; Agadir has no harbour, and there is nothing near it that offers any possible temptation to the predatory instinct. No more ostentatiously unimpressive and unmenacing demonstration could have been devised. Germany, too, was quite well aware that Morocco was notworth a European war; and as Baron Guillaume said in his report of 29 April, "possibly she [Germany] is congratulating herself on the difficulties that weigh upon the shoulders of the French Government, and asks nothing better than to keep out of the whole affair as long as she is not forced into it by economic considerations." But the most significant indication that Germany had not changed her attitude is in the fact that if she were determined upon war, then, rather than two years later, was her time to go about it. This aspect of Germany's behaviour has been dealt with in a previous chapter. It can not be too often reiterated that if Germany really wanted war and was determined upon war, her failure to strike in 1908, when Russia was prostrate and France unready, and again in 1912, a few months after the Agadir incident, when the Balkan war was on, is inexplicable.[8]

The dispatch of the "Panther" gave the three Belgian observers a great surprise, and they were much puzzled to account for it. Baron Guillaume's thoughts at once turned to England. He writes 2 July:

It was long regarded as an axiom that England would never allow the Germans to establish themselves at any point of Moroccan territory. Has this policy been abandoned; and if so, at what price were they bought off?

During the month of July, while waiting for a statement from the British Foreign Office, the Belgian observers canvassed the possibility that Germany's action was a hint that she would like some territorial compensation for having been bilked out of her share in the Moroccan market. But the interesting fact, and for the purpose of this book the important fact, is that none of these diplomats shows the slightest suspicion that Germany was bent on war or that she had any thought of going to war. Baron Guillaume says, 28 July, "undoubtedly the present situation wears a serious aspect.... Nobody, however, wants war, and they will try to avoid it." He proceeds:

The French Government knows that a war would be the death-knell of the Republic.... I have very greatconfidence in the Emperor William's love of peace, notwithstanding the not infrequent air of melodrama about what he says and does.... Germany can not go to war for the sake of Morocco, nor yet to exact payment of those compensations that she very reasonably demands for the French occupation of Fez, which has become more or less permanent. On the whole I feel less faith in Great Britain's desire for peace. She would not be sorry to see the others destroying one another; only, under those circumstances, it would be difficult for her to avoid armed intervention.... As I thought from the very first, the crux of the situation is in London.

By the end of July, a different conception of Germany's action seemed to prevail. It began to be seen that the episode of the "Panther" had been staged by way of calling for a show-down on the actual intentions and purposes of the Triple Entente; and it got one. Mr. Lloyd George, "the impulsive Chancellor of the Exchequer," as Count de Lalaing calls him, made a typical jingo speech at the Mansion House; a speech which the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, and Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Minister, had helped him to compose. The air was cleared at once—England stood by France—and what better plan could have been devised for clearing the air than the dispatch of the "Panther"? Germany stood for the policy of economic equality,the policy of the open door to which all the Powers interested had agreed in the case of Morocco. France, at the end of a course of continuous aggression, had put 30,000 troops in occupation of the capital of Morocco on an infamously unscrupulous pretext, and put them there to stay, and the British Government "could not see why any objection should be taken to it." Germany, on the other hand, anchored an insignificant gunboat off an inaccessible coast, and without landing a man or firing a shot, left her there as a silent reminder of the Algeciras Act and the principle of the open door—carefully and even ostentatiously going no further—and the British Government promptly, through the mouth of Mr. Lloyd George, laid down a challenge and a threat. Thereupon Germany and France understood their relative positions; they understood, even without Sir E. Grey's explicit reaffirmation of 27 November of the policy of the Triple Entente, that England would stand by her arrangements with France. Baron Greindl writes from Berlin 6 December, and puts the case explicitly:

Was it not assuming the right of veto on German enterprise for England to start a hue and cry because a German cruiser cast anchor in the roads of Agadir, seeing that she had looked on without a murmur whilstFrance and Spain had proceeded step by step to conquer Morocco and to destroy the independence of its Sultan?England could not have acted otherwise. She was tied by her secret treaty with France. The explanation was extremely simple, but it was not of a sort to allay German irritation.

England could not have acted otherwise. She was tied by her secret treaty with France. The explanation was extremely simple, but it was not of a sort to allay German irritation.

FOOTNOTE:[8]Critics of German foreign policy are hard put to it to show that she was ever guided by territorial ambitions; which is an extremely troublesome thing when one wants to believe that she proposed in 1914 to put the world under a military despotism. Can any one show where in a single instance she ever demanded anything more than economic equality with other nations, in a foreign market? Certainly she never demanded more than this in Morocco. Ex-Premier Caillaux says that his predecessor Rouvier offered Germany a good Moroccan port (Mogador) and some adjoining territory, and Germany declined.

[8]Critics of German foreign policy are hard put to it to show that she was ever guided by territorial ambitions; which is an extremely troublesome thing when one wants to believe that she proposed in 1914 to put the world under a military despotism. Can any one show where in a single instance she ever demanded anything more than economic equality with other nations, in a foreign market? Certainly she never demanded more than this in Morocco. Ex-Premier Caillaux says that his predecessor Rouvier offered Germany a good Moroccan port (Mogador) and some adjoining territory, and Germany declined.

Let us glance at British political chronology for a moment. King Edward VII, the chief factor in the Entente, the moving spirit in England's foreign alliances, had been dead a year. In December, 1905, the Liberal party had come into power. In April, 1908, Mr. H. H. Asquith became Prime Minister. In 1910, Anglo-German relations were apparently improving; in July, 1910, Mr. Asquith spoke of them in the House of Commons as "of the most cordial character. I look forward to increasing warmth and fervour and intimacy in these relations year by year." The great question was, then, in 1911, whether the Liberal Government would actually, when it came down to the pinch, stick by its secret covenant with France. Were the new Liberals, were Mr. Asquith, Lord Haldane, Sir E. Grey, Mr. Lloyd George, true-blue Liberal imperialists, or were they not? Could France and Russia safely trust them to continue the Foreign Office policy that Lord Lansdowne had bequeathed to Sir E.Grey; or, when the emergency came, would they stand from under? After all, therehadbeen a Campbell-Bannerman; there was no doubt of that; and one, at least, of the new Liberals, Mr. Lloyd George, had a bad anti-imperialist record in the South African war.

The Agadir incident elicited a satisfactory answer to these questions. The Liberal Government was dependable. However suspiciously the members of the Liberal Cabinet might talk, they were good staunch imperialists at heart. They were, as the theologians say, "sound on the essentials." Baron Greindl wrote, 6 December, 1911:

The Entente Cordiale was founded, not on the positive basis of defence of common interests, but on the negative one of hatred of the German Empire.... Sir Edward Grey adopts this tradition without reservation. He imagines that it is in conformity with English interests.... A revision of Great Britain's policy is all the less to be looked for, as ever since the Liberal Ministry took office, and more especially during the last few months, English foreign policy has been guided by the ideas with which King Edward VII inspired it.

Mr. Lloyd George's speech at the Mansion House in July, 1911, after the German gunboat "Panther" had anchored off the Moroccan coast, gave an immense impulse to the jingo spirit in France, because it was taken as definite assurance of England's good faith in seeing her secret agreements through to a finish. M. Caillaux, the French Premier, appears to have had his doubts, nevertheless, inasmuch as the British Foreign Office did not give a straight reply to the French Foreign Office's inquiry concerning British action in case the Germans landed a force in Morocco. He says:

Are we to understand that our powerful neighbours will go right through to the end with the resolve which they suggest? Are they ready for all eventualities? The British Ambassador, Sir Francis Bertie, with whom I converse, does not give me formal assurances. It is said, of course, that he would see without displeasure the outbreak of a conflict between France and Germany; his mind works in the way attributed to a number of leading British officials at the Foreign Office.

M. Caillaux here suggests the same suspicion of British intentions which the Belgian diplomats at London, Paris and Berlin intimate continually throughout their correspondence since 1905.[9]He accordingly favoured a less energetic policy towards Germany, and was thrown out of office. Count de Lalaing reported from London, 15 January, 1912, that the revelations which provoked this political crisis were disagreeable for the English Government. "They seem to prove," he says, "that the French Premier had been trying to negotiate with Berlin without the knowledge of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his other colleagues, and this is naturally disquieting to a Government whose interests are bound up with those of France, and which accordingly can ill tolerate any lapses of this kind." He adds:

These revelations have also strengthened the impression that M. Caillaux had recently favoured an ultra-conciliatory policy towards Germany, and this impression was felt all the more painfully in English official circles, as the full extent of the tension between London and Berlin caused by the Cabinet of St. James's loyal behaviour towards the Cabinet at Paris had hardlybeen grasped. People in England are reluctant to face the fact that they have been 'more royalist than the King,' and have shown themselves even less accommodating than the friend they were backing.... Accordingly the press unanimously hails with delight the departure of M. Caillaux, and trusts that sounder traditions may be reverted to without delay.

This comment on the position of M. Caillaux is one of the most interesting observations to be found in these documents.

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