Germany before the war

by baron Beyens

III.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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