Germany before the war

by baron Beyens

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

IV.

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

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

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

V.

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

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

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

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