The chief difficulty of the situation was that it committed France to two gigantic tasks, that of pacifying Morocco and also of standing up to the Kaiser in Europe. In this respect the ground for the conflict was all in his favour; and both he and she knew it. Consequently, a compromise was desirable; and the Kaiser himself, in insisting on the holding of a Conference, built a golden bridge over which France might draw back, certainly with honour, probably with success; for in the diplomatic sphere she was at least as strong as he. When, therefore, Delcassé objected to the Conference, his colleagues accepted his resignation (June 6). His fall was hailed at Berlin as a humiliation for France. Nevertheless, her complaisance earned general sympathy, while the bullying tone of German diplomacy, continued during the Conference held at Algeciras, hardened the opposition of nearly all the Powers, including the United States. Especially noteworthy was the declaration of Italy that her interests were identical with those of England. German proposals were supported by Austria alone, who therefore gained from the Kaiser the doubtful compliment of having played the part of "a brilliant second" to Germany.
It is needless to describe at length the Act of Algeciras (April 7, 1906). It established a police and a State Bank in Morocco, suppressed smuggling and the illicit trade in arms, reformed the taxes, and set on foot public works. Of course, little resulted from all this; but the position of France was tacitly regularised, and she was left free to proceed with pacific penetration. "We are neither victors nor vanquished," said Bülow in reviewing the Act; and M. Rouvier echoed the statement for France. In reality, Germany had suffered a check. Her chief aim was to sever the Anglo-French Entente, and she failed. She sought to rally Italy to her side, and she failed; for Italy now proclaimed her accord with France on Mediterranean questions. Finally the North German Gazette paid a tribute to the loyal and peaceable aims of French policy; while other less official German papers deplored the mistakes of their Government, which had emphasised the isolation of Germany[518]. This is indeed the outstanding result of the Conference. The threatening tone of Berlin had disgusted everybody. Above all it brought to more cordial relations the former rivals, Great Britain and Russia.
As has already appeared, the friction between Great Britain and Russia quickly disappeared after the Japanese War. During the Congress of Algeciras the former rivals worked cordially together to check the expansive policy of Germany, in which now lay the chief cause of political unrest. In fact, the Kaiser's Turcophile policy acquired a new significance owing to the spread of a Pan-Islamic propaganda which sent thrills of fanaticism through North-West Africa, Egypt, and Central Asia. At St. Helena Napoleon often declared Islam to be vastly superior to Christianity as a fighting creed; and his imitator now seemed about to marshal it against France, Russia, and Great Britain. Naturally, the three Powers drew together for mutual support. Further, Germany by herself was very powerful, the portentous growth of her manufactures and commerce endowing her with wealth which she spent lavishly on her army and navy. In May 1906 the Reichstag agreed to a new Navy Bill for further construction which was estimated to raise the total annual expenditure on the navy from £11,671,000 in 1905 to £16,492,000 in 1917; this too though Bebel had warned the House that the agitation of the_ German Navy League had for its object a war with England.
In 1906 and 1907 Edward VII. paid visits to William II., who returned the compliment in November 1907. But this interchange of courtesies could not end the distrust caused by Germany's increase of armaments. The peace-loving Administration of Campbell-Bannerman, installed in power by the General Election of 1906, sought to come to an understanding with Berlin, especially at the second Hague Conference of 1907, with respect to a limitation of armaments. But Germany rejected all such proposals[519]. The hopelessness of framing a friendly arrangement with her threw us into the arms of Russia; and on August 31, 1907, Anglo-Russian Conventions were signed defining in a friendly way the interests of the two Powers in Persia, Afghanistan, and Thibet. True, the interests of Persian reformers were sacrificed by this bargain; but it must be viewed, firstly, in the light of the Bagdad Railway scheme, which threatened soon to bring Germany to the gates of Persia and endanger the position of both Powers in that land[520]; secondly, in that of the general situation, in which Germany and Austria were rapidly forcing their way to a complete military ascendancy and refused to consider any limitation of armaments. The detailed reasons which prompted the Anglo-Russian Entente are of course unknown. But the fact that the most democratic of all British Administrations should come to terms with the Russian autocracy is the most convincing proof of the very real danger which both States discerned in the aggressive conduct of the Central Powers. The Triple Alliance, designed by Bismarck solely to safeguard peace, became, in the hands of William II., a menace to his neighbours, and led them to form tentative and conditional arrangements for defence in case of attack. This is all that was meant by the Triple Entente. It formed a loose pendant to the Dual Alliance between France and Russia, which was binding and solid. With those Powers the United Kingdom formed separate agreements; but they were not alliances; they were friendly understandings on certain specific objects, and in no respect threatened the Triple Alliance so long as it remained non-aggressive[521].
One question remains. When was it that the friction between Great Britain and Germany first became acute? Some have dated it from the Morocco Affair of 1905-6. The assertion is inconsistent with the facts of the case. Long before that crisis the policy of the Kaiser tended increasingly towards a collision. His patronage of the Boers early in 1896 was a threatening sign; still more so was his World-Policy, proclaimed repeatedly in the following years, when the appointments of Tirpitz and Bülow showed that the threats of capturing the trident, and so forth, were not mere bravado. The outbreak of the Boer War in 1899, followed quickly by the Kaiser's speech at Hamburg, and the adoption of accelerated naval construction in 1900, brought about serious tension, which was not relaxed by British complaisance respecting Samoa. The coquetting with the Sultan, the definite initiation of the Bagdad scheme (1902-3), and the completion of the first part of Germany's new naval programme in 1904 account for the Anglo-French Entente of that year. The chief significance of the Morocco Affair of 1905-6 lay in the Kaiser's design of severing that Entente. His failure, which was still further emphasised during the Algeciras Conference, proved that a policy which relies on menace and ever-increasing armaments arouses increasing distrust and leads the menaced States to form defensive arrangements. That is also the outstanding lesson of the career of Napoleon I. Nevertheless, the Kaiser, like the Corsican, persisted in forceful procedure, until Army Bills, Navy Bills, and the rejection of pacific proposals at the Hague, led to their natural result, the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907. This event should have made him question the wisdom of relying on armed force and threatening procedure. The Entente between the Tsar and the Campbell-Bannerman Administration formed a tacit but decisive censure of the policy of Potsdam; for it realised the fears which had haunted Bismarck like a nightmare[522]. Its effect on William II. was to induce him to increase his military and naval preparations, to reject all proposals for the substitution of arbitration in place of the reign of force, and thereby to enclose the policy of the Great Powers in a vicious circle from which the only escape was a general reduction of armaments or war.
FOOTNOTES:
[495] Written in May-July 1915.
[496] E, Lewin, The Germans and Africa, p. xvii. and chaps. v.-xiii.; J. H. Rose, The Origins of the War, Lectures I.-III.; Reventlow, Deutschlands auswärtige Politik, p. 71.
[497] Delcassé was Foreign Minister in five Administrations until 1905.