30297 kryzysy marokańskie (20)

418 □ Confrontational Diplomacy

ence, and with his own influence with the kaiser eroded, Bulów resigned on. 14, 1909. He was succeeded by his minister of the interior, Theobald von Bethroa Hollweg.

Be

►ethmann, who łacked Biilow s diplomatic expericnce, perceived far morę cle the need for a naval agreement with Britain, but his eiforts too ended in failure i for virtually the same reasons. The British were interested only in estabiishing| fixed ratio for the naval strength of the two powers that would guarantee Brie continued naval superiority, a condition the kaiser and Tirpitz angriły rejected. Mo over, Bethmann, like Biilow, wanted some kind of assurance that Britain would 1 engage in or support a war against Germany, which the British in tum refused 1 consider. “We cannot enter into a political understanding with Germany wb would separate us from Russia and France and leave us isoiated while the rest 1 Europę would be obligated to look to Germany,” Grey wrote to Goschen, the Britisi ambassador in Berlin, in the last days of 1910. “No understanding with Ger would be appreciated here unless it meant an arrest of the inerease of naval ex diture.”

Two years after Bethmann took over the chancellorship, the only result of l German naval talks was inereased mutual suspicion: the British were convinced i Germany only desired a free hand to establish hegemony in Europę and challen British supremacy at sea; the Germans, that Britain was drawing together the eon of an anti-German coalition to encircle and ultimately destroy their country.

The British were indeed doing everything possible to preserve the Triple tente, which they regarded as essential to the preservation of the European baianc of power. They not only rejected all German reąuests for promises of neutrality i the event of a Continental war but, to reassure Russia of Britain’s loyaity, they stead-j fastly supported Russia in opposing railway building in Turkey. They were thereforel understandably angry about Russia's Potsdam bargain with Germany over the Bagdad! Railway (see p. 345) and fearful that Russia might betray them even morę flagrantly 1 if offered sufflciently alluring conditions—which, as we have seen, was exactly what | the Germans were attempting to do.

□ The Second Morocco Crisis

The Triple Entente was saved, or morę accurately the danger of its disintegration svas averted, by a new crisis over Morocco that developed, ironically enough, as a esult of another German effort to undermine the Triple Entente, this time through 1 separate bargain with France. On February 8, 1909, at the height of the Bosnian :risis, France and Germany concluded an agreement over Morocco which the Ger-nans evidently hoped would not only improve their relations with France but would ow further suspicion between France and Russia, whose relations had been embit-ered by France s refusal of support over Bośnia. The Franco-German agreement eaffirmed Morocco’s independence and territorial integrity, but in addition Ger-nany specifically recognized France’s “special political interests” in that country in etum for France’s recognition of Germany’s economic interests.

In the months that followed the German govemment came under inereasing

criticism for failing to gain any concrete concessions in Morocco or anywberc ta the colonial field. This criticism grew morę intense in April 1911 when die took advantage of antiforeign demonstrations in the Moroccan Capital of Fez troops into the country with the familiar excuse that such action was nec-to restore order. Although the French move violated the Act of Algedras, as Germans hastened to remind them, a French military occupation of Morocco been expected by the powers ever sińce that same act had assigned France Sion of Morocco's police and finances. The Germans therefore knew they 1 expect litde intemational support in protesting the French yiolation, but they »ed they could and should receive compensation. Accordingly, after the French jpation of Fez, they madę it very elear to Paris that they were waiting for French s. When such offers failed to arrive (a ministerial crisis in June and the formation a new ministry under Joseph Caillaux on June 28 delayed any decision the French ht have madę on the matter), the German government seat the gunboat Pantber Morocco’s Atlantic seaport of Agadir, allegedly to protect German economic in-ests, and a German businessman was dispatched hastily to Agadir to establish that rh interests existed. This tactic was inspired by Alfred von Kiderlen-Wachter, the ~d of the German foreign office, whose de facto ultimatum to Russia of March 1909, had given Germany its “yictory” in the Bosnian crisis. “It is necessary to ump the table,” Kiderlen said, “but the only object of all this is to make the nch negotiate.”

Yet again the Germans failed to take into account how foreign goyemments ~d public opinion would interpret their table-thumping. For many years now they d thumped too much and too ineptly, and the “Pantber’s leap” only served to idle foreign fears about Germany’s intentions and conyince the British and French goyemments that they must consolidate their ties with each other and with Russia. For the Germans, the timing of the Agadir demonstration was particularty unfortunate because Caillaux, the new French premier, was one of the few French leaders who sincerely desired better relations with Germany. A policy of reconcilt iation was now ruled out by a surge of anti-German sentiment in France and by the : exorbitance of Germany’s compensatory claims. After waiting in vain for French offers, the Germans finaily set their own terms: in return for abandoning all Gennan rights and interests in Morocco, they demanded the entire French Congo be ceded to Germany.

The British were if anything even morę alarmed than the French by Germany s behavior: for the British a German gunboat at Agadir conjured up the specter of a German naval base on the Atlantic coast within striking distance of Gibraltar, and the British navy now prepared for war. Officials of the foreign office, on the other hand, believed the Germans were interested less in territorial gain than in disrupttag the entente, which would give them the chance to establish hegemony over Europę. “The French gamę in Morocco has been stupid and dishonest,” Grey’s priyate sec-retary, Sir William Tyrell, told Hardinge, the permanent underseeretary, on July 21, “but it is a vital interest for us to support her on this occasion in the same way in which the Germans supported the Austrian policy in 1908 in Bośnia.” In a speech on that same day, Lloyd George, generally regarded as the most conciliatory amang Britain’s Liberał leaders, issued an emphatic waming addressed to France evenmotc than to Germany (though neither country was mentioned by name) that Botam