71641 kryzysy marokańskie (21)

420 □ Confrontational Diplomacy

wonJd not tolerate any kind of intemational settlement that ignored Britain or Bri intcrests, by which he was generally understood to mean a separate wide-ran settlement of Franco-German differences.

Now, as at the time of the first Morocco and Bosnian crises, the Germans yet another opportunity to adopt that policy of the mailed fist (i.e., resort to fo about which the kaiser had declaimed so often and which inspired such inte tional apprehension. But again the Germans did nothing. They allowed the Fre to spin out negotiations that kept their own hopes for compensation alive, and the end they settled for a mere fraction of their original demand. In a conventi signed November 4, 1911, the Germans gave France a free hand to establish a p tectorate in Morocco; in return France ceded to Germany two strips of territory Africa connecting the German Cameroons with the Congo and Ubanghi riv^-which the Germans desired as outlets for their coiony’s exports.

With that the Morocco problem, insofar as it was an intemational problem, finally resoIved, but instead of leading to a Franco-German reconciliation the vember 4 treaty was met with howls of indignation in both countries. In Frań public outrage over any compensation to Germany was a major factor in the o throw of the Caiilaux ministry in January 1912 and his succession by the forem representative of French patriotic fervor, Raymond Poincare, who was to iead French patriots proudly hailed as a national revival (rćveil national) and who fessed that his generation had “no other reason for existence than the hope recovering the lost provinces [Alsace and Lorraine].” In Germany, Tirpitz was lighted with the attacks of German patriots on Bethmann and Kiderlen for ha settled for so Iittle. “The morę we are humiliated the morę uproar there will 1 he said. “The chances for a new naval law become steadily greater.”

□ The Haldane Mission

The Second Morocco Crisis reinforced British fears about the German menace, it also raised ąuestions about Britain’s entente policies. Why should Britain all itself to become embroiled in a European war for the sake of French colonial bitions or take such pains to preserve its entente with Russia, which, as the Bri" saw it, was consistently violating its treaty commitments in Persia? The behayior France and Russia gave rise to Sharp criticism in Parliament and the press and i the British govemment receptive to renewed domestic appeals for an agreem^-with Germany to limit the naval arms race, which imposed such linancial burd^-on the British economy. The actual initiative for the renewed Anglo-German n tiations appears to have come from Bethmann-Hollweg, who had sought an un standing with Britain sińce taking over the German chancellorship. Informed Mettemich, his ambassador to Britain, of the morę receptive mood of the Bri" govemment and public opinion, he turaed for assistance to Albert Bailin, the h^-of the Hamburg-America steamship linę and a friend of both the kaiser and Tiip For some years Bailin had tried to convince his august compatriots of the poli"^-as well as economic necessity to limit Germany’s fleet construction, and at mann’s reąuest he approached Sir Ernest Cassel, a German-bom British finan magnate, who enjoyed a status in British political and financial circles compa to that of Bailin in Germany and who was similarly conyinced of the need for

naval treaty. Cassel agreed to act as intermediary in Britain and brought the German reąuest for arms negotiations to the attention of Winston Churchill, the first k)fd of the Admiralty.

Churchill welcomed the prospect of a naval treaty, as did Lloyd George, the thancellor of the exchequer, who Since 1908 had desired an agreement with Germany to cut expenditures. With the approval of Prime Minister Asąuith and Grey, Churchill and Lloyd George prepared a memorandum as a basis for negotiation; Germany should recognize Britain’s need to maintain its superiority at sea and sbouid agree not to increase or better still to slow the pace of its naval construction program; in return Britain would give favorable consideration to German colonial wistaes and welcome reciprocal assurances debarring “either Power from joining in aggres-sive designs or combinations against the other.”

This memorandum was communicated to Berlin on January 29, 1912, where it was accepted by Bethmann as a basis for negotiation. The only problem (and it proved to be insuperable) was that the kaiser had already approved the draft of a supplementary naval bill desired by Tirpitz. (To secure Reichstag approval of earlier biUs, the ratę of construction was scheduled to drop to two ships a year from 1912 to 1917, and Tirpitz now wanted appropriations for si.\ additional battleships during those years to keep up the pace of German fleet buiiding.) In response to the protests of Bethmann and Adolf Wermuth, the head of the Reich treasury, and chas-tened by the results of recent parliamentary elections in which the Sociaiists polled 4.25 million votes and therewith became the largest single party in the Reichstag, Tirpitz eventually agreed to parę down his demands from six to three, but the critical significance of this supplementary bill was that it provided for an increase in Germany^ existing construction program.

To Bethmann’s surprise, especially in view of the kaiser’s previous refusal even to consider any treaty limitation on naval construction, William was positively en-thusiastic about the prospect of negotiating with Britain, perhaps because he had exaggerated expectations of what Britain was prepared to offer. He had always been confident that his fleet-building program would bring Britain to the bargaining table and he may well have thought that that time had come. As the British govemmem memorandum specifically reąuired that an Anglo-German agreement include Ger many’s engagement not to increase its naval armament, both Bethmann and Casse naturally assumed that the kaiser was prepared to negotiate about the supplementan bill—the so-called Novelle—a copy of which Bethmann gave Cassel to take to Lon don. And it was certainly on the basis of this assumption that the British govemmai embarked on negotiations and sent an emissary to Berlin.

The man chosen for this mission was Lord Haldane, the minister of war, wb had studied philosophy at a German university and who, besides being the fbremos authority in the British' govemment on German military and naval affairs, had : genuine sympathy for Germany that might make him a morę successful negociao in Berlin than his colieagues. The Haldane mission began under un£avorable w pices, for on February 7, the day he arrived in Berlin, the kaiser addressed the opa ing session of the Reichstag and announced in generał terms the military and mw bills to be brought in during the current session, thus appearing to coubm hamse to the Novelle. Bethmann cannot have believed that this was his sovereign’s nta tion, however, for at the same time the kaiser madę his announccroeni m the Seid stag he was saying that the fate of Germany and the worid hinged on the tatts wił