|
|
|
|
2 Events Leading to War
B The Moroccan Crisis - The Panther at Agadir, 1911 i In May 1911, the French occupied Fez, the capital of Morocco, following disorder in the country. Though supported by the Sultan of Morocco France had gone beyond the terms agreed at Algeciras and it looked as if the French would take full control of Morocco. ii Kiderlen, the German foreign minister, felt that Germany should get some compensation if France took Morocco, and thinking that France was temporarily isolated since both her partners had recently been negotiating with Germany about affairs in Persia, he decided to wield 'the big stick' to back up his bargaining. The German gunboat, the Panther, was therefore sent to Agadir and anchored there on July 1, 1911. iii The whole situation now changed. Whichever French politicians had been prepared to bargain they could not take the Panther episode lying down. Lloyd George's speech at the Mansion House, declaring that Britain would not accept a peace which meant sacrificing her national interests, was read by the French and German public as full backing for France. The British fleet prepared for action. By the autumn of 1911, the Germans had to accept a face-saving compromise: territory in the Congo as compensation. iv The second Moroccan crisis which had started as an effort to negotiate a bargain and effect some reconciliation with France, ended by hardening Franco-German hostility and by strengthening the Triple Entente instead of weakening it. Caillaux, the French minister with pro-German inclinations, was driven from power and replaced by Poincare (1912) who was from Lorraine and had never forgotten the defeat of 1871. v Germany was humiliated. Prince von Bulow summed up the German viewpoint of Agadir, 'It started like a damp squib, it startled, then amused the world and ended by making us look ridiculous.' Kiderlen was denounced in the Reichstag for his weakness. A new Navy Law authorised in October 1912 put Germany on a programme of three dreadnoughts per year instead of two, and the expansion of her already powerful army was discussed. 'The conflicts of 1905 and 1909 had been crises of diplomacy; in 1911 nations faced each other in a pre-war spirit' (Taylor).
|
|
|
| |
