Part 4

Baron Greindl wrote the foregoing in October. In December, the head of the British Admiralty, Sir John Fisher, assured Colonel Repington that "Admiral Wilson's Channel fleet was alone strong enough to smash the whole German fleet." _Two years_ later, Sir John Fisher wrote to King Edward VII that "it is an absolute fact that Germany has not laid down a single dreadnaught, nor has she commenced building a single battleship or big cruiser for eighteen months.... England has ... ten dreadnaughts built and building, while Germany in March last had not even begun one dreadnaught ... we have 123 destroyers and forty submarines. The Germans have forty-eight destroyers and one submarine." Hence, if Sir John Fisher knew what he was talking about, and in such matters he usually did, he furnishes a very considerable corroboration of Baron Greindl's view of the German navy up to 1905. Looking back at the third chapter of this book, which deals with the comparative strength of the two navies and naval groups as developed from 1905 to 1914, the reader may well raise again Baron Greindl's question, "Are those people in England really sincere?"

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Under the title "Diplomacy Revealed." National Labour Press. 8 and 9 Johnson's Court, London, E.C., 4, England.

[7] This belief received some corroboration in the spring of 1912, when in the course of military "conversations," the British Military Attaché, Lieutenant-Colonel Bridges, told the Belgian Minister of War that if war had broken out over the Agadir incident in 1911, the British Government would have landed troops in Belgium with or without the Belgian Government's consent. So much did the British Government think of the "scrap of paper!"

XII

Such is the inveterate suspicion, the melancholy distrust, put upon English diplomacy by these foreign and neutral observers who could see so plainly what would befall their own country in the event of a European war. Such too, was the responsibility which these observers regularly imputed to the British Foreign Office--the British Foreign Office which was so soon to fix upon the neutrality of Belgium as a _casus belli_ and pour out streams of propaganda about the sanctity of treaties and the rights of small nations! Every one of these observers exhibits this suspicion and distrust. In March, 1906, when Edward VII visited Paris and invited the discredited ex-Minister Delcassé to breakfast, the Belgian Minister at Paris wrote:

It looks as though the king wished to demonstrate that the policy which called forth Germany's active intervention [over Morocco] has nevertheless remained unchanged.... In French circles it is not over well received; Frenchmen feeling that they are being dragged against their will in the orbit of English policy, a policy whose consequences they dread, and which they generally condemned by throwing over M. Delcassé. In short, people fear that this is a sign that England wants so to envenom the situation that war will become inevitable.

On 10 February, 1907, when the English King and Queen visited Paris, he says: "One can not conceal from oneself that these tactics, though their ostensible object is to prevent war, are likely to arouse great dissatisfaction in Berlin and to stir up a desire to risk anything that may enable Germany to burst the ring which England's policy is tightening around her." On 28 March, 1907, the Belgian _chargé d'affaires_ in London speaks of "English diplomacy, whose whole effort is directed to the isolation of Germany." On the same date, by a curious coincidence, the Minister at Berlin, in the course of a blistering arraignment of French policy in Morocco, says: "But at the bottom of every settlement that has been made, or is going to be made, there lurks always that hatred of Germany.... It is a sequence of the campaign very cleverly conducted with the object of isolating Germany.... The English press is carrying on its campaign of calumny more implacably than ever. It sees the finger of Germany in everything that goes contrary to English wishes." On 18 April, 1907, Baron Greindl says of the King of England's visit to the King of Spain that, like the alliances with Japan and France and the negotiations with Russia, it is "one of the moves in the campaign to isolate Germany that is being personally directed with as much perseverance as success by His Majesty King Edward VII." In the same dispatch he remarks: "There is some right to regard with suspicion this eagerness to unite, for a so-called defensive object, Powers who are menaced by nobody. At Berlin they can not forget that offer of 100,000 men made by the King of England to M. Delcassé."

On 24 May, 1907, the Minister at London reported that "it is plain that official England is pursuing a policy that is covertly hostile, and tending to result in the isolation of Germany, and that King Edward has not been above putting his personal influence at the service of this cause." On 19 June, 1907, Count de Lalaing again writes from London of the Anglo-Franco-Spanish agreement concerning the _status quo_ in the Mediterranean region, that "it is, however, difficult to imagine that Germany will not regard it as a further step in England's policy, which is determined, by every sort of means, to isolate the German Empire."

Perusal of these documents from beginning to end will show nothing to offset against the view of English diplomacy exhibited in the foregoing quotations; nothing to modify or qualify that view in any way. Baron Greindl, however, speaks highly of the British Ambassador at Berlin, Sir F. Lascelles, and praises his personal and unsupported attempt to establish friendly relations between England and Germany. Of this he says: "I have been a witness for the last twelve years of the efforts he has made to accomplish it. And yet, possessing as he justly does the absolute confidence of the Emperor and the German Government, and eminently gifted with the qualities of a statesman, he has nevertheless not succeeded very well so far." The next year, 1908, when Sir F. Lascelles was forced to resign his post, Baron Greindl does not hesitate to say that "the zeal with which he has worked to dispel misunderstandings that he thought absurd and highly mischievous for both countries, does not fall in with the political views of his sovereign."

XIII

King Edward VII died 6 May, 1910. During the early part of 1911, the Belgian Ministers in London, Paris and Berlin report some indications of a less unfriendly policy towards Germany on the part of the British Government. In March of that year, Sir Edward Grey delivered a reassuring speech on British foreign policy, on the occasion of the debate on the naval budget. The Belgian Minister in Berlin says of this that it should have produced the most agreeable impression in Germany if one could confidently believe that it really entirely reflected the ideas of the British Government. It would imply, he says, that "England no longer wishes to give to the Triple Entente the aggressive character which was stamped upon it by its creator, King Edward VII." He remarks, however, the slight effect produced in Berlin by Sir E. Grey's speech, and infers that German public feeling may have "become dulled by the innumerable meetings and mutual demonstrations of courtesy which have never produced any positive result," and he adds significantly that "this distrust is comprehensible."

It must be remembered that at the time this speech was delivered, England was under a secret agreement dating from 1904 to secure France's economic monopoly in Morocco. England was also under a secret obligation to France, dating from 1906, to support her in case of war with Germany. It must be above all remembered that this latter obligation carried with it a contingent liability for the Franco-Russian military alliance that had been in effect for many years. Thus if Russia went to war with Germany, France was committed, and in turn England was committed. The whole force of the Triple Entente lay in these agreements; and it can not be too often pointed out that they were _secret_ agreements. No one in England knew until November, 1911, that in 1904 the British Government had bargained with the French Government, in return for a free hand in Egypt, to permit France to squeeze German economic interests out of Morocco--in violation of a published agreement, signed by all the interested nations, concerning the status of Morocco. No one in England knew until 3 August, 1914, that England had for several years been under a military and naval agreement with France which carried the enormous contingent liability of the Franco-Russian military alliance. No matter what appeared on the surface of politics; no matter how many pacific speeches were made by Sir E. Grey and Mr. Asquith, no matter what the newspapers said, no matter how often and how impressively Lord Haldane might visit Berlin in behalf of peace and good feeling; _those secret agreements held_, they were the only things that did hold, and everything worked out in strict accordance with them and with nothing else, least of all with any public understanding or any statement of policy put out for public consumption. It was just as in the subsequent case of the armistice and the peace--and this is something that has been far too little noticed in this country. The real terms of the armistice and of the peace were not the terms of the Fourteen Points or of any of the multitudinous published statements of Allied war aims. On the contrary, they were the precise terms of the secret treaties made among the Allied belligerents during the war, and made public on their discovery by the Soviet Government in the archives of the Tsarist Foreign Office.

It is no wonder then, that the German Government was not particularly impressed by Sir E. Grey's speech, especially as Germany saw France helping herself to Moroccan territory with both hands, and England looking on in indifferent complacency. In May, 1911, on a most transparent and preposterous pretext, a French army was ordered to march on Fez, the capital of Morocco. The German Government then informed France that as the Algeciras Act, which guaranteed the integrity and independence of Morocco, had thereby gone by the board, Germany would no longer consider herself bound by its provisions. In June, 30,000 French troops "relieved" Fez, occupied it and stayed there, evincing no intention whatever of getting out again, notwithstanding that the ostensible purpose of the expedition was accomplished; in reality, there was nothing to accomplish. Two months before this _coup d'état_, Baron Greindl, the Belgian Minister at Berlin, wrote to the Belgian Foreign Office as follows:

Every illusion, if ever entertained on the value of the Algeciras Act, which France signed with the firm intention of never observing, must long since have vanished. She has not ceased for one moment to pursue her plans of annexation; either by seizing opportunities for provisional occupations destined to last for ever or by extorting concessions which have placed the Sultan in a position of dependence upon France, and which have gradually lowered him to the level of the Bey of Tunis.

A week later, 29 April, Baron Guillaume, who had succeeded M. Leghait as Belgian Minister in Paris, reported that "there are, so far, no grounds for fearing that the French expedition will bring about any disturbance of international policy. Germany is a calm spectator of events." He adds, significantly, "England, having thrust France into the Moroccan bog, is contemplating her work with satisfaction."

France professed publicly that the object of this expedition was to extricate certain foreigners who were imperilled at Fez; and having done so, she would withdraw her forces. The precious crew of concessionaires, profiteers, and dividend-hunters known as the _Comité du Maroc_ had suddenly discovered a whole French colony living in Fez in a state of terror and distress. There was, in fact, nothing of the sort. Fez was never menaced, it was never short of provisions, and there were no foreigners in trouble. When the expeditionary force arrived, it found no one to shoot at. As M. Francis de Pressensé says:

Those redoubtable rebels who were threatening Fez had disappeared like dew in the morning. Barely did a few ragged horsemen fire off a shot or two before turning around and riding away at a furious gallop. A too disingenuous, or too truthful, correspondent gave the show away. The expeditionary force complains, he gravely records, of the absence of the enemy; the approaching harvest season is keeping all the healthy males in the fields! Thus did the phantom so dexterously conjured by the _Comité du Maroc_ for the benefit of its aims, disappear in a night.

Nevertheless, the expeditionary force did not, in accordance with the public professions of the French Government, march out of Fez as soon as it discovered this ridiculous mare's nest. It remained there and held possession of the Moorish capital. What was the attitude of the British Government in the premises? On 2 May, in the House of Commons, Sir Edward Grey said that "the action taken by France is not intended to alter the political status of Morocco, and His Majesty's Government can not see why any objection should be taken to it."

Germany had remained for eight years a tolerant observer of French encroachments in Morocco, and quite clearly, as Baron Greindl observes in his report of 21 April, 1911, could not "after eight years of tolerance, change her attitude unless she were determined to go to war, and war is immeasurably more than Morocco is worth." In July, 1911, however, while the French force of 30,000 was still occupying Fez, Germany dispatched a gunboat, the "Panther," which anchored off the coast of Agadir.

XIV

This was the famous "Agadir incident," of which we have all heard. Did it mean that the worm had turned, that Germany had changed her attitude and was determined to go to war? It has been so represented; but there are many difficult inconsistencies involved in that explanation of the German Government's act, and there is also an alternative explanation which fits the facts far better. In the first place the "Panther" was hardly more than an ocean-going tug. She was of 1000 tons burden, mounting two small naval guns, six machine-guns, and she carried a complement of only 125 men. Second, she never landed a man upon the coast of Morocco. She chose for her anchorage a point where the coast is practically inaccessible; Agadir has no harbour, and there is nothing near it that offers any possible temptation to the predatory instinct. No more ostentatiously unimpressive and unmenacing demonstration could have been devised. Germany, too, was quite well aware that Morocco was not worth a European war; and as Baron Guillaume said in his report of 29 April, "possibly she [Germany] is congratulating herself on the difficulties that weigh upon the shoulders of the French Government, and asks nothing better than to keep out of the whole affair as long as she is not forced into it by economic considerations." But the most significant indication that Germany had not changed her attitude is in the fact that if she were determined upon war, then, rather than two years later, was her time to go about it. This aspect of Germany's behaviour has been dealt with in a previous chapter. It can not be too often reiterated that if Germany really wanted war and was determined upon war, her failure to strike in 1908, when Russia was prostrate and France unready, and again in 1912, a few months after the Agadir incident, when the Balkan war was on, is inexplicable.[8]

The dispatch of the "Panther" gave the three Belgian observers a great surprise, and they were much puzzled to account for it. Baron Guillaume's thoughts at once turned to England. He writes 2 July:

It was long regarded as an axiom that England would never allow the Germans to establish themselves at any point of Moroccan territory. Has this policy been abandoned; and if so, at what price were they bought off?

During the month of July, while waiting for a statement from the British Foreign Office, the Belgian observers canvassed the possibility that Germany's action was a hint that she would like some territorial compensation for having been bilked out of her share in the Moroccan market. But the interesting fact, and for the purpose of this book the important fact, is that none of these diplomats shows the slightest suspicion that Germany was bent on war or that she had any thought of going to war. Baron Guillaume says, 28 July, "undoubtedly the present situation wears a serious aspect.... Nobody, however, wants war, and they will try to avoid it." He proceeds:

The French Government knows that a war would be the death-knell of the Republic.... I have very great confidence in the Emperor William's love of peace, notwithstanding the not infrequent air of melodrama about what he says and does.... Germany can not go to war for the sake of Morocco, nor yet to exact payment of those compensations that she very reasonably demands for the French occupation of Fez, which has become more or less permanent. On the whole I feel less faith in Great Britain's desire for peace. She would not be sorry to see the others destroying one another; only, under those circumstances, it would be difficult for her to avoid armed intervention.... As I thought from the very first, the crux of the situation is in London.

By the end of July, a different conception of Germany's action seemed to prevail. It began to be seen that the episode of the "Panther" had been staged by way of calling for a show-down on the actual intentions and purposes of the Triple Entente; and it got one. Mr. Lloyd George, "the impulsive Chancellor of the Exchequer," as Count de Lalaing calls him, made a typical jingo speech at the Mansion House; a speech which the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, and Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Minister, had helped him to compose. The air was cleared at once--England stood by France--and what better plan could have been devised for clearing the air than the dispatch of the "Panther"? Germany stood for the policy of economic equality, the policy of the open door to which all the Powers interested had agreed in the case of Morocco. France, at the end of a course of continuous aggression, had put 30,000 troops in occupation of the capital of Morocco on an infamously unscrupulous pretext, and put them there to stay, and the British Government "could not see why any objection should be taken to it." Germany, on the other hand, anchored an insignificant gunboat off an inaccessible coast, and without landing a man or firing a shot, left her there as a silent reminder of the Algeciras Act and the principle of the open door--carefully and even ostentatiously going no further--and the British Government promptly, through the mouth of Mr. Lloyd George, laid down a challenge and a threat. Thereupon Germany and France understood their relative positions; they understood, even without Sir E. Grey's explicit reaffirmation of 27 November of the policy of the Triple Entente, that England would stand by her arrangements with France. Baron Greindl writes from Berlin 6 December, and puts the case explicitly:

Was it not assuming the right of veto on German enterprise for England to start a hue and cry because a German cruiser cast anchor in the roads of Agadir, seeing that she had looked on without a murmur whilst France and Spain had proceeded step by step to conquer Morocco and to destroy the independence of its Sultan?

England could not have acted otherwise. She was tied by her secret treaty with France. The explanation was extremely simple, but it was not of a sort to allay German irritation.

FOOTNOTE:

[8] Critics of German foreign policy are hard put to it to show that she was ever guided by territorial ambitions; which is an extremely troublesome thing when one wants to believe that she proposed in 1914 to put the world under a military despotism. Can any one show where in a single instance she ever demanded anything more than economic equality with other nations, in a foreign market? Certainly she never demanded more than this in Morocco. Ex-Premier Caillaux says that his predecessor Rouvier offered Germany a good Moroccan port (Mogador) and some adjoining territory, and Germany declined.

XV

Let us glance at British political chronology for a moment. King Edward VII, the chief factor in the Entente, the moving spirit in England's foreign alliances, had been dead a year. In December, 1905, the Liberal party had come into power. In April, 1908, Mr. H. H. Asquith became Prime Minister. In 1910, Anglo-German relations were apparently improving; in July, 1910, Mr. Asquith spoke of them in the House of Commons as "of the most cordial character. I look forward to increasing warmth and fervour and intimacy in these relations year by year." The great question was, then, in 1911, whether the Liberal Government would actually, when it came down to the pinch, stick by its secret covenant with France. Were the new Liberals, were Mr. Asquith, Lord Haldane, Sir E. Grey, Mr. Lloyd George, true-blue Liberal imperialists, or were they not? Could France and Russia safely trust them to continue the Foreign Office policy that Lord Lansdowne had bequeathed to Sir E. Grey; or, when the emergency came, would they stand from under? After all, there _had_ been a Campbell-Bannerman; there was no doubt of that; and one, at least, of the new Liberals, Mr. Lloyd George, had a bad anti-imperialist record in the South African war.

The Agadir incident elicited a satisfactory answer to these questions. The Liberal Government was dependable. However suspiciously the members of the Liberal Cabinet might talk, they were good staunch imperialists at heart. They were, as the theologians say, "sound on the essentials." Baron Greindl wrote, 6 December, 1911:

The Entente Cordiale was founded, not on the positive basis of defence of common interests, but on the negative one of hatred of the German Empire.... Sir Edward Grey adopts this tradition without reservation. He imagines that it is in conformity with English interests.... A revision of Great Britain's policy is all the less to be looked for, as ever since the Liberal Ministry took office, and more especially during the last few months, English foreign policy has been guided by the ideas with which King Edward VII inspired it.

XVI

Mr. Lloyd George's speech at the Mansion House in July, 1911, after the German gunboat "Panther" had anchored off the Moroccan coast, gave an immense impulse to the jingo spirit in France, because it was taken as definite assurance of England's good faith in seeing her secret agreements through to a finish. M. Caillaux, the French Premier, appears to have had his doubts, nevertheless, inasmuch as the British Foreign Office did not give a straight reply to the French Foreign Office's inquiry concerning British action in case the Germans landed a force in Morocco. He says:

Are we to understand that our powerful neighbours will go right through to the end with the resolve which they suggest? Are they ready for all eventualities? The British Ambassador, Sir Francis Bertie, with whom I converse, does not give me formal assurances. It is said, of course, that he would see without displeasure the outbreak of a conflict between France and Germany; his mind works in the way attributed to a number of leading British officials at the Foreign Office.