The pacific settlement of the conflict of 1911 gave a violent impulse to
the war party in Germany, to the propaganda of the League of Defence and
the Navy League, and a greater force to their demands. To their dreams
of hegemony and domination the desire for revenge against France now
mingled its bitterness. A diplomatic success secured in an underground
struggle signified nothing. War, war in the open, that alone, in the eyes
of this rancorous tribe, could settle definitely the Moroccan question by
incorporating Morocco and all French Africa in the colonial empire they
hoped to create on the shores of the Mediterranean and in the heart of
the Black Continent.[5]
This we may take to be a correct description of the attitude of the
Pangermans. But there is no evidence that it was that of the nation.
We have seen also that Baron Beyens' impression of the attitude of the
German people, even after the Moroccan affair, was of a general desire
for peace.[6] The crisis had been severe, but it had been tided over, and
the Governments seem to have made renewed efforts to come into friendly
relations. In this connection the following dispatch of Baron Beyens (June
1912) is worth quoting:--
After the death of Edward VII, the Kaiser, as well as the Crown Prince,
when they returned from England, where they had been courteously
received, were persuaded that the coldness in the relations of the
preceding years was going to yield to a cordial intimacy between the
two Courts and that the causes of the misunderstanding between the two
peoples would vanish with the past. His disillusionment, therefore, was
cruel when he saw the Cabinet of London range itself last year on the
side of France. But the Kaiser is obstinate, and has not abandoned the
hope of reconquering the confidence of the English.[7]
This dispatch is so far borne out by the facts that in the year succeeding
the Moroccan crisis a serious attempt was made to improve Anglo-German
relations, and there is no reason to doubt that on both sides there was
a genuine desire for an understanding. How that understanding failed has
already been indicated.[8] But even that failure did not ruin the relations
between the two Powers. In the Balkan crisis, as we have seen and as is
admitted on both sides, England and Germany worked together for peace. And
the fact that a European conflagration was then avoided, in spite of the
tension between Russia and Austria, is a strong proof that the efforts of
Sir Edward Grey were sincerely and effectively seconded by Germany.[9]
[Footnote 1: See "Morocco in Diplomacy," Chap. XVI. A dispatch written by
M. Leghait, the Belgian minister in Paris, on May 7, 1905, shows that
rumour was busy on the subject. The secret clauses of the Franco-Spanish
treaty were known to him, and these provided for an eventual partition of
Morocco between France and Spain. He doubted whether there were secret
clauses in the Anglo-French treaty--"but it is supposed that there is a
certain tacit understanding by which England would leave France sufficient
liberty of action in Morocco under the reserve of the secret clauses of the
Franco-Spanish arrangement, clauses if not imposed yet at least strongly
supported by the London Cabinet."
We know, of course, now, that the arrangement for the partition was
actually embodied in secret clauses in the Anglo-French treaty.]
[Footnote 2: According to M. Yves Guyot, when the Kaiser was actually on
his way to Tangier, he telegraphed from Lisbon to Prince Bülow abandoning
the project. Prince Bülow telegraphed back insisting, and the Kaiser
yielded.]
[Footnote 3: See Bourdon, "L'Enigme Allemande," Chap. II. This account, by
a Frenchman, will not be suspected of anti-French or pro-German bias, and
it is based on French official records.]
[Footnote 4: "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," p. 216.]
[Footnote 5: "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," p. 235.]
[Footnote 6: See above, p. 63.]
[Footnote 7: This view is reaffirmed by Baron Beyens in "L'Allemagne avant
la guerre," p. 29.]
[Footnote 8: See above, p. 79.]
[Footnote 9: Above, p. 111.]