STRAIGHT TALK

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 33, 8 August 1933, Page 7

STRAIGHT TALK

AGADIR INCIDENT

KAISER EXCITED

LLOYD GEORGE'S ACTION

[{By David Lloyd George—Supplementary Article.) How, on behalf of England, he countered German gunboat diplomacy in what has become known as:the Agadir incident is here related by Mr. Lloyd George. "I must return home at once!" wrote the Kaiser in a marginal note concerning the incident. "We are steering straight for mobilisation! That must not happen without me!" Tlie story is told in the first of two additional chapters to Mr. Lloyd George's first volume of memoirs. ~As to the part I took in tho Agadir incident, it is hardly necessary for me to write at any length. The story has been so. fully and fairly told by both Mr. Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey that, there is little which I need add. My intervention was due largely to the fear that if things wero allowed to drift we might find ourselves drawn in^o a great European war on a question in which we -were inextricably involved. ■ For tho French position in Morocco was part of the Lansdowne Treaty, and Sir Edward Grey, in his book MTwenty-Five Years," makes it clear that he regarded a dispute on anything which constituted a challenge 'to that settlement as something which we were bound' to put in a different category from a dispute between France and Germany on any issue out? side the four corners of that arrangement. ',1 still think, there is very great force in his contention in that respect. The situation can be outlined in a few words. France, which had been accorded a zone of influence in Morocco by the Treaty of Algeeiras, found it necessary to send an expedition to Fez. Germany, conceiving possibly that France had annexationist designs, against which' Germany would be entitled to corresponding compensations elsewhere, promptly took steps to indicate her claim, and ojwncd-the negotiations by sending a gunboat to the Moroccan harbour of Agadir. This was an extraordinary kind •of diplomacy, and when Britain, naturally concerned at its'meaning and possible outcome, sent a communication to Berlin on the subject, our letter was left unanswered' for weeks, while we learnt from Franco that the German Government was pressing quite impossible demands upon her as the price of Tier withdrawal from Agadir. "STRAIGHT FOR MOBILISATION." It is hard to say whether there was a real danger of war. There is an ominous passage in a despatch from Bethmann-Hollweg to the Kaiser, dated.July 15, 1911, when tho German silence vis-a-vis Britain had already continued for 11 days. ; -, The Imperial Chancellor reported' that Herr yon Kidcrlen, the German Foreign. Secretary, had gathered from the discussion with tho French Ambassador tho impression "that, in order to reach a favourable result we shall certainly have to take a very strong line!". To this the Kaiser makes a marginal note: — ~. .. "Then I must return home at ■once. For I can't let my Govern- • ment take that sort of action without being right on the spot, so as to keep a careful watch on the consequences, and have them well in hand! Anything else would be unpardonable, and too parliamentary! Le Koi s'amuse! And meantime wo are steering straight for mobilisation! That must not happen without me! ' "Besides, our allies must first be informed about this! For it may draw them in in sympathy!" / There can be no doubt as to the meaning of those words. The Kaiser clearly contemplated the mobilisation of his armies as a not unlikely result of the diplomatic situation. In 1014 mobilisation meant and made for war. When the rude indifferencoof the German Government to ,our' Communications had lasted for-17 ; days—from July 4to July 21—I felt that matters were growing tensely critical. It was not merely that by failing even to send a formal acknowledgment of the Foreign Secretary's letter .the. Germans were treating us with intolerable insolence, but that their silence might well mean that they were blindly ignorant to the sense in which wo treated our obligations under the treaty, and might not realise until too late that we felt bound to stand by France. AT ALL HAZARDS, These reasons prompted me to make the speech which has already been bo fully dealt with by Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Churchill. I felt, that I had no right to intervene in a matter^ which was in the sphere of tho Foreign Office, and to make a declaration which might embarrass the Foreign Secretary, "'without obtaining the consent; of both the Prime Minister and Grey. Before delivering it, therefore, I submitted its terms to the Prime Minister. Ho fullyapproved, and sent immediately to the Foreign Office to ask Sir Edward Grey to come to the Cabinet room, in order to obtain his views and sanction. My recollection is that he also cordially asseutod to every word of my draft. I accordingly incorporated the agreed words in the speech I delivered later on to the bankers at the Mansion House. The salient passage was as follows: — "But I am also bound to say this— that I believe it is essential in the highest interests, not merely of this country, but of the world, that Britain should at all hazards maintain her place and her prestige amongst the great Powers of tho world. Her potent influence has many a time been in the past, anS may yet be in tho future, invaluable to tho cause of human liberty. "It has more than once in the past redeemed Continental nations, who are sometimes too apt to forget that service* from overwhelming disaster, and even from national extinction. "I conceive that nothing would justify a disturbance of international goodwill oxcept questions of tho gravest national moment. But if a situation were to be forced upon ua in which poaco could only be preserved by tho surrender of tho great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be "treated, where her interests are vitally affected, asif she were of no account in tho Cabinot of Nations, then I say emphatically that pence at that price would be humiliation intolerable for a great country like our; to endure. "National honour is no party cpieslion. The security of our grent interNational trade is no party question. The peace of the world is much more Hkcly

to be secured if all- nations realise fairly what the conditions of peace must be. ..." GERMANS TURIOU6. ■The genesis of that speech is, as 1 have said, quite correctly .recorded by both Grey and Churchill, but I have here given my own confirmation of their narrative, because my public intervention at that time in the sphere of foreign affairs was so unusual that a rumour gained currency, and oven finds place in German and Austrian official diplomatic correspondence, that I was merely acting as a mouthpiece to read out a statement prepared by the Cabinet, and was at most but vaguely aware of its implications. . Even E. T. Eaymond avers that what I read was a passage carefully prepared for me by Sir Edward Grey. Jiut I have not the least desire to shuttle- oJ j my true responsibility in this connee--1 The initiative in this matter was my own, as were both the wording, and the intention of the statement. Certainly I secured authoritative approval before I made it, but it was not actually submitted to the whole Cabinet in advance. The effect of the speech unquestionably was to clear tlie air and avert any danger of Europe drifting unawares into war. The German Government, naturally, were furious, for their gunboat diplomacy had received a severe and wenmerited rebuff. Motternich was instructed to make representations about my speech to the British Foreign Office in a very terse manner. He did so, but found little to cheer him in his reception. SABRE-RATTLING. He reported to yon Kiderlen-Waech-ter that, "With reference to the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Grey was thoroughly uncompromising, defended it as moderate, and stated that it had been entirely right for this speech to be made." In fact, Mctternich. who came to accuse me, found himself rather uncomfortable in the dock. - The truth was, of course, that Kider-len-Waeehter had clumsily over-reached himself, and taken a course which it was difficult either to explain or to explain away. The Austrian diplomatic correspondence shows that the Kaiser and his Minister thought the Government then in,office in France was a weak one and lacked backbone. They doubtless conceived that a sudden * and dramatic rattling of the sabre would terrify it and win them substantial concessions. But they were not prepared to go to war with both Franco and England about a barren and uninhabited bay on tho coast of Morocco. Kiderlen described my speech to tho Austrian Ambassador at Berlin "an unfair and colossal bluff.'' However, it was bluff he was not prepared to call. It was in truth by no means bluff, and if an equally clear statoment of our attitude had been made in a July only three years later, it is conceivable that once again the peril of a recklessly incurred war niight have been averted. .'