AGADIR CRISIS

Evening Star, Issue 22106, 13 August 1935, Page 11

AGADIR CRISIS

ITS EFFECT IN BRITAIN PARTIES GOME TOGETHER ANXIOUS MOMENT It was in 1908 that Austria, under Aehrenthal’s leadership, annexed Bos-nia-Herzegovina, writes Sir Austen Chamberlain, in the ‘ Daily Telegraph.’ The Moroccan question was also revived in consequence of incidents at Casablanca, where the French authorities had arrested certain German deserters from the 1 Foreign Legion whom the German Consul had taken under his protection. Nothing but the weakness of Russia, caused by the disastrous Russo-Japan-ese war of a few years previously, had preserved peace in the former case, and though the Casablanca incident was eventually settled by a reference to The Hague Court, it had for months kept European nerves on edge. Three years later, in July, 1911, the world had been startled by the announcement of the sudden despatch of the Panther to Agadir, and by the grave warning addressed to Germany by Mr Lloyd George (then Chancellor of the Exchequer) at the Mansion House. Peace, he had said, was the greatest of British' interests, but if Britain was to be treated where _ her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no account in the Cabinet of Nations, peace at that price would be an intolerable humiliation.

BRITAIN UNITED. Such words coming from the mouth of a Minister who was supposed to belong to the most pacific section of the Cabinet produced a profound impression, which was not lessened when it became known that the King had postponed his visit to Goodwood and that the Atlantic Fleet, which had been on the point of starting for a cruise in Norwegian waters, had been ordered to Portsmouth. A brief statement was made in Parliament on July 27 by the Prime Minister (Mr Asquith), who appealed to the House to postpone all further discussion. Balfour at once declared that the Opposition would observe the rule that no party differences should prevent national agreement where British interests abroad' were at stake, though he added (for it was at the height of the Constitutional crisis, and party feeling was running very high) that adherence to it had never been more difficult. He reinforced the Chancellor’s warning by saying that if anyone was counting on their acting differently he had utterly mistaken the temper of the British people and the patriotism of the Opposition. It would have been well for Germany if her rulers had remembered this declaration in August, 1914, when it is supposed that they reckoned on the violence of the passions aroused by the Home Rule question to paralyse British action and to prevent us from entering the. war to defend our own interests, or to come to the assistance of France or Belgium. AGREEMENT DELAYED. It was not till towards the end of November, 1911, that an agreement was reached between the French and German negotiators. Meanwhile the air was full of rumours, some true, some false, of military and naval preparations, and all Europe was kept in a state of strained and dangerous tension. When on the last days of that month the House of Commons was able to proceed to the discussion which it had promised, and the Government made a full statement on the events of the last few months, it was clear for all who had eyes to see and ears to hear how grave the situation had been and how perilously near the nations had stood to the brink of war.

Next Year Lord Balfour of Burleigh and I had,occasion to visit Petersburg on business. Sir George Buchanan Had invited us to stay at the Embassy, and it was certain that we should meet the principal Russian Ministers. Before leaving, therefore, I called on Sir A. Nicholson, later Lord Carnock, and then holding the post of Permanent TTnder-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, to ask if he could give me any guidance as to what might be wise for me to say, or quite as important, to refrain from saying. He embarrassed me by replying that he would prefer to leave what I should say to my own discretion. When, therefore, the Foreign Minister, Sazonov, engaged me in a conversation which must have lasted for nearly two hours, I turned rather anxiously to the British Ambassador, who had been a lis-

tener, as soon as we were alone, to ask if I had been in any way indiscreet. GROWING ANXIOUS. He was good enough to assure me that on the contrary what I had said would be very helpful to him. I carried away from tHe conversation the impression that neither the Russian Foreign Minister nor the Ambassador had had any very clear impression of the aims and purpose of the British Government, and that this uncertainty did not make for peace. Like_ other people, I was becoming increasingly anxious as to the future. It seemed to me that the tension in Europe was becoming greater year by year; incident followed incident, leaving 'the nerves of all the parties more strained and inflicting a wound on the pride, first of one nation and then of another, which was neither forgotten nor forgiven. First France had suffered the humiliation of having to dismiss her Foreign Minister at the bidding of Germany; then Russia, still smarting undjar her defeat by Japan a few years before, had suffered a similar humiliation in the crisis which had followed the annexation of. Bosnia-Herzegovina. This time the wound was not in the Far East, but in the Near East, where Slav pride had always been most sensitive and national feeling was most easily and strongly moved. And now Germany, unsuccessful at Algeciras and dissatisfied with the solution of the Casablanca incident, felt herself equally humiliated by the results of the Agadir crisis. No great nation could suffer patiently a second humiliation such as had now fallen to eaph of these in turn; any repetition of such an incident would leave the Government no choice but war, for the only .alternative to war would be a revolution in which the Government itself would be overthrown. FEAR OF BLUNDER. I did not suspect the German Emperor of desiring war. In spite of his boastful and provocative speeches, I still thought that he, in his own person, offered the best guarantee that Germany would keep the peace, and I should have been far more alarmed if -power had fallen into the hands of the Crown Prince, whom, in my mind, I identified with the military party. What I feared was not that Germany would deliberately provoke war, but that her Government would blunder into it without knowing what they did, for Germany diplomacy since Bismarck seemed to mo the clumsiest in all Europe. Bismarck’s successors found it easier to copy his faults than to understand his merits. It was certain that sooner or later the attempt to seek Germany’s security by setting all her neighbours by the ears must result in those neighbours perceiving that they only burned their fingers for another’s profit, and equally certain that sooner or later they would tire of being the dupes of such a policy and prefer to settle among themselves disputes the benefit of which accrued only to the advantage of a rival.

That was the seed of disaster which lay in Bismarck’s post-1870 policy, but Bismarck enjoyed an immense prestige, and played his cards with a master hand. The same could not be said of his successors. They failed where he excelled; they had no sense of those imponderabilia which Bismarck declared were, in the last resort, always decisive, and to which he was himself so amazingly sensitive. ENTENTE’S WEAKNESS. No Government so miscalculated the effect of its words , and actions on foreign nations as that of Germany under Bulow and his successors. Peace seemed to me, therefore, to lie at the mercy of an accident which a clumsy hand might provoke at any moment. What would be our position if war broke out? The Entente, as it seemed to me, had come to have all the obligations of a formal alliance without its advantages. We had been on the brink of war at the time of the Agadir crisis, yet the public mind was wholly unprepared for it. If war came, wo should be obliged to intervene; it was dangerous to conceal the real position from the country and to attempt to ride a democracy in blinkers. What we needed was something in the nature of a British Monroe doctrine. Many plain American citizens might be puzzled to give a dear definition of the Monroe Doctrine, but every American knew that if a foreign nation attacked that doctrine it laid its hand on the very Ark of the Covenant, and all Americans would be united to defend it.

A formal Alliance, or so I thought, would involve us no more deeply than we already stood committed, and would be a beacon to guide the steps of Par-

liament and the country and to secure a united nation if the struggle came. But if it had these advantages at home I thought it would be not less useful abroad. It would help to steady the nerves of the French people, and it would give us an influence on French policy which no other method would afford. As it was, we might be dragged into a war fought on some issue which we thought wholly insufficient; but if our support was guaranteed to Franca on certain conditions, any French Gov. eminent would make sure that those conditions were fulfilled in the eyes of the British Government before embarking on' war. A SOBERING EFFECT. Lastly, I believed that the knowledge that such an Alliance existed might exercise a sobering effect in Germany, and might prevent the German Government from blundering into a war with us wihtuot knowing what they were doing. I felt so strongly the dangers of our existing situation that at last I sought out Sir Edward Grey and laid my fears -and suggestions before him. ■ He has himself set forth his reasons for not taking the course I urged on the curiously attached ‘ and objective account which he has given of his stewardship in the anxious and troubled years during which he presided at the Foreign Office. The plain fact is that even if he had thought it the right policy, he could not have carried it out, but it is tempting, though probably futile, to speculate on what might have been. Many Continental writers have held that if such a, treaty had been known to be in existence, there would have been no war. That was at one time my own view, but in the light of all that wa now know. I can no longer sustain it. I now think that it might at most have postponed for a year of two the outbreak of'the struggle. If this be true, perhaps it was better that the issue should be fought out then. In tbs end the invasion of Belgium did for us what I bad thought a treaty of alliance would do; it made our duty plain and brought ns into the struggle- 4 1 united nation.