TWENTY YEARS AFTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20898, 13 June 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

TWENTY YEARS AFTER.

MEMORIES OF AGADIR. GERMAN GUNBOAT PANTHER. FOR SALE TO HIGHEST BIDDER. Memories of a famous international crisis that nearly plunged Europe into war, were recently stirred by the following message from Berlin: — " The gunboat Panther, which the exKaiser despatched to Agadir in 1911, nt the time of tho Moroccan troubles, will be sold to the highest bidder." It was on July 1 that tho little gunboat Panther, of only 1000 tons, arrived off Agadir, and started a perilous situation which lasted four months before diplomatic tact settled it. , Germany's pre-war dreams of a colonial empiro were behind it all. M. Caillaux, who was then the new Premier of France, had a plan for tho reorganisation of Africa; and secret negotiations had taken placo between France and Germany to concedo the political administration of French Equatorial Africa. This move, begun under tho Briand Ministry, failed under the new regime. Then Germany announced that the Panther had been sent to Agadir to protect German firms who had appealed for help. Five days later tho Panther was replaced by the 3000-ton cruiser Berlin, on the official excuse that tho Panther was urgently in need of dry-docking.

In fact, Germany was shaking a still bigger stick, in an attempt, it was believed, to discover just how firm was the alliance between France, Great Britain, and Russia. Tho Entente stood firm, and Germany did not dare persist in her claims on the territory in Equatorial Africa. Caillaux caused yet further complications by going behind the back of his Foreign Minister, do S'ives, and making secret and excessively generous offers to Germany. On November 5 a treaty was signed ceding to Germany territory which gave access to the Congo. It was only ratified after stormy debates in the French Chamber. Soon after de Selves resigned, and Caillaux, unable to complete his Cabinet, had to resign on January 10, 1912. _ _ That was the end of the Agadir incident, -which at the time looked much moro likely to provoke a European war than did the Serajcvo assassinations of Juno 28, 1914.