TWENTY YEARS AFTER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 149, 26 June 1931, Page 10

TWENTY YEARS AFTER

MEMORIES OF AGIB. 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 ex-Kaiser despatched to Agadir in 1911, at the time of the Moroccan troubles, will be sold to the highest bidder.” It was on July 1 that the 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 empire were behind it all. M. Caillaux, who was then the new Premier of France, had a plan for the reorganisation of Africa; and secret negotiations had taken place between France and Germany to concede the political administration of French Equatorial Africa. This move, begun under the 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 the Panther was replaced by the 3000 ton cruiser Berlin, on the official excuse that the Panther was urgently in need of drydocking. In fact, Germany was shaking a still bigger stick, iu an attempt, it was believed, to discover jus how firm was the alliance between France, Great Britain, and Russia. The Entente stood firm, and Germany did not dare to persist in her claims on the territory in Equatorial Africa.

Caillaux caused yet further complications by going behind the back of Ins Foreign Minister, de Selves, aud 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. Tt 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 more likely to provoke a European war than did the Serajcvo assassinations of June 28, 1914.