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Rh 14 This was true but unknown, of course, to the French public. It was the object of British diplomacy to prevent France from acquiring, under the partition scheme, the Mediterranean coast line of Morocco, which British diplomatic and strategic interests required should not fall into the hands of a first class naval Power.

15 See Note 13.

16 M. Delcassé was specially blamed by his colleague for his deliberate failure to notify officially to the German Government both the Anglo-French and the Franco-Spanish Convention. By this procedure M. Delcassé implicitly denied to the German Government the right of asking questions and discussing the tenor of an agreement arrived at between three Powers concerning a State in which Germany possessed well-defined interests, and with which she had maintained diplomatic relations for many years; a State, moreover, whose international relationships had been the subject of International Agreement since 1880. M. Delcassé's action was tantamount to telling Germany that the future of Morocco would be settled without her. In order to secure a free hand in Morocco for France, he had made concessions to England, Spain and Italy. He thought he could dispense with German approval or disapproval. His attitude was gratuitously provocative, gave umbrage to the German Government, heightened the suspicions it entertained as to the true character of the Anglo-Franco-Spanish Agreements, and led to the first German intervention in favour of the preservation of Moroccan independence, of which the first act was the German Emperor's visit to Tangier. It must also be borne in mind that M. Delcassé had made repeated professions that the object of France was to preserve the independence of Morocco, and the published Convention declared that the French Government had no intention of "altering the political status of Morocco"; the truth being, of course, that the secret clauses attached to the Convention, and the secret Convention with Spain concluded six months later, postulated the dismemberment of Morocco and the establishment of a Franco-Spanish economic monopoly over the whole country. M. Delcassé's policy reopened the old wounds between France and Germany and, as the Belgian diplomatist states, revived all the bitterness which the best intentioned men in both countries had been gradually assuaging for the last twenty years. M. Delcassé found no support among his colleagues in October (1905) when the consequences of his policy became manifest, and resigned.

17 The Sultan of Morocco.

18 See Note 2.

19 The Kaiser and the Tsar met at Bjoerko on July 23 (1905). It was at this interview that a Russo-German Treaty of Alliance was drawn up between the Tsar and the Kaiser. Its ratification without advising France was opposed by the Tsar's Ministers, Witte and LamadorfE. A full account of this transaction is given in Dillon's "The Eclipse of Russia" (J. M . Dent). He places the whole initiative on the Kaiser's shoulders. German official accounts deny this, and attribute the initiative to the Tsar, who is said to have approached the Kaiser in October, 1904, after the Hull incident (when the Russian Fleet, on its way to Japan, sank some British trawlers), which caused fears in the Tsar's mind of a war with Britain.