Dreadnought

by Robert K. Massie

  The King was determined that his success be only a beginning, and in early July President Loubet, accompanied by M. Delcassé, paid a return state visit to Great Britain. King Edward’s welcome was lavish, organized mainly by the monarch himself. After a visit to Windsor Castle, the French President reviewed troops at Aldershot. There, on specific instructions from the King, the British Army band played the entire “Marseillaise” for the first time rather than stopping after the first four bars as had been customary. The ground broken by the heads of state, the diplomats set to work. On July 7, M. Delcassé called on Lord Lansdowne at the Foreign Office. When Delcassé returned to Paris, Cambon was assigned to pursue discussions with Lansdowne.

  The talks continued for nine months. Their subjects were extra-European: Egypt, Morocco, fishing rights in Newfoundland, modification of the borders of Gambia and Nigeria, and problems having to do with Siam, Madagascar, and the New Hebrides. There was nothing of the sweeping, panoramic scope and language which Chamberlain had invoked in proposing an Anglo-German alliance. Some of the disputes were trivial, for example the Newfoundland fisheries disagreement. Under the Treaty of Utrecht, signed in 1713, French codfishermen had the right to land and dry their catch on the British shore. Recently, the French had begun catching lobsters, which had to be tinned as soon as they were caught. To house these operations, they had built primitive structures of timber and corrugated iron along the coastline. The Newfoundlanders protested that the right of drying codfish did not include that of building structures for lobster tinning. To which the French had replied that the Treaty of Utrecht said nothing of “codfish” but only of “fish” and that lobsters were “fish.” The dispute had mounted the ladder at Whitehall until it reached the top, where it elicited a groan from the Prime Minister. “I am in despair29 over this grotesque lobster difficulty,” complained Lord Salisbury.

  Egypt and Morocco, on the other hand, were serious matters. France wanted a free hand to reorganize the affairs of the crumbling Moroccan sultanate, while England was equally anxious to end French opposition to her twenty-year occupation of Egypt. Agreement required concessions on both sides. France’s desire to control Morocco was urgent, and Delcassé made this urgency plain in his first meeting with Lord Lansdowne on July 7: “Throughout our conversation,”30 Lansdowne noted, “M. Delcassé spoke apparently with the utmost sincerity and he did not attempt to disguise from me the immense importance which the French government attached to obtaining from us a recognition of the predominance which they desired to obtain in Morocco.” France had no wish to depose the Sultan or annex his country, Delcassé insisted, but the country was disintegrating and the Sultan was incapable of maintaining order. France would restore the Sultan’s authority for the benefit of the Moroccan people and of all foreign powers having commercial interests in the country. Delcassé said that France could not “admit that it was the business31 of any other Power but France to undertake the task of regenerating the country”; she hoped that Great Britain would support rather than obstruct her effort.

  Lansdowne knew that French policy was inspired by the strategic dream of linking her North African with her West African territories; Morocco lay in the middle. He was aware that Britain’s trade with Morocco was double that of France. On the other hand, he had before him the recommendation of one of Britain’s most talented diplomats, Sir Arthur Nicolson, British minister in Morocco for nine years (1891–1900), that Moroccan affairs were so chaotic that, if France intervened and suppressed the country’s disorder, it would save Britain the effort. Accordingly, Lansdowne told Delcassé that it was unlikely that Great Britain would oppose French intervention in Morocco, but that the situation in Egypt must also be discussed.

  France’s historical aspirations on the Nile stretched back to Napoleon and encompassed De Lesseps and the building of the Suez Canal; to renounce this heritage seemed a sure way to topple a shaky French government. Yet, if he could acquire Morocco, Delcassé reasoned, surrendering Egypt would be worthwhile, especially since what would be abandoned was a claim, not a presence. In these negotiations, Lansdowne’s strongest supporter was Lord Cromer, the British Agent (in effect, Viceroy) in Egypt. Cromer’s time in office and his experience gave him great influence with the British Cabinet. For Cromer, the Lansdowne-Cambon negotiations were a splendid opportunity to get the French off his back in Egypt, and he did not much care about the price. “The question comes down32 to have we any objection to Morocco becoming a French province? Personally, I see none,” he wrote to Lansdowne on July 17. In general, Lansdowne accepted this approach, although his interests in the talks with France had a wider purpose than the establishment of an uncontested British claim to Egypt. From the beginning, the Foreign Secretary was as firm on Egypt as Delcassé and Cambon were on Morocco: “The Government of the French Republic33 should recognize that the British occupation of Egypt, which was originally intended to be temporary, has under the force of circumstances, acquired a character of permanency. It would therefore, as between Great Britain and France, be understood that the period of its duration should be left entirely to the discretion of His Majesty’s Government.”

  On both sides, the bargaining required cessions of pride as well as of territories. Lansdowne had to consider Dominion concerns. And Delcassé was never free of the pressure of French imperialists, who bristled at the suggestion of sacrificing France’s traditional claims in Egypt. Cambon explained this consideration to Lansdowne. “You expect us to recognize34 your occupation [of Egypt],” he said. “I knew of nothing which France would find it more difficult to accept. I know that M. Delcassé sincerely desires to liquidate all our affairs, even Egypt, if it is possible. I believe him to be courageous enough to ignore it. But, if I may use a familiar expression, he would need a lot of d’estomac to assume responsibility for a settlement of the Egyptian question.” “Do you think we do not need d’estomac to give you Morocco?” retorted Lansdowne.

  On January 8, 1904, Lansdowne discovered that Delcassé had been acting entirely on his own authority and had not informed his Cabinet colleagues. Cambon was asked whether, in view of this, he and Delcassé were acting in good faith; if there was any doubt, the British government would immediately suspend the discussions. Mortified, Delcassé reacted quickly. As Lansdowne wrote to Cromer on March 14, 1904: “The French negotiations,35 after sticking in all sorts of ignoble ruts, suddenly began to travel with the speed of an express train. I attribute Delcassé’s desire to get on quickly partly to doubts as to the stability of his own government and partly to similar suspicions as to the stability of ours.” On April 7, 1904, the Anglo-French agreement was signed.

  When the Anglo-French Convention was introduced in Parliament, it was presented as a purely colonial agreement, a sensible and modest elimination of sources of friction between neighbors. In England, both parties welcomed Lord Lansdowne’s announcement. Most Liberals felt strongly that, if Splendid Isolation in Europe were abandoned, they preferred friendship with the French Republic to the alliance with Imperial Germany which Joseph Chamberlain had been advocating since 1899. The government made it clear that it was not proposing a military alliance. Lansdowne announced no revolutionary stroke of policy and claimed no great triumph of diplomacy. Throughout the debate, there was no reference to an alliance, to military or naval conventions; indeed, no third Power was even mentioned. Speakers in the Commons stressed that, by making this agreement, Britain did not exclude friendship with any nation. No one seems to have weighed the implications of the last article of the convention, which stated that the two governments “agreed to afford one another36 their diplomatic support to obtain execution of the clauses of the present declaration regarding Egypt and Morocco.”

  At the time the Convention was signed and presented to Parliament, no one in England considered asking German approval; it was assumed that no other power would object, or had the right to object, to two colonial powers securing peace between themselves by eliminating colonial frictions. The German
government, although advised from the beginning that the negotiations were proceeding, had not complained. On March 24, 1904, two weeks before the signing, Delcassé had called in Prince Radolin, the German Ambassador in Paris, and given him the general terms of the agreement. Radolin responded that the arrangement seemed natural and justified. Two days later, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, a paper which generally reflected the views of the Wilhelmstrasse, declared that the agreement did nothing to prejudice German commercial interests in Morocco; on the contrary, the paper said, German as well as French traders would benefit from France imposing order and stability. Bülow quickly assured the British Ambassador that he was glad to see England and France liquidating their colonial differences. On April 12, the Chancellor informed the Reichstag that Germany had no objection to the agreement and felt no uneasiness about German interests in Morocco.

  Holstein disagreed with Bülow. He believed that Morocco was one of the few countries where German commerce could compete equally with British and French and that the new agreement undermined these chances. In addition, he objected to the bilateral nature of the agreement. If France wished a special arrangement in Morocco, let her negotiate with all the Powers concerned, including Germany. “If we let ourselves be trampled37 in Morocco,” he warned, “we invite similar treatment elsewhere. Not for material reasons alone, but even more for the sake of prestige must Germany protest against the intended appropriation of Morocco by France.”

  Parliament’s enactment of the Anglo-French Convention was the crown of Lord Lansdowne’s career. Splendid Isolation in Europe had come to an end and a vast upheaval in the Continental balance of power had begun. When Lansdowne was negotiating, first with Delcassé, then with Cambon, it never occurred to him that anything more than French and British colonies were involved. He did not see himself as preparing the ground for a military relationship with France and Russia, transforming the Dual Alliance into the Triple Entente. Delcassé saw further. Negotiation of the Convention and the appearance of the Anglo-French Entente were his creations. This was his patiently awaited reward for surrender at Fashoda six years before and for his firm refusal to permit France to take advantage of British difficulties during the Boer War. In dealing with England, Delcassé understood and accepted the nature of the British Constitution and the supremacy of the House of Commons. German insistence on a rigidly drafted treaty with clauses binding Britain to specific responses in every conceivable situation showed a lack of insight into how Great Britain was governed. The French were willing to begin with something small and unalarming, and proceed step by step.

  Delcassé, the Foreign Minister of a nation isolated for a quarter of a century, had dreams of what the future might hold. Early in 1904, he had said: “If I conclude my agreements38 with England, Italy and Spain, you will see Morocco fall into our garden like ripe fruit.” Later that spring, his vision expanded. Negotiations with England would wipe away all past quarrels. “This liquidation should lead us, and I desire that it shall lead us, to a political alliance with England. Ah, my dear friends, what beautiful horizons would open before us. Just think! If we could lean both on Russia and on England, how strong we should be in relation to Germany. A Franco-British alliance has always been my dream even during the Fashoda crisis. Now I can believe I am near my goal.” The Foreign Minister paused at this point. After a moment, he went on: “It would be difficult to combine with the Russian alliance. But each day has its task.”

  Chapter 21

  The Morocco Crisis of 1905

  On the evening of May 18, 1904, a wealthy retired American resident of Tangier named Ion Pedicaris sat in his dinner jacket drinking coffee in the wisteria-planted courtyard of his comfortable villa near the city. With him were his wife; his stepson, an Englishman named Varley; and his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Varley. Suddenly, shouts and then shots were heard from the back of the house. Varley and Pedicaris went to investigate. More shouts were heard. Fearfully, Mrs. Pedicaris and Mrs. Varley tiptoed to the servants’ quarters. There, they beheld their husbands, bound and gagged, seated on the backs of mules. Men in brown cloaks gesticulated and pointed rifles. A moment later, the two husbands jounced off into the darkness.

  The kidnapper, a local chief named El-Raisuli, who was in permanent rebellion against the Sultan of Morocco, soon forwarded his conditions for release of the prisoners. He demanded the dismissal of the Governor of Tangiers, the withdrawal of the Sultan’s troops from the region, the cession to him of fifteen villages, the jailing of some of his enemies, the release from jail of some of his friends, and a ransom of ten thousand pounds. These conditions were granted and Mr. Pedicaris and Mr. Varley, after five weeks in a tent, returned to their wives. Mr. Pedicaris, having had enough of adventure, sold his villa and moved to Gloucestershire.

  The seizure of two foreigners had terrified other Europeans in Morocco and affronted their governments. British and American warships had appeared in the harbor of Tangier. President Theodore Roosevelt had paced the White House and declared through clenched teeth that he wanted “Pedicaris alive1 or Raisuli dead.” To Europeans and Americans, the episode demonstrated that the Kingdom of Morocco, the last independent African state in the northern half of the continent, could no longer maintain law and order. An imperialist power would have to pick up this burden and—as far as most foreigners in Morocco were concerned—the sooner this happened, the better.

  Three European powers had shown interest in Moroccan affairs: France, ruler of Algeria, with which Morocco shared an eight-hundred-mile border; Britain, possessor of Gibraltar, the western gateway to the Mediterranean; and Spain, which owned four settlements on the Moroccan coast across the Mediterranean from southern Spain. To avoid the dangers of a quarrel over Morocco between these or other powers, the Sultan’s kingdom had been specifically exempted from the “Scramble for Africa” by the Treaty of Madrid in 1880. The treaty, to which Germany and Italy were signatories along with France, Britain, and Spain, required that before one power overturned the agreement and seized political and economic power in Morocco, the other signatories had, at least, to be consulted. Imperial Germany had never expressed any ambitions in Morocco: indeed, when the Treaty of Madrid was signed, Bismarck had expressly declared that Germany had no significant interests in the kingdom. This German position had been restated in April 1904 when Bülow calmly reported the signing of the Anglo-French agreement to the Reichstag.

  France, on the other hand, had desired for a long time to possess Morocco. In the nineteenth century French aspirations for a huge North African empire were partially fulfilled when Algeria (in the 1830s and 1840s) and Tunisia (in 1881) came under French control. Morocco managed to retain its independence because Great Britain opposed any European power obtaining a foothold on the Moroccan coast, which faced Gibraltar eight miles across the Straits. In 1880, the Sultan’s tenuous sovereignty was affirmed by the Treaty of Madrid. Britain continued, through the end of the century, to be the power with the greatest political and economic influence in Morocco. From 1899 to 1905, Great Britain supplied 44 percent of Morocco’s imports, France 22 percent, and Germany 11 percent. The commander of the Sultan’s army was Kaid Maclean, a small, rotund Scotsman with a little white beard. Maclean had served in the post for twenty years and his cultural affinities had become mixed: he relaxed by dressing in a turban and white burnoose and walking in his garden blowing a bagpipe.

  The Sultan, in 1894, was a puffy, overfed boy of fourteen, Abdul-Aziz. A new British Minister, Sir Arthur Nicolson, presented himself to this adolescent ruler and delivered a gift from Queen Victoria: a Maxim gun, which the Sultan took to a nearby square where he opened fire on a row of bottles. As he grew older, Abdul-Aziz showed a predilection for British friends, “grooms, gardeners, electricians,2 plumbers, cinema operators, commission agents, and the man who repairs his bicycles. These men,” reported Nicolson, “show him photographs from the Illustrated London News of such things as lawn mowers, house boats, cigarette lighters, and gala coach
es, and induce His Majesty to order such objects from London.” Despite this influence at court, the British Foreign Office had little interest in expanding Britain’s political role. In 1900, after five years at his post, Sir Arthur Nicolson was gloomy about Morocco’s future. He described Morocco as “this loose agglomeration3 of turbulent tribes, corrupt governors, and general poverty and distress,” and wrote to Lord Salisbury, “I do not believe4 that it is possible to reform this country from within. It is sad to admit it, but I fear that the country is doomed.” With the Boer War absorbing British resources, England shunned the labor of reorganizing Morocco as she had reorganized Egypt. Since France was willing to undertake the task, the British saw a solution. And if France was willing to pay for this privilege by terminating its twenty-year harassment of the British in Egypt, so much the better. One point on which Great Britain insisted—and it was written into the Anglo-French agreement in 1904—was that “in order to secure5 the free passage of the Strait of Gibraltar,” the stretch of African coast opposite the Rock was to remain unfortified.

  France, by 1904, was eager to incorporate Morocco into its North African empire as soon as possible. In the months following the signing of the Anglo-French Convention, as the Sultan’s kingdom slid further into chaos, France offered the Sultan assistance in reorganizing his army. The Sultan declined. Over the winter, the Paris press and public began to demand French pacification of the Sultan’s kingdom. On February 21, 1905, the French Ambassador, M. René Taillandier, arrived in the royal city of Fez and demanded that the Sultan turn over his police and army to French officers and his customs houses to French inspectors. The Sultan, fearing for his throne and knowing that his English friends would no longer help him, called in the German Ambassador to inquire whether France spoke for Europe. The reply from Berlin, in sharp contrast to the position taken only ten months earlier by Chancellor Bülow, was a stinging slap at France and Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé: the German government continued to recognize the independence of the Sultan’s government as guaranteed by the Treaty of Madrid.