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the knowledge of the nation where their oath of allegiance has been received
in good faith, citizenship in Germany.

German emigration and colonization societies, and many seemingly

purely religious organizations for "the propagation of the faith in foreign
lands," have been untiring in their efforts to preserve in the minds of
Germans who have left the Fatherland the principle, "once a German always
a German." The Catholic as well as the Lutheran Church has lent itself to
this effort. Wherever there are Germans, one finds the German church, the
German school, the Zeitung, the Bierhalle, and the Turnverein. The
Deutschtum is sacred to the Germans. One cannot but have the deepest
respect for the pride of Germans in their ancestry, in their language, in their
church, and in the preservation of traditional customs. There is no better
blood in the world than German blood, and one who has it in his veins may
well be proud of it: for it is an inheritance which is distinctly to a man's
intellectual and physical advantage. But, in recent years, the effort has been
made to confuse Deutschtum with Deutschland. Here lies a great danger. We
may admire and reverence all that has come to us from Germany. But the
world cannot look on impassively at a propaganda which is leading to
Deutschland über alles!

When we take the megalomania of the Germans, their ambition to fulfil

their world mission, their belief in their peculiar fitness to fulfil that mission,
and their idea of the German character of the neighbouring states, and
contrast the dream with the reality, we see how they must feel, especially as
they are conscious of the fact that they dispose of a military strength
disproportionate to their position in mondial politics. Great Britain, with
one-third less population, "the colossus with the feet of clay," owns a good
fourth of the whole world; France, the nation of "monkeys," which was
easily crushed in 1870, holds sway over untold millions of acres and natives
in Africa and Asia; while Russia, the nation of "slaves," has a half of Europe
and Asia.

The most civilized people in the world, with a world mission to fulfil, is
dispossessed by its rivals of inferior races and of inferior military strength!
The thinking German is by the very nature of things a militarist.
 But even if the logic of the Weltpolitik, under the force of circumstances,
did not push the German of every class and category to the belief that
Germany must solve her great problems of the present day by force of arms,
especially since her military strength is so much greater than that of her
rivals, the nature of the German would make him lean towards force as the
decisive argument in the question of extending his influence. For from the
beginning of history the German has been a war man. He has asserted
himself by force. He has proved less amenable to the refining and softening
influences of Christianity and civilization than any other European race. He
has worshipped force, and relied wholly upon force to dominate those with
whom he has come into contact. The leopard cannot change his spots. So it
is as natural for the German of the twentieth century to use the sword as an
argument as it was for the German of the tenth century, or, indeed, of the
first century. We cannot too strongly insist upon this fatal tendency of the
German to subordinate natural, moral, legal, and technical rights to the
supremacy of brute force. There is no conception of what is called "moral
suasion" in the German mind. Although some of the greatest thinkers of the
world have been and are to-day Germans, yet the German nation has never
come to the realization that the pen may be mightier than the sword. Give
the German a pen, and he will hold the world in admiration of his intellect.
Give him a piano or a violin, and he will hold the world in adoration of his
soul. But give him a sword, and he will hold the world in abhorrence of his
force. For there never was an übermensch who was not a devil. Else he
would be God.

But the Weltpolitik has had other and more tangible and substantial causes
than the three we have been considering. It is not wholly the result of the
German idea that Germany can impose her will upon the world and has the
right to do so. The power of Germany comes from the fact that her people
have been workers as well as dreamers. The rapid increase of the population
and development of the industrial and commercial prosperity of the empire
have given the Germans a wholly justifiable economic foundation for their
Weltpolitik.

United Germany, after the successful war of 1870, began the greatest era
of industrial growth and prosperity that has ever been known in the history
of the world. Not even the United States, with all its annual immigration and
opening up of new fields and territories, has been able to show an industrial
growth comparable to that of Germany during the past forty years. In this old
central Europe cities have grown almost over night. Railways have been laid
down, one after the other, until the whole empire is a network of steel. Mines
and factories have sprung into being as miraculously as if it had been by the
rubbing of Aladdin's lamp. The population has increased more than half in
forty years.

It was as her population and her productive power increased far more
quickly and far beyond that of her neighbours, that Germany began to look
out into the extra-European world for markets. She had reached the point
when her productivity, in manufacturing lines, had exceeded her power of
consumption. Where find markets for the goods? German merchants, and not
Prussian militarists, began to spread abroad in Germany the idea that there
was a world equilibrium, as important to the future of the nations of Europe
as was the European equilibrium. Germany, looking out over the world, saw
that the prosperity of Great Britain was due to her trade, and that the security
and volume of this trade were due to her colonies.

Who does not remember the remarkable stamp issued by the Dominion of
Canada to celebrate the Jubilee of Queen Victoria? On the mercatorial
projection of the world, the British possessions were given in red. One could
not find any corner of the globe where there were not ports to which British
ships in transit could go, and friendly markets for British commerce. The
Germans began to compare their industries with those of Great Britain. Their
population was larger than that of the great colonial power, and was
increasing more rapidly. Their industries were growing apace. For their
excess population, emigration to a foreign country meant annual loss of
energetic and capable compatriots. Commerce had to meet unfair
competition in every part of the world. Outside of the Baltic and North Seas,
there was no place that a German ship could touch over which the German
flag waved.

It was not militarism or chauvinism or megalomania, but the natural

desire of a people who found themselves becoming prosperous to put secure
and solid foundations under that prosperity, that made the Germans seek for
colonies and launch forth upon the Weltpolitik.
 The first instance of the awakening on the part of the German people to a
sense that there was something which interested them outside of Europe, was
the annexation by Great Britain in 1874 of the Fiji Islands, with which
German traders had just begun, at great risk and painstaking efforts, to build
up a business. This was the time when the Government was engaged in its
struggles with the Church and socialism, and when the working of the
Reichstag and the Bundesrath was still in an experimental stage. Nothing
could be done. But there began to be a feeling among Germans that in the
future Germany ought to be consulted concerning the further extension of
the sovereignty of a European nation over any part of the world then
unoccupied or still independent. But Germany was not in a position either to
translate this sentiment into a vigorous foreign policy, or to begin to seize
her share of the world by taking the portions which Great Britain and Russia
and France had still left vacant.

German trade, still in its infancy, received cruel setbacks by the British
occupation of Cyprus in 1878 and of Egypt in 1883, the French occupation
of Tunis in 1881, and the Russian and British dealings with central Asia and
Afghanistan. The sentiment of the educated and moneyed classes in
Germany began to impose upon the Government the necessity of entering
the colonial field. The action in Egypt and in Tunis brought about the
beginning of German colonization. Bismarck had just finished successfully
his critical struggle with the socialists. The decks were cleared for action. In
1882, a Bremen trader, Herr Lüdritz, by treaties with the native chiefs,
gained the Bay of Angra-Pequena on the west coast of Africa. For two years
no attention was paid to this treaty, which was a purely private commercial
affair. In 1884, shortly after the occupation of Egypt, a dispute arose
between the British authorities at Cape Town and Herr Lüdritz. Bismarck
saw that he must act, or the old story of extension of British sovereignty
would be repeated. He telegraphed to the German Consul at Cape Town that
the Imperial Government had annexed the coast and hinterland from the
Orange River to Cape Frio.

Other annexations in Africa and the Pacific followed in the years 1884-
1886. In Africa, the German flag was hoisted over the east coast of the
continent, north of Cape Delgado and the river Rovuma, and in Kamerun
and Togo on the Gulf of Guinea. In the Pacific, Kaiser Wilhelm's Land was
formed of a portion of New Guinea, with some adjacent islands, and the
Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, and the Marshall Islands were
gathered in. Since those early years of feverish activity, there have been no
new acquisitions in Africa, other than the portion of French Congo ceded in
1912 as "compensation" for the French protectorate of Morocco. In the
Pacific, in 1899, after the American conquest of the Philippines, the
Caroline, Pelew, and Marianne groups and two of the Samoan Islands were
added.

In China, Germany believed that she had the right to expect to gain a
position equal to that of Great Britain at Hongkong and Shanghai, of France
at Tonkin, and Russia in Manchuria. She believed that it was just as
necessary for her to have a fortified port to serve as a naval base for her fleet
as it was for the other Powers, and that by a possession of territory which
could be called her own she would be best able to get her share of the
commerce of the Far East. From 1895 to 1897, Germany examined carefully
all the possible places which would serve best for the establishment of a
naval and commercial base. At the beginning of 1897, after naval and
commercial missions had made their reports, a technical mission was sent
out whose membership included the famous Franzius, the creator of Kiel.
This mission reported in favour of Kiau-Chau on the peninsula of Shantung
in north China.

When negotiations were opened with the Chinese, the answer of the
Chinese Government was to send soldiers to guard the bay! The Kaiser, in a
visit to the Czar at Peterhof in the summer of 1897, secured Russian
"benevolent neutrality." The murder of two missionaries in the interior of the
province, on November 1st of the same year, gave Germany her chance.
Three German war vessels landed troops on the peninsula, and seized Kiau-
Chau and Tsing-Tau. After five months of tortuous negotiations, a treaty was
concluded between Germany and China on March 6, 1899. Kiau-Chau with
adjacent territory was leased to Germany for ninety-nine years. To German
capital and German commerce were given the right of preference for every
industrial enterprise on the peninsula, the concession for the immediate
construction of a railway, and the exclusive right to mining along the line of
the railway. Thus the greater part of the province of Shantung passed under
the economic influence of Germany.
 The entry of Japan into the war of 1914 is due to her desire to remedy a
great injustice which has been done to Japanese commerce in the province of
Shantung by the German occupation, to her fear of this naval base opposite
her coast (just as she feared Port Arthur), and probably to the intention of
occupying the Marianne Islands, the Marshall Islands, and the Eastern and
Western Carolines, in order that the Japanese navy may have important bases
in a possible future conflict with the United States.

When Germany leased Kiau-Chau, she declared solemnly that the port of
Tsing-Tau would be an open port, ein frei Hafen für allen Nationen. But
Japanese trade competition soon caused her to go back on her word. She
conceived a clever scheme in 1906, by which the Chinese customs duties
were allowed to be collected within the Protectorate in return for an annual
sum of twenty per cent. upon the entire customs receipts of the Tsing-Tau
district. In this way, she is more than recompensed for the generosity
displayed in allowing German goods to be subject to the Chinese customs.
She reimburses herself at the expense of the Japanese! Berlin could not have
been astonished at the ultimatum of August 15th from Tokio.

There has always been much opposition in Germany to the colonization

policy of the Government, the dissatisfaction over the poor success of the
attempts at African colonization led Chancellor Caprivi to state that the
worst blow an enemy could give him was to force upon him more territories
in Africa! The Germans never got on well with the negroes. Their colonists,
for the most part too poor to finance properly agricultural schemes, lived by
trading. Like all whites, they cheated the natives and bullied them into
giving up their lands. In South-West Africa, a formidable uprising of the
Herreros resulted in the massacre of all the Germans except the missionaries
and the colonists who had established themselves there before the German
occupation. The suppression of this rebellion took more than a year, and cost
Germany an appalling sum in money and many lives. But it cost the natives
more. Two thirds of the nation of the Herreros were massacred: while only
six or seven thousand were in arms, the German official report stated that
forty thousand were killed. The Germans confiscated all the lands of the
natives.

In 1906, after twenty-one years of German rule, there were in South-West

Africa sixteen thousand prisoners of war out of a total native population of
thirty-one thousand. All the natives lived in concentration camps, and were
forced to work for the Government. In commenting upon the Herrero
campaign, Pastor Frenssen, one of the most brilliant writers of modern
Germany, put in the mouth of the hero of his colonial novel the following
words: "God has given us the victory because we were the most noble race,
and the most filled with initiative. That is not saying much, when we
compare ourselves with this race of negroes; but we must act in such a way
as to become better and more active than all the other people of the world. It
is to the most noble, to the most firm that the world belongs. Such is the
justice of God."

German opposition has been bitter also against the occupation of Kiau-
Chau. For traders have claimed that the political presence of Germany on the
Shantung peninsula and the dealings of the German diplomats with the Pekin
court had so prejudiced the Chinese against everything German that it was
harder to do business with them than before the leasehold was granted. They
actually advocated the withdrawal of the protectorate for the good of
German commerce!

But German pride was at stake in Africa after the Herrero rebellion. And
in China, Kiau-Chau was too valuable a naval base to give up. In 1907, a
ministry of colonies was added to the Imperial Cabinet. Since then the
colonial realm has been considered an integral part of the Empire.

At every point of this colonial development, Germany found herself

confronted with open opposition and secret intrigue. The principal strategic
value of south-west Africa was taken away by the British possession of
Walfisch Bay, and of east Africa by the protectorate consented to by the
Sultan of Zanzibar to the British Crown. Togoland and Kamerun are
hemmed in by French and British possession of the hinterland. The Pacific
islands are mostly "left-overs," or of minor importance. In spite of the
unpromising character of these colonies, the commerce of Germany with
them increased from 1908 to 1912 five hundred per cent., and the commerce
with China through Kiau-Chau from 1902 to 1912 nearly a thousand per
cent.

And yet, in comparison to her energies and her willingness—let us leave

till later the question of ability and fitness—Germany has had little
opportunity to exercise a colonial administration on a large scale. She must
seek to extend her political influence over new territories. Where and how?
That has been the question. Most promising of all appeared the succession to
the Portuguese colonies, for the sharing of which Great Britain declared her
willingness to meet Germany halfway. An accord was made in 1898, against
the eventuality of Portugal selling her colonies. But since the Republic was
proclaimed in Portugal, there has been little hope that her new Government
would consider itself strong enough to part with the heritage of several
centuries.

For the increase of her colonial empire, Germany has felt little hope. So
she has tried to secure commercial privileges in various parts of the world,
through which political control might eventually come. We have already
spoken of her effort in China. Separate chapters treat of her efforts in the
three Moslem countries, Morocco, Persia, and Turkey, and show how in each
case she has found herself checkmated by the intrigues and accords of the
three rich colonial Powers.

Long before the political union of the German States in Europe was
accomplished, there were German aspirations in regard to the New World,
when Pan-Germanists dreamed of forming states in North and South
America.

These enthusiasts did not see that the Civil War had so brought together
the various elements of the United States, the most prominent and most loyal
of which was the German element, that any hope of a separatist movement in
the United States was chimerical. As late as 1885, however, the third edition
of Roscher's Kolonien, Kolonialpolitik und Auswanderung stated that "it
would be a great step forward, if the German immigrants to North America
would be willing to concentrate themselves in one of the states, and
transform it into a German state." For different reasons Wisconsin would
appear to be most particularly indicated.

As early as 1849, the Germans commenced to organize emigration to

Brazil through a private society of Hamburg (Hamburger
Kolonisationverein), which bought from the Prince de Joinville, brother-in-
law of Dom Pedro, vast territories in the state of Santa Catharina. There the
German colonization in Brazil began. It soon extended to the neighbouring
states of Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul. There are now about three hundred
and fifty thousand Germans, forming two per cent. of the population. In no
district are they more than fifteen per cent. However, in Rio Grande, there is
a territory of two hundred kilometres in which the German language is
almost wholly spoken; and a chain of German colonies binds Sao Leopoldo
to Santa Cruz.

Among the Pan-Germanists, the three states of southern Brazil have been
regarded as a zone particularly reserved for German expansion. The colonial
congress of 1902 at Berlin expressed a formal desire that hereafter German
emigration be directed towards the south of Brazil. An amendment to include
Argentina was rejected. The decree of Prussia, forbidding emigration to
Brazil, was revoked in 1896 in so far as it was a question of the three states
of Paraná, Santa Catharina, and Rio Grande do Sul.

It has not been very many years since diplomatic incidents arose between
Brazil and Germany over fancied German violation of Brazilian territory by
the arrest of sailors on shore. But Germany has not entertained serious hope
of getting a foothold in South America. Brazil has increased greatly in
strength, and there is to-day in South America a tacit alliance between
Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to support the American Monroe Doctrine.
Germany found, when she was trying to buy a West India island from
Denmark, that she had to reckon not only with Washington, but also with
Buenos Ayres, Rio, and Santiago.

Finding herself so thoroughly hemmed in on all sides, in the New World

and in the Old World, by alliances and accords directed against her overseas
political expansion, modern Germany has repeated the history of the Jews.
Deprived of some senses, one develops extraordinarily others. Deprived of
civil and social rights for centuries, the Jews developed the business sense
until to-day their wealth and influence in the business world are far beyond
the proportionate numbers of their race. Deprived of the opportunity to
administer and develop vast overseas territories, the Germans have turned to
intensive military development at home and extensive commercial
development abroad, until to-day they are the foremost military Power in
Europe, and are threatening British commercial supremacy in every part of
the globe.
 The German counterpart of the British and French and Russian elements
that are directing the destinies of vast colonies and protectorates is investing
its energy in business. During the past generation, the German campaign for
the markets of the world has been carried on by the brightest and best minds
in Germany. There have been three phases to this campaign: manufacturing
the goods, selling the goods, and carrying the goods. German manufactures
have increased so greatly in volume and scope since the accession of the
present Emperor that there is hardly a line of merchandise which is not
offered in the markets of the world by German firms.

Articles "made in Germany" may not be as well made as those of other

countries. But their price is more attractive, and they have driven other
goods from many fields. One sees this right in Europe in the markets of
Germany's competitors and enemies. Since the present war began, French
and British patriots are hard put to it sometimes when they find that article
after article which they have been accustomed to buy is German. In my
home in Paris, the elevator is German, electrical fixtures are German, the
range in my kitchen is German, the best lamps for lighting are German. I
have discovered these things in the past month through endeavouring to have
them repaired. Interest led me to investigate other articles in daily use. My
cutlery is German, my silverware is German, the chairs in my dining-room
are German, the mirror in my bathroom is German, some of my food
products are German, and practically all the patented drugs and some of the
toilet preparations are German.

All these things have been purchased in the Paris markets, without the
slightest leaning towards, or preference for, articles coming from the
Fatherland. I was not aware of the fact that I was buying German things.
They sold themselves,—the old combination of appearance, convenience,
and price, which will sell anything.

That I am unconsciously using German manufactured articles is largely

due to the genius of the salesman. It is a great mistake to believe that
salesmanship is primarily the art of selling the goods of the house you
represent. That has been the British idea. It is today exploded. Is it because
the same type as the Britisher who is devoting his brains and energy to
solving the problems of inferior people in different parts of the world is
among the Germans devoting his energies to German commerce in those
same places, that the Germans have found the fine art of salesmanship to be
quite a different thing? It is studying the desires of the people to whom you
intend to sell, finding out what they want to buy, and persuading your house
at home to make and export those articles. From the Parisian and the
Londoner, and the New Yorker down to the naked savage, the Germans
know what is wanted, and they supply it. If the British university man is
enjoying a position of authority and of fascinating perplexity in some colony,
and feels that he has a share in shaping the destinies of the world, the
German university man is not without his revenge. Deprived of one sense,
has he not developed another—and a more practical one?

The young German, brought up in an overpopulated country, unable to

enter a civil service which will keep him under his own flag—and remember
how intensely patriotic he is, this young German, just as patriotic as the
young Frenchman or the young Britisher,—must leave home. He is not of
the class from which come the voluntary emigrants. His ties are all in
Germany: his love—and his move—all for Germany. So he becomes a
German resident abroad, in close connection with the Fatherland, and always
working for the interests of the Fatherland. He goes to England or to France,
where he studies carefully and methodically, as if he were to write a thesis
on it (and he often does), the business methods of and the business
opportunities among the people where he is dwelling. He is giving his life to
put Deutschland über alles in business right in the heart of the rival nation,
and he is succeeding. During October, 1914, when they tried to arrest in the
larger cities of England the German and Austrian subjects they had to stop—
there was not room in the jails for all of them! And in many places business
was paralyzed.

In carrying the products of steadily increasing volume to steadily growing

markets, Germany has been sensible enough to make those markets pay for
the cost of transport. Up to the very selling price, all the money goes to
Germany. The process is simple: from German factories, by German ships,
through German salesmen, to German firms, in every part of the world—
beginning with London and Paris.

Germany's merchant marine has kept pace with the development of her
industry. Essen may be the expression of one side of modern Germany,
which is said to have caused the European war. But one is more logical in
believing that Hamburg and Bremen and the Kiel Canal have done more to
bring on this war than the products of Krupp. During the last twenty-five
years the tonnage of Germany's merchant marine has increased two hundred
and fifty per cent., a quarter of which has been in the last five years, from
1908-1913. There are six times as many steamships flying the German flag
as when Wilhelm II mounted the throne. In merchant ships, Germany stands
today second only to Great Britain. The larger portion of her merchant
marine is directed by great corporations. The struggle against Great Britain
and France for the freight carrying of outside nations has been most bitter—
and most successful. Before the present war, there was no part of the world
in which the German flag was not carried by ships less than ten years old.

With the exception of Kiau-Chau, the colonies of Germany have never

been of much practical value, except as possible coaling and wireless
stations for the German fleet. But here also the opposition of her rivals has
minimized their value. Walfisch Bay and Zanzibar have, as we have already
said, lessened the strategical value of the two large colonies on either side of
the African continent. In the division of the Portuguese colonies agreed to by
Great Britain, it was "the mistress of the seas" who was to have the strategic
places—not part of them, but all of them, the Cape Verde Islands, Madeira,
and the Azores.

As Germany's commerce and shipping have so rapidly developed, the

seeking for opportunities to extend her political sovereignty outside of
Europe has not been so much an outlook for industrial enterprise as the
imperative necessity of finding naval bases and coaling stations in different
parts of the world for the adequate protection of commerce. The
development of the German navy has been the logical complement of the
development of the German merchant marine. Germany's astonishing naval
program has kept pace with the astonishing growth of the great Hamburg
and Bremen lines. Germany has had exactly the same argument for the
increase of her navy as has had Great Britain. Justification for the money
expended on the British navy is that Great Britain needs the navy to protect
her commerce, upon which the life of the nation is dependent, and to
guarantee her food-supplies. The industrial evolution of Germany has
brought about for her practically the same economic conditions as in Great
Britain. In addition to the dependence of her prosperity upon the power of
her navy to protect her commerce, Germany has felt that she must keep the
sea open for the sake of guaranteeing uninterrupted food-supplies for her
industrial population. It must not be forgotten that Germany is flanked on
east and west by hereditary enemies, and has come to look to the sea as the
direction from which her food supplies would come in case of war.

This last factor of the Weltpolitik, the creation of a strong navy, must not
be looked upon either as a provocation to Great Britain or as a menace to the
equilibrium of the world. If it has brought Germany inevitably into conflict
with Great Britain, it is because the navy is the safeguard of commerce. The
Weltpolitik is essentially a Handelspolitik. The present tremendous conflict
between Great Britain and Germany is the result of commercial rivalry. It is
more a question of the pocket-book than of the sacredness of treaties, if we
are looking for the cause rather than the occasion of the war. It has come in
spite of honest efforts to bring Great Britain and Germany together.

Lord Haldane, in February, 1912, made a trip to Berlin to bring about a

general understanding between the two nations. But while there was much
discussion of the question of the Bagdad Railway, Persian and Chinese
affairs, Walfisch Bay, and the division of Africa, nothing came of it. On
March 18th, Mr. Churchill said to the House of Commons: "If Germany adds
two ships in the next six years, we shall have to add four; if Germany adds
three, we shall have to add six. Whatever reduction is made in the German
naval program will probably be followed here by a corresponding naval
reduction. The Germans will not get ahead of us, no matter what increase
they make; they will not lose, no matter what decrease they make." This was
as far as Great Britain could go.

In the spring of 1912, the British fleet was concentrated in the North Sea,
and an accord was made with France for common defensive action in the
North Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. At the same time, during M.
Poincaré's trip to Petrograd, an accord was signed between France and
Russia for common naval action in time of war.

The Pan-Germanic movement in recent years has not been a tool of the
Government, but rather a party, including other parties, banded together
more than once to oppose the German Government in an honourable attempt
to preserve peace with the neighbours in the west.
 It is a tremendous mistake—and a mistake which has been continuously
made in the French, British, and American press since the beginning of the
war—to consider the Weltpolitik as an expression of the sentiments of the
German Emperor and his officials. Since it was forced upon Bismarck
against his will, Pan-Germanism has been a power against which the
Emperor William II has had to strive frequently throughout his reign. For it
has never hesitated to force him into paths and into positions which were
perilous to the theory of monarchical authority. The Kaiser has resented the
pressure of public opinion in directing the affairs of the Empire. Pan-
Germanism has been a striking example of democracy, endeavouring to have
a say in governmental policies. The Naval and Army Leagues, the German
Colonial Society, and the Pan-Germanic Society are private groups,
irresponsible from the standpoint of the Government. They have declared the
governmental programs for an increase in armaments insufficient, and have
bitterly denounced and attacked them from the point of view exactly
opposite to that of the Socialists. The Pan-Germanic Society refused to
recognize the treaty concluded between Germany and France after the
Agadir incident. Said Herr Klaas at the Hanover Conference on April 15,
1912: "We persist in considering Morocco as the country which will become
in the future, let us hope the near future, the colony for German emigration."
The same intractable spirit was shown in Dr. Pohl's address at the Erfurt
Congress in September, 1912.

We hear much about the Kaiser and the military party precipitating war. A
review of the German newspapers during the past few years will convince
any fair-minded reader that German public opinion, standing constantly
behind the Pan-Germanists, has frequently made the German Foreign Office
act with a much higher hand in international questions than it would have
acted if left to itself, and that German public opinion, from highest classes to
lowest, is for this war to the bitter finish. It is the war of the people,
intelligently and deliberately willed by them. The statement that a revolution
in Germany, led by the democracy to dethrone the Kaiser or to get him out of
the clutches of the military party, would put an end to the war, is foolish and
pernicious. For it leads us to false hopes. It would be much nearer the truth
to say that if the Kaiser had not consented to this war, he would have
endangered his throne.
 The principle of the Weltpolitik, imposed upon European diplomacy by
the German nation in the assembling of the Conference of Algeciras, was
that no State should be allowed to disturb the existing political and territorial
status quo of any country still free, in any part of the world, without the
consent of the other Powers. This Weltpolitik would have the natural effect,
according to Karl Lamprecht, in his Zur Jüngsten Deutschen Vergangenheit,
of endangering a universal and pitiless competition among the seven Great
Powers in which the weakest would eventually be eliminated.

CHAPTER III
THE "BAGDADBAHN"

In the development of her Weltpolitik, the most formidable, the most

feasible, and the most successful conception of modern Germany has been
the economic penetration of Asiatic Turkey. She may have failed in Africa
and in China. But there can be no doubt about the successful beginning, and
the rich promise for the future, of German enterprises in the Ottoman
Empire.

The countries of sunshine have always exercised a peculiar fascination

over the German. His literature is filled with the Mediterranean and with
Islam. From his northern climate he has looked southward and eastward
back towards the cradle of his race, and in imagination has lived over again
the Crusades. As long as Italy was under Teutonic political influence, the
path to the Mediterranean was easy. United Italy and United Germany were
born at the same time. But while the birth of Italy threatened to close
eventually the trade route to the Mediterranean to Germany, the necessity of
a trade route to the south became more vital than ever to the new German
Confederation from the sequences of the union.

When her political consolidation was completed and her industrial era
commenced, Germany began to look around the world for a place to expand.
There were still three independent Mohammedan nations—Morocco, Persia,
and Turkey. In Morocco she found another cause for conflict with France
than Alsace-Lorraine. In Persia and Turkey, she faced the bitter rivalry of
Russia and Great Britain.

The rapid decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the fact that its sovereign
was Khalif of the Moslem world, led German statesmen to believe that
Constantinople was the best place in the world to centre the efforts of their
diplomacy in the development of the Weltpolitik. Through allying herself
with the Khalif, Germany would find herself able to strike eventually at the
British occupation of India and Egypt, and the French occupation of Algeria
and Tunis, not only by joining the interests of Pan-Islamism and Pan-
Germanism, but also by winning a place in Morocco opposite Gibraltar, a
place in Asia Minor opposite Egypt, and a place in Mesopotamia opposite
India.

The certainty of economic success helped to make the political effort

worth while, even if it came to nothing. For Asia Minor and Mesopotamia
are countries that have been among the most fertile and prosperous in the
whole world. They could be so again. The present backward condition of
Asia Minor and Mesopotamia is due to the fact that these countries have had
no chance to live since they came under Ottoman control, much less to
develop their resources proportionately to other nations. The natives have
been exploited by the Turkish officials and by foreign holders of
concessions. Frequently concessions have been sought to stop, not to further,
development. If there have been climatic changes to account for lack of
fertility in Asia Minor, this is largely due to deforestation. Ibn Batutah, the
famous Moorish traveller of the first half of the fourteenth century, and
Shehabeddin of Damascus, his contemporary, have left glowing accounts of
the fertility and prosperity of regions of Asia Minor, now hopelessly arid, as
they existed on the eve of the foundation of the Ottoman Empire. Not only
have all the trees been cut down, but the roots have been torn up for fuel!
One frequently sees in the markets of Anatolian towns the roots of trees for
sale. The treatment of trees is typical of everything else. The country has had
no chance. In Mesopotamia, the new irrigation schemes are not innovations
of the twentieth century, but the revival of methods of culture in vogue
thousands of years before Christ.
 The Romans and Byzantines improved their inheritance. The Osmanlis
ruined it.

In addition to sunshine and romance, political advantages, and prospects

of making money, another influence has attracted the Germans to the
Ottoman Empire. There is a certain affinity between German and Osmanli.
The Germans have sympathy with the spirit of Islam, as they conceive it to
be interpreted in the Turk. They admire the yassak of the Turk, which is the
counterpart of their verboten. The von Moltke who later led Prussia to her
great victories had at the beginning of his career an intimate knowledge of
the Turkish army. He admired intensely the blind and passive obedience of
the Turk to authority, his imperturbability under misfortune and his fortitude
in facing hardship and danger. "Theirs not to reason why: theirs but to do
and die" is a spirit which German and Turk understand, and show, far better
than Briton, with all due respect to Tennyson. A Briton may obey, but he
questions all the same, and after the crisis is over he demands a reckoning.
Authority, to the Anglo-Saxon, rests in the body politic, of which each
individual is an integral—and ineffaceable—part.

The Turkish military and official cast is like that of the Germans in three
things: authority rests in superiors unaccountable to those whom they
command; the origin of authority is force upholding tradition; and the
sparing of human life and human suffering is a consideration that must not
be entertained when it is a question of advancing a political or military end. I
have seen both at work, and have seen the work of both; so I have the right
to make this statement. For all that, I have German and Turkish friends, and
deep affection for them, and deep admiration for many traits of character of
both nations. The trouble is that the people of Germany and the people of
Turkey allow their official and military castes to do what their own instincts
would not permit them to do. The passivity of the Turk is natural: it is his
religion, his background, and his climate. The passivity of the German is
inexcusable. He will not exorcise the devil out of his own race. It must be
done for him.

In 1888, a group of German financiers, backed by the Deutsche Bank,

which was to have so powerful a future in Turkey, asked for the concession
of a railway line from Ismidt to Angora. The construction of this line was
followed by concessions for extension from Angora to Cæsarea and for a
branch from the Ismidt-Angora line going south-west from Eski Sheir to
Konia. The extension to Cæsarea was never made. That was not the direction
in which the Germans wanted to go. The Eski Sheir-Konia spur became the
main line. The Berlin-Bagdad-Bassorah "all rail route" was born. The
Germans began to dream of connecting the Baltic with the Persian Gulf. The
Balkan Peninsula was to revert to Austria-Hungary, and Asia Minor and
Mesopotamia to Germany. The south Slavs and the populations of the
Ottoman Empire would be dispossessed (the philosopher Haeckel actually
prophesied this in a speech in 1905 before the Geographical Society of
Jena). Russia would be cut off from the Mediterranean. This was the Pan-
Germanist conception of the Bagdadbahn.

From the moment the first railway concession was granted to Germans in
Asia Minor, which coincided with the year of his accession, Wilhelm II has
been heart and soul with the development of German interests in the
Ottoman Empire. His first move in foreign politics was to visit Sultan Abdul
Hamid in 1889, when he was throwing off the yoke of Bismarck. This visit
was the beginning of an intimate connection between Wilhelmstrasse and the
Sublime Porte which has never been interrupted—excepting for a very brief
period at the beginning of the First Balkan War. The friendship between the
Sultan and the Kaiser was not in the least disturbed by the Armenian
massacres. The hecatombs of Asia Minor passed without a protest. In fact,
five days after the great massacre of August, 1896, in Constantinople, where
Turkish soldiers shot down their fellow-citizens under the eyes of the Sultan
and of the foreign ambassadors, Wilhelm II sent to Abdul Hamid for his
birthday a family photograph of himself with the Empress and his children.

In 1898, the Kaiser made his second voyage to Constantinople. This

voyage was followed by the concession extending the railway from Konia to
the Persian Gulf. It was the beginning of the Bagdadbahn in the official and
narrower sense. After this visit of the Kaiser to Abdul Hamid, the pilgrimage
was continued to the Holy Land. At Baalbek, there is a stone of typically
German taste, set in the wall of the great temple, to commemorate the visit
of the man who dreamed he would one day be master of the modern world.
If this inscription seems a sacrilege, what name have we for the large gap in
the walls of Jerusalem made for his triumphal entry to the Holy City? The
great Protestant German Church, whose corner-stone was laid by his father
in 1869, was solemnly inaugurated by the Kaiser. As solemnly, he handed
over to Catholic Germans the title to land for a hospital and religious
establishment on the road to Bethlehem. Still solemnly, at a banquet in his
honour in Damascus, he turned to the Turkish Vali, and declared: "Say to the
three hundred million Moslems of the world that I am their friend." To prove
his sincerity he went out to put a wreath upon the tomb of Saladin.

Wilhelm II at Damascus is reminiscent of Napoleon at Cairo. Egypt and

Syria and Mesopotamia have always cast a spell over men who have
dreamed of world empires; and Islam, as a unifying force for conquest, has
appealed to the imagination of others before the present German Kaiser. I
have used the word "imagination" intentionally. There never has been any
solidarity in the religion of Mohammed; there is none now; there never will
be. The idea of community of aims and community of interests is totally
lacking in the Mohammedan mind. Solidarity is built upon the foundation of
sacrifice of self for others. It is a virtue not taught in the Koran, nor ever
developed by any Mohammedan civilizations. The failure of all political
organisms of Mohammedan origin to endure and to become strong has been
due to the fact that Mohammedans have never felt the necessity of giving
themselves for the common weal. The virility of a nation is in the virile
service of those who love it. If there is no willingness to serve, no incentive
to love, how can a nation live and be strong?

The revelation of Germany's ambition by the granting of the concession

from Konia to the Persian Gulf, and the application of the German financiers
for a firman constituting the Bagdad Railway Company, led to international
intrigues and negotiations for a share in the construction of the line through
Mesopotamia. It would be wearisome and profitless to follow the various
phases of the Bagdad question. Germany did not oppose international
participation in the concession. The expense of crossing the Taurus and the
dubious financial returns from the desert sections influenced the Germans to
welcome the financial support of others in an undertaking that they would
have found great difficulty in financing entirely by their own capital. The
Bagdadbahn concession was granted in 1899: the firman constituting the
company followed in 1903.

Russia did not realize the danger of German influence at Constantinople,

and of the eventualities of the German "pacific penetration" in Asia Minor.
She adjusted the Macedonian question with Emperor Franz Josef in order to
have a free hand in Manchuria, and she made no opposition to the German
ambitions. She needed the friendly neutrality of Germany in her approaching
struggle with Japan. Once the struggle was begun, Russia found herself
actually dependent upon the goodwill of Germany. It was not the time for
Petrograd to fish in the troubled waters of the Golden Horn.

The situation was different with Great Britain. The menace of the German
approach to the Persian Gulf was brought to the British Foreign Office just
long enough before the Boer crisis became acute for a decision to be made.
Germany had sent engineers along the proposed route of her railway. She
had neglected to send diplomatic agents!

The proposed—in fact the only feasible—terminus on the Persian Gulf

was at Koweit. Like the Sultan of Muscat, the Sheik of Koweit was
practically independent of Turkey. While showing deference to the Sultan as
Khalif, Sheik Mobarek resisted every effort of the Vali of Bassorah to
exercise even the semblance of authority over his small domain. In 1899,
Colonel Meade, the British resident of the Persian Gulf, signed with
Mobarek a secret convention which assured to him "special protection," if he
would make no cession of territory without the knowledge and consent of the
British Government. The following year, a German mission, headed by the
Kaiser's Consul General at Constantinople, arrived in Koweit to arrange the
concession for the terminus of the Bagdadbahn. They were too late. The
door to the Persian Gulf was shut in the face of Germany.

Wilhelm II set into motion the Sultan. The Sublime Porte suddenly
remembered that Koweit was Ottoman territory, and began to display great
interest in forcing the Sheik to recognize the fact. A Turkish vessel appeared
at Koweit in 1901. But British warships and British bluejackets upheld the
independence of Koweit! Since the Constitution of 1908, all the efforts of
the Young Turks at Koweit have been fruitless. Germany remains blocked.

British opposition to the German schemes was not limited to the

prevention of an outlet of the Bagdadbahn at Koweit. In 1798, the East India
Company established a resident at Bagdad to spy upon and endeavour to
frustrate the influence of the French, just beginning to penetrate towards
India through the ambition of Napoleon to inherit the empire of Alexander.
Since that time, British interests have not failed to be well looked after in
Lower Mesopotamia. After the Lynch Brothers, in 1860, obtained the right
of navigating on the Euphrates, the development of their steamship lines
gradually gave Great Britain the bulk of the commerce of the whole region,
in the Persian as well as the Ottoman hinterland of the Gulf. In 1895,
German commerce in the port of Bushir was non-existent, while British
commerce surpassed twelve million francs yearly. In 1905, the market was
shared about equally between Great Britain and Germany. In 1906, the
Hamburg-American Line established a service to Bassorah. British
merchants began to raise the cry that if the Bagdadbahn appeared the
Germans would soon have not only the markets of Mesopotamia but also
that of Kermanshah. The Lynch Company declared that the Bagdadbahn
would ruin their river service, and their representations were listened to at
London, despite the absurdity of their contention. The Lynches were
negotiating with Berlin also. This mixture of politics and commerce in
Mesopotamia is a sordid story, which does not improve in the telling.

The revolution of 1908 did not injure the German influence at

Constantinople as much as has been popularly supposed. The Germans
succeeded during the first troubled year in keeping in with both sides
through the genius of Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, in spite of the
Bosnia-Herzegovina affair. Germany was fortunately out of the Cretan and
Macedonian muddles, in which her rivals were hopelessly entangled.
Mahmud Shevket pasha was always under German influence, and the
Germans had Enver bey, "hero of liberty," in training at Berlin. German
influence at Constantinople succeeded also in withstanding the strain of the
Tripolitan War, although it grew increasingly embarrassing as the months
passed to be Turkey's best friend and at the same time the ally of Italy!
During the first disastrous period of the war of the Balkan Allies against
Turkey, it seemed for the time that the enemies of Germany controlled the
Sublime Porte. But the revolver of Enver bey in the coup d'état of January,
1913, brought once more the control of Turkish affairs into hands friendly to
Germany. They have remained there ever since.

Germany strengthened her railway scheme, and her hold on the territories
through which it was to pass, by the accord with Russia at Potsdam in 1910.

The last clever attack of British diplomacy on the Bagdadbahn was

successfully met. In tracing the extension of the railway beyond Adana, it
was suggested to the Department of Public Works that the cost of
construction would be greatly reduced and the usefulness of the line
increased, if it passed by the Mediterranean littoral around the head of the
Gulf of Alexandretta. Then the control of the railway would have been at the
mercy of the British fleet. When the "revised" plans went from the Ministry
of Public Works to the Ministry of War, it was not hard for the German
agents to persuade the General Staff to restore the original route inland
across the Amanus, following the old plan agreed upon in the time of Abdul
Hamid. More than that, the Germans secured concessions for a branch line
from Aleppo to the Mediterranean at Alexandretta, and for the construction
of a port at Alexandretta. The Bagdadbahn was to have a Mediterranean
terminus at a fortified port, and Germany was to have her naval base in the
north-east corner of the Mediterranean, eight hours from Cyprus and thirty-
six hours from the Suez Canal! This was the revenge for Koweit.

A month before the Servian ultimatum, Germany had contracted to grant

a loan to Bulgaria, one of the conditions of which was that Germany be
allowed to build a railway to the Ægean across the Rhodope Mountains to
Porto Laghos, and to construct a port there, six hours from the mouth of the
Dardanelles. There was a panic in Petrograd.

The events in Turkey since the opening of the war are too recent history
and as yet too little understood to dwell upon. But the reception accorded to
the Goeben and Breslau at the Dardanelles, their present[1] anomalous
position in "closed waters" in defiance of all treaties, the abolition of the
foreign post-offices, the unilateral decision to abrogate the capitulations—all
these straws show in which direction the wind is blowing on the Bosphorus.
A successful termination of the German campaign in France, which at this
writing seems most improbable (in spite of the fact that the Germans are at
Compiègne and their aëroplanes pay us daily visits), would certainly draw
Turkey into the war—and to her ruin.[2]

[1] October, 1914.

[2] This chapter was written before the sudden and astonishing acts of
war by Turkey in sinking a Russian ship and bombarding Russian Black
Sea ports on October 29, 1914.
 On the other hand, the German reliance upon embarrassing the French
and British in their Moslem colonies through posing as the defenders of
Islam and Islam's Khalif has not been well-founded. On the battlefield of
France, thousands of followers of Mohammed from Africa and Asia are
fighting loyally under the flags of the Allies. The Kaiser, for all his dreams
and hopes, has not succeeded in getting a single Mohammedan to draw his
sword for the combined causes of Pan-Germanism and Pan-Islamism. Have
the three hundred million Moslems forgotten the declaration of Damascus?

In seeking for the causes of the present conflict, it is impossible to neglect

Germany in the Ottoman Empire. As one looks up at Pera from the
Bosphorus, the most imposing building on the hill is the German Embassy. It
dominates Constantinople. There has been woven the web that has resulted
in putting Germany in the place of Great Britain to prevent the Russian
advance to the Dardanelles, in putting Germany in the place of Russia to
threaten the British occupation of India and the trade route to India, and in
putting Germany in the place of Great Britain as the stubborn opponent of
the completion of the African Empire of France. The most conspicuous
thread of the web is the Bagdadbahn. In the intrigues of Constantinople, we
see develop the political evolution of the past generation, and the series of
events that made inevitable the European war of 1914.

CHAPTER IV
ALGECIRAS AND AGADIR

In 1904, an accord was made between Great Britain and France in regard
to colonial policy in northern Africa. Great Britain recognized the "special"
interests of France in Morocco in exchange for French recognition of Great
Britain's "special" interests in Egypt. There was a promise to defend each
other in the protection of these interests, but no actual agreement to carry
this defence beyond the exercise of diplomatic pressure. The accord was a
secret one. Its exact terms were not known until the incident of Agadir made
necessary its publication in November, 1911.

But that there was an accord was known to all the world. Germany, who
had long been looking with alarm upon the extension of French influence in
Morocco, found in 1905 a favourable moment for protest. Russia had
suffered humiliation and defeat in her war with Japan. Neither in a military
nor a financial way was she at that moment a factor to be reckoned with in
support of France. Great Britain had not recovered from the disasters to her
military organization of the South African campaign. Her domestic politics
were in a chaotic state. The Conservative Ministry was losing ground daily
in bye elections; the Irish question was coming to the front again.

German intervention in Morocco was sudden and theatrical. On March

31, 1905, a date of far-reaching importance in history, Emperor William
entered the harbour of Tangier upon his yacht, the Hohenzollern. When he
disembarked, he gave the cue to German policy by saluting the
representative of the Sultan, with peculiar emphasis, as the representative of
an independent sovereign. Then, turning to the German residents in Morocco
who had gathered to meet him, he said: "I am happy to greet in you the
devoted pioneers of German industry and commerce, who are aiding in the
task of keeping always in a high position, in a free land, the interests of the
mother country."

The repercussion of this visit to Tangier in France and in Great Britain

was electrical. It seemed to be, and was, a direct challenge on the part of
Germany for a share in shaping the destinies of Morocco. It was an answer
to the Anglo-French accord, in which Germany had been ignored. Great
Britain was in no position to go beyond mere words in the standing behind
France. France knew this. So did Germany. After several months of fruitless
negotiations between Berlin and Paris, on June 6th, it was made plain to
France that there must be a conference on the Moroccan question.

M. Delcassé, at that time directing with consummate skill and courage the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, urged upon the Cabinet the necessity for
accepting Germany's challenge. But the Cabinet, after hearing the sorrowful
confessions of the Ministers of War and Navy, and learning that France was
not ready to fight, refused to accept the advice of the Minister of Foreign
Affairs. M. Delcassé resigned. A blow had been struck at French prestige.

For six months the crisis continued in an acute stage. The chauvinistic—
or shall we say, patriotic?—elements were determined to withstand what
they called the Kaiser's interference in the domestic affairs of France. But
France seemed isolated at that moment, and prudence was the part of
wisdom. M. Rouvier declared to the Chamber of Deputies on December
16th: "France cannot be without a Moroccan policy, for the form and
direction which the evolution of Morocco will take in the future will
influence in a decisive manner the destinies of our North African
possessions." France agreed to a conference, but won from Germany the
concession that France's special interests and rights in Morocco would be
admitted as the basis of the work of the conference.

On January 17, 1906, a conference of European States, to which the

United States of America was admitted, met to decide the international status
of Morocco. For some time the attitude of the German delegates was
uncompromising. They maintained the Kaiser's thesis as set forth at Algiers:
the complete independence of Morocco, and sovereignty of her Sultan. But
they finally yielded, and acknowledged the right of France and Spain to
organize in Morocco an international police.

The Convention was signed on April 7th. It provided for: (1) police under
the sovereign authority of the Sultan, recruited from Moorish Moslems, and
distributed in the eight open ports; (2) Spanish and French officers, placed at
his disposal by their governments, to assist the Sultan; (3) limitation of the
total effective of this police force from two thousand to two thousand five
hundred, of French and Spanish officers, commissioned sixteen to twenty,
and non-commissioned thirty to forty, appointed for five years; (4) an
Inspector General, a high officer of the Swiss army, chosen subject to the
approval of the Sultan, with residence at Tangier; (5) a State Bank of
Morocco, in which each of the signatory Powers had the right to subscribe
capital; (6) the right of foreigners to acquire property, and to build upon it, in
any part of Morocco; (7) France's exclusive right to enforce regulations in
the frontier region of Algeria and a similar right to Spain in the frontier
region of Spain; (8) the preservation of the public services of the Empire
from alienation for private interests.
 Chancellor von Bülow's speech in the Reichstag on April 5, 1906, was a
justification of Germany's attitude. It showed that the policy of
Wilhelmstrasse had been far from bellicose, and that Germany's demands
were altogether reasonable. The time had come, declared the Chancellor,
when German interests in the remaining independent portions of Africa and
Asia must be considered by Europe. In going to Tangier and in forcing the
conference of Algeciras, Germany had laid down the principle that there
must be equal opportunities for Germans in independent countries, and had
demonstrated that she was prepared to enforce this principle.

When one considers the remarkable growth in population, and the

industrial and maritime evolution of Germany, this attitude cannot be
wondered at, much less condemned. Germany, deprived by her late entrance
among nations of fruitful colonies, was finding it necessary to adopt and
uphold the policy of trying to prevent the pre-emption, for the benefit of her
rivals, of those portions of the world which were still free.

Neither France nor Spain had any feeling of loyalty toward the
Convention of Algeciras. However much may have been written to prove
this loyalty, the facts of the few years following Algeciras are convincing.
After 1908, Spain provoked and led on by the tremendous expenditures
entailed upon her by the Riff campaigns began to consider the region of
Morocco in which she was installed as exclusively Spanish territory. French
writers have expended much energy and ingenuity in proving the
disinterestedness of French efforts to enforce loyally the decisions of
Algeciras. But they have explained, they have protested, too much. There
has never been a moment that France has not dreamt of the completion of the
vast colonial empire in North Africa by the inclusion of Morocco. It has been
the goal for which all her military and civil administrations in Algeria and
the Sahara have been working. To bring about the downfall of the Sultan's
authority, not only press campaigns were undertaken, but anarchy on the
Algerian frontier was allowed to go on unchecked, until military measures
seemed justifiable.

In a similar way, the German colonists of Morocco did their best to bring
about another intervention by Germany. Their methods were so despicable
and outrageous that they had frequently to be disavowed officially. In 1910,
the German Foreign Office found the claims of Mannesmann Brothers to
certain mining privileges invalid, because they did not fulfil the
requirements of the Act of Algeciras. But the Mannesmann mining group, as
well as other German enterprises in Morocco, were secretly encouraged to
make all the trouble they could for the French, while defending the authority
of the Sultan. The Casablanca incident is only one of numerous affronts
which the French were asked to swallow.

Great Britain had her part, though not through official agents, in the
intrigues. There is much food for thought in the motives that may, not
without reason, be imputed to the publication in the Times of a series of
stories of Moroccan anarchy, and of Muley Hafid's cruelties.

In the spring of 1911, it was realized everywhere in Europe that the

Sultan's authority was even less than it had been in 1905. The Berber tribes
were in arms on all sides. In March, accounts began to appear of danger at
Fez, not only to European residents, but also to the Sultan. The reports of the
French Consul, and the telegrams of correspondents of two Paris
newspapers, were most alarming. On April 2d, it was announced that the
Berber tribes had actually attacked the city and were besieging it. Everything
was prepared for the final act of the drama.

A relief column of native troops under Major Bremond arrived in Fez on

April 26th. The very next day, an urgent message for relief having been
received from Colonel Mangin in Fez, Colonel Brulard started for the capital
with another column. Without waiting for further word, a French army
which had been carefully prepared for the purpose, entered Morocco under
General Moinier. On May 21st, Fez was occupied by the French. They found
that all was well there with the Europeans and with the natives. But,
fortunately for the French plans, Muley Hafid's brother had set himself up at
Mequinez as pretender to the throne. The Sultan could now retain his
sovereignty only by putting himself under the protection of the French army.
Morocco had lost her independence!

Germany made no objection to the French expeditionary corps in April.

She certainly did not expect the quick succession of events in May which
brought her face to face with the fait accompli of a strong French army in
Fez. As soon as it was realized at Berlin that the fiction of Moroccan
independence had been so skilfully terminated, France was asked "what
compensation she would give to Germany in return for a free hand in
Morocco." The pourparlers dragged on through several weeks in June.
France refused to acknowledge any ground for compensation to Germany.
She maintained that the recent action in Morocco had been at the request of
the Sultan, and that it was a matter entirely between him and France.

Germany saw that a bold stroke was necessary. On July 1st, the gunboat
Panther went to Agadir, a port on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. To Great
Britain and to France, the dispatch of the Panther was represented as due to
the necessity of protecting German interests, seeing that there was anarchy in
that part of Morocco. But the German newspapers, even those which were
supposed to have official relations with Wilhelmstrasse, spoke as if a
demand for the cession of Mogador or some other portion of Morocco was
contemplated. The Chancellor explained to the Reichstag that the sending of
the Panther was "to show the world that Germany was firmly resolved not to
be pushed to one side."

But in the negotiations through the German Ambassador in Paris, it was

clear that Germany was playing a game of political blackmail. The German
Foreign Office shifted its claims from Morocco to concessions in Central
Africa. On July 15th, Germany asked for the whole of the French Congo
from the sea to the River Sanga, and a renunciation in her favour of France's
contingent claims to the succession of the Belgian Congo. The reason given
to this demand was, that if Morocco were to pass under a French
protectorate, it was only just that compensation should be given to Germany
elsewhere. France, for the moment, hesitated. She definitely refused to
entertain the idea of compensation as soon as she had received the assurance
of the aid of Great Britain in supporting her against the German claims.

On July 1st, the German Ambassador had notified Sir Edward Grey of the
dispatch of the Panther to Agadir "in response to the demand for protection
from German firms there," and explained that Germany considered the
question of Morocco reopened by the French occupation of Fez, and thought
that it would be possible to make an agreement with Spain and France for
the partition of Morocco. On July 4th, Sir Edward Grey, after a consultation
with the Cabinet, answered that Great Britain could recognize no change in
Morocco without consulting France, to whom she was bound by treaty. The
Ambassador then explained that his Government would not consider the
reopening of the question in a European conference, that it was a matter
directly between Germany and France, and that his overture to Sir Edward
Grey had been merely in the nature of a friendly explanation.

Germany believed that the constitutional crisis in Great Britain was so

serious that the hands of the Liberal Cabinet would be tied, and that they
would not be so foolhardy as to back up France at the moment when they
themselves were being so bitterly assailed by the most influential elements
of the British electorate on the question of limiting the veto power of the
House of Lords. It was in this belief that Germany on July 15th asked for
territorial cessions from France in Central Africa. Wilhelmstrasse thought the
moment well chosen, and that there was every hope of success.

But the German mentality has never seemed to appreciate the frequent
lesson of history, that the British people are able to distinguish clearly
between matters of internal and external policy. Bitterly assailed as a traitor
to his country because he advocates certain changes of laws, a British
Cabinet Minister can still be conscious of the fact that his bitterest opponents
will rally around him when he takes a stand on a matter of foreign policy.
This knowledge of admirable national solidarity enabled Mr. Lloyd George
on July 21st, the very day on which the King gave his consent to the creation
of new peers to bring the House of Lords to reason, at a Mansion House
banquet, to warn Germany against the danger of pressing her demands upon
France. The effect, both in London and Paris, was to unify and strengthen
resistance. It seemed as if the Panther's visit to Agadir had put Germany in
the unenviable position of having made a threat which she could not enforce.

But the ways of diplomacy are tortuous. Throughout August and

September, Germany blustered and threatened. In September, several events
happened which seemed to embarrass Russia and tie her hands, as in the first
Moroccan imbroglio of 1905. For Premier Stolypin was assassinated at Kiev
on September 14th; the United States denounced its commercial treaty with
Russia on account of the question of Jewish passports; and the Shuster affair
in Persia occupied the serious attention of Russian diplomacy. Had it not
been for the splendidly loyal and scrupulous attitude of the British Foreign
Office towards Russia in the Persian question, Germany might have been
tempted to force the issue with France.
 German demands grew more moderate, but were not abandoned. For
members of the House of Commons, of the extreme Radical wing in the
Liberal party, began to put the British Government in an uncomfortable
position. Militarism, entangling alliances with a continental Power, the
necessity for agreement with Germany,—these were the subjects which
found their way from the floor of the House of Commons to the public press.
A portion of the Liberal party which had to be reckoned with believed that
Germany ought not to have been left out of the Anglo-French agreement. So
serious was the dissatisfaction, that the Government deemed it necessary to
make an explanation to the House. Sir Edward Grey explained and defended
the action of the Cabinet in supporting the resistance of France to Germany's
claims. The whole history of the negotiation was revealed. The Anglo-
French agreement of 1904 was published for the first time, and it was seen
that this agreement did not commit Great Britain to backing France by force
of arms.

Uncertainty of British support had the influence of bringing France to

consent to treat with Germany on the Moroccan question. Two agreements
were signed. By the first, Germany recognized the French protectorate in
Morocco, subject to the adhesion of the signers of the Convention of
Algeciras, and waived her right to take part in the negotiations concerning
Moroccan spheres of influence between Spain and France. On her side,
France agreed to maintain the open door in Morocco, and to refrain from any
measures which would hinder the legitimate extension of German
commercial and mining interests. By the second agreement, France ceded to
Germany, in return for German cessions, certain territories in southern and
eastern Kamerun.

There was a stormy Parliamentary and newspaper discussion, both in

France and Germany, over these two treaties. No one was satisfied. The
treaties were finally ratified, but under protest.

In France, the Ministry was subject to severe criticism. There was also
some feeling of bitterness—perhaps a reaction from the satisfaction over Mr.
Lloyd George's Mansion House speech—in the uncertainty of Great Britain's
support, as revealed by the November discussions in the House of
Commons. This uncertainty remained, as far as French public opinion went,
until Great Britain actually declared war upon Germany in August, 1914.
 In Germany, the Reichstag debates revealed the belief that the Agadir
expedition had, on final analysis, resulted in a fiasco. An astonishing amount
of enmity against Great Britain was displayed. It was when Herr Heydebrand
made a bitter speech against Great Britain, and denounced the pacific
attitude of the German Government, in the Reichstag session of November
10th, that the Crown Prince made public his position in German foreign
policy by applauding loudly.

The aftermath of Agadir, as far as it affected Morocco, resulted in the

establishment of the French Protectorate, on March 30, 1912. The Sultan
signed away his independence by the Treaty of Fez. Foreign legations at Fez
ceased to exist, although diplomatic officials were retained at Tangier.
France voted the maintenance of forty thousand troops in Morocco "for the
purposes of pacification." The last complications disappeared when, on
November 27th, a Franco-Spanish Treaty was signed at Madrid, in which the
Spanish zones in Morocco were defined, and both states promised not to
erect fortifications or strategic works on the Moroccan coast.

But the aftermath of Agadir in France and Germany has been an increase
in naval and military armaments, and the creation of a spirit of tension which
needed only the three years of war in the Ottoman Empire to bring about the
inevitable clash between Teuton and Gaul. Taken in connection with the
recent events in Alsace and Lorraine, and the voting of the law increasing
military service in France to three years, the logical sequence of events is
clear.

CHAPTER V
THE PASSING OF PERSIA

The weakness of the Ottoman Empire and of Morocco served to bring the
colonial and commercial aspiration of Germany into conflict with other
nations of Europe. The recent fortunes of Persia, the third—and only other—
independent Mohammedan state, have also helped to make possible the
general European war.

The first decade of the twentieth century brought about in Persia, as in

Turkey, the rise of a constitutional party, which was able to force a despotic
sovereign to grant a constitution. The Young Persians had in many respects a
history similar to that of the Young Turks. They were for the most part
members of influential families, who had been educated in Europe, or had
been sent into exile. They had imbibed deeply the spirit of the French
Revolution from their reading, and had at the same time developed a narrow
and intense nationalism. But to support their revolutionary propaganda, they
had allied themselves during the period of darkness with the Armenians and
other non-Moslems. As Salonika, a city by no means Turkish, was the foyer
of the young Turk movement, so Tabriz, capital of the Azerbaidjan, a city by
no means Persian, was the centre of the opposition to Persian despotism.

Young Turks, Young Persians, Young Egyptians, Young Indians, and

Young Chinese have shown to Europe and America the peril—and the pity—
of our western and Christian education, when it is given to eastern and non-
Christian students. They are born into the intellectual life with our ideas and
are inspired by our ideals, but have none of the background, none of the
inheritance of our national atmosphere and our family training to enable
them to live up to the standards we have put before them. Their
disillusionment is bitter. They resent our attitude of superiority. They hate us,
even though they feign to admire us. Their jealousy of our institutions leads
them to console themselves by singling out and forcing themselves to see
only the weak and vulnerable points in our civilization. Educated in our
universities, they return to their countries to conspire against us. The
illiterate and simple Oriental, who has never travelled, is frequently the
model of fidelity and loyalty and affection to his Occidental master or friend.
But no educated non-Christian Oriental, who has travelled and studied and
lived on terms of equality with Europeans or Americans in Europe or
America, can ever be a sincere friend. The common result of social contact
and intellectual companionship is that he becomes a foe,—and conceals the
fact. Familiarity has bred more than contempt.

The Young Persians would have no European aid. They waited, and
suffered. Finally, after a particularly bad year from the standpoint of
financial exactions, the Moslem clergy of the North were drawn into the
Young Persia movement. A revolution, in which the Mohammedan mullahs
took part, compelled the dying Shah, Muzaffereddin, to issue a decree
ordering the convocation of a medjliss (committee of notables) on August 5,
1906. This improvised Parliament, composed only of delegates of the
provinces nearest the capital, drafted a constitution which was promulgated
on New Year's Day, 1907. The following week, Muzaffereddin died and was
succeeded by his son, Mohammed Ali Mirza, a reactionary of the worst type.

Mohammed Ali had no intention of putting the Constitution into force. A

serious revolution broke out in Tabriz a few weeks after his accession. He
was compelled to acknowledge the Constitution granted by his father. In
order to nullify its effect, however, the new Shah called to the Grand
Vizierate the exiled Ali Asgar Khan, whom he believed to be strong enough
to overrule the wishes of the Parliament. The Constitutionalists formed a
society of fedavis to prevent the return to absolutism. At their instigation, Ali
Asgar Khan was assassinated. The country fell into an anarchic state.

Constitutional Persia, as much because of the inexperience of the

Constitutionalists as of the ill-will of the Shah, was worse off than under the
despotism of Muzaffereddin. There was no money in the treasury. The
peasants would not pay their taxes. One can hardly blame them, for not a
cent of the money ever went for local improvements or local government.
Throughout Persia, even in the cities, life was unsafe. The Persians, no more
than the Turks, could call forth from the ranks of their enthusiasts a
progressive and fearless statesman of the type of Stambuloff or Venizelos. In
their Parliament they all talked at once. None was willing to listen to his
neighbour. It may have been because there was no Mirabeau. But could a
Mirabeau have overcome the fatal defects of the Mohammedan training and
character that made the Young Persians incapable of realizing the
constitutionalism of their dreams? Every man was suspicious and jealous of
his neighbour. Every man wanted to lead, and none to be led. Every man
wanted power without responsibility, prestige without work, success without
sacrifice.

It was at this moment that one of the most significant events of

contemporary times was helped to fruition by the state of affairs in Persia.
Great Britain and Russia, rivals—even enemies—in western and central
Asia, signed a convention. Their conflicting ambitions were amicably
compromised. Along with the questions of Afghanistan and Thibet, this
accord settled the rivalry that had done much to keep Persia a hotbed of
diplomatic intrigue like Macedonia ever since the Crimean War.

In regard to Persia, the two Powers solemnly swore to respect its integrity
and its independence, and then went on to sign its death warrant, by agreeing
upon the question of "the spheres of influence." In spite of all sophisms, this
convention marked the passing of Persia as an independent state. Persia is
worse off than Morocco and Egypt. For one master is better than two!

Here enters Germany. For many years German merchants had looked
upon Persia as they looked upon Morocco and Turkey. Here were the
legitimate fields for commercial expansion. Probably there were also dreams
of political advantages to be gained later. In their dealings with the three
Moslem countries that were still "unprotected" when they inaugurated their
Weltpolitik, the Germans had been attentive students of British policy in the
days of her first entry into India and to Egypt. There were many Germans
who honestly believed that their activities in these independent Moslem
countries would only give them "their place under the sun," and a legitimate
field for the overflow of their population and national energy, but that it
would also be a distinct advantage to the peace of the world. Great Britain
and Russia and France had already divided up between them the larger part
of Asia and Africa. In the process, Great Britain had recently come almost to
blows with both her rivals. If Germany stepped in between them, would this
not prevent a future conflict? But the rivals "divided up." Germany was left
out in the cold. It is not a very far cry from Teheran and Koweit and Fez to
Liège and Brussels and Antwerp. Belgium is paying the bill.

The Anglo-Russian convention of August 31, 1907, was the first of three
doors slammed in Germany's face. The Anglo-French convention of April 8,
1904, had been an attempt to do this. But by Emperor William's visit to
Tangiers in 1905, Germany got in her foot before the door was closed! In
Persia there was no way that she could intervene directly to demand that
Great Britain and Russia bring their accord before an international congress.

Germany began to work in Persia through two agencies. She incited

Turkey to cross the frontier of the Azerbaidjan, and to make the perfectly
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