The New Map of Europe (1911-1914). Herbert Adams Gibbons

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.