[Footnote 533:  The following facts are significant.  On November 9, 1911, the Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, assured the Reichstag that Germany had never intended to annex Moroccan territory, an assertion confirmed by Kiderlen-Waechter on Nov. 17.  But during the libel action brought against the Berlin Post it was positively affirmed that the Government and Kiderlen-Waechter had intended to annex South-West Morocco.  A high official, Dr. Heilbronn, telephoned so to the Post, urging it to demand that step.]

Whatever were the real aims of the Kaiser, they ran counter to French and British interests.  Moreover, the warning of Sir Edward Grey, on July 4, that we must be consulted as to any new developments, was completely ignored; and even on July 21 the German ambassador in London could give no assurance as to the policy of his Government.  Consequently, on that evening Mr. Lloyd George, during a speech at the Mansion House, apprised Germany that any attempt to treat us as a negligible factor in the Cabinet of Nations “would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure.”  The tension must have been far more severe than appeared in the published documents to induce so peace-loving a Minister to speak in those terms.  They aroused a storm of passion in the German Press; and, somewhat later, a German admiral, Stiege, declared that they would have justified an immediate declaration of war by Germany[534].  Certainly they were more menacing than is usual in diplomatic parlance; but our cavalier treatment by Germany (possibly due to Bethmann-Hollweg’s belief in blunt Bismarckian ways) justified a protest, which, after all, was less questionable than Germany’s despatching a cruiser to Agadir, owing to the reserve of the French Foreign Office.  Up to July 27 the crisis remained acute; but on that day the German ambassador gave assurances as to a probable agreement with France.

[Footnote 534:  Rear-Admiral Stiege in Ueberall for March 1912.]

What caused the change of front at Berlin?  Probably it was due to a sharp financial crisis (an unexpected result of the political crisis), which would have produced a general crash in German finance, then in an insecure position; and prudence may have counselled the adoption of the less ambitious course, namely a friendly negotiation with the French for territorial expansion in their Congo territory in return for the recognition of their protectorate of Morocco.  Such a compromise (which, as we shall see, was finally arrived at) involved no loss for Germany.  On the contrary, she gained fertile districts in the tropics and left the French committed to the Morocco venture, which, at great cost to them, would tend finally to benefit commerce in general, and therefore that of Germany.