Also, before the end of these discussions there occurred two events which might well dispose the Kaiser to a compromise with France.  Firstly, as a result of his negotiations with Russia (then beset by severe dearth) he secured larger railway and trading concessions in Persia, the compact of August 19 opening the door for further German enterprises in the Levant.  Secondly, on September 29, Italy declared war on Turkey, partly (it is said) because recent German activity in Tripoli menaced the ascendancy which she was resolved to acquire in that land.  This event greatly deranged the Kaiser’s schemes.  He had hoped to keep the Triple Alliance intact, and yet add to it the immense potential fighting force of Turkey and the Moslem World.  Now, however he might “hedge,” he could hardly avoid offending either Rome or Constantinople; and even if he succeeded, his friends would exhaust each other and be useless for the near future.  Consequently, the Italo-Turkish War (with its sequel, the Balkan War of 1912) dealt him a severe blow.  The Triple Alliance was at once strained nearly to breaking-point by Austria forbidding Italy to undertake naval operations in the Adriatic (probably also in the Aegean).  Equally serious was the hostility of Moslems to Europeans in general which compromised the Kaiser’s schemes for utilising Islam.  Accordingly, for the present, his policy assumed a more peaceful guise.

Here, doubtless, are the decisive reasons for the Franco-German accord of November 4, 1911, whereby the Berlin Government recognised a French protectorate over Morocco and agreed not to interfere in the Franco-Spanish negotiation still pending.  France opened certain “closed” ports (among them Agadir), and guaranteed equality of trading rights to all nations.  She also ceded to Germany about 100,000 square miles of fertile land in the north-west of her Congo territory, which afforded access to the rivers Congo and Ubangi.  The explosion of Teutonic wrath produced by these far from unfavourable conditions revealed the magnitude of the designs that prompted the coup of Agadir.  The Colonial Minister at once resigned; and scornful laughter greeted the Chancellor when he announced to the Reichstag that the Berlin would be withdrawn from that port, the protection of German subjects being no longer necessary.  He added that Germany would neither fight for Southern Morocco nor dissipate her strength in distant expeditions.  In fact, he would “avoid any war which was not required by German honour.”  Far different was the tone of the Conservative leader, Herr Heydebrand, who declared Mr. Lloyd George’s “challenge” to be one which the German people would not tolerate; England had sought to involve them in a war with France, but they now saw “where the real enemy was to be found.”  The Crown Prince, who was present, loudly applauded these Anglophobe outbursts.  The German Press showed no less bitterness.  Besides criticising the Chancellor’s blustering beginning and huckstering conclusion, they manifested a resolve that Germany should always and everywhere succeed.  The Berlin journal, the Post, went so far as to call the Kaiser ce poltron miserable for giving up South Morocco; and it was clear that a large section of the German people ardently desired war with the Western Powers.