Second Morocco crisis

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The gunboat SMS Panther

The second Morocco crisis , also known as the Panther Jump to Agadir , was triggered in 1911 by the dispatch of the German gunboat Panther to Agadir on the personal orders of Wilhelm II , after French troops had occupied Fez and Rabat . The Panther , which arrived on July 1, 1911 , was replaced after a few days by two other German warships, the small cruiser SMS Berlin and the gunboat SMS Eber . The aim of the German action was the cession of colonial areas of France to the German Empire in return for the acceptance of French rule over Morocco as a result of the first Morocco crisis . Threatening gestures such as sending the panthers should lend weight to this demand.

prehistory

Between around 1880 and 1914 there was a race for Africa : from 1880 onwards, European imperialism changed . Before an “informal” imperialism, characterized by military and economic superiority, was applied, around 1880 more and more direct imperialism crystallized. Its characteristic was the direct influence of European states in affairs of African tribes and countries.

All attempts to regulate imperialist competition, for example through the Congo Conference , failed. The conflicts over the African colonies were part of the global striving for power of European governments and rulers that led to the First World War.

With the conclusion of the Franco-Spanish treaty of November 27, 1912, Spain was granted its own zone of influence (Zone d'influence espagnole): in the north the coastal area on the Mediterranean Sea and the Rif Mountains and in the south a strip with the province of Tarfaya . Spain established the Spanish-Morocco Protectorate in these areas, with Tetouan as its capital.

Outbreak of the crisis

On May 21, 1911, French troops under General Charles Moinier marched into Morocco and occupied Fez and Rabat . The move from Paris was justified by the fact that there had been a call for help from Sultan Mulai Abd al-Hafiz . At the same time he was involved in disputes with rebel tribes. France stated that by intervening it wanted to prevent civil war and strengthen the sultan's authority. After the French troops marched in, the Sultan denied having asked for help and stressed that he would continue to adhere to the Algeciras Act . Nevertheless, he was grateful for the suppression of the uprisings directed against him. The Sultanate of Morocco had remained independent until then when the Ottoman Empire was divided; Since the colonization of Algeria, however, it has found itself under increasing pressure from France. In addition, German and French arms companies vied for the country's rich ore deposits and the associated arms trade.

During the French action, Spain also began to put its troops on alert, as the kingdom's interests were threatened by the military presence of France in the immediate neighboring country.

The "panther jump to Agadir"

SMS Berlin before Agadir (1911)

Now the Foreign Office under State Secretary Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter stepped in . Colonial and alliance policy considerations by the Federal Foreign Office were behind the aggressive action in Morocco. On the one hand, the Agadir action (similar to the First Morocco Crisis ) was intended to drive a wedge between the allies Great Britain and France, and on the other hand, the State Secretary had Central African compensations in mind, which should establish a long-term connection between German Cameroon and German East Africa . In the course of the negotiations between Kiderlen-Waechter and the French ambassador Jules Cambon , in which the focus was on compensation ideas from the start, German foreign policy increasingly saw itself in the dichotomy of using energetic rhetoric to gain advantages in the negotiations without a war, in which one saw Great Britain on the side of France, to provoke.

The Foreign Office asked SMS Panther , which was on the way to Germany for a major overhaul, to call at Agadir, where it appeared on July 1, 1911. This intervention was enthusiastically celebrated in German newspapers with headlines such as "West Morocco German!" , "Hurray, a deed!" And "When will we march?"

The British government asked the reason for the panthers ' presence , and in the absence of an answer, Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George, following an appointment with Prime Minister Asquith and Foreign Secretary Edward Gray , declared in a speech on July 21 that his country would be if it were German Challenge to stand by France's side. This was followed by a trial mobilization and the imposition of a holiday ban for the military, as well as additional coal purchases and the observation of German warship movements in the North Sea.

As during the first Moroccan crisis, Great Britain feared that the aim of the German Empire would be to establish a naval base in Agadir in order to control the extremely important British sea routes to Egypt, the Suez Canal and India (then British India ). At that time the German-British arms race was in full swing; relations between the two countries were very tense. However, the German government under Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg did not consider it necessary to consult other powers, which contributed to the misunderstanding. In addition, Great Britain did not want to watch as France would be eliminated by Germany as an independent great power in the event of a military conflict. As a result, Great Britain took the side of France, which was then not ready to make the concessions it had hoped for to Germany.

The official reason for sending the panthers was a threat to German companies in southern Morocco ("des maisons allemandes, établies au Sud du Maroc et notamment à Agadir et dans ses environs"). A corresponding call for help was initiated by the Hamburg-Morocco Society under the direction of Wilhelm Regendanz at the request of the Foreign Office and was only signed on Wilhelmstrasse after July 1.

Because the German answer came only after Lloyd George's speech and was not very convincing, the impression arose all over the world of retreating from the British threat. Even in Germany itself, this process was perceived as a failure by many. The German Reich, which has been isolated since then, threatened war more and more openly, but at the same time did not want to risk it. Then part of the German public began to accuse Kaiser Wilhelm II of cowardice. Politicians who called for preventive war gained influence.

The Panther was, briefly interrupted by a carbon uptake in Santa Cruz , until July 25 before Agadir, without any action on land to do. On July 4th it was reinforced by the cruiser SMS Berlin . At the end of July, a French army unit disguised as a trade caravan appeared and hoisted the French flag on the Kaspha of Agadir. The commander of the Berlin , Frigate Captain Löhlein, asked for instructions by telegram, which were then answered with "wait and see". The matter was settled through diplomatic channels and the French flag was brought down again. The cruiser Berlin left Agadir on November 28, 1911. The gunboat Eber , which had replaced the Panther in the meantime, was also withdrawn.

Resolving the crisis

The crisis was finally settled on November 4, 1911 with the Morocco-Congo Treaty , in which the German Empire waived its claims in Morocco and was compensated for it with part of the French colony of French Equatorial Africa ( New Cameroon ).

The territorial gains were only a fraction of what the German government had aimed for. This crisis further exacerbated the foreign policy isolation of the German Reich in Europe. The result achieved in the Morocco-Congo Agreement was disappointed in the German press and public as the “new Olomouc”, referring to the diplomatic defeat of Prussia in the Olomouc punctuation of 1850. The Reichstag debate with Bethmann Hollweg's defending speech was under this sign. The Chancellor had to defend his backsliding against a majority who would have let it go to the extreme and accused the government of being sloppy. Only August Bebel, as a representative of a party on which he did not want to base his policy, stood by him. Thus, the second Morocco crisis revealed not only Germany's isolation in foreign policy, but also the dwindling authority of the imperial authorities within. The domestic political repercussions that had been hoped for from a successful Moroccan policy did not materialize, and even worsened the political climate, so that the “black and blue bloc” suffered a severe defeat in the 1912 Reichstag elections .

In 1912 Morocco lost its sovereignty to France in the Treaty of Fez . France established the protectorate of French Morocco .

Protest rallies in Europe

The second Morocco crisis was the most dangerous conflict between the European powers to date. Many people were aware of the danger of a world war and accordingly diverse protests were raised. In most European countries, crowds took to the streets or gathered in large halls to protest against the threat of war. In addition to bourgeois pacifists and liberal armaments opponents, the most important actors in these protests were European social democracy and, in many countries, the trade union movement. Rallies, demonstrations and assemblies were held regularly in Paris and other French cities. Trade unionists or representatives of the respective social democratic or workers' parties from the countries involved in the conflict were invited demonstratively. In the United Kingdom, too, people gathered in numerous cities to protest against the threat of war. Here, however, the Moroccan crisis fell into a phase of radicalized labor disputes that the country had never seen before, which even resulted in the deployment of the military. On August 13th, several thousand people gathered in London's Trafalgar Square and held a rally with French workers who were just there.

Meanwhile, the largest rallies took place in Germany, where the SPD, the socialist workers' party with the largest number of members in the world, existed. For a long time, however, the party executive found it difficult to even publish a statement on the conflict or to call for protests. The SPD leadership refused to convene a special session of the ISB (International Socialist Office, institution of the socialist Second International). This behavior was particularly sharply criticized by Rosa Luxemburg and by the left wing of the party with the help of the Leipziger Volkszeitung , which, after violent attacks on the party left around Luxemburg, finally moved the board to mobilize mass protests. Throughout August, mass protest meetings took place practically every day in many places - the largest of them on September 3 in Berlin. More than 200,000 people gathered here in Treptower Park to protest against the threat of war. This demonstration was probably the largest that had taken place worldwide up to then.

literature

  • Thomas Meyer: At last an act, a liberating act ...: Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter's "Panther's Jump to Agadir" under pressure from public opinion . (Historical studies) Matthiesen-Verlag, Husum 1996 (dissertation, HHU Düsseldorf )

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Luciano Canfora : August 1914. Or: Do you make war because of an assassination attempt? Cologne 2010, p. 36
  2. ^ Telegram from the Admiralty dated June 26, 1911
  3. ^ Telegram from the Admiralty dated June 28, 1911
  4. ↑ Gerd Fesser : The panther jump to Agadir. The road to World War I began on July 1, 1911 with the German naval adventure off the coast of Morocco. In: Die Zeit , No. 27, June 30, 2011, p. 24
  5. ↑ Emily Oncken : Panther jump to Agadir. German politics during the Second Morocco Crisis in 1911 , Düsseldorf 1981, p. 234
  6. ^ Golo Mann : German History of the 19th and 20th Centuries , 1958, p. 542
  7. ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: Die deutscher Kriegsschiffe , 5th volume, p. 40
  8. ^ The Great Politics of the European Cabinets 1871–1914. Collection of Diplomatic Files of the Foreign Office, ed. v. Johannes Lepsius, Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Friedrich Thimme, 29th vol., Berlin 1927, No. 10578.
  9. ↑ Willibald Gutsche : Monopolies, State and Expansion before 1914. On the functional mechanism between industrial monopolies, big banks and state organs in the foreign policy of the German Reich 1897 to summer 1914 , Berlin 1986, p. 145.
  10. ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships
  11. ↑ Klaus Wernecke: The will for world recognition. Foreign policy and the public in the German Empire on the eve of the First World War, Düsseldorf 1970, p. 62.
  12. ^ Golo Mann : German History of the 19th and 20th Centuries , 1958, pp. 542/543
  13. ↑ Petty bourgeois or proletarian world politics? in: RLGW 3, pp. 26-31; Our Morocco Flyer , in: RLGW 3, pp. 32–36.
  14. ↑ Forward , September 4, 1911.
  15. ↑ Review (pdf) by Rolf-Ulrich Kunze