Berlin

Wile was indignant over Britain’s response. All he had done, he protested, was to send “a little ship with only two or three popguns” to support German interests in Morocco. He asked London’s ambassador to Berlin why Britain was always so quick to condemn “its only real friend in Europe.” But he could do no more than verbally protest. Germany’s envisaged weapon of intimidation, its High Seas Fleet, was still only partially built. Bowing to international pressure, Berlin recalled the Panther. Shortly thereafter, a settlement was arbitrated whereby France was acknowledged as the dominant power in Morocco, while Germany obtained a large but commercially worthless stretch of swampland in the Congo.

This was obviously another diplomatic defeat for the Reich; and once again it was England that was seen to be standing directly athwart the path of German destiny. As Ernst von Heydebrand und der Lasa, a Conservative delegate to the Reichstag, expostulated:

Like a flash in the night, this has shown the German people where the enemy is. We now know when we wish to expand in the world, when we wish to have our place in the sun, who it is that lays claim to world-wide domination. . . . Gentlemen, we Germans are not in the habit of permitting this sort of thing and the German people will know how to reply. . . . We shall secure peace, not by concessions, but by the German sword.

Yet many Germans were not so sure that their government would take a tough line. Germany’s rulers, especially the kaiser, seemed determined to talk loudly but to carry a little stick. “Have we become a generation of women?” asked the Berlin Post. “What is the matter with the Hohenzollerns?” Lamenting that Germany had become more unpopular than ever without acquiring any colonial assets of consequence, Maximilian Harden of

Die Zukunft declared that the Moroccan settlement was “the last nail in the coffin of German prestige.”

But there were still more nails to come. Despite its indignation over Britain’s behavior in the Second Moroccan Crisis, Berlin remained ever hopeful of prying London away from its partnership with Paris and St. Petersburg. In February 1912 the German government invited Britain’s secretary of war, Lord Richard Burdon Hal-dane, to come to Berlin to discuss the international situation. Germany wanted a pledge from Britain to remain neutral in case the Reich went to war with a third party—say, France. But Haldane could hardly promise that Britain would stay out of a conflict in which Berlin was the aggressor, nor would London consent to any commitments unless Germany agreed to scale back its fleet construction. As it happened, Tirpitz had submitted a request to the Reichstag for more ships on the very day that Lord Haldane arrived in Berlin. The English lord firmly stated London’s case for a smaller German navy, then returned home. In terms of Anglo-German relations, the Haldane Mission was a bust.

Kaiser Wile, who had not played a significant role in the Haldane talks, was convinced that London had acted disrespectfully toward Berlin by making demands that no great power could accept. But he was proud that his government had made no concessions when it came to his precious navy. Moreover, he was sure that a hard line would eventually bring Britain around. “I have shown the English that, when they touch our armaments, they bite on granite. Perhaps by this I have increased their hatred but won their respect, which will induce them in due course to resume negotiations, it is to be hoped in a more modest tone and with a more fortunate result.”

Better relations with Britain seemed particularly pressing in 1912-13 because there was serious trouble brewing in the Balkans, where the Germans and their Austrian allies were competing with the Russians to pick up the pieces of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. Berlin became alarmed when, in 1912, a coalition of Serbs, Montenegrins, Bulgarians, and Greeks pushed the Turks out of their remaining holdings in the Balkan region. These peoples would never have acted so boldly, Berlin believed, without encouragement from St. Petersburg. The upheaval not only imperiled German interests in the region but threatened to compromise the viability of the Habsburg Monarchy, with its huge population of restive Slavs. To Wile, the Slavs posed an even greater danger than the Yellow Peril. “I hate the Slavs,” he told Austria’s military attache to Berlin. “I know it’s a sin but I cannot help myself. I hate the Slavs.” Wile let Austria know that if it saw fit to move against the Serbs, it could count on support from Berlin.