1911] Germans at Agadir 351 



dined with us, declared the French Government will not fight. The 

 French Government are in the throes of the reconstruction of their 

 Cabinet, Monis having resigned, and the moment has been well chosen 

 by the Germans for their coup. 



" 5f/i July. — The ' Daily Telegraph ' has a paragraph saying that 

 Kitchener is to have Gorst's place at Cairo. 



" yth July. — The position in Morocco is very serious. I have been 

 talking it over with Belloc. He is sure there has been an understand- 

 ing between the German and French Governments about Agadir, and 

 that the quarrel will be settled at our English expense. Agadir, he 

 says, is of great importance to Germany, as the only possible seaport on 

 the Moroccan Atlantic coast, and is of no importance to France in 

 any hostile sense. The hostility is all towards us. Also he says that 

 the French and Germans are too much afraid of each other to go to 

 war, and that France will not join us in any attempt to expel Ger- 

 many from its African position (at Agadir) unless we can guarantee 

 her the support of a hundred and fifty thousand men landed on her 

 frontier in France, a force we are unable to provide. We shall have 

 therefore to make up our minds either to submit to the German 

 seizure of Agadir or to go to war with Germany alone or find her 

 compensation elsewhere. Where can we find such? Our Govern- 

 ment seems aware of the position, for Asquith made a declaration yes- 

 terday in Parliament that England had interests of her own in Morocco 

 separate from those entailed on her by her engagements to France. 

 The question may possibly lead to war, though more likely to Ger- 

 many's keeping Agadir." 



[This shows, as an early link, the connection between France's 

 invasion of Morocco in 191 1 and the great war of 1914, with the 

 part we played in it as France's ally, supplying a contingent in a land 

 campaign against Germany.] 



" gth July (Sunday). — Lady Gregory is here. She has been very 

 successful this year with her plays, having cleared £500 by her theatri- 

 cal visit to London, and got £3,000 of subscriptions, while Yeats has 

 received a Government pension of £150. The King and Queen are in 

 Ireland, where they are having a loyal reception carefully prepared 

 for them, though the Dublin Corporation has refused to vote a penny 

 or authorize an address. 



" Belloc dined with us. His view that the occupation of Agadir 

 was arranged beforehand between the French and German Govern- 

 ments seems the correct one. They seem to be on excellent terms with 

 each other, and it is we that are to be left out in the cold. There is 

 sufficient danger of war to have made me write to my bankers about it. 

 "nth July. — Newbuildings. The anniversary of the Bombard- 

 ment of Alexandria. Miss Howsin came from King's Mead, where 



