Agadir Crisis

Agadir Crisis
Part of the causes of World War I

SMS Panther in the Bay of Agadir
DateJuly–November 1911
Location
Result Morocco–Congo Treaty
Territorial
changes
Belligerents
 Germany
Commanders and leaders
German Empire Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter

The Agadir Crisis, Agadir Incident, or Second Moroccan Crisis was a brief crisis sparked by the deployment of a substantial force of French troops in the interior of Morocco in July 1911 and the deployment of the German gunboat SMS Panther to Agadir, a Moroccan Atlantic port.[1] Germany did not object to France's expansion but wanted territorial compensation for itself. Berlin threatened warfare, sent a gunboat, and stirred up German nationalists. Negotiations between Berlin and Paris resolved the crisis on 4 November 1911: France took over Morocco as a protectorate in exchange for territorial concessions to German Cameroon from the French Congo.[2]

In Britain, David Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a dramatic "Mansion House" speech on 21 July 1911 – with the consent of prime minister H. H. Asquith and Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, bypassing the non-interventionist majority in the Cabinet – that denounced the German move as an intolerable humiliation.[2] There was talk of war and Germany backed down; relations between Berlin and London worsened and the British moved closer to France. Berlin felt humiliated and began to realize that it was operating with no allies against multiple adversaries.[3]

  1. ^ "Agadir Incident | European history". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  2. ^ a b Clark, Christopher (2013). The Sleepwalkers. HarperCollins. pp. 208–210. ISBN 978-0-06-219922-5. OCLC 1002090920.
  3. ^ Clark 2013, pp. 204–213.

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