unal.
Both King Edward and the czar were visitors in France during 1909.
The French, Italian, and Spanish fleets passed in review before
President Fallieres at Nice in March, 1909. A general strike, though
of short duration only, was indicative of the general feeling of
unrest which pervaded the country. The Clemenceau Ministry fell
under an assault from the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Delcasse,
and was succeeded by one headed by M. Briand. In February, 1909, a
new agreement was signed between France and Germany, embodying the
general principles of French political preponderance and German
commercial equality in Morocco. This year 1910 again brought signs
of the general social unrest in the form of various strikes, the
most important of which was that of the employees of the Nord
Railway. This threatened to assume dangerous proportions, but was
suppressed by M. Briand's prompt action by issuing a mobilization
order to the strikers, and thereby, having turned them into
reservists, made them subject to military law.
M. Briand resigned in February, 1911, and was succeeded by M. Monis
and a Radical Cabinet, which, however, included M. Delcasse as
Minister of Marine. New wine riots taxed the ingenuity of the new
cabinet to its utmost before order was restored. In June, 1911, M.
Monis, who had been seriously injured in an aeroplane accident which
killed Minister of War Berteaux, resigned on account of ill health
and was followed by M. Caillaux, Minister of Finance in the Monis
Cabinet. In the late fall, 1911, the German-French difficulties
about Morocco were finally settled by another treaty reiterating the
general principles of the 1909 treaty, but arranging also for an
exchange of territory between France and Germany in the Congo, by
which Germany gained some 100,000 square miles to the east and south
of its Cameroons colony.
Although this adjustment was not considered as particularly
advantageous to Germany in that country itself, it aroused even more
criticism in France, and resulted, in January, 1912, in the downfall
of the Caillaux Cabinet. The president called upon M. Poincare to
form a new cabinet. In the meantime an understanding concerning
Morocco had also been reached with Spain, and a treaty between the
two countries was signed. It is significant that during the
conferences held at Madrid between the Spanish Minister of Foreign
Affairs and the French Ambassador, the English Ambassador was
present at th
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