In the throes of a sharp constitutional crisis, and beset by
acute Labour troubles, she was ill-fitted even to defend herself. By the
close of 1911 the Navy would include only fourteen first-class ships as
against Germany's nine; while Austria was also becoming a Naval Power.
The weakness of France and England had appeared in the spring when they
gave way before Germany's claims in Asia Minor. On March 18, 1911, by a
convention with Turkey she acquired the right to construct from the
Bagdad Railway a branch line to Alexandretta, together with large
privileges over that port which made it practically German, and the
natural outlet for Mesopotamia and North Syria, heretofore in the sphere
of Great Britain and France. True, she waived conditionally her claim to
push the Bagdad line to the Persian Gulf; but her recent bargain with
the Tsar at Potsdam gave her the lion's share of the trade of
Western Persia.

After taking these strides in the Levant, Germany ought not to have
shown jealousy of French progress in Morocco, where her commerce was
small. As in 1905, she was clearly using the occasion to test the
validity of the Anglo-French Entente and the effectiveness of British
support to France. Probably, too, she desired either a territorial
acquisition in South Morocco, for which the colonial party and most of
the Press were clamouring; or she intended, in lieu of it, to acquire
the French Congo. At present it is not clear at which of these objects
she aimed. Kiderlen-Waechter declared privately that Germany must have
the Agadir district, and would never merely accept in exchange Congolese
territory[533].

[Footnote 533: The following facts are significant. On November 9, 1911,
the Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, assured the Reichstag that Germany had
never intended to annex Moroccan territory, an assertion confirmed by
Kiderlen-Waechter on Nov. 17. But during the libel action brought against
the Berlin _Post_ it was positively affirmed that the Government and
Kiderlen-Waechter had intended to annex South-West Morocco. A high
official, Dr. Heilbronn, telephoned so to the _Post_, urging it to
demand that step.]

Whatever were the real aims of the Kaiser, they ran counter to French
and British interests. Moreover, the warning of Sir Edward Grey, on July
4, that we must be consulted as to any new developments, was completely
ignored; and even on July 21 the German ambassador in London could give
no assurance as to the policy