The expression Coup d'Agadir, or "Agadir crisis", is used to designate a military and diplomatic incident which took place in 1911, between France and Germany, caused by the dispatch of a gunboat (vessel light armed with guns) of the German navy in the bay of Agadir in Morocco, the SMS Panther.
Causes
At the beginning of the 20th century, France, which had administered colonized Algeria since 1830, was concerned about the security of its border with Morocco, while eyeing this country. The Cherifian kingdom was then one of the last non-colonized countries in Africa, and aroused the greed of several European powers, first and foremost France, as well as that of the German Empire, which felt it had to catch up in terms of of settlements.
In 1904, France and Great Britain concluded an "Entente Cordiale" agreement against Germany:France gave Britain a free hand in Egypt, and in return, could establish a protectorate in Morocco. .
In March 1905, to recall his claims to Morocco, Emperor William II landed in Tangier and met Sultan Moulay Abd al-Aziz. It is the “coup de Tanger”, which causes tensions between the European powers. To ease these tensions, an international conference was held in 1906 in Algeciras. Germany is granted a right of scrutiny over Moroccan affairs, while France and Spain obtain special rights over Morocco in terms of police and banking.
In March 1911, Sultan Moulay Abd al-Hafid, threatened by a revolt, asked France to lend him a hand. In May, French troops occupy Rabat, Fez and Meknes. Germany, worried about its claims on Morocco, considers this occupation a violation of the Algeciras agreements and decides to react.
Procedure
Claiming to respond to a call for help from German companies in the Souss valley (there were only four German nationals in this region at the time, including representatives of the Mannesmann company), Germany, July 1, 1911 , decided, to protect his interests, to send a gunboat, the SMS Panther, to the bay of Agadir, whose harbor had been, until 1881, closed to foreign trade. From mid-July, the Panther is regularly relayed by the cruiser SMS Berlin, alternating with the gunboat SMS Eber.
Germany, which wanted to put a stop to the expansion of France in Morocco and weaken the Entente Cordiale between France and Great Britain, was surprised by the strong reactions provoked by its coup de force. The United Kingdom immediately declares itself in favor of Paris and threatens Berlin. The French government, supported by its opinion, showed great firmness and did not rule out a military response. France and Germany are on the brink of conflict.
The Caillaux government, aware of the very serious danger that a war represents, prefers to negotiate. These negotiations are led, on the French side, by the president of the council Joseph Caillaux and the French ambassador in Berlin Jules Cambon, and, on the German side, by Kinderlen, German Minister of Foreign Affairs. Under bitter negotiations, Germany renounced its presence in Morocco in exchange for the abandonment by Paris of 272,000 km2 of territories in Equatorial Africa, in Gabon, in the Middle Congo and in Oubangui-Chari, in favor of from German Cameroon. After the two countries reached an agreement on October 11 that relieved observers, an official Franco-German treaty was signed on November 4, 1911 in Berlin, leaving France a free hand in Morocco. It was only then that the German ships definitively left the bay of Agadir, on November 28, 1911.
Consequences
In March 1912, by the Treaty of Fez, France was able to impose on Sultan Moulay Abd al-Hafid his protectorate over Morocco. From then on, the independence of Morocco is only a facade. General Lyautey becomes resident general, that is to say governor of Morocco. France now controls more than half of the northern coast of Africa.
This Franco-German standoff, which heralded the First World War, allowed France to test its alliance with Great Britain and accentuated Germany's hostility towards the United Kingdom. The 14-18 war could have broken out three years earlier without the skill of Joseph Caillaux and the stock market panic in Germany for which the Chairman of the Council, a finance specialist, takes responsibility.
It is also for France the opportunity, for the first time since the defeat of 1870, to oppose successfully Germany which still occupies Alsace-Lorraine. Some historians, however, such as Serge Bernstein and Pierre Milza, consider that the game "ends with a substantial gain obtained by German imperialism".
The German nationalist press of the time denounced the fact that Germany had risked a war for "Congolese ponds". However, for the international relations specialist Henry Kissinger, the main German problem was that by intimidating or threatening several countries with war in the space of a few years, without even being able to formulate a well-considered objective, the Germany had intensified fears about her and brought about a coalition against her, without substantial gain in return, without consolidating her own coalition. An indirect consequence of Agadir is that the British and the French divide the maritime areas to be protected:the first have the Atlantic, the second the Mediterranean, a situation which will increase the obligation of the United Kingdom to enter the First World War. .
Analysis by Jacques Bainville
“In 1911, it happened again:a German ship took up position in front of Agadir, on the southern Moroccan coast, and the Berlin government, after this demonstration of force, notified its desire to obtain “compensation”. Joseph Caillaux, who then governed, compromised. The compensation was granted to Germany in our possession of the Congo. For Germany, this was not only a diplomatic success, but a real advantage. The German press ridiculed these acquisitions and complained that the great German Empire had been tricked.
Two lessons emerged from the Agadir affair:one, for Germany, that Morocco was a bad casus belli, because threatened France kept its alliance with Russia and its understanding with England, while , on a Moroccan pretext, the Germans were not even followed by Austria. The other lesson was for France:our concessions only served to convince Germany of our weakness and to make her more belligerent. Both lessons bore. Germany ceased to be interested in Morocco and she directed her attention to the affairs of the East where the Turkish Revolution of 1908 and the advent of young nationalist liberals in the place of the old Turkey had set in motion, in the Balkan and Danubian Europe, the new nationalities whose claims threatened Austria-Hungary, a composite Empire. As for France, the Agadir affair brought to power the most national of the leftists. Raymond Poincaré, a republican from Lorraine, who did not accept Thiers' formula - the "policy of oblivion" - from which the party of rapprochement with Germany had emerged, became president of the council in January 1912. P>
— Jacques Bainville, History of France, 1924