Evening star., 1933-05-28
BY FRANK II. SIMONDS.

" NOUGH time has passed since
l. the sensational events which
eliminated in the appeal OF the
IL President to the world and the
address of the German chan
cellor TO the Reichstag to appraise the
permanent significance of these two
uttersnces. And perhaps the best esti-
mate supplied in Washington was the
remark of foreign diplomat: Well,
We have passed through the Agadir
stage successfully" What this COM
mentator meant was that the series of
incidents which preceded the World
War and marked its onset were now
being repeated and the recent crisis was
comparable to that of 1911.
Before the outbreak of the World
War there v~re three considerable "af-
fairs" which produced situations like
that of recent days. The first was
Tangier, the second Bosnia and the
third Agadir After that came the
assassination of Serajeyo, followed by
the Austrian ultimatum to Belgrade
which precipitated the deluge. OF these
three incidents. two-Tangier and
Agadir-were provoked by German &C
tions the first by the landing Of the
Kaiser in Tangier, following the Anglo
French agreement over Morocco, the
second by the dispatch of the German
cruiser Panther to the Moroccan coast
after the French occupation of Fez.
The effect of the first demonstration
brought Europe nearer to general
war than at any time since the Con-
gress of Berlin. SipcA France was. how
ever, unprepared fo~ war, she had to
yield and Delcasse, Sle foreign minis
ter. was dismissed. But France and
Britain were brougL- closer too ether,
the Algeciras Conference showed Ger
many fairly isolated and thereafter be-
gan the close cooperation of French
and British military men.
Agadir Produces Crisis.
Six years later Agadir produced an
equally acute crisis and for weeks war
seemed inescapable. At that time
Lloyd George pronounced in the House
of Commons words strikingly like those
of Lord Hailsham in recent days in
which Germany was warned and-as
the Germans believed - threatened.
After Agadir the tension was only
slightly relaxed and returned two years
later at the time of the Balkan Wars.
Agadir really pointed the way almost
inescapably to war because it disclosed
the nations of Europe divided and de-
saw in German purposes threat to
their several national existences. They
drew together and the effect of their
association was to give the German
people the sense of "encirclement."
Now in the postwar period, as the
recent crisis counts as the second in
cident, the Austro-Ger Tariff Union
project of 1881 constituted the first.
1t was a direct and deliberate chal-
lenge to the whole territorial structure
of the treaty Of Versailles, which for
babe Austro-6erman union. 1t was
launched because the German govern
ment, on the one hand, was terrifled
by the rising strength of the Nazis and.
on the other, believed that the extent
of Anglo-American investments in the
Reich would insure support OF both
these nations for Germany.
Brought Diplomatic Crisis.
The result, of course, was a diplo-
matte disaster and financial catas-
trophe for Germany. The tariff union
project had presently to be abandoned
under the most humiliating circum-
stances while the Hoover moratorium
failed to avert German bankruptcy
because Of French delay dictated by
French apprehensons Moreover. the
extent of the diplomatic disaster
gravely weakened the already shaken
republican regime. Thencetorth the
success of Hitler became well-nigh in
evitable.
The eventual triumph of Hitler last
March instantly provoked a general
crisis because of the minatory language
the Nazi leader had employed. the
prospects Of German rearmament in
rAGa 1f I,A 0fy RI
the consequent destruction of the
right down to the hour of the Hitler
speech in the Reichstag, fortunately
not accompanied by any fatal episode.
In his Reichstag address Hitler fol-
lowed the example Of his predecessors
of the Agadir time and backed away
from a situation which had become
impossible. Faced with a British and
French agreement which was support
ed by American influence, visibly aban-
doned by Mussolini, disgusted with the
ineptitude of National Socialist states
manship, Hitler had to back down or
prolong a conflict which could only
lead from one humiliation to another
and might at any moment provoke in
vasion on all the open frontiers of the
Reich.
Preface to New Armistice.
But while Hitler changed his tone
and modified his manners. he did not
and could not abandon the main thesis
upon which his domestic survival de-
pended. He had to stand out for
treaty revision, he had to make clear
that Germany demanded the remaking
OF her eastern boundaries as the price
OF effective cooperation with the
Western world. And that demand in
evltably robbed his speech of any