Chapter Fifty-Seven: The End of the Dynasty

On June 27th, the gunboat Leopard entered the port of Agadir.

Prior to this, the Foreign Minister of the German Empire, Bernstorff, had delivered a diplomatic note to France, demanding that France cede a portion of its African colonies as compensation to the German Empire. Since France did not give a direct response, the Kaiser did not halt naval operations.

The occupation of Agadir by the Leopard was akin to stirring up a hornet’s nest.

The strongest reaction came not from France, but from Britain, which was not directly involved in the Moroccan affair.

On June 28th, the British Foreign Secretary declared in the House of Commons that the German Empire’s occupation of Agadir posed a threat to the free passage of British ships in the Atlantic and was a challenge to Britain’s dominance in North Africa, constituting a direct threat to British national interests and security.

The next day, Britain formally notified the German Empire, demanding that the Leopard immediately withdraw from Agadir.

The Kaiser ignored Britain and did not instruct Feng Chengqian to recall the Crown Prince to Wilhelmshaven.

On June 30th, after rendezvousing with two cruisers off the coast of Portugal, the Crown Prince continued south and arrived at Agadir on July 1st.

Though their forces were limited, they were sufficient to occupy this small port.

But the crisis was only just beginning.

On July 3rd, the House of Commons approved Prime Minister Lloyd George’s plan to dispatch the Channel Fleet, led by the battleship King of the Sea, to Gibraltar, where it would join with the Mediterranean Fleet, led by the battleship Vanguard, to enforce a blockade of Morocco.

Officially, the Royal Navy was seeking to prevent escalation, but in reality, it was confronting the German squadron.

Clearly, the German fleet was far too weak.

At the time, Feng Chengqian commanded only one outdated battleship, two cruisers, and a gunboat, while Britain had dispatched four new battleships, six cruisers, and over a dozen smaller vessels. In a direct conflict, the Imperial fleet in Agadir would have no advantage whatsoever.

Nonetheless, Feng Chengqian did not back down.

On July 4th, he sent a telegram to the Imperial Navy Chief of Staff, Holtzendorff, as well as to the Crown Prince at the Admiralty, requesting that the Imperial Navy immediately enter a state of war, all warships return to Wilhelmshaven, and boilers be fired up, ready for immediate action.

That same day, Schlieffen announced that the Imperial Army would conduct large-scale military exercises.

For a time, storm clouds of war gathered over the continent.

Although the Imperial Navy held no advantage at sea and would likely be defeated or crippled by the Royal Navy, losing its ability to operate, on land the Imperial Army’s superiority was overwhelming.

By July 10th, the Imperial Army had already assembled sixty regular divisions in the west.

On the opposing front, the French Army had assembled fewer than thirty divisions, only two-thirds of which were at full strength, and mobilization would not be complete until the end of July. By then, the Imperial Army would have not sixty but one hundred and twenty fully equipped infantry divisions.

The question was, would war actually break out?

Despite the rigid stances of the German Empire, Britain, and France, none could ignore one crucial issue: their domestic economies were all sluggish, with revenues far below those of previous years, and none were truly equipped to wage a large-scale war.

It was a contest of willpower to see who would last the longest.

On July 19th, Prime Minister Lloyd George appeared personally before the House of Commons, articulating Britain’s fundamental position on the Moroccan issue and, for the first time, directly stating that the German Empire’s military actions in Morocco severely threatened British maritime supremacy. To safeguard British interests, the government would, if necessary, resort to war to eliminate the German threat.

This address was viewed by many as a harbinger of the First World War.

Lloyd George’s speech marked a turning point in Anglo-German relations. If superficial cordiality had existed before, it was now shattered; from this point, Britain regarded the German Empire as its most serious potential adversary.

Yet, the Prime Minister’s hardline stance had little positive effect.

On July 21st, the Kaiser received representatives of the Moroccan Revolutionary Committee at the Potsdam Palace, pledging that the German Empire would do its utmost to guarantee Moroccan independence. The following day, the Kaiser wired Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, laying out the Empire’s position and hoping Austria-Hungary would honor its secret alliance, joining the war against France should conflict break out.

Although the Austrian Emperor gave no direct reply, the Kaiser hardly expected real support.

With neither the German Empire nor Britain willing to compromise, all pressure fell on France: if France refused to yield, war was inevitable.

Could France possibly benefit from such a war?

Clearly not. Regardless of the outcome, two things were certain: first, even if France fully occupied Morocco, the strategic value was limited, as France hardly lacked ports on the Mediterranean or Atlantic, and Britain would never allow any other power to control the Strait of Gibraltar. Second, if war broke out, it would be fought on French soil; it would be France, not Britain, that suffered devastation.

Understanding these points, it became apparent that France stood to gain nothing from war.

Thus, modest compromise became France’s best option.

On July 24th, the French ambassador in Berlin delivered a diplomatic note to Foreign Minister Bernstorff, expressing France’s willingness to negotiate colonial compensation.

This was precisely the result the Kaiser sought.

As long as France yielded, even the cession of only a few colonies would suffice to preserve the Empire’s dignity and reinforce its great power status on the continent.

As a precondition for negotiations, the German Empire would withdraw from Agadir, leaving only the Leopard to protect local German merchants. On land, the Imperial Army’s exercises would conclude by July 31st, and troop levels along the Franco-German border would be reduced to pre-crisis levels; France, for its part, promised not to mobilize, withdrawing its border forces five kilometers.

On August 1st, formal bilateral talks between Germany and France began in Bonn.

That same day, Feng Chengqian returned to Berlin.

Though the negotiations would drag on for months, not concluding until February 1912, the tone was set from the outset: France would have to cede some colonies, with Germany aiming for richer territories, and France seeking to part only with impoverished ones.

The Kaiser fully adopted Feng Chengqian’s suggestion—focus on a single core demand: France must cede Taiwan and its affiliated islands to the German Empire, and, if possible, secure Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and other French colonies in Southeast Asia. Failing that, a West African colony would be demanded in compensation.

Feng Chengqian’s aim was simple: to establish a route to the Far East that bypassed Gibraltar and Suez.

With such a route and sufficient bases along it, the Empire could strengthen its influence and control in the Far East. Should a great war erupt in a few years, Britain would be forced to expend even greater effort quashing German threats in the Far East, thereby weakening its military presence in the North Atlantic and giving the Imperial Navy a chance to prevail against the odds.

The Kaiser, a man of strategic vision, understood this well and gave Feng Chengqian his full support.

Naturally, the negotiations were anything but easy. Were it not for the German Empire’s insistence on Taiwan, the talks would not have lasted so long.

Meanwhile, as the negotiations continued, the situation in the Far East changed dramatically.

On December 20th, 1911, the Emperor Xuantong of the Qing Dynasty announced his abdication; the two-hundred-year-old dynasty had finally fallen.

But the end of the Qing did not mean an end to the ancient capital’s suffering.

The process of change unfolded quite differently from Feng Chengqian’s predictions.

Though dozens of anti-imperial uprisings had erupted within China, none had gained traction. It was not the revolutionaries, but the new army trained by the Qing themselves that consigned the dynasty to history. The man who forced Emperor Xuantong’s abdication was none other than Yuan Shikai, who had distinguished himself in the Sino-Japanese War.

But peace was fleeting.

Barely a month later, in the early days of 1912, on the eve of his own coronation as emperor, Yuan Shikai was assassinated by a democratic revolutionary.

Three days later, Yuan Shikai succumbed to his wounds.

China then plunged into chaos.

Yuan was succeeded by the Jiangxi warlord Duan Qirui, who, threatened by the revolutionaries, refrained from proclaiming himself emperor and instead declared himself President of the Grand Republic, promising to implement democratic reforms.

Alas, Duan Qirui was neither a revolutionary nor possessed Yuan’s authority.

In less than a month, the nascent republic was embroiled in civil war. Warlords everywhere established local regimes, rendering the central government little more than a name.

There were at least a dozen major warlords at the time, along with countless minor ones.

Anywhere a man had guns, he could set up a government, refusing to obey central authority except in name.

Warlord fragmentation inevitably led to widespread conflict.

In late February, Baron Richthofen, Imperial Minister for Far Eastern Affairs, sent word highlighting the issue of the Shandong warlords—Zhang Guangjian, Zhou Ziqi, Zhang Huayi, Zhang Shuyuan, Tian Zhongyu, Zheng Shiqi, and Zhang Zongchang—all of whom had some potential, but none were reliable allies.

By then, Germany and France had signed a treaty: France agreed to cede Taiwan and part of French Congo.

With the Moroccan crisis resolved, the German Empire finally turned its gaze eastward, focusing intently on the turbulent nation awakening in the Far East.