QUOTE OF THE MONTH

'The Algeciras Conference [in Spain], the most important European diplomatic gathering since the Congress of Berlin twenty-eight years before, formally opened at the Algeciras Town Hall on January 16, 1906. New red carpets had been laid in the corridors and on the stairways, and the long table at which the Municipal Council usually met was covered with fresh green baize. The diplomats representing the thirteen powers attending were senior ambassadors.'

'M. Révoil, the French delegate, a small man with a waxed moustache, smiled at everyone except the Germans, whom he was determined to foil. The British delegate, Sir Arthur Nicolson, bent with arthritis, seemed even smaller than M. Révoil, until he began to speak. Then, this shy, frail man, who had spent seven years as Minister to Morocco and was now British Ambassador to Spain, spoke with impressive authority.'

'When the conference opened, Count Tattenbach [a German delegate] went on the offensive. He declared that France could be permitted some authority to restore order in those parts of Morocco near the Algerian frontier, but that France's wish for a mandate to establish order throughout the country was inadmissible. He described German policy as an attempt “to secure full guarantees for the open door,” and tried to persuade Nicolson that Britain should be supportive. If Britain arranged for France and M. Révoil to make concessions, Tattenbach continued, the threat to peace would quickly disappear and the conference promptly and successfully end. Nicolson replied that his country had special treaty obligations to France and that “it was not for me to urge concessions on my French colleague.” After this meeting Nicolson wrote to his wife, “I felt really insulted and really furious … so that I could eat nothing afterwards … He [Tattenbach] is a horrid fellow, blustering, rude, and mendacious. The worst type of German I have ever met” …

         The Germans would not yield; neither would the French … “We are close to a rupture,” Nicolson wrote to his wife. “The Germans have behaved in a most disgraceful way. Their mendacity has been beyond words. I would not have thought Radowitz [a German delegate and ambassador in Madrid] capable of such unblushing lying and double dealing” …

         During the conference, Gibraltar was visible from Algeciras, the gray granite mass looming above the mimosas and orange trees. On March 1, the combined British Atlantic and Mediterranean fleets appeared in the harbour: twenty battleships, dozens of cruisers and destroyers, an immense display of naval power. At Nicolson's suggestion, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, the British Commander-in-Chief, invited all of the delegates to dinner on board his flagship, King Edward VII. To avoid difficulties of protocol, no national anthems were performed and the single toast of the evening was to “All Sovereignties and Republics.” The massed bands of the fleet played and, as the diplomats were being ferried back to Algeciras, one hundred and forty fleet searchlights beamed into the night sky. Thereafter, when the delegates looked towards Gibraltar and saw the ships lying beneath the towering rock, Count Tattenbach's bad temper seemed less threatening.'

The above quotes are from Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War, by Robert K. Massie.

The recent picture of a small British patrol boat challenging a Spanish warship that had deliberated sailed deep into British territorial waters at Gibraltar, shows the level to which Britain has sunk.