- Captain J. Bagot, M.P., April 1911
- Westmorland Gazette, December 30th, 1911
- '1905 - 1914; 'The Dreadnought Race' www.worldwar.com
- Nelson and Colne Times, November 17th 1911, Manchester Guardian, Nov 23rd, 1911.
Anyone reading the young backpackers' 1912 toast to 'friendship, long life and happy days' knows that the future will be very different, for them and for the whole twentieth century. Long life ? Happy days ? They're just two years away from the first global war… In 1912, a world without war seemed possible, actually achievable. For the young backpackers, 1912 would be like 1963, the year after the Cuban missile crisis didn't lead to a nuclear holocaust. Armageddon had been cancelled. The adventure in France could go ahead. In April 1911, Britain and the United States had agreed that in future, all disputes between them would be settled by peaceful arbitration. Speaking in the House of Commons, Conservative MP Captain J Bagot expressed his hopes for the future: 'The twentieth century might go down in history as the period when the heavy yoke of great armaments was taken from the shoulders of the world'. Half-British, half American, Winston Churchill would later define this as 'Jaw, jaw, rather than war, war'. (1)
Britain's agreement with her entente cordiale ally France was very different. The 'Morocco crisis' brought Europe to the brink of war.On July 20th 1911, exactly a year before the backpackers began their journey, Britain and France agreed that, if Germany attacked, Britain would send an expeditionary force to France.
Germany wanted a port in the Mediterranean. Germany's 'Panther' gunboat challenged the French-owned port of Agadir. Dismissed in one press report as 'a squabble over North African sand', this couldn't be allowed. Why not is never discussed. Britannia ruled the waves and a quarter of the globe. She would, of course, support her new friend in any dispute over African sand.
The flashpoint came in the dog-days of high summer.
'When most of us were lying on our backs in the shade, and watching the ripple of the soft sea waves. There was going to be a terrible conflict in the North Sea, our great statesmen were much perturbed, and warships were being equipped. This was all over Morocco (where the bedroom slippers come from) with which we had little concern.' (2)
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Morocco was, of course, a far-away country, of which we knew almost nothing. In the year-end editorials of 1911, writers rejoice over peace in their time… The Manchester Guardian found the narrow escape from war alarming: 'a little more misunderstanding might have set England at war with Germany, without anyone outside the Government knowing why.'
In July 1912, all was well. Spotting a warship off the coast of Jersey, the backpackers could laugh about German spies, the dastardly villains of political thrillers by John Buchan, Erskine Childers, William Le Queaux and their many imitators. The spies were wasting their time. Britain, with her fleet of invincible and expensive Dreadnoughts had won the arms race. Allegedly, just one British Dreadnought could 'blow the entire German Navy out of the water'. (3)
At a political meeting in Colne, in November 1911, Arthur Leonard blamed Britain policy for the deteriorating relationship with Germany. Working class Colne applauded. Six days later, addressing the Primrose League in his Plymouth constituency, Admiral Charles Beresford, who had commanded the Channel Fleet, also challenged Britain's defence policy. (4)
The moment of madness had passed. They didn't blow each other sky-high with long distance guns. Germany would settle for part of the Congo. The great battleships really were, as the statesmen of Britain and Germany insisted, merely a deterrent. Like all weapons of mass destruction, they were, of course, designed purely to keep the peace. Lloyd George's tax reforms would benefit the poor a little, but they also raised vast sums for the armed services. At Westminster and in the Reichstag, the need for massive expenditure on armaments was perfectly clear. The Crown Prince was sometimes disgracefully rude about his English cousins, but the Kaiser could surely be trusted to keep his son in order.