Note 23 — Chapter I
Reading edition
See Mévil, pp. 120 f., and Delcassé’s speeches. On Dec. 7, 1904, in the Senate and on Nov. 10, in the Chamber, he spoke as follows: “The problem, in effect, was this: to establish the preponderance of France in Morocco, thereby to augment her power in the Mediterranean, not by alienating but rather by conciliating the Powers whose position in the Mediterranean brings them to our attention. . . . . In considering the positions occupied not only by England, but by Italy and by Spain in the Mediterranean, it is evident that if diplomacy succeeds in resolving this problem [of Morocco] it will have at one blow fortified and aggrandized the situation of France in Europe by the friendships which it will have procured and by the rapprochements of interests of which it will have been the creator.”
He further declared that this had been his conscious policy during his six years of residency at the Quai d’Orsay (see Journal officiel, Debats parlem., Sénat, Dec. 7, 1904, pp. 1048 ff.; Chambre, Nov. 10, 1904, p. 386).