Note 1068 — Chapter XVI

Spender, Life of Campbell-Bannerman, II, 253 ff.; Grey, II, 76 ff.; B.D., III, 180 ff., No. 219. Cambon and Grey exchanged memoranda of that conversation. According to Mr. Eyre Crowe, senior clerk in the British foreign office, Cambon’s account differed from Grey’s on the following points: “(A) The French note alludes to the intention of the British Admiralty in case of a conflict with Germany, to bar the Channel against the German squadrons. This passage does not occur in Sir E. Grey’s draft. . . . . (B) The French note contains no allusion to the argument given in the following passage of Sir E. Grey’s draft: ‘I did not think people in England would be prepared to fight in order to put France in possession of Morocco. They would say that France should wait for opportunities and be content to take time, and that it was unreasonable to hurry matters to the point of war’” (Crowe’s minute to the memo. by Cambon, Jan. 31, 1906, ibid., 183 f., No. 220a). On Feb. 1 Sanderson talked over the two drafts with Cambon, who made some changes in his. Sanderson again emphasized the reasons why the British government could not give the desired assurance, speaking in part as follows: “I told him [Cambon] that I thought that if the Cabinet were to give a pledge which would morally bind the country to go to war in certain circumstances, and were not to mention this pledge to Parliament, and if at the expiration of some months the country suddenly found itself pledged to war in consequence of this assurance, the case would be one which would justify impeachment, and which might even result in that course unless at the time the feeling of the country were very strongly in favour of the course to which the Government was pledged” (memo. by Sanderson, Feb. 2, 1906, ibid., 184 f., No. 220b).