Note 57 — Chapter II

Saurma to F. O., April 28, 1899, G.P., XIV, 435, No. 3953; Currie to Salisbury, April 4, 1899, B.D., I, 204, No. 247. See also Canevaro’s declaration in the Italian Senate, April 24, 1899, Senato, Discussioni, XX Legislatura (2d sess.), p. 946, quoted by G. Salvemini, “La Triple Alliance,” Revue des nationes latines, Oct., 1916, p. 250. Also see the interview between Delcassé and Ojetta in Giornale d’Italia, Jan. 3, 1902, reprinted in the London Times, Jan. 4, 1902.

Italy had formerly thought that she had vital interests in Morocco, and her hope to acquire the land had received expression in a clause concerning its future in the treaty of the Triple Alliance of 1891 (Pribram, I, 150 ff.; Vol. II, chap. iii). But the Moroccan vogue had passed; her wishes had become more modest. To be sure, the French occupation of Touat caused the Italian government in April, 1900, to declare excitedly to its German ally that the Moroccan question could become a reef upon which the House of Savoy might suffer shipwreck; but, as M. Prinetti later explained, what his predecessor in office had feared was that a French occupation of Morocco might force Italy to seize Tripoli in order to maintain the equilibrium of interests in the Mediterranean (Bülow to Münster, April 27, 1900, G.P., XVII, 300, No. 5156; Bülow to Hatzfeldt, May 14, 1900, ibid., 302 f., No. 5158; Wedel to Bülow, Dec. 12, 1901, ibid., 718, No. 5834).