852.00/4325: Telegram

The Diplomatic Agent and Consul General at Tangier (Blake) to the Secretary of State

1. 1. My information does not support sensational press rumors concerning German military activities Spanish zone.

2. Am of the opinion that these rumors are designed by France to elicit statement from Franco and German Governments similar to recent British-Italian exchange of assurances regarding Mediterranean, which the British Government would also welcome.

3. Agitation also perhaps intended to force German acceptance of Franco-British non-intervention proposals in Spain, as against Italo-German suggestions.

4. Franco government inaugurating seaplane base for protection of Melilla and iron mines, and material from Germany for this purpose and some Germans have arrived in Melilla. Such activities at Melilla or Ceuta constitute no breach of Franco-Spanish convention concerning Morocco,12 since these ports are not Moroccan territory, and the prohibition to fortify them was specifically excluded from the 1904 agreements between France, Great Britain and Spain about Morocco.13

5. No German engaged in direction or operation of Riff mines and Germany has purchased 75 percent of output during many years.

6. Reported French Fleet concentration in Moroccan waters and accumulation of French troops along Franco-Spanish zone frontier probably designed more particularly to raise French prestige among Moroccan natives and to add effectiveness to the international gesture,

7. Whatever may be the purposes pursued, they seem to be based upon an attempt to create in international public opinion a situation which does not exist in fact.

8. The position will probably soon adjust itself unless, against all probability, there exists a positive design on one side or the other to provoke European complications.

Blake
  1. Signed November 27, 1912, British and Foreign State Papers, Vol. cvi, p. 1025.
  2. See Martens, Nouveau Recueil Général de Traités Autres Actes Relatifs aux Rapports de Droit International, Vol. 93, pp. 15, 57.