During these negotiations, the new Army Chief of Staff

After the British government publicly threatened to go to war if Germany attacked France, Germany agreed to give France a free hand in Morocco in exchange for the transfer of some jungle land to German Cameroon.

• After the British government publicly threatened to go to war if Germany attacked France, Germany agreed to give France a free hand in Morocco in exchange for the transfer of some jungle land to German Cameroon.

• During these negotiations, the new Army Chief of Staff, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, wrote his wife as follows: “If we again slip away from this affair with our tail between our legs, and if we cannot bring ourselves to put forward a determined claim which we are prepared to force through with the sword, I shall despair of the future of the German Empire. I shall then resign. But before handing in my resignation, I shall move to abolish the Army and to place ourselves under Japanese protectorate; we shall then be in a position to make money without interference and develop into ninnies.”

“1. Fundamental. Naval superiority recognized as essential to Great Britain. Present German naval program and expenditure not to be increased, but if possible retarded and reduced.

• “1. Fundamental. Naval superiority recognized as essential to Great Britain. Present German naval program and expenditure not to be increased, but if possible retarded and reduced.

• “2. England sincerely desires not to interfere with German Colonial expansion. To give effect to this she is prepared forthwith to discuss whatever the German aspirations in that direction may be. England will be glad to know that there is a field or special points where she can help Germany.

• “3. Proposals for reciprocal assurances debarring either power from joining in aggressive designs or combinations against the other would be welcome.”