interests. As a matter of fact nothing has changed
in the tendencies of the German policy on this point.
He who looks for a fait nouveau will not find it in the
German policy." ⁶⁵

The Chancellor was only following the trail blazed
by his predecessors in German diplomacy, in bending
circumstances to his ends. When Great Britain and
France had signed the accords, conditions were not
suitable for a protest from Germany. A year later
important events had taken place both in Europe and
in France which gave Germany her opportunity to
strike. The fait nouveau was not in the German policy,
but in the fact that the German policy could at last
come out in the open. Going back once more to Count
von Bülow's speech of April 12, 1904, we can find the
clue to his whole subsequent action. Replying to the
complaint of Count von Reventlow that he should not
let other powers obtain greater influence in Morocco
than Germany, he replied: "If you wish to create
surfaces of irritation everywhere you do not cry it
from the housetops. Frederic the Great has perhaps
now and then played a game of chess in politics worthy
of Machiavelli, but not until after he had written
against Machiavelli." ⁶⁶ It remains to be seen whether
von Bülow's Moroccan policy proved itself worthy of
either Machiavelli or Frederic the Great.

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