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Among the actors on the political stage of post-Bismarckian Germany Kiderlen-Wächter occupies a place apart. His robust and rather gross personality stands out from the surrounding throng of shadowy figures, beloved by few, disliked by many, ignored by none. To this day the question is asked what he would have done had he been at the helm in 1914, and whether perchance he might have averted the rush of the avalanche. The Swabian Bismarck, as Naumann called him, impressed his contemporaries as the ablest German diplomatist of his generation with the possible exception of Marschall von Bieberstein. His admiring biographer and friend Dr Jaeckh declares that he came too late and went too soon.
1 Kiderlen's diplomacy must be studied in the voluminous German, British, French, Austrian and Russian collections of documents. The French official material on the Agadir crisis has not yet appeared, as the Deuxième Série has only reached 1906 and the Troisième Série begins with the signature of the treaties of 4 November 1911. The official biography, Jaeckh's Kiderlen-Wächter, Der Staatsmann und Mensch, 2 vols., is very laudatory. The best short sketch is by Willy Andreas, Kämpfe um Volk und Reich, pp. 153–86. Take Jonescu, Souvenirs, Otto Hammann, Bilder aus der letzten Kaiserzeit, Rosen, Aus einem diplomatischen Wanderleben, and Von der Lancken, Meine dreissig Dienstjahre, supply valuable information. The French side of the second Moroccan crisis is authoritatively presented in Caillaux, Agadir, and Tardieu, Le Mystère d'Agadir.