The German Government, with great patience, pointed out that what was really required was some sort of a guarantee that a French tender should not be accepted to the prejudice of the German share of the concessions. The question was one which lent itself to much discussion, many words, long correspondence and wearisome delays, and presently the question of the railways complicated it still further. In the secret letter of 1909 it had been stipulated that the directors of the Moroccan railways should be French. The German Government now claimed that this clause should be taken to mean that _only the directors_ of the railway lines should be Frenchmen and that a large proportion of the subordinate railway servants should be German. Here again Monsieur Caillaux’s unfortunate propensity for epigram did not forsake him. “We can’t have German stationmasters in spiked helmets in the railway stations of Morocco,” he said. The French Government made no counter-proposal with regard to the management of the Moroccan railways, and the Berlin Government remained silent on the question. This silence gave all thinking men considerable grounds for uneasiness. It was felt that a very thinly veiled antagonism on all questions of detail was making itself very apparent at the Wilhelmstrasse. There was no definite decision made with regard to Moroccan mining rights either, and it was just about this time that the claims and concessions of the Mannesmann Brothers began to be spoken of. The situation became quite critical, and there is no doubt that the critical trend of the situation was due very largely to the determination of the Monis Government not to “have Monsieur Briand’s policy mounted as a scarfpin.” If Monsieur Cruppi and his colleagues had been able to approve the convention with Germany for N’Goko Sanga and the Congo which Monsieur Pichon had prepared, there would have been no excuse for the remark which was made soon afterwards to the French Ambassador in Berlin by Herr von Kiderlen Waechter. “When the railway question fell through I saw that you had made your minds up not to work in concert with us in any matter whatsoever.” Things were going from bad to worse in Morocco itself, and French troops had to be sent on the road to Fez. On April 3, 1911, the French Government ordered French troops to co-operate with the Sultan in the chastisement of rebel bands. On April 17 (President Fallières had left for Tunis on the 15th), the French Government placed 2400 men at the disposal of General Moinier. On April 23, a column was sent to the suburbs of Fez and on May 21 the French tricolour floated beneath the walls of the Moroccan capital.