Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

A Piece of History in Slapstick

Ambrose Pierce defined history, in his The Devil’s Dictionary as: “An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.” And Oscar Wilde said: “History is merely gossip.” Gossip or not, history is full of ridiculously funny events, some too dumb to be real, but is.

If I could witness any one of those events, I would have loved to be among the reporters on the beach in Agadir, Morocco in 1911 summer, to witness a scene with Hermann Wilhelm Wilberg’s-- A.K.A The Endangered German’s--running around the beach waving his arms up and down at the German warship, Panther.

To get a better view of this poor guy, let’s take a look at the backstory of this scene:

After the deployment of a substantial force of French troops in the interior of Morocco in April 1911, creating what is known in history as the First Moroccan Crisis, the German government decided to send a warship to the port of Agadir. By this act, Germans hoped to either seize that part of Morocco for themselves or pressure the French into compensating them with land in the Congo, but they didn’t want to unveil their true intention immediately because this would be tactless, strategically.

As the world did find out how good Germans are with similar fiction much later in the century, the German intelligence, then, fabricated a story. They would imply that they sent a warship to protect German citizens in Morocco. But, lo and behold, there were no German Citizens in Agadir. In the entire country of Morocco, there was only one German, Hermann Wilhelm Wilberg, a mining engineer sent there during the early summer of 1911 as a representative for the Hamburg-Marrokko-Gesellschaft.

Jackpot!

Imagine Herr Wilberg’s shock when he received a coded telegram, ordering him to go to Agadir and wait for the warships. Since the poor guy didn’t know code, it took the Germans three telegrams to get their point across.

To add more salt to this sea tale, the ship that the Germans sent waited at the Agadir Harbor for three days until Wilberg could get there on July 4, 1911, after a few other comical delays that took place involving his journey. By this time, the reporters who had gotten the news had made it to Agadir faster than Wilberg, and they were lying in wait for whatever was in store for their thirsty pens.

When Wilberg finally made it to the beach, he realized he had no way of contacting the ship. So he began running up and down the beach, waving his arms, and yelling, “Protect me! I am Wilberg!”

But what that ship’s crew saw, or they thought they saw, was some crazy Moroccan running up and down the beach, trying to sell them his wares, probably rugs or nuts. Eventually, Wilbur tired out and just stood there, looking at the ship in defeat. It was only then that the crew realized who he was.

This story observed to its minutiae by the reporters made the headlines around the world, dubbing Wilberg “The Endangered German.”

Afterwards, with the British foreign secretary’s intervention, this tiny problem between Germany and France was swept under the rug…but only until the First World War.

Such a slapstick of history!

The definition of slapstick is: humor involving exaggerated physical activity which exceeds the boundaries of common sense.

Well, doesn't the shoe fit?