Let us turn now to the other storm-centre, Morocco. The salient features
here were, first, the treaty of 1880, to which all the Great Powers,
including, of course, Germany, were parties, and which guaranteed to
the signatories most-favoured-nation treatment; secondly, the interest of
Great Britain to prevent a strong Power from establishing itself opposite
Gibraltar and threatening British control over the Straits; thirdly, the
interest of France to annex Morocco and knit it up with the North African
Empire; fourthly, the new colonial and trading interests of Germany, which,
as she had formally announced, could not leave her indifferent to any new
dispositions of influence or territory in undeveloped countries. For many
years French ambitions in Morocco had been held in check by the British
desire to maintain the _status quo_. But the Anglo-French Entente of 1904
gave France a free hand there in return for the abandonment of French
opposition to the British position in Egypt. The Anglo-French treaty of
1904 affirmed, in the clauses made public, the independence and integrity
of Morocco; but there were secret clauses looking to its partition. By
these the British interest in the Straits was guaranteed by an arrangement
which gave to Spain the reversion of the coast opposite Gibraltar and a
strip on the north-west coast, while leaving the rest of the country to
fall to France. Germany was not consulted while these arrangements were
being made, and the secret clauses of the treaty were, of course, not
communicated to her. But it seems reasonable to suppose that they became
known to, or at least were suspected by, the German Government shortly
after they were adopted.[1] And probably it was this that led to the
dramatic intervention of the Kaiser at Tangier,[2] when he announced
that the independence of Morocco was under German protection. The result
was the Conference of Algeciras, at which the independence and integrity of
Morocco was once more affirmed (the clauses looking to its partition being
still kept secret by the three Powers privy to them), and equal commercial