France, by the retirement of M. Delcassé, her Minister of Foreign
Affairs, and by her assent to an International Conference regarding
Morocco. The Conference met at Algeciras, and German pretensions were
satisfied by an international Agreement.[13] It is to be observed that
in this Conference the original claims of Germany were opposed, not only
by Russia, from whom she could hardly expect sympathy, but even by
Italy, her own ally. When Germany had finally assented to the Agreement,
her Chancellor, in flat contradiction with his previous utterance 'that
German interests were in no way imperilled by it', announced that
Germany had been compelled to intervene by her economic interests, by
the prestige of German policy, and by the dignity of the German Empire.

The plain fact was that Germany, soon after the conclusion of the
Anglo-French agreements, had found herself suddenly delivered from her
preoccupations on the side of Russia, and had seized the opportunity to
assert herself in the West while Russia was involved in the most
critical stage of her struggle with Japan. But this war came to an end
before the Convention of Algeciras had begun; and Russia, even in the
hour of defeat and internal revolutions, was still too formidable to be
overridden, when she ranged herself beside her Western ally.

Of the part which England played in the Moroccan dispute there are
different versions. What is certain is that she gave France her
diplomatic support. But the German Chancellor officially acknowledged,
when all was over, that England's share in the Anglo-French Agreement
had been perfectly correct, and that Germany bore England no ill-will
for effecting a _rapprochement_ with France. Still there remained a
strong impression, not only in England and France, that there had been
on Germany's part a deliberate intention to test the strength of the
Anglo-French understanding and, if possible, to show France that England