In the same year the century-old conflict between France and England regarding French treaty rights in the fisheries on the coasts of New Foundland were amicably settled by com promise.
Germany regarded the agreement of 1904 by which France was given a free hand in the commercial, if not the political, exploitation of Morocco—an agreement as to which Germany had not been consulted — as one which ignored her own rights therein and threatened her safety. Following the sudden and somewhat dramatic landing of the German Emperor at Tangier on 31 March 1905 —an incident which was intended to serve notice on Great Britain and France that they would not be permitted to partition the territories of North Africa be tween them without consulting Germany—a demand was made by Germany, that the whole question should be submitted to a conference of the powers interested. The conference met at Algeciras in 1906, but on account of the defection of Italy from her allies (see TRIPLE ALLIANCE) and the lending of her support to England and France, the resulting agreement was a disappointment if not a humiliation to Germany, for it practically confirmed the rights claimed by France. Germany for the moment accepted the agreement formulated by the Al geciras Conference, but subsequently claiming that France was ignoring the principle of the °open door') in Morocco and was interfering with the rights of German subjects therein, the German government sent a warship (the Pan ther) to Agadir in July 1911, ostensibly to protect German interests but in reality, as it was believed in England and France, for pur poses of aggression. War between Germany and France for some weeks hung in the balance, but it was averted by two treaties (November 1911) by which France agreed to cede. a por tion of the French Kongo to Germany, in re turn for which Germany promised to recognize Morocco as a French protectorate and to with draw from further opposition to French con trol therein. During this crisis, England let it be known that she would support France against German aggression upon her rights in Africa. In the following year the Entente Cordiale ripened into what was in effect an alliance for certain purposes between Great Britain and France. This understanding was embodied in an exchange of notes between Sir Edward Grey, then British Minister of Foreign Affairs, and M. Paul Cambon, the French Am bassador at London, in which it was agreed that if either government Chad grave reason to expect an unprovoked attack by a third power, or something that threatened the general peace, it should immediately discuss with the other whether both governments should act to gether to prevent aggression and to preserve peace, and if so, what measures they would be prepared to take in common.* It was in
• pursuance of this understanding, of which M. Cambon on 30 July 1914, when the German attack on France was imminent, reminded Sir Edward Grey, that the latter on the 2d of August 1914, informed the French Ambassador that he was authorized by the Cabinet to give assurance that in case the German fleet should come into the channel or through the North Sea to undertake hostile operations against the coasts of France, the British fleet would give all the protection within its power.
Finally, in 1907, Great Britain and Russia, between whom good relations were temporarily strained during the Russo-Japanese War on account of the Dogger bank incident and both of whom had become rivals in Persia, settled their disputes and laid the foundations of an Entente Cordiale which ripened into an alliance in 1914. The Anglo-Russian convention of that year, like that between Great Britain and France, eliminated certain long-standing dis putes regarding their spheres of influence in the Orient. By the terms of the Convention the northern portion of Persia wasdeclared i to be within the Russian sphere of influence while the southern part was similarly assigned to Great Britain. In the same year a naval convention similar to that between France and Russia was concluded between the two flowers providing for the joint co-operation of their navies in certain contingencies.
Thus as a result of these several conventions and understandings between France and Russia; between England and France; and between England and Russia, the Triple Alliance found itself at the outbreak of the present war con fronted by the Triple Entente. Already by 1904 an Entente Cordiale between Italy and France had been brought about and when Italy repudiated the Triple Alliance in May 1915 and joined Great Britain, France and Russia in the war against Austria-Hungary, the Triple Entente became a quadruple entente, if not an alliance in the strict sense of the word. See also MOROCCO; TRIPLE ALLIANCE.
Bibliography.— See the authorities cited in the article on the TRIPLE ALLIANCE.