It is only in the field of colonial expansion that she has shown aggressive tendencies since 1896; and even here the members of the Triple Alliance have never shown serious cause for a belief that France has invaded their lawful spheres of interest.  Her advance in Morocco was permitted by Italy and Spain; her vast dominion in French West Africa has been recognized by treaties with Germany and England; in East Africa she has Madagascar, of which her possession has never been disputed by any European Power; her growing interests in Indo-China have impinged only upon an English sphere of interest and were peacefully defined by an Anglo-French Agreement of 1896.  France has been the competitor, to some extent the successful competitor, of Germany in West Africa, where she partially envelops the Cameroons and Togoland.  But the German Government has never ventured to state the French colonial methods as a casus belli.  That the German people have viewed with jealousy the growth of French power in Africa is a notorious fact.  Quite recently, on the eve of the present war, we were formally given to understand that Germany, in any war with France, might annex French colonies[11]; and it is easy to see how such an object would reconcile the divergent policies of the German military and naval experts.

Up to the eve of the present war Great Britain has consistently refused to believe that Germany would be mad enough or dishonest enough to enter on a war of aggression for the dismemberment of colonial empires.  German diplomacy in the past few weeks has rudely shattered this conviction.  But up to the year 1914 the worst which was generally anticipated was that she would pursue in the future on a great scale the policy, which she has hitherto pursued on a small scale, of claiming so-called ‘compensations’ when other Powers succeeded in developing their colonial spheres, and of invoking imaginary ‘interests’ as a reason why the efforts of explorers and diplomatists should not be allowed to yield to France their natural fruits of increased colonial trade.  It is not our business to impugn or to defend the partition of Africa, or the methods by which it has been brought about.  But it is vital to our subject that we should describe the methods by which Germany has endeavoured to intimidate France at various stages of the African question.  The trouble arose out of a Moroccan Agreement between England and France, which was the first definite proof that these two Powers were drifting into relations closer than that of ordinary friendship.

In 1904 England and France settled their old quarrel about Egypt.  France recognized the English occupation of Egypt; England, on her side, promised not to impede the extension of French influence in Morocco.  It was agreed that neither in Egypt nor in Morocco should there be a political revolution; and that in both countries the customs tariff should make no distinction between one nation and another.  This compact