Finally, the Anglo-French Entente induced Italy to reconsider her position.  Her dependence on us for coal and iron, together with the vulnerability of her numerous coast-towns, rendered a breach with the two Powers of the Entente highly undesirable, while on sentimental grounds she could scarcely take up the gauntlet for her former oppressor, Austria, against two nations which had assisted in her liberation.  As we shall see, she declared at the Conference of Algeciras her complete solidarity with Great Britain.

Even so, Germany held a commanding position owing to the completion of the first part of her naval programme, which placed her far ahead of France at sea.  For reasons that have been set forth, the military and naval weakness of France was so marked as greatly to encourage German Chauvinists; but the Entente made them pause, especially when France agreed to concentrate her chief naval strength in the Mediterranean, while that of Great Britain was concentrated in the English Channel and the North Sea.  It is certain that the Entente with France never amounted to an alliance; that was made perfectly clear; but it was unlikely that the British Government would tolerate an unprovoked attack upon the Republic, or look idly on while the Pan-Germans refashioned Europe and the other Continents.  Besides, Great Britain was strong at sea.  In 1905 she possessed thirty-five battleships mounting 12-in. guns; while the eighteen German battleships carried only 11-in. and 9.4-in. guns.  Further, in 1905-7 we began and finished the first Dreadnought; and the adoption of that type for the battle-fleet of the near future lessened the value of the Kiel-North Sea Canal, which was too small to receive Dreadnoughts.  In these considerations may perhaps be found the reason for the caution of Germany at a time which was otherwise very favourable for aggressive action.

Meanwhile Kaiser William, pressed on by the colonials, had intervened in a highly sensational manner in the Morocco Affair, thus emphasising his earlier assertion that nothing important must take place in any part of the world without the participation of Germany.  Her commerce in Morocco was unimportant compared with that of France and Great Britain; but the position of that land, commanding the routes to the Mediterranean and the South Atlantic, was such as to interest all naval Powers, while the State that gained a foothold in Morocco would have a share in the Moslem questions then arising to prime importance.  As we have seen, the Kaiser had in 1898 declared his resolve to befriend all Moslem peoples; and his Chancellor, Buelow, has asserted that Germany’s pro-Islam policy compelled her to intervene in the Moroccan Question.  The German ambassador at Constantinople, Baron von Marschall, said that, if after that promise Germany sacrificed Morocco, she would at once lose her position in Turkey, and therefore all the advantages and prospects that she had painfully acquired by the labour of many years[514].