[Footnote 518:  Tardieu, La Conference d’Algeciras, pp. 410-20.]

As has already appeared, the friction between Great Britain and Russia quickly disappeared after the Japanese War.  During the Congress of Algeciras the former rivals worked cordially together to check the expansive policy of Germany, in which now lay the chief cause of political unrest.  In fact, the Kaiser’s Turcophile policy acquired a new significance owing to the spread of a Pan-Islamic propaganda which sent thrills of fanaticism through North-West Africa, Egypt, and Central Asia.  At St. Helena Napoleon often declared Islam to be vastly superior to Christianity as a fighting creed; and his imitator now seemed about to marshal it against France, Russia, and Great Britain.  Naturally, the three Powers drew together for mutual support.  Further, Germany by herself was very powerful, the portentous growth of her manufactures and commerce endowing her with wealth which she spent lavishly on her army and navy.  In May 1906 the Reichstag agreed to a new Navy Bill for further construction which was estimated to raise the total annual expenditure on the navy from L11,671,000 in 1905 to L16,492,000 in 1917; this too though Bebel had warned the House that the agitation of the_ German Navy League had for its object a war with England.

In 1906 and 1907 Edward VII. paid visits to William II., who returned the compliment in November 1907.  But this interchange of courtesies could not end the distrust caused by Germany’s increase of armaments.  The peace-loving Administration of Campbell-Bannerman, installed in power by the General Election of 1906, sought to come to an understanding with Berlin, especially at the second Hague Conference of 1907, with respect to a limitation of armaments.  But Germany rejected all such proposals[519].  The hopelessness of framing a friendly arrangement with her threw us into the arms of Russia; and on August 31, 1907, Anglo-Russian Conventions were signed defining in a friendly way the interests of the two Powers in Persia, Afghanistan, and Thibet.  True, the interests of Persian reformers were sacrificed by this bargain; but it must be viewed, firstly, in the light of the Bagdad Railway scheme, which threatened soon to bring Germany to the gates of Persia and endanger the position of both Powers in that land[520]; secondly, in that of the general situation, in which Germany and Austria were rapidly forcing their way to a complete military ascendancy and refused to consider any limitation of armaments.  The detailed reasons which prompted the Anglo-Russian Entente are of course unknown.  But the fact that the most democratic of all British Administrations should come to terms with the Russian autocracy is the most convincing proof of the very real danger which both States discerned in the aggressive conduct of the Central Powers.  The Triple Alliance, designed by Bismarck solely to safeguard peace, became, in the hands of William II., a menace to his neighbours,