The progress of the Russo-Japanese War, however, soon relieved Germany of all anxiety as to the safety of her eastern frontiers, and produced a corresponding change in her attitude. The Russian disasters in Manchuria at the beginning of 1905 were followed by an extraordinary demonstration of the emperor William's ideas as to "the world-wide dominion of the Hohenzollerns," in a sort of imperial progress in the East, made for the purpose of impressing the Mahommedan world with the power of Germany. In 1904 the German attitude towards Great Britain had been in the highest degree conciliatory; the Anglo-French agreement as to Egypt was agreed to at Berlin; a visit of King Edward VII. to Kiel was reciprocated by that of the German squadron to Plymouth; in July a treaty of arbitration was signed between the two countries, while in the Reichstag the chancellor declared that, Germany's interests in Morocco being purely commercial, the understanding between France and England as to that country, embodied in the convention of the 8th of April 1904, did not immediately concern her. This attitude was now changed. On the 31st of March 1905 the emperor William landed at Tangier, and is reported on this occasion to have used language which in effect amounted to a promise to support the sultan of Morocco in resisting French control. His visit to the Holy Land and the solemn pilgrimage to Jerusalem were, in the same way, a striking _coup de théâtre_ designed to strengthen the influence won by Germany in the councils of the Ottoman empire, an influence which she had been careful not to weaken by taking too active a part in the concert of the powers engaged in pressing on the question of Macedonian reform.