Morocco had long been under a line of independent sultans. Most of her commerce was with Great Britain although German capitalists had received concessions within her border. As the country next to the French province of Algeria, France looked upon it as her own particular sphere of influence. We have already seen that Italy conceded this claim, 1901, while France conceded Italy’s claim to Tripoli and Cyrenaica. In 1904 France conceded Great Britain’s practical supremacy in Egypt and in return was assured the protectorate over Morocco. She asked no concession from Germany but came to an agreement with Spain, who had a small strip of territory south of the Straits of Gibraltar. In 1905 Delcassé was quietly preparing to carry out his plan for the development of Morocco, when the kaiser landed in Tangiers without the slightest warning, and announced in a public address that he had come to visit his friend, the independent sultan of Morocco, in whose country all foreign nations had equal rights. The speech was received by the world as a challenge to France and a means of announcing that Germany was no longer to be ignored. The moment of the landing at Tangiers was well chosen by the kaiser; for only three weeks earlier Russia, the ally of France, had been defeated by the Japanese at Mukden and could give her no assistance. In this unfortunate situation it was necessary for France to bend before the storm. She agreed to submit the whole Moroccan question to an international congress, thus appealing to the principle of the Concert of Europe, and when she learned that the kaiser demanded that she dismiss the minister whose hands had been played so skillfully against Germany, she agreed to that also. The dismissal of Delcassé recalls an incident of 1807. In that year Napoleon forced the king of Prussia to dismiss Stein, his great minister, who was bending all his efforts to reëstablish Prussia on a war footing. It marked the triumph of Napoleon’s power for the time being, but it was a futile action; for Stein out of office under such circumstances had more influence than ever, and the shameful way in which he was treated only emphasized Prussia’s humiliation and made the Prussians more determined than ever to assert their national power. Similar results in France in 1905 followed the stab given to that nation’s faithful and efficient minister.