There were other ardent French nationalists who felt very much the same way about it. However, in their opinion, it would be unwise to gamble on the complete absorption of Germany in her _Bagdadbahn_. It would be wiser, perhaps, to withhold financial support until such time as the German Foreign Office was willing to execute a formal treaty conferring upon France an exclusive sphere of interest in Morocco. Bagdad was to be had for the asking—but in exchange for Morocco! It is said that in 1905, after the fall of Delcassé and on the eve of the Algeciras Conference, M. Rouvier, Prime Minister of France, approached the German ambassador in Paris with a view to negotiating a Franco-German agreement granting Germany a free hand in Turkey in return for recognition of the special interests of France in Morocco.[40] M. André Tardieu revived this suggestion two years later. “Germany needs capital,” he said. “And when one needs capital, it is to France that one comes in search of it. It is inevitable, necessary, therefore, that Germany come to us. She will be obliged to come to us sooner or later to seek our capital for the Bagdad enterprise. Germany has the concession. She has commenced the lines. But all the sections requiring the greatest engineering skill are still to be constructed, and she has not the money to construct them.” If France agrees to let Germany have the necessary funds, it will be on the condition that Germany allow France important compensations. “Where will these compensations be sought? I have no hesitation in saying, in Morocco. The Act of Algeciras must be set aside, and France must have a free hand in Morocco! An agreement upon the Bagdad question would be mischievous if it concerned Bagdad alone, for, the Germans having the concession in their pockets, the positions of the negotiators would not be equal. On the other hand, if the agreement is for two purposes, if it refers to Bagdad _and_ Morocco, I believe, I repeat, it would be both practicable and desirable.”[41] The proposal that French consent to the Bagdad Railway could be purchased with compensations in North Africa met with no enthusiasm in Germany. Herr Bassermann, leader of the National Liberals in the Reichstag, urged the Foreign Office to meet any such diplomatic maneuver on the part of France with a sharp rebuff.[42] At the time of the Agadir crisis, furthermore, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein is said to have warned Bethmann-Hollweg that Germany would have to stand firm on Morocco, for “if, notwithstanding Damascus and Tangier, we abandon Morocco, we lose at one blow our position in Turkey, and with it the advantages and prospects for the future which we have acquired painfully by years of toil.”[43]