It was as dramatic a coup as the Emperor's visit to Tangier and caused as much alarm. The fact is that the march of French troops to Fez, which had taken place a few months before, convinced the Emperor and his Government that France, relying on the support of her Entente friend England, was bent on the Tunisification of Morocco. The Emperor, Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg, and Foreign Secretary Kiderlen-Wæchter met at the Foreign Office on May 21st, and it was decided to send a ship of war, as at once a hint and a demonstration, to Agadir or other Moroccan port. Germany, of course, in accordance with diplomatic strategy, did not disclose the real springs of her action, though they must have been patent to all the world. She notified the Powers of the dispatch of her warship, explaining that the sending of the _Panther_, which "happened to be in the neighbourhood," was owing to the representations of German firms, as a temporary measure for the protection of German protégés in that region, and taken "in view of the possible spread of disorders prevailing in other parts of Morocco." In France, on the other hand, it was asserted that the step was not in conformity with the spirit of the Franco-German Agreement of 1909, in which Germany resolved not to impede French special interests, that there were no Germans at Agadir, and that only nine months previously Germany had angrily protested at the calling of a French cruiser at the same port. The reference was to the visit of the French cruiser _Du Chaylu_ in November, 1910, when the captain paid a visit to the local pasha. The German Foreign Secretary eventually said Germany had no objection to France using her police rights even in a closed port, and the admission was taken as a fresh renunciation on the part of Germany of any right to interference. Feeling ran high for a time both in France and Germany, while the German action added to the sentiment of hostility to Germany in England, and English political circles perceived in it a design on Germany's part of acquiring a port on the Moroccan coast. The word "compensation," which afterwards was to prove the solution of Franco-German differences was now first mentioned by Germany.