Background
German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow was worried about the recently signed Entente Cordiale between Britain and France seeing it as an alliance that potentially threatened Germany. The British and French had until recently been involved in imperial rivalries in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Von Bülow calculated that Germany could provoke a minor crisis which would reveal the weakness of ties between the two powers and that Britain would not be prepared to offer strong support to France in a situation where war would be in sight.
The French government was at the time trying to establish a protectorate (prəˈtektərət) over Morocco, and had managed to sign two bilateral agreements with Britain (8 April 1904) and Spain (7 October 1904), which guaranteed the support of the powers in question in this endeavour. A previous agreement with Italy had yet been signed (14–16 December 1900).
Read more about this topic: First Moroccan Crisis
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