een in name part of the Turkish Empire, and any
European interference in their affairs was as much a question of
European politics as the problems of the Balkans. Two countries in this
area fell under European direction during the period with which we are
concerned, and in each case the effects upon European politics were
very great. In 1881 France, with the deliberate encouragement of
Bismarck, sent armies into Tunis, and assumed the protectorate of that
misgoverned region. She had good grounds for her action. Not only had
she large trade-interests in Tunis, but the country was separated from
her earlier dominion in Algeria only by an artificial line, and its
disorders increased the difficulty of developing the efficient
administration which she had established there. Unhappily Italy also
had interests in Tunis. There were more Italian than French residents
in the country, which is separated from Sicily only by a narrow belt of
sea. And Italy, who was beginning to conceive colonial ambitions, had
not unnaturally marked down Tunis as her most obvious sphere of
influence. The result was to create a long-lived ill-feeling between
the two Latin countries. As a consequence of the annexation of Tunis,
Italy was persuaded in the next year (1882) to join the Triple
Alliance; and France, having burnt her fingers, became chary of
colonial adventures in regions that were directly under the eye of
Europe. Isolated, insecure, and eternally suspicious of Germany, she
could not afford to be drawn into European quarrels. This is in a large
degree the explanation of her vacillating action in regard to Egypt.

In Egypt the political influence of France had been preponderant ever
since the time of Mehemet Ali; perhaps we should say, ever since the
time of Napoleon. And political influence had been accompanied by
trading and financial interests. France had a larger share of the trade
of Egypt, and had lent more money to the ruling princes of the country,
than any other country save England. She had designed and executed the
Suez Canal. But this waterway, once opened, was used mainly by British
ships on the way to India, Australia, and the Far East. It became a
point of vital strategic importance to Britain, who, though she had
opposed its construction, eagerly seized the chance of buying a great
block of shares in the enterprise from the bankrupt Khedive. Thus
French and British interests in Egypt were equally great; greater than
those of