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 all the rest of Europe put together.  When the native government of Egypt fell into bankruptcy (1876), the two powers set up a sort of condominium, or joint control of the finances, in order to ensure the payment of interest on the Egyptian debt held by their citizens.  To bankruptcy succeeded political chaos; and it became apparent that if the rich land of Egypt was not to fall into utter anarchy, there must be direct European intervention.  The two powers proposed to take joint action; the rest of Europe assented.  But the Sultan of Turkey, as suzerain of Egypt, threatened to make difficulties.  At the last moment France, fearful of the complications that might result, and resolute to avoid the danger of European war, withdrew from the project of joint