Pact of Cartagena

The Pact of Cartagena was an exchange of notes that took place at Cartagena on 16 May 1907 between the French Republic, the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Spain. The parties declared their intention to preserve the status quo in the western Mediterranean and in the Atlantic, especially their insular and coastal possessions. The pact aligned Spain with the Anglo-French entente cordiale against Germany's ambitions in Morocco, where both Spain and France had mutually recognised (and British-recognised) spheres of influence.

During the First World War, the Pact was cited by those Spanish politicians who favoured closer ties with, or even intervention on the side of, the Entente. On 21 April 1915, the leading conservative politician in Spain, Antonio Maura, made a public statement that:

Spain has the position in northern Africa and in the western Mediterranean which was granted to her by that agreement, she has a community of interests with England and France and the reciprocal promise of maintaining and working in favor of this community, and of this status quo[,] was given by the powers concerned.

Sources

• Langer 1937, p. 650.
• Cunningham 1917, p. 434.