英仏協商
The treaty served German chancellor Leo von Caprivi's aims for settlement with the British. After the 1884 Berlin Conference, Germany had lost in this phase of the "Scramble for Africa": the German East Africa Company under Carl Peters had acquired a strip of land on the Tanganyikan coast (leading to the 1888 Abushiri Revolt), but had never had any control over the islands of the Zanzibar sultanate; the Germans gave away no vital interest. In return, they acquired Heligoland, strategically placed for control over the German Bight, which, with the construction of the Kiel Canal from 1887 onward, had become essential to Emperor Wilhelm's II plans for expansion of the Imperial Navy. Wilhelm's naval policies aborted an accommodation with the British and ultimately led to a rapprochement between Britain and France, sealed with the "Entente cordiale" in 1904.