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Though often recognized for the aggressiveness of his foreign policy, Roosevelt was also a peacemaker. His most successful effort at bringing belligerent powers to the negotiating table involved a crisis that had broken out in East Asia. Fighting had erupted between Russia and Japan in 1904, following Japan's attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. As the Russo-Japanese War raged on with many Japanese victories, Roosevelt approached both nations about mediating peace negotiations. The President longed for a world in which countries would turn to arbitration instead of war to settle international disputes, and he offered his services to this end. Although Russia and Japan initially refused his offer, they eventually accepted his "good offices" to help negotiate a peace, meeting with Roosevelt in 1905 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. For his role as mediator, Roosevelt won the Nobel Prize for Peace, the first U.S. President to do so. Roosevelt also arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Britain had recognized French control over Morocco in return for French recognition of British control in Egypt. Germany felt excluded by this agreement and challenged France's role in Morocco. Although the French had a weak claim to Morocco, the United States could not reject it without rejecting Britain's claim as well. The settlement in 1906 reached at Algeciras, Spain, saved face for Germany but gave France undisputed control over Morocco; it also paved the way for British control over Egypt. Some historians think that Roosevelt's intervention in these two hot spots averted fighting that might have engulfed all of Europe and Asia in a world war. In any case, Roosevelt's actions greatly strengthened Anglo-French ties with the United States.

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13y ago

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