Significantly for the events of August 1914, the crisis led British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey and France to make a secret naval agreement where the Royal Navy promised to protect the northern coast of France from German attack, while France concentrated her fleet in the western Mediterranean and agreed to protect British interests there. France was thus able to guard her communications with her North African colonies, and Britain to concentrate more force in home waters to oppose the German High Seas Fleet. The Cabinet was not informed of this agreement until August 1914.