to improve relations with Japan. Having been approached by King Edward VII during the Russo-Japanese War with a proposal of alliance, he made it a primary aim of his policy when he became Foreign Minister, feeling that Russia, weakened by the war with Japan, needed another ally besides France, which resulted in the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. Bosnian crisis Another primary objective was to realize Russia's long-standing goal of opening (i.e., permitting free transit, without prior conditions; and in exclusive right to Russia) the Bosporus and the Dardanelles (known jointly as the "Straits") to Russian warships, giving Russia free passage to the Mediterranean and making it possible to use the Black Sea Fleet not just in the coastal defense of her Black Sea territory; but also in support of her global interests. In one of the secret articles of the renewed League of the Three Emperors of 1881, Austria-Hungary had asserted the right 'to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina at whatever moment she shall deem opportune', and the claim was repeated intermittently in Austro-Russian agreements. This was not contested by Russia, but St Petersburg maintained the right to impose conditions. Izvolsky, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II proposed that the annexation of Bosnia-Herzogovina be exchanged for Austrian support for improved Russian access to the Turkish Straits. Izvolsky met with the Austrian Foreign Minister, Baron (later Count) Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal, at the Moravian castle of Buchlov on September 16, 1908, and there agreed to support Austria's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in exchange for Austria's assent to the opening of the Straits to Russia; and to support such an opening, at any subsequent diplomatic conference. Aehrenthal's announcement of the annexation on 5 October 1908, secured through alterations of the terms of the Treaty of Berlin at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, occasioned a major European crisis. Izvolsky denied having reached any agreement with Aehrenthal. He subsequently denied any foreknowledge of Aehrenthal's intentions and tried unsuccessfully to have a meeting called to deal with the status of Bosnia-Herzogovina. The impasse in diplomacy was resolved only by the St Petersburg note of March 1909 in which the Germans demanded that the Russians at last recognize the annexation and urge Serbia to do likewise. If they did not, German Chancellor Bülow suggested, there was the possibility of an Austrian war on Serbia and the further direct possibility that the Germans would release