Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, yesterday fought off US and British pressure to move German soldiers to support peacekeepers in the troubled south of Afghanistan.

It was a delicate message — delivered in a speech to mark one year in office — because Mrs Merkel wanted to show that Germany is taking on a larger, less hesitant role in the world. In January Germany assumes the presidency of the European Union and the G8 and, with her popularity ratings dropping to a record low of 29 per cent at home, Mrs Merkel is keen to brand herself as an international stateswoman.

Increased military action in Afghanistan would antagonise German voters and so, before the Nato summit in Riga, she set out the limits of what Germany was willing to do. German troops, she said, were mandated to guard civil reconstruction in the north of Afghanistan, where 40 per cent of the population live. “I can see no military engagement beyond this mandate,” she told parliament to loud applause.

Germany was carrying out a “vital and dangerous mission” in the north and had brought relative stability to the region. A troop redeployment would endanger these gains. “We want to, and must, successfully complete this mission.”

Her predecessor as Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, drew a similar red line on Iraq, provoking the anger of the United States. But Germany helped the Iraq campaign quietly in other ways, including intelligence gathering.

Officials say that something similar is being considered by the German defence ministry in Afghanistan, including the quiet deployment of reconnaissance or even cargo planes to help the British and United States contingents. Even so, Mrs Merkel — hailed a year ago as a breath of fresh air on the international circuit — is becoming vulnerable on foreign policy as well as domestic affairs.

“She is the only leader who can give direction in a rudderless Europe,” said the Cologne Stadt-Anzeiger daily yesterday. “Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac are on the way out. If Merkel could find a clear voice for Europe, she would restore confidence in a continent without a compass.”

But she was destined to disappoint these expectations — precisely because of the weakness of the other European states, the uncertainty in the White House, and her own inhibitions about committing herself to military missions. The German Chancellor also tried to defend her year of domestic reform: “No one can dispute that after years of stagnation, the country is recovering.”

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