Triple Entente

The Franco-Japanese Treaty of 1907 was a key part of building a coalition as France took the lead in creating alliances with Japan, Russia, and (informally) with Britain. Japan wanted to raise a loan in Paris, so France made the loan contingent on a Russo-Japanese agreement and a Japanese guarantee for France's strategically vulnerable possessions in Indochina. Britain encouraged the Russo-Japanese rapprochement. Thus was built the Triple Entente coalition that fought World War I.^[1]

At the start of

Events leading to World War I
Unification of Germany 1866–1871 Franco-Prussian War 1870–1871 Second Concert of Europe 1871 Great Eastern Crisis 1875–1878 Campaign in Bosnia 1878 Dual Alliance 1879 Boer Wars 1880–1902 Austro–Serbian Alliance 1881–1903 Triple Alliance 1882 Berlin Conference 1884 Bulgarian Crisis 1885–1888 Reinsurance Treaty 1887–1890 Franco-Russian Alliance 1894 Anglo-German naval arms race 1898–1912 Fashoda incident 1898 Anglo-Japanese Alliance 1902 Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905 Entente Cordiale 1904 First Moroccan Crisis 1905–1906 Pig War 1906–1908 Anglo-Russian Convention 1907 Young Turk Revolution 1908 Bosnian Crisis 1908–1909 Racconigi Bargain 1909 Second Moroccan Crisis 1911 Italo-Turkish War 1911–1912 Balkan Wars 1912–1913 Assassination of Franz Ferdinand 1914 July Crisis 1914
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Russia had by far the largest manpower reserves of all the six European powers, but it was also the most backward economically. Russia shared France's worries about Germany. Additionally, the Russians feared that the Ottomans, who had received assistance from the British under Admiral Limpus, et al., the French, and the Germans to reorganize and modernize the Ottoman armed forces, would come to control the Dardanelles, a vital trade artery that carried two-fifths of Russia's exports.^[10]

There was also Russia's recent rivalry with Austria-Hungary over the spheres of influence in the Balkans and after the Reinsurance Treaty was not renewed in 1890,^[11] Russian leaders grew alarmed at the country's diplomatic isolation and joined the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894.^[12]

France developed a strong bond with Russia by ratifying the Franco-Russian Alliance, which was designed to create a strong counter to the Triple Alliance. France's main concerns were to protect against an attack from Germany and to regain Alsace-Lorraine.

Entente cordiale

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Britain continued its policy of "splendid isolation", with its primary focus on defending its massive overseas empire. However, by the early 1900s, the German threat had increased dramatically, and Britain thought it was in need of allies. London made overtures to Berlin which were not reciprocated,^{[citation needed]} so London turned to Paris and St. Petersburg instead.

In 1904, Britain and France signed a series of agreements, the

Britain, traditionally having control of the seas, by 1909 saw the German navy as a serious threat to its Royal Navy. Britain was well ahead in terms of Dreadnought technology and responded with a major building program. They built a Royal Navy that Germany could never rival. The British sent war minister Lord Haldane to Berlin in February 1912 to reduce friction stemming from the Anglo-German naval arms race. The mission was a failure because the Germans attempted to link a "naval holiday" with a British promise to remain neutral if Germany should become engaged in a war where "Germany could not be said to be the aggressor." Zara Steiner says, "It would have meant abandoning the whole system of ententes which had been so carefully nurtured during the past six years. There was no German concession to counter the fear of German aggression."^[14] Essentially, the British reserved the right to join whatever country was attacking Germany even if Germany did not start the conflict, dooming the talks to failure.^[15][16] According to German historian Dirk Bönker, "To be sure, the [naval] race was decided early on; political leaders and diplomats learned to bracket it as an issue, and it did not cause the decision for war in 1914. But the naval competition nonetheless created an atmosphere of mutual hostility and distrust, which circumscribed the space for peaceful diplomacy and public recognition of shared interests, and helped to pave the twisted road to war in Europe."^[17]

Not an alliance

The Entente, unlike the Triple Alliance and the Franco-Russian Alliance, was not an alliance of mutual defense and so Britain was free to make its own foreign policy decisions in 1914. As British Foreign Office Official Eyre Crowe minuted, "The fundamental fact, of course, is that the Entente is not an alliance. For purposes of ultimate emergencies, it may be found to have no substance at all. For the Entente is nothing more than a frame of mind, a view of general policy which is shared by the governments of two countries, but which may be, or become, so vague as to lose all content".^[18]

Anglo-Russian Convention

Russia had also recently lost the humiliating Russo-Japanese War, a cause of the Russian Revolution of 1905, and the apparent transformation into a constitutional monarchy. Although it was perceived as useless during the war with Japan, the alliance was valuable in the European theatre to counteract the threat of the Triple Alliance. Tomaszewski describes the evolution of the triple entente relationship from the Russian standpoint during the period 1908 to 1914 as a progression from a shaky set of understandings that withstood various crises and emerged as a fully-fledged alliance after the outbreak of World War I.^[19]

In 1907, the

The coming into being of the entente did not necessarily fix a permanent division into two opposing power blocs. The situation remained flexible.[21] The alignment of the Russian Empire with Europe's two largest power centres was controversial on both sides. Many Russian conservatives distrusted the secular French and recalled British past diplomatic manoeuvres to block Russian influence in the

• Causes of World War I
  • British entry into World War I
  • French entry into World War I
  • Russian entry into World War I
• Historiography of the causes of World War I
• International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919)
• Little Entente

References