538 Chapter 27there he joined in the foundation of the French Com-
munist Party. Perhaps the most impressive resistance to
imperialism was begun by an Indian lawyer, Mohandas
Gandhi. Gandhi began his career as a lawyer defending
Indian laborers in South Africa in 1889. There he de-
veloped a policy of nonviolent resistance known by the
Sanskrit word Satyagraha.Despite harassment, beatings,
and imprisonment, Gandhi stood with the moral force
of Satyagrahaand gained a global reputation. When the
frustrated British deported him to India, Gandhi
brought passive resistance to Indian nationalism.
The Diplomatic Revolution,
1890–1914
Imperial rivalries strained the Bismarckian system in Eu-
rope, but his network of alliances survived until Kaiser
Wilhelm II sent Bismarck into retirement in 1890. The
young emperor followed the advice of one of Bismarck’s
rivals, Baron Fritz von Holstein, to revise the Bismarck-
ian system because Bismarck’s promises to Russia risked
losing the close alliance with Austria. Despite repeated
Russian requests, the kaiser therefore decided not to re-
new the Reinsurance Treaty of 1887, and it lapsed three
months after the dismissal of Bismarck. Instead, Wil-
helm expanded the Triple Alliance in 1891, giving
larger promises of support to Austria-Hungary and
Italy. The consequence of the lapsing of Reinsurance
Treaty was Franco-Russian friendship. One year after
Bismarck’s departure, a French fleet paid a symbolic
visit to the Russian port of Kronstadt (near St. Peters-
burg) and Franco-Russian negotiations began; French
pledges of loans to help industrialize Russia quickly led
to the August Convention of 1891, an informal guaran-
tee of cooperation. Avid French diplomacy expanded
this into a military treaty, the Franco-Russian Alliance
of 1894. Through this pact, the czar pledged to use the
full Russian army against Germany, if Germany invaded
France; the reciprocal French promise gave Russia secu-
rity against Austria and Germany. To be ready for war,
both sides also pledged to mobilize their armies as
soon as any member of the Triple Alliance began
mobilization.
The 1890s witnessed a further weakening of the
German position as a result of deteriorating Anglo-
German relations. The rise of Germany as an industrial
power caused a rivalry for markets and aroused hostile
public opinion in both countries. The jingoistic press
contributed significantly to the worsening relations.
The trade rivalry made the British question their tradi-tion of free trade, and newspapers were soon denounc-
ing goods “Made in Germany.” German imperialism
and German sympathy for the Boers (the kaiser sent a
notorious telegram of encouragement to President
Kruger in 1896) worsened relations further. German
colonies contributed to the emergence of a larger prob-
lem: the German decision to build a great navy.
Through the efforts of Admiral von Tirpitz, Germany
adopted an ambitious Naval Law in 1898 and expanded
that construction program with a second Naval Law in- The British, who had long counted upon “ruling
the waves” as their insurance against invasion, had
adopted a vigorous naval building policy in 1889
known as “the two-power standard”; that is, they would
build a navy equal to the combined forces of any two
rivals. This policy, in combination with the German
naval laws, led Europe to a dangerous arms race.
When the Fashoda crisis rekindled Anglo-French
colonial disputes in 1898, some British statesmen, led
by Joseph Chamberlain, argued that the government
must abandon splendid isolation and enter the Euro-
pean alliance system. Chamberlain suggested resolving
Anglo-German differences and negotiating an Anglo-
German alliance, but his unofficial talks with minor
diplomats in 1898–1901 failed to persuade either Prime
Minister Salisbury or Chancellor von Bülow, and they
were flatly rejected by the kaiser. The French foreign
minister who yielded to Britain in the Fashoda crisis,
Théophile Delcassé, responded by seizing the opportu-
nity to open Anglo-French negotiations over their gen-
erations of colonial differences. By skillfully expanding
colonial negotiations, Delcassé became the architect of
a diplomatic revolution that ended British isolation and
the hegemony of the Triple Alliance. His greatest ac-
complishment was an Anglo-French agreement of 1904
known as the Entente Cordiale (cordial understanding).
The entente was not a military treaty comparable to the
Triple Alliance or the Franco-Russian Alliance. It simply
resolved colonial disputes: France recognized British
preeminence in Egypt, and Britain accepted the French
position in Morocco. Starting with this quid pro quo,the
two governments were able to end squabbles around
the globe.
The German reaction to the Entente Cordiale was
to provoke an international crisis over Morocco in - Germany, which had a growing commercial in-
terest in Morocco, had been excluded from talks on the
subject, although Delcassé had conducted subsequent
negotiations on Morocco to acquire the support of
Spain (by giving up the Moroccan coast opposite
Spain) and of Italy (by backing an Italian claim to
Tripoli). The Moroccan Crisis (later called the first Mo-