A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

Entangling Alliances 871

In 1892, Russia and France signed a military treaty by which each

pledged a military response if the other were attacked by Germany or by

one or more of its allies. A secret formal alliance followed in 1894. The

alliance was essentially defensive in nature: the French no more encouraged

Russian moves in the direction of the Balkans than the Russians wanted to

see France embark on a war of revenge to recapture Alsace-Lorraine from

Germany. But the Dual Alliance, as it was called, countered the Triple

Alliance. It defeated the most essential thrust of Bismarck’s foreign policy

by ending France’s diplomatic isolation.

Anglo-German Rivalry

During the 1890s, the possibility of Britain joining the Dual Alliance of

France and Russia seemed remote. Whereas Germany and Britain had

some competing colonial interests—for example, in Africa—the interests

of France and Britain clashed in West Africa and Indochina, and France

was jealous of British influence in Egypt. When a French force encountered

a British army unit in 1898 on the upper Nile at Fashoda, war between the

two seemed a distinct possibility (see Chapter 21) before the French gov­

ernment backed down. Furthermore, Afghanistan, lying strategically between

British India and Russia, was a particular point of tension between those

two powers.

The British government had long made it clear that it sought no alliance

with anyone and that it would stand alone, its empire protected by the

great British navy. But the British government signed the Entente Cordiale

(“Friendly Agreement”) with France in 1904. Britain did so for several rea­

sons. The hostile reaction from every power in Europe to the Boer War

(1899-1902; see Chapter 21) fought by British troops in South Africa

demonstrated that it was one thing to stand in proud isolation from the

continent, but another to have no friends at all. Furthermore, Britain’s

relations with Germany soured markedly. Germany’s pointed criticism of

Britain’s war with the Boers strained relations between the two powers. In

1895, Kaiser William II, in his inimitably clumsy way, had sent a telegram

congratulating the president of the Boer Republic of Transvaal in southern

Africa on the Boers’ successful stand against a British attacking force. This

unleashed a storm of nationalistic fury in Britain and Germany.

Neither Anglo-German cooperation in the suppression of the Boxer

Rebellion in China in 1900, nor a joint operation to force Venezuela to pay

some of its foreign debts in 1902, significantly improved Anglo-German

relations. Gradually, the British began to realize the growing extent of Ger­

man influence in the Turkish Ottoman Empire. British military planners

feared that Germany might be able to move troops more quickly overland

into the Middle East than the Royal Navy could by ship.

German economic growth and the doubling of its foreign trade during

the last three decades of the nineteenth century had begun to make some