Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

THE CREATION OF THE TRIPLE ENTENTE, 1890-1907

The diplomatic isolation of Russia and France combined with a number of more positive factors to bring about the Dual Alliance of 1894. Russian antagonism toward Austria in the Balkans and French fear of Germany along the Rhine were increased by Germany’s refusal to renew the Reinsurance Treaty and by the early renewal of the Triple Alliance in 1891. Both powers were alarmed by growing signs of Anglo-German friendship at the time of the Heligoland Treaty (1890) and on the occasion of the Kaiser’s visit to London in 1891. Finally, Russia needed foreign loans for railroad building and industrial construction, and these could be obtained most readily in Paris. Accordingly, the agreement was closed during the New Year celebrations of 1894 in the form of a military convention. This provided that Russia would attack Germany if France were attacked by Germany or by Italy supported by Germany, while France would attack Germany if Russia were attacked by Germany or by Austria supported by Germany.

This Dual Alliance of France and Russia became the base of a triangle whose other sides were “ententes,” that is, friendly agreements between France and Britain (1904) and between Russia and Britain (1907).

To us looking back on it, the Entente Cordiale between France and Britain seems inevitable, yet to contemporaries, as late as 1898, it must have appeared as a most unlikely event. For many years Britain had followed a policy of diplomatic isolation, maintaining a balance of power on the Continent by shifting her own weight to whatever side of Europe’s disputes seemed the weaker. Because of her colonial rivalries with France in Africa and southwest Asia and her disputes with Russia in the Near, Middle, and Far East, Britain was generally friendly to the Triple Alliance and estranged from the Dual Alliance as late as 1902. Her difficulties with the Boers in South Africa, the growing strength of Russia in the Near and Far East, and Germany’s obvious sympathy with the Boers led Britain to conclude the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902 in order to obtain support against Russia in China. About the same time, Britain became convinced of the need and the possibility of an agreement with France. The need arose from Germany’s direct threat to Britain’s most sensitive spot by Tirpitz’s naval-building program of 1898. The possibility of agreement with France emerged in the wake of the most acute Anglo-French crisis of modern times, the Fashoda crisis of 1898. At Fashoda on the Nile, a band of French under Colonel Jean Marchand, who had been crossing the Sahara from west to east, came face to face with a force of British under General Kitchener, who had been moving up the Nile from Egypt in order to subdue the tribes of the Sudan. Each ordered the other to withdraw. Passions rose to fever heat while both sides consulted their capitals for instructions. As a consequence of these instructions the French withdrew. As passions cooled and the dust settled, it became clear to both sides that their interests were reconcilable, since France’s primary interest was on the Continent, where she faced Germany, while Britain’s primary interest was in the colonial field where she increasingly found herself facing Germany. France’s refusal to engage in a colonial war with Britain while the German Army sat across the Rhine made it clear that France could arrive at a colonial agreement with Britain. This agreement was made in 1904 by putting all their disputes together on the negotiation table and balancing one against another. The French recognized the British occupation of Egypt in return for diplomatic support for their ambitions in Morocco. They gave up ancient rights in Newfoundland in return for new territories in Gabon and along the Niger River in Africa. Their rights in Madagascar were recognized in return for accepting a British “sphere of interests” in Siam. Thus, the ancient Anglo-French enmity was toned down in the face of the rising power of Germany. This Entente Cordiale was deepened in the period 1906-1914 by a series of Anglo-French “military conversations,” providing, at first, for unofficial discussions regarding behavior in a quite hypothetical war with Germany but hardening imperceptibly through the years into a morally binding agreement for a British expeditionary force to cover the French left wing in the event of a French war with Germany. These “military conversations” were broadened after 1912 by a naval agreement by which the British undertook to protect France from the North Sea in order to free the French fleet for action against the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean.

The British agreement with Russia in 1907 followed a course not dissimilar to that of the British agreement with France in 1904. British suspicions of Russia had been fed for years by their rivalry in the Near East. By 1904 these suspicions were deepened by a growing Anglo-Russian rivalry in Manchuria and North China, and were brought to a head by Russian construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway (finished in 1905). A violent crisis arose over the Dogger Bank incident of 1904, when the Russian fleet, en route from the Baltic Sea to the Far East, fired on British fishing vessels in the North Sea in the belief that they were Japanese torpedo boats. The subsequent destruction of that Russian fleet by the Japanese and the ensuing victory of Britain’s ally in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 made clear to both parties that agreement between them was possible. German naval rivalry with Britain and the curtailment of Russian ambitions in Asia as a result of the defeat by Japan made possible the agreement of 1907. By this agreement Persia was divided into three zones of influence, of which the northern was Russian, the southern was British, and the center was neutral. Afghanistan was recognized as under British influence; Tibet was declared to be under Chinese suzerainty; and Britain expressed her willingness to modify the Straits Agreements in a direction favorable to Russia.

One influence which worked to create and strengthen the Triple Entente was that of the international banking fraternity. These were largely excluded from the German economic development, but had growing links with France and Russia. Prosperous enterprises like the Suez Canal Company, the Rothschild copper enterprise, Rio Tinto, in Spain, and many newer joint activities in Morocco created numerous unobtrusive links which both preceded and strengthened the Triple Entente. The Rothschilds, close friends of Edward VII and of France, were linked to the French investment bank, Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas. This, in turn, was the chief influence in selling nine billion rubles of Russian bonds in France before 1914. The most influential of London bankers, Sir Ernest Cassel, a great and mysterious person (1852-1921), had come from Germany to England at the age of seventeen, built up an immense fortune, which he gave away with a lavish hand, was closely connected with Egypt, Sweden, New York, Paris, and Latin America, became one of King Edward’s closest personal friends and employer of the greatest wire-puller of the period, that ubiquitous mole, Lord Esher. These generally anti-Prussian influences around King Edward played a significant part in building up the Triple Entente and in strengthening it when Germany foolishly challenged their projects in Morocco in the 1904-1912 period.

EFFORTS TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN THE TWO COALITIONS, 1890-1914

At the beginning, and even up to 1913, the two coalitions on the international scene were not rigid or irreconcilably alienated. The links between the members of each group were variable and ambiguous. The Triple Entente was called an entente just because two of its three links were not alliances. The Triple Alliance was by no means solid, especially in respect to Italy, which had joined it originally to obtain support against the Papacy over the Roman question but which soon tried to obtain support for an aggressive Italian policy in the Mediterranean and North Africa. Failure to obtain specific German support in these areas, and continued enmity with Austro-Hungary in the Adriatic, made the Italian link with the Central Powers rather tenuous.