Entente Cordiale
Britain and France signed a series of agreements in April 1904 settling their colonial disputes, and ended eight centuries of intermittent hostility. It was not an alliance and contained no military commitment. It was a list of trades: France recognised British primacy in Egypt, Britain recognised French primacy in Morocco, and the two settled arguments over Newfoundland fishing rights, Madagascar, Siam, the New Hebrides and West Africa. They had come close to war at Fashoda on the Nile as recently as 1898. What changed was Germany. The naval programme begun under Tirpitz in 1898 was designed to challenge Britain in the North Sea, and British policy of splendid isolation depended on no continental power being able to do that. Britain had already allied with Japan in 1902, its first such commitment in a century. Edward VII's state visit to Paris in 1903 did a great deal of the atmospheric work, in a city that had been vocally hostile over the Boer War. Germany then tested the arrangement and strengthened it. The Kaiser landed at Tangier in 1905 and declared for Moroccan independence, expecting Britain to leave France isolated; the Algeciras conference of 1906 left Germany supported only by Austria-Hungary. Anglo-French military and naval staff talks began that year, and by 1912 the fleets had divided the seas between them, which was an obligation in everything but writing. Russia joined the arrangement in 1907, completing the Triple Entente. Britain entered the war in 1914 over Belgium rather than over France, which is what the absence of a written commitment had left open.
- Year: 1904 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
