Anglo-Russian Convention

(1907)

   An agreement signed by Great Britain and Russia on August 31, 1907, which effectively ended the nineteenth-century Great Game and the ceaseless territorial and diplomatic squabbles associated with it. By its terms, both Britain and Russia agreed to relinquish any hopes of invading or conquering Afghanistan; however, Britain was allowed some control over political matters within Afghanistan. Persia was placed under a similar situation, with both Russian and British spheres of influence. Tibet was relinquished to Chinese control, but Britain was allowed to continue trade with the Tibetans and Russian Buddhists were allowed continued access to the Dalai Lhama. The agreement additionally solidified the creation of a Triple Entente among France, Great Britain, and Russia to counter the earlier creation of the Triple Alliance, consisting of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy. The tsarist state was greatly weakened in the years immediately before the Anglo-Russian agreement. Russia first suffered a humiliating and crushing defeat to the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. This military disaster led to domestic political upheaval. The 1905 revolution happened amidst the background of widespread discontent among workers, peasants, and minority nationalities in Russia and laid bare persistent problems in the Russian Empire of political instability and widely varying degrees of support for and opposition to the tsarist government. This would eventually lead to the overthrow of the tsarist regime and its eventual replacement by the Bolshevik Communist leadership in the revolution of 1917. For Britain, the 1907 agreement happened as the British Empire was reaching the pinnacle of its influence, only to face its ultimate test in World War I.

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   FURTHER READING:

    Churchill, Rogers Platt. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. Cedar Rapids, IA: The Torch Press, 1939;

    Kazemzadeh, Firuz. Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864-1914. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968.

   SCOTT C. BAILEY