Triple Entente

(1907)

   A term commonly used to refer to cooperation among Britain, France, and Russia after 1907. It was not an alliance and was composed of three diplomatic agreements: the Franco-Russian alliance on 1894, the 1904 Entente Cordiale between Great Britain and France, and the 1907 Anglo-Russian agreement. These separate arrangements were initially settlements of disputes rather than positive diplomatic commitments, and the three powers involved did not craft a military alliance until after the outbreak of World War I, at which point they agreed, on September 3, 1914, that none of them would sign a separate peace treaty with Germany or Austria-Hungary. That alliance did not survive the war. With the revolution of 1917, the Bolshevik government in Russia renounced the alliance and in 1918 signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany.

   See also <>; <>; <>.

   FURTHER READING:

    Howard, Michael Eliot. The Continental Commitment. London: Ashfield, 1989;

    Langer, William L. European Alliance and Alignments 1871–1890. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962;

    Williamson, Samuel R. The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France Prepare for War, 1904–1914. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969.

   CARL CAVANAGH HODGE