The Franco-Russian Alliance comes into force

On 4 January 1894 (23 December 1893 in the Julian calendar then used in Russia) the French ambassador in St Petersburg, Count de Montebello, addressed to the Russian Foreign Minister, Nikolay Giers, a letter confirming that the President of the Republic and the French government regarded the military convention of August 1892 as “henceforth executory”. By this exchange of letters, without ratification by parliament and without publicity, the Franco-Russian Alliance was concluded. Its terms remained secret until 1918.

From Kronstadt to the convention

An alliance between republican France and Russian autocracy had long seemed impossible. The rapprochement gathered pace when in 1890 Germany did not renew its treaty with Russia, and a year later extended the Triple Alliance. In July 1891 a French squadron under Admiral Gervais paid a visit to Kronstadt. Tsar Alexander III came aboard the French flagship, and the news went round the world that he had stood bareheaded while the “Marseillaise” was played, a song that could not be performed in public in Russia. In August the two governments exchanged letters in which they promised to consult on every question threatening peace and, in case of danger, to agree on common measures.

This was not enough for the French. The Foreign Minister, Alexandre Ribot, argued to Giers that in the face of a sudden German attack a promise of consultation would be useless and that ready military plans were needed. The draft convention was signed in August 1892 in St Petersburg by the chiefs of staff, General Nikolay Obruchev and the French General Raoul de Boisdeffre, and on 17 August Alexander III approved it “in principle”. Sources give the date of the convention as either 17 or 18 August. The document, however, bore no ministers’ signatures and did not bind the governments. The Tsar feared that if the text were discussed in the French cabinet it would become public, and the treaty would then be void as far as he was concerned. The French constitution, for its part, did not allow the President to conclude secret treaties.

Toulon and Giers’s letter

The Tsar delayed for more than another year. He was brought round by, among other things, the German Army Law of 1892, the tariff war with Germany and finally the return visit of a Russian squadron to Toulon in October 1893, where the Russian sailors were welcomed with enthusiasm, while the French press, on the government’s advice, refrained from calls for revenge for Alsace and Lorraine. On 16 December Alexander III received Montebello and for the first time spoke openly about the understanding with France.

A week and a half later Giers wrote to the ambassador a “very secret” letter dated 15/27 December 1893: the draft convention, “approved in principle by His Imperial Majesty and signed by Generals Obruchev and Boisdeffre, may henceforth be considered as definitively adopted in its present form”. Montebello received it on 30 December and replied on 4 January, repeating its content almost word for word. From then on the two general staffs could confer at any time and pass information to each other.

The terms of the convention

The preamble stated that the two countries had “no other aim than to prepare for the necessities of a defensive war”. If France were attacked by Germany, or by Italy supported by Germany, Russia would employ all her available forces against Germany. If Russia were attacked by Germany, or by Austria supported by Germany, France would do the same. Should the Triple Alliance or any of its members mobilise, France and Russia would, “at the first news” and without any previous agreement, mobilise all their forces and transport them as close to the frontiers as possible. Against Germany France was to field 1,300,000 men and Russia from 700,000 to 800,000, so that Germany would have to fight in the east and the west at the same time. Neither party could conclude a separate peace, and the convention was to last as long as the Triple Alliance and to remain “absolutely secret”.

For the first time since 1871 France was no longer isolated. The alliance was defensive, and St Petersburg stressed that Russia had no intention of supporting French dreams of recovering Alsace and Lorraine. When on 4 August 1914 the Prime Minister, René Viviani, asked the Chamber of Deputies for war credits, he carried the text of the convention with him, but nobody asked for it to be read.