Franco-Russian Alliance

The strengthening of the German Empire, the creation of the Triple Alliance of 1882, and the exacerbation of Franco-German and Russo-German tensions at the end of the 1880s led to a common foreign policy and mutual strategic military interests between France and Russia.

During a visit by a French squadron to Kronstadt in July 1891, the agreement of 1891 was concluded in the form of an exchange of letters between the ministers of foreign affairs.

However, after the Congress of Berlin in 1878, French diplomacy, in aiming at a rapprochement with Great Britain and Germany, assumed a hostile position vis-à-vis Russia.

France's alienation from Russia and her policy of colonial seizures lasted until 1885 when the Franco-German contradictions became heightened after the French victory in Annam.

During the preparatory period and the first years of the existence of the Russo-French Alliance, the determining role was played by Russia, but in time the situation altered.

By constantly receiving new loans from France, Russian tsarism gradually fell into financial dependence on French imperialism.

Prior to World War I, the cooperation of the general staffs of both countries assumed closer forms.