Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T12:59:46.474Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Franco-Russian Alliance and Russian Railways, 1891–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. N. Collins
D. N. Collins
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Though both Russia and France appreciated the value of an alliance between the two countries, their predominant motives for concluding the Alliance were quite dissimilar. France seems to have been motivated mainly by fear of Germany. Her need for a strong military and political counterweight to Germany led her naturally to contemplate allying herself with Russia. Russia was primarily interested in obtaining investment capital to finance industrial development. Owing to a change of German policy in the late 1880s she was obliged to seek financial aid outside Berlin, hitherto her chief source of funds. France was apparently willing to lend Russia money in exchange for military and political support, which the Russians were not averse to providing. Hence the Alliance of 1891 was intended to be of benefit to both parties.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 1973 , pp. 777 - 788
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Quoted from a letter to his wife in Andrew, C., Théophile Delcassé and the Making of the Entente Cordiale (London, New York, 1968), p. 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Quoted from Nolde, B., L' Alliance franco-russe: les origines du système diplomatique d' avantguerre (Paris, 1936), p. 632.Google Scholar

3 Fay, S., The Origins of the World War (2nd edn, New York, 1959), i, 108.Google Scholar

4 Documents diplomatiques français (1870–1914), première série torn 10 (Paris, 1945), p. 711. This series of documents will hereafter be referred to as ‘DDF’.Google Scholar

5 Bliokh, I. S., Budushchaya voina v tekhnicheskom, ekonomicheskom i politicheskom otnosheniyah, torn i (St. Petersburg, 1898), pp. 196–7.Google Scholar

6 DDF, première serie, torn 8 (Paris, 1938), pp. 579–80;Google ScholarZaionchkovskii, A., Podgotovka Rosii k mirovoi voine v mezhdunarodnom otnoshenii (Moscow, 1926), pp. 67–9, a letter from the Russian Chief of Staff Obruchev to Tsar Alexander III supports this view.Google Scholar

7 DDF, première série, torn 9 (Paris, 1939), pp. 604–5. This attitude was expressed in a draft military agreement placed before the Russians in 1892.Google Scholar

8 Bliokh, , Buduschaya voina v tekhnicheskom, torn 2, pp. 56–95; DDF, première série, torn 9, p. 202 – a report by the French Military Attache in St Petersburg hoping that improvements in the Russian railway network might speed up mobilization, dated December 1891.Google Scholar

9 DDF, première série, torn 9, p. 599.

10 Ibid. torn 10, p. 524.

11 Anan'ich, B., Rossiya i mezhdunarodnyi kapital 1897–1917: ocherk istorii finansovykh otnoshenii (Leningrad, 1970), p. 61,Google Scholar quoting from Russian archives. Many important Russian documents relating to this paper have not been published, and have to be quoted at second hand. Andrew, , Delcassé, pp. 124, 156, 214.Google Scholar

12 Laue, T. Von, Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia (New York, 1963), p. 296.Google Scholar

13 Anan'ich, , Rossiya i mezhdunarodnyi kapital, p. 62 from a letter from Delcasse to ambassador Urusov, 20 Dec. 1899.Google Scholar

14 DDF, première série, torn 16 (Paris, 1959), pp. 596–8;Google Scholaribid. deuxième série, torn 14 (Paris, 1930), p. 146.Google Scholar See also Andrew, , Delcassé, pp. 124, 214.Google Scholar The Trans-Caspian Railway, extending from the Caspian Sea eastwards to Tashkent, with a southern branch from Merv to the Afghan border, constructed in 1898, was not /inked with the European Russian railway system. If Tashkent were connected with Orenburg, and thus Moscow, troop concentrations would be facilitated. Westwood, J. N., A History of Russian Railways (London, 1964), pp. 125–8.Google Scholar

15 Vitte, S., Vospominaniya, tom 2 (Moscow, 1960), p. 503.Google Scholar

16 Danilov, Yu., Rossiya v mirovoi voine, 1914–1915gg. (Berlin, 1924), p. 30.Google Scholar

17 DDF, premiere serie, tom 14 (Paris, 1957), p. 481 note, 527.Google Scholar

18 Ibid. p. 487.

19 Zaionchkovskii, A., Podgotovka Rossii k mirovoi voine v mezhdunarodnom otnoshenii, pp. 88–9,Google Scholar letter from Kuropatkin to Minister of Foreign Affairs Lamsdorf. See Andrew, , Delcassé, pp. 128ff.Google Scholar

20 DDF, première série, tom 15 (Paris, 1959), pp. 432–4; tom 16, pp. 585–5.Google Scholar

21 Ibid. tom 16, pp. 316–7.

22 Ibid. pp. 582–4.

23 RozentaT, E., Diplomaticheskaya istoriya russko-frantsuzskogo soyuza (Moscow, 1960), p. 217.Google Scholar

24 DDF, deuxième série, tom 1 (Paris, 19), p. 135.

25 Rozental', , Diplomaticheskaya istoriya, p. 218, quoting Russian Archive of Foreign Affairs, secret section.Google Scholar

26 DDF, deuxième série, tom 1, p. 139. The French chief of staff states that the Russians had first agreed to build this line after Delcassé's visit in 1899 to St Petersburg.

27 Ibid. p. 308.

28 Zaionchkovskii, A., Podgotovka Rossii k mirovoi voine v mezhdunarodnom otnoshenii, p. 97.Google Scholar

29 Anan'ich, , Rossiya i mezhdunarodnyi kapital, p. 63, quoting archive sources.Google Scholar

30 Ibid. p. 63; DDF, deuxième série, tom 1, pp. 239, 263. A judicious misuse of the terms ‘mobilisation’ and ‘general concentration’ is the key to this apparent anomaly.

31 Ibid. p. 64.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid. pp. 62, 64–5.

34 Ibid. pp. 65–70; DDF, deuxième série, tom 1, pp. 389–90.

35 Vine, S., Vospominaniya, tom 2 (Moscow, 1960), pp. 502–3;Google Scholar see also the paraphrase in Les mémoircs du Comte Witte (1849–1915) (Paris, 1921), p. 64.Google Scholar

36 DDF, deuxième série, tom 1, p . 514.

37 DDF, première série, tom 16, pp. 582–3.

38 ibid.

39 DDF, deuxième série, tom 2 (Paris, 1931), p. 69.Google Scholar

40 DDF, deuxième série, tom 5 (Paris, 1934), pp. 65–6.Google Scholar

41 Zaionchkovskii, A., Vodgotovka Rossii k mirovoi voinc v mezhdunarodnom otnoshcnii, p. 97 note.Google Scholar

42 Watson, H. Seton, The Russian Empire 1801–1917 (Oxford, 1967), pp. 588–9.Google Scholar

43 Anan'ich, , Rossiya i mezhdunarodnyi kapital, p. 108;Google Scholar DDF, deuxième série, tom 5, p. 112; Romanov, B., Ocherki diplomatichcskoi istorii russko-yaponskoi voiny 1895–1907, zoe izdanie (Moscow, Leningrad, 1955), p. 315.Google Scholar

44 DDF, deuxième série, tom 8 (Paris, 1938), p. 176ff, 194, 235.Google Scholar

45 DDF, deuxième série, tom 7 (Paris, 1937), p. 172.Google Scholar

46 Ibid. tom 9 (deuxième partie) (Paris, 1946), p. 555 and note.

47 Ibid. (première partie) (Paris, 1946), p. 119. One crumb of comfort to Moulin is the Russians' possession of a portable light railway for use in time of war, see ibid. (deuxième partie), p. 501.

48 Zaionchkovskii, A., Podgotovka Rossii k mirovoi voine v mezhdunarodnom otnoshenii, p. 117.Google Scholar

49 Rozental, , Diplomaticheskaya istoriya, pp. 219–25.Google Scholar

50 Ibid. p. 224.

51 Ibid. p. 226. By the next meeting in 1907 the Russians had recovered their composure and position, see ibid. p. 227.

52 Anan'ich, , Rossiya i mezhdunarodnyi kapital, pp. 203–4.Google Scholar

53 Ibid. PP.205–12.

54 Les Mèmoires du Maréchal Joffre, 1910–1917, tom 1 (Paris, 1932), pp. 22, 26–7, 129–30.Google Scholar

55 ‘Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya v epokhu imperializma. Dokumenty iz arkhivov tsarskogo i vremennogo pravitel'stv 1878–1917’, Seriya vtoraya: 1900–1913. Tom 18, chast' 2 (Moscow, 1938), pp. 281–9Google Scholar (these documents will be again referred to as MO); DDF, troisieme serie, tom 3 (Paris, 1931), doct. 200, pp. 258ff;Google ScholarBovykin, V., Iz istorii vozniknoveniya pervoi mirovoi voiny: otnosheniya Rossii i Frantsii v 1912–1914gg. (Moscow, 1961), p. 74.Google Scholar

56 MO, tom 20, chast'2 (Moscow, 1940), p. 30;Google ScholarKokovtsov, V., Iz tnoego proshlogo, tom 2 (Paris, 1933), pp. 104–5;Google ScholarPoincare, R., Au service de la France (Paris, 1926), tom 2, pp. 110–11;Google Scholar tom 3, pp. 321; Stieve, F., Isvolsky and the World War. Based on Documents Recently Published by the German Foreign Office (London, 1926), pp. 85–8;Google ScholarAnan'ich, , Rossiya i mezhdunarodnyi Capital, p. 268ff.Google Scholar

57 Zaionchkovskii, A., Podgotovka Rossii k imperialisticheskoi voine. Ocherki voennoi podgotovki i pervonalch'nykh planov, po arkhivnym dokumentam (Moscow, 1926), p. 127.Google Scholar

58 Bovykin, , Iz istorii vozniknoveniya, p. 89.Google Scholar

59 DDF, troisième série, tom 6 (Paris, 1933), p. 62; tom 7 (Paris, 1934), p. 555; Bovykin, p. 90.Google Scholar

60 DDF, tom 6, p. 82.

61 Ibid. p. 94; tom 7, p. 555; for details, see p. 563 and Anan'ich, p. 279f.

62 Kokovtsov, , Iz moego proshlogo, tom 2, p. 182.Google Scholar

63 Ibid. pp. 178–9.

64 Joffre, , Mémoires, pp. 131–4;Google Scholar cf. also Ignat'ev, A., Pyat'desyat let v slroyu, tom 1 (Moscow, 1959). PP. 546–8.Google Scholar

65 Stieve, , Isvolsly and the World War, pp. 169–70;Google ScholarAnan'ich, , Rosstya i mczhdunarodni kapital, p. 271.Google Scholar

66 Kokovtsov, p. 182; Stieve, pp. 170–3; Anan'ich, p. 276 note; cf. also Der diplomatische Schriftwechsel Iswolskis, 1911–1914, 3. Band (Berlin, 1924), pp. 299–301, 390–420, 424–5.Google Scholar

67 Anan'ich, p. 281.

68 Ibid.

69 Sidorov, A., ‘Zheleznodorozhnyi transport Rossii v pervoi mirovoi voine i obostrenie ekonomicheskogo krizisa v strane’, Istoricheskie zapiski, tom 26 (1948), pp. 5–12.Google Scholar See table of figures in Vasil'ev, N., Transport Rossii v voine 1914–1918gg. (Moscow, 1939), p. 9.Google Scholar

70 Caillaux, J., Mes Souvenirs (Paris, 1947), p. 51 – the opinion was expressed by Briand at a dinner in 1928.Google Scholar