Barrier de l'Est

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Barrière de l'Est is the name given to an alliance system of France in Eastern Europe that French diplomacy of the 17th and 18th centuries aimed for and in some cases also realized .

History of origin

Originally conceived by Cardinal Richelieu to encircle the Habsburg Empire , the French Barrière-de-l'Est diplomacy aimed primarily at isolating Russia from the end of the 1720s . After the attempt to integrate the Russian Empire , which had risen to a great power in the Great Northern War , into France's alliance system, failed and Russia instead entered into an alliance with Austria, the Barrière de l'Est was assigned the task of curbing Russian influence on European politics and so to neutralize the Habsburg alliance.

The potential partners in the Barrière de l'Est were primarily Russia's immediate neighbors: Sweden , Poland-Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire ; These should be supported by diplomatic, financial and, if necessary, military aid from France in their respective defensive or revenge interests towards Russia and united into an at least informal anti-Russian alliance under French leadership. De facto, the Barrière de l'Est was never fully activated as a military alliance, but rather only such conflicts between individual Barrière de l'Est states with Russia, whose unleashing or settlement resulted in the French Barrière de l'Est Diplomacy played a part. This was the case in the War of the Polish Succession , in the Swedish-Russian War from 1741 to 1743, or in the Russian-Ottoman War from 1768 to 1774 . However, the possibility of a simultaneous attack, controlled by France, on all European borders of the Russian Empire, established in the system of the Barrière de l'Est, posed a real threat, and averting this danger remained the primary task of Russian foreign policy in Europe until the 1770s .

literature

  • Nekrasow, GA, Rol'Rossii v evropejskoi meždunarodnoj politkike 1725-1739 gg., M 1976; Vandal, A. Louis XV and Elisabeth de Russie, Paris 1882; Mediger, W. Moskaus Weg nach Europa, Braunschweig 1952.
  • Hans Joachim Torke: Lexicon of the History of Russia, CH Beck, Munich 1985