Entente cordiale

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The Entente cordiale ( French for cordial agreement ) is an agreement signed on April 8, 1904 between the United Kingdom and France . The aim of the agreement was to resolve the conflict of interest between the two countries in the colonies of Africa (“the race for Africa ”). In 1907, the Entente cordiale developed by accession of Russia to the Triple Entente , one of the belligerents in World War embodied.

The term entente cordiale is older. It was already used by Otto von Bismarck in his review of the founding of the North German Confederation for one of the British alliance options at the time, namely an alliance with France.

history

Contemporary caricature on the Entente cordiale published in the British magazine Punch : John Bull , a national personification of Great Britain, carries Marianne , the national personification of France, on the arm, while an officer with the features of Kaiser Wilhelm II acknowledges this with a contemptuous look.

Due to the tense overall situation in Europe at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the United Kingdom considered it sensible to step out of splendid isolation and actively look for allies. Negotiations with the German Empire began , but were ended again in 1901 because the German Kaiser Wilhelm II was not ready to restrict his fleet armament. Instead, the German government believed that from a strong position it could at any time take advantage of the contradictions between the United Kingdom and France on the one hand and the contradictions between the United Kingdom and Russia on the other ( free hand policy ).

However, Great Britain concluded the Anglo-Japanese Alliance with Japan on January 30, 1902 . Subsequently, however, as an ally of Japan, it saw itself embroiled in an impending war against Russia and its ally France, and in order to avoid such a war, it also tried harder to find a compromise with France in 1902. With the support of the United Kingdom, Japan actually attacked Russia in 1904 , which started the Russo-Japanese War . The focus of the conflict of interest between Great Britain and France was the African colonies of Egypt and Morocco . To resolve this conflict, the Entente cordiale was signed on April 8, 1904. After the British-Russian reconciliation of interests in 1907, it was expanded to include Russia as a Triple Entente.

Content of the contract

The Entente cordiale regulated the areas of influence of the United Kingdom and France in Africa. The focus of the agreement was on the colonies of Egypt and Morocco. The Entente cordiale clearly assigned Morocco to France and Egypt to the United Kingdom. The great powers assured each other not to change the political status of the respective colony and to respect the interests of the contractual partner in the colony. They also assured each other of free traffic through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar .

literature

  • PJV Rolo: Entente Cordiale. The Origins and Negotiations of the Anglo-French Agreements of 8 April 1904 , Macmillan / St. Martin's Press, London 1969.

See also

Franco-British Exhibition , an international exhibition held in parallel to the IV Summer Olympics in London in 1908

Web links

Wiktionary: Entente cordiale  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Commons : Entente cordiale  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patricia A. Weitsman: Dangerous Alliances: Proponents of Peace, Weapons of War. Stanford University Press, Stanford 2004, p. 99.
  2. ↑ Otto von Bismarck: Thoughts and Memories , Vol. II: 1864-1888 , Munich and Berlin 1920, p. 63.