How did France win Russia over as an ally from Germany in World War 1 before 1914?
There’s no simple answer when it comes to the diplomatic machinations of the great powers prior to the first world war. But there are a few general things that can be said about tensions in Europe that attribute to the unusual pairing of France and Russia. First and foremost this is an issue of geography. Germany, as a country, was a relatively new thing in 1914. The former principality of Prussia, steered by Bismarck, unified the former states of the Holy Roman Empire into modern Germany in 1871. As the aforementioned Prussians managed to whollop the French a year prior in the Franco-Prussian war, the French government was suitably terrified at the prospect of this massive German nation that had emerged on their eastern flank. Germany under Bismarck and then Kaiser Wilhelm engaged in an active military building policy. The words “arms race” would not be inappropriately applied when you examine their naval building policies against those of the British. The notion of Risk Theory – that
