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Updated: September 28, 2025
Petersburg boycotted Napoleon’s Ambassador, Savary, and eventually succeeded in breaking the Franco-Russian coalition. But the Hohenzollerns did not only wage a predatory war for conquest and spoliation. Their methods have been as predatory as their aims. War to them was not merely a policy. It was a business, and often a lucrative business. In the Middle Ages war had been largely a trade.
It goes so far to-day as to force on alliances, as has been seen recently in the case of the Franco-Russian alliance, which is solely the outcome of a popular movement. A curious symptom of the present time is to observe popes, kings, and emperors consent to be interviewed as a means of submitting their views on a given subject to the judgment of crowds.
There, too, lived the two Emperors in closest intercourse, while on most days the Prussian King rode over from a neighbouring village to figure as a sad, reproachful guest at the rides, parades, and dinners that cemented the new Franco-Russian alliance.
Unfortunately, at that time the Franco-Russian alliance was still in embryo, and an agreement between the two neighboring States interdicted all passage to Frenchmen escaping from the hands of their conquerors. The two deserters were therefore conducted to the major of the nearest garrison, who alone had the right to question them.
Moreover, the Franco-Russian alliance did not bind France to act with Russia unless the latter were definitely attacked; and France was weakened by the widespread strikes of 1907-8 and the vehement anti-militarist agitation already described. Further, Italy was distracted by the earthquake at Messina, and armed intervention was not to be expected from the Campbell-Bannerman Ministry.
Accordingly the Czar now sent Kalicheff to Paris, for the formation of a Franco-Russian alliance. He was warmly received. Bonaparte promised in general terms to restore the King of Sardinia to his former realm and the Pope to his States.
The utmost the French Emperor would do was to promise, in a secret clause, that he would never aid any other Power or any popular movement that aimed at the re-establishment of that kingdom. In fact, as the Muscovite alliance was on the wane, he judged it bad policy to discourage the Poles, who might do so much for him in case of a Franco-Russian war.
In Poland the white-coats were held in check, and the Franco-Russian compact deterred Frederick William from making any move against France such as Prussian patriots ardently counselled. To have done so would have been madness, unless England sent powerful aid on the side of Hanover; and that aid was not forthcoming.
The Franco-Russian alliance is already doomed. It falls to pieces through sheer lack of common interests. The entente cordiale is simply a fetter and a dead weight upon you. Monsieur Douaille, I put it to you as a man of common sense.
Napoleon saw in it a means of subjecting the Continent to his commercial code, and of preparing for a Franco-Russian partition of Turkey. The Czar hailed it as a breathing space wherein he could reorganize his army, conquer Finland, and stride towards the Balkans.
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