It may be pretty close to all of Grey's promises. The Entente with France was in place from 1904, and survived or thrived in two Moroccan crises. The Russian Entente with Britain had happened by 1908. By 1912-1913 there had definitely been Anglo-French Army Staff Talks and probably a discussion of the continental commitment. There may have even been Anglo-Russian staff talks.
None of which matter as the cabinet didn’t believe there was a military commitment.
... as there actually wasn't at all - at least within the treaties.
The "entente cordiale" was in fact a package of declarations dealing with the clearing of colonial spheres of interest to be observed by the declarations partners :
- the first about the acknowledgement of Morocco being of french interest and Egypt of british interest with the official (re-)establishing and acknowledging by the two partners of the Convention of Constantinople regarding passgae-rights through the Suez-channnel. ... and ofc there was a 'secret addendum' (somewhat typical in that era of diplomacy ;-D)
- the second about unclear international (esp. fishing) rights around Newfoundland for the Brits compensated by acknowledgement of french rights at Senegal, Gambia and the common border along the river Niger
- the third about Madagascar, the New Hebrides and the spheres of interest in Siam
Nothing at all about some kind of further especially military cooperation of any kind.
Sir Eyre Crowe - far from being a 'central powers' fan, maybe even the farest - said about it during the 2. Morocco-crisis in 1911 - kinda 'high-point' of the Entente before WW 1 :
"The fundamental fact of course is that the Entente is not an alliance. For purposes of ultimate emergencies it may be found to have no substance at all. For the Entente is nothing more than a frame of mind, a view of general policy which is shared by the governments of two countries, but which may be, or become, so vague as to lose all content."
And even the rather informal 'exchange of letters' of 1912 between Grey and Cambon regarding the distribution of the french respectivly the british fleet contained nothing but hint of possible contingencies in maybe occuring situations their demand would then have to be politcally (i.e. diplomatically) bedetermined before any decision to be taken.
Much words for saying (by the brits) :
don't ever count on us
But :
Yes there were anglo-french 'staff talks'. ... AFTER the exchange of letters of December 1912 and after the francophil ... rather francomaniac Henry Wilson became
Director of
Military
Operations in Britain resulting in minutly planned railway timetables for the only option of deploying the BEF at Maubeuge(left flank of the french (and no other option/offer for the politician during the July-crisis).
However, the british politician tried their very best to not know anything about neither the exchange of letters (only to become known to the parlaiment on Grey's speech on 3rd August 1914) nor what the DMO was planning for with the new BEF (pls don't forget : the Haldane reforms of the british army are just comming to full effect).
Oh, and the "Russian Entente" ...
Sry mate but there nerver was such aside some wishfull thinking rather hoping within the contemporary russian political estabishment and (much more) after the war-time propaganda kicked in (wich is still beleived by so many even today).
The Anglo-Russian convention of 1907 was - once again - a purely global politics(colonial affais thing esp. from the british PoV. It did nothing but define interest spheres in Persia while promising not to mingle with persian internal affairs with the russians 'promising' not to further touch Afghanistan.
However it was not long before the british - AFAIK from reading the accessable british diplomatic records - began to regret this agreement as the russians somewhat simply ingnored it with constant (and at some points rather massivly even with regular troops)intervening in innerpersian matters.
For the thought of an "entente" or even alliance with the russians it might be telling, that Grey fought of any attempt of the russian since 1907 when the first time an according 'request' was made by the russians to conclude some kind of naval agreement.
Such a last 'fight-of' happened in spring to summer 1914. ...
And : No
There never ever were any anglo-russian staff talk. ... before WW 1.
Might be helpfull to have a look at the actual treaty-texts the ... narrative of "Entente" is built upon.