Question about the Franco-Russian Alliance

Anderman

Donor
The Franco-Russian Alliance was a secret treaty and as i understand the text defensive in nature.
I have following questions:

1) What was known about the alliance in the rest of the world especial in Germany and AH?

2) What would happened if Russia had declared war on AH and or Germany in 1914, could France stayed neutral if Germany declared war on France ?
 

abc123

Banned
The Franco-Russian Alliance was a secret treaty and as i understand the text defensive in nature.
I have following questions:

1) What was known about the alliance in the rest of the world especial in Germany and AH?

2) What would happened if Russia had declared war on AH and or Germany in 1914, could France stayed neutral if Germany declared war on France ?

IIRC the nature of Russo-French Agreement was pretty much a matter of public knowledge. OFC the details were really secret, but in general it was known that the Agreement was defensive.

It would happen WW1.
:D
 

nbcman

Donor
2) What would happened if Russia had declared war on AH and or Germany in 1914, could France stayed neutral if Germany declared war on France ?

France could not have stayed neutral if Germany declared war on them; however, France may not necessarily be at war with AH due to Germany's DoW against them.
 

Cook

Banned
1) What was known about the alliance in the rest of the world especial in Germany and AH??
The Franco-Russian Alliance was not a secret. In theory it was a defensive in nature, being triggered by an attack on either France of Russia by Germany or Austria-Hungary. In reality France could not afford to stand by if Russia was at war with Germany, a Russian defeat would expose France to attack; the French knew they were too weak to fight Germany alone.

During the diplomatic scramble following the assassination of the Austrian Archduke in June 1914, the Germans sent requests to France for them to exert pressure on their Russian allies to exercise restraint and not mobilise their army. It was Russia’s general mobilisation that transformed the crisis from a diplomatic dispute to a European war.

France by the way had an alliance with Serbia while the Russians, who regarded themselves as the guarantors of Slavic freedom, did not. Since France did not share a common border with Austria-Hungary and Serbia didn’t have any coastline, it is hard to see what France could have done to honour its alliance with Serbia if the Hapsburgs had attacked Serbia and the Russians hadn’t intervened.
 
1) The alliance was one of those open secrets, and the Germans certainly knew of joint war planning on the part of Russia and France. Germany never liked it much, but they did know of it.

2) Yes, the German mobilization plan demands this no matter what. Germany *must* go through Belgium to knock out France in six weeks in its conception, the fine details of it will be tweaked but this part of the pattern very much will not be.
 
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