ABSTRACT
Of all the Western powers, France, its political leaders and its ordinary citizens alike, appears to have been the most intimately affected by the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. Not that the French harbored an exaggerated fear of the “Yellow Peril,” or that their colonial interests in Asia were more directly threatened by Japan’s continental expansion, although this latter point cannot be altogether dismissed. In fact, France was then bound to Russia by a treaty of alliance regarded as the cornerstone of its foreign policy. Concluded in 1891 on France’s own initiative and insistence, the treaty had been completed the following year by a military agreement, or “defense pact,” requiring from both countries “an immediate and simultaneous mobilization” in case either one would be attacked. Since the humiliating defeat of 1870, French foreign policy was aimed at containing Germany with the underlying hope of eventually recovering the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, and the alliance with Russia was naturally meant to match the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria, and Italy.
