France stayed out of the Russo-Japanese War, avoiding a test in which Britain's formal alliance with Japan could have outranked the Entente Cordiale. French intervention against Japan might therefore have forced Britain toward a very different diplomatic policy. An alignment with Germany still looked unlikely while Tirpitz drove a rapid German naval buildup directed against British security. The counterfactual nevertheless allows for German conservatives slowing the program and removing Tirpitz as the price of cooperation. Policy choices, rather than fixed alliance blocs, could have redirected the road to 1914.
Notable Point · 10:16-11:23
The Russo-Japanese War and an Anglo-German counterfactual
France's restraint in the Russo-Japanese War kept Britain's formal alliance with Japan from colliding with its looser understanding with France.