8th April 1904: The Entente Cordiale between Britain and France signed

The agreement marked the end of years of intermittent conflict between Britain and France and set the stage for the series of agreements known as the Triple Entente that bound Britain, France and Russia together at the start of the First World War.

Throughout the late 19th Century the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had been constantly toying with the European balance of power to keep France from forming alliances with other European nations. Meanwhile, Britain had actively maintained its own ‘splendid isolation’ in which it focused on ruling its sprawling Empire. The Entente Cordiale therefore marked a significant change in European politics.

However, it was not a military alliance. Despite being closely associated with the First World War due to the later emergence of the Triple Entente involving Russia, the Entente Cordiale was a foreign policy agreement between France and Britain relating to three very specific imperial issues over which the two nations had quarrelled. The name is French for ‘warm understanding’, and the Entente Cordiale settled the imperial disputes in places such as Egypt and Morocco.

The centenary of the agreement was celebrated with great fanfare in 2004. Posters at the Gare du Nord railway station in Paris and the Waterloo railway station in London were emblazoned with the words ‘Entente Cordiale’. The irony that Waterloo was named after the battle where a British-led coalition destroyed Napoleon’s army was not lost on either side.