Three Emperors' League

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Three Emperors' League

Diplomatic alignment of the empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia devised by Otto von Bismarck in 1872. Its aim was to neutralize disagreement between Austria-Hungary and Russia over spheres of influence in the Balkans and to isolate Germany's enemy France. After the first Three Emperors' League (1872 – 78) collapsed, Bismarck succeeded in renewing it (1881, 1884). When Russia declined a third renewal, Bismarck negotiated a separate accord with Russia, the Reinsurance Treaty (1887). See also Austro-German Alliance.

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Russian History Encyclopedia: Three Emperors' League

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The Three Emperors' League, or Dreikaiserbund, was part of the diplomatic web created by Otto Bismarck (1815 - 1898) to keep France isolated. An initial agreement between Alexander II of Russia, William I of Prussia, and Francis-Joseph of Austria-Hungary was reached in September 1873. This phase of the Three Emperors' League is sometimes referred to as the Three Emperors' Treaty. The agreement was renewed in June 1881, with the same signatories for Prussia and Austria-Hungary, but with the new tsar, Alexander III, representing Russia.

The dual goals of the league were to prevent intervention by Austria-Hungary or Russia in the event of an outbreak of hostilities between France and Germany and to prevent friction between Austria-Hungary and Russia over territorial claims in the Balkans. Both of these goals are apparent in the terms of the agreement. Article 1 addresses the potential of a Franco-German conflict by stating, "In case one of the High Contracting Parties should find itself at war with a fourth Great Power, the two others shall maintain towards it a benevolent neutrality and shall devote their efforts to the localization of the conflict." The issue of potential conflict over the Balkan territories of the Ottoman Empire is dealt with in Article 2. It states, "The three Courts, desirous of avoiding all discord between them, engage to take account of their respective interests in the Balkan Peninsula. They further promise one another that any new modifications in the territorial status quo of Turkey in Europe can be accomplished only in virtue of a common agreement between them."

Ultimately, this alliance foundered over the issue of Balkan territorial claims. The Austro-Hungarian Empire contained a sizeable number of Slavs who were sympathetic to the plight and aspirations of their Balkan brothers in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Simultaneously, the Russian tsar was under pressure from the Pan-Slavs to intervene in the Balkans because the Pan-Slavic movement regarded Russia as the protector of the Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire.

A series of uprisings against the Ottoman Empire and reprisals by the Turkish forces occurred in the Balkans in the mid-1870s. These events led to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. Although the Russians decisively defeated the Turkish forces, opposition from Austria-Hungary and Great Britain led to the final settlement being decided at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Under the auspices of the honest broker Bismarck, much of the fruit of the Russian military victory was plucked from their hands. The Russians felt that they had won the war but lost the diplomatic negotiations. Both the Balkan nationalists and the Russian Pan-Slavists felt a lingering resentment toward Austria-Hungary and Germany for depriving them of the fruits of the Russian military victory.

The Three Emperors' League was not renewed when it expired in 1884. Instead, Russia moved closer diplomatically to France. This shift culminated in the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894. The dissolution of the Three Emperors' League took Europe a step closer to the outbreak of World War I.

Bibliography

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. (2003). "The Three Emperors' League." <http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/empleagu.htm>.

Eyck, Erich. (1968). Bismarck and the German Empire. New York: Norton.

Glenny, Misha. (2001). The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804 - 1999. New York: Penguin.

—JEAN K. BERGER

Columbia Encyclopedia: Three Emperors' League

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Three Emperors' League, informal alliance among Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia, announced officially in 1872 on the occasion of the meeting of emperors Francis Joseph, William I, and Alexander II. The chief architects of the alliance were Julius Andrássy, Otto von Bismarck, and Prince Gorchakov. The aims of the league were to preserve the social order of the conservative powers of Europe and to keep the peace between Austria-Hungary and Russia. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 shook the alliance (see Berlin, Congress of). Although the agreement was secretly renewed in 1881, it was disrupted again in 1885 as a result of the Balkan flareup. However, it remained in force until 1887, when it was eclipsed by the German-Austrian alliance of 1879, which after the adherence of Italy (1882) became the Triple Alliance. From 1887 to 1890 all that remained of the Three Emperors' League was a Russo-German reinsurance treaty. The German chancellor Graf von Caprivi refused to renew even this in 1890, thus opening the way for the Franco-Russian rapprochement and the creation of the Triple Entente (see Triple Alliance and Triple Entente).

Wikipedia: League of the Three Emperors

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In October of 1873, Otto von Bismarck negotiated the ‘’’Three Emperors’ League’’’ or ‘’’League of the Three Emperors’’’ (German: Dreikaiserbund) between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany. The alliance constituted one of the early coalitions of European powers that ultimately created enough tension by 1914 to fuel World War I, once ignited by a single spark in Sarajevo. The alliance between Tsar Alexander II, Emperor Franz Joseph I and Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany sought to resurrect the Holy Alliance of 1815 and act as a bulwark against radical sentiments the conservative rulers found unsettling.^[1]

Bismarck often led the League as it assessed challenges centered on maintaining the balance of power among the states involved and Europe at large. This cornerstone of his political philosophy included dedication to preserving the status quo and avoiding overt war where diplomacy would suffice to manage a conflict. In its first incarnation, the League directly opposed the expansion of French power and Napoleon III’s inclination to fodder self-determination movements, thus threatening the established monarchical order in each of their countries.^[2] Despite German victory in during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and 1871, the violence remained fresh in the newly united state’s memory and made Germany reluctant to antagonize the French, but keen as ever to limit their power. According to the coalition, radical socialist bodies like the First International represented one of the other key threats to regional stability and dominance. For this reason, the League actively opposed the expansion of their influence.^[3] The League also met crisis in the East where Bulgarian unrest elicited violent reaction from the Ottoman forces there, which in turn met with horror from observing states. The account of the insurrection from an Englishman named Sir Edwin Pears both describes the atrocities in gruesome detail and reveals British surprise at their extent. The collective initially disbanded in 1875 over territorial disputes in the Balkans as Austria-Hungary feared that Russian support for Serbia might ultimately ignite irredentist passions in its tenuously grasped Slav populations.^[4] Russian authorities likewise feared insurrection, should a Pan-Slavism movement gain too much clout^[5] The body’s first conclusion in 1879 gave way to a defensive alliance between Austria-Hungary and Germany to counter potential Russian aggression. In 1882 Italy joined this agreement to form the Triple Alliance.

Russia’s key role in European diplomacy was not, however, forgotten. A more formal, officially documented League that dedicated itself to the principle of benevolent neutrality reconstituted in 1881, and Germany also signed the mutual Reinsurance Treaty to preserve common understanding with Russia in 1887. This incarnation of the agreement provided for the Balkan disputes that eventually came to dominate the formation and dissolution of alliances, and when conflicts in that region arose the three imperial parties agreed to discuss any territorial changes before they occurred.^[6] When this agreement dissolved and inaugurated an age of increasingly complicated alliance systems dedicated to preserving the international status quo, the series of international negotiations and manipulations that created the necessary conditions for World War I continued in motion.

Notes

^ Robert Gildea, Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 237.
^ Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (1977), Google Books, [1], 146-147.
^ Ruth Beatrice Henig, The Origins of the First World War (2002), Google Books, [2], 3.
^ Robert Gildea, 240.
^ Ibid.
^ Melvin Eugene Page, Colonialism: An International, Social, Cultural and Political Encyclopedia, (2003), Google Books, [3], 583.

External links

Richard B. Elrod, "The Concert of Europe: The Fresh Look at an International System," World Politics, 28, no. 2(1976): 159-174. JSTOR.

Serge Goriainov, "The End of the Alliance of the Emperors," The American Historical Review, 23 no. 2 (1918): 324-329. JSTOR.

Paul W. Schroeder, "Quantitative Studies in the Balance of Power: An Historian's Reaction," The Journal of Conflict Resolution 21, no. 1 (1977): 3-22. JSTOR.

A. Meyendorff, "Conversations of Gorkachov with Andrassy and Bismarck in 1872," The Slavonic and East European Review 8, no. 23 (1929): 400-408. JSTOR.

William Brian Moul, "Balances of Power and the Escalation to War of Serious Disputes among the Great Europeans, 1815-1939: Some Evidence," American Journal of Political Science 32, no. 2 (1988): 241-275. JSTOR.

v • d • e Diplomacy of the great powers 1871–1913

Great powers	Austria–Hungary · British Empire · French Third Republic · German Empire · Kingdom of Italy · Empire of Japan · Russian Empire · United States of America

Treaties and agreements	Treaty of Frankfurt · League of the Three Emperors · Treaty of Berlin · German-Austrian Alliance · Triple Alliance · Reinsurance Treaty · Franco-Russian Alliance · Treaty of Paris · Anglo-Japanese Alliance · Entente cordiale · Treaty of Björkö · Taft-Katsura Agreement · Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty of 1907 · Anglo-Russian Entente · Triple Entente · Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty · Racconigi agreement

Events	The Great Game · Pan-Slavism · Russo-Turkish War · Congress of Berlin · Scramble for Africa · First Sino-Japanese War · German Naval Laws · Fashoda Incident · Spanish-American War · Annexation of Hawaii · Banana Wars · Philippine-American War · Boxer Rebellion · Boer War · Russo-Japanese War · First Moroccan Crisis · Dreadnought · Agadir Crisis · Bosnian crisis · Italo-Turkish War · Balkan Wars

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		Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		Russian History Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of Russian History. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more
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