Page:The Myth of a Guilty Nation.djvu/107

 and encouraged by MM. Isvolsky and Hartwig.

On 9 August, 1912, M. Poincaré, then Premier of France, made a visit to St. Petersburg, where he was joined by his kindred spirit, M. Isvolsky, who was then the Russian Ambassador at Paris. It was the usual visit of State, and Russia staged an imposing series of military manœuvres in M. Poincaré's honour. But the really important events that took place were these. First, a naval agreement was made between France and Russia, whereby France agreed to concentrate her naval forces in the Eastern Mediterranean in order to support the Russian navy in the Black Sea. This agreement was secret, and revealed by the Soviet Government in 1918. Then, in the same month, the Third French Naval Squadron was transferred from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. M. Poincaré told M. Isvolsky that "this decision has been made in agreement with England, and forms the further development and completion of the arrangement already made previously between the French and British Staffs"—referring to the conference of Messrs. Asquith and Churchill and Lord Kitchener at Malta, the month before, at which the new disposition of the English and French fleets was decided. The third matter of consequence that took place in the month of

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