The possibility thus has always existed that, under the stress of internal affairs, the foreign policy may be reversed and an attempt made to surmount the difficulties at home by successes abroad.
Time and events will decide whether these successes will be sought in the Far East or in the West.

On the one side Japan, and possibly China, must be encountered; on the other, Germany, Austria, and, possibly, Turkey.
Doubtless these conditions must exercise a decisive influence on the Franco-Russian Alliance.

The interests of the two allies are not identical.

While France aims solely at crushing Germany by an aggressive war, Russia from the first has more defensive schemes in view.

She wished to secure herself against any interference by the Powers of Central Europe in the execution of her political plans in the South and East, and at the same time, at the price of an alliance, to raise, on advantageous terms in France, the loans which were so much needed.
Russia at present has no inducement to seek an aggressive war with Germany or to take part in one.