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evivified and extended the alliance, explicitly aiming itat England. An additional military convention wassigned (1900) providing for common military action ifwar was imposed on either by England: Russia wouldact against India with three hundred thousand men whenthe Tashkent railway was completed. Russia did notlack the will, but the Tashkent railway was not yet evenbegun, and it was not finished until 1905.By then conditions had completely changed, and theanti-English provisions were discarded. England, thoughthe ally of Japan (1902), had made the entente with France(1904); Russia was at war with Japan and in the grip ofRevolution. Delcasse went to the limit of neutrality, andbeyond, in helping Russia during the war, but there wasno question whatever of French intervention, whichwould have brought England into the war under her(public, not secret) alliance with Japan. He was anxiousboth to develop the entente with England, and somehowto bring her and Russia together.On the Russian side the Revolution yet furtherweakened the government and made it desperately inneed of French financial assistance (see p. 358). For thenext few years the internal situation and army reorganizationrendered the alliance extremely dubious as an effectiveinstrument. The plans for Russian military co-operationwere whittled down; the pessimism and new defensivestrategy of the Russian high command would have leftFrance to bear all the early brunt in the event of a warwith Germany. On the other hand, politically the alliancewas strengthened in 1907 by the Anglo-Russianagreement. The Triple Entente had come into being,even if it were but a delicate infant.The final turning-point in the history of the Franco-Russian alliance came in 1912. Russia was sufficientlyrecovered to pull her weight, which she did only tooheavily. The French had always been insistent on theearliest possible large-scale action of Russia againstGermany, as opposed to Austria-Hungary, if it came towar. The Russians now (1912) returned to their originalengagement to concentrate 800,009 men against Germany,and they undertook to begin an offensive against her after43'