The Entente Cordiale was a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and the French Third Republic. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial expansion addressed by the agreement, the signing of the Entente Cordiale marked the end of almost a millennium of intermittent conflict between the two nations and their predecessor states, and the formalisation of the peaceful co-existence that had existed since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. The Entente Cordiale, along with the Anglo-Russian Entente and the Franco-Russian Alliance, later became part of the Triple Entente among the UK, France, and Russia.
The agreement settled many long-standing issues. France recognized British control over Egypt, while Britain reciprocated regarding France in Morocco. France gave up its exclusive fishery rights on the shores of Newfoundland and in return received an indemnity and territory in Gambia (Senegal) and Nigeria. Britain dropped complaints regarding the French customs régime in Madagascar. The respective spheres of influence were defined in Siam (Thailand).
Read more about Entente Cordiale: History, The Documents Signed, Commemoration
Famous quotes containing the word entente:
“Friends, both the imaginary ones you build for yourself out of phrases taken from a living writer, or real ones from college, and relatives, despite all the waste of ceremony and fakery and the fact that out of an hour of conversation you may have only five minutes in which the old entente reappears, are the only real means for foreign ideas to enter your brain.”
—Nicholson Baker (b. 1957)