WI the Russo-German Reinsurance Treaty of the 1880s kept getting renewed through 1945 and there was no Franco-Russian alliance?

[raharris1973]

WI the Russo-German Reinsurance Treaty of the 1880s kept getting renewed through 1945 and there was no Franco-Russian alliance?

What would have been the likelihood of one or more Franco-German wars occurring in that intervening half-century between 1890 and 1945?

Would we have Franco-German peace secured by France being deterred by German strength on the one hand, and German satisfaction with the status quo on the other?

Or would we have Franco-German peace broken by outraged French national feeling and irredentism on the one hand or German greed and ambition on the other?

 

[sillygoose]

The treaty fell apart because of Russia. There was IOTL a secret extension for a while until Russian behavior led Germany to realize there was no way forward with the existing treaty, so it lapsed and Russia and France started working together because their geo-political goals aligned much better than Germany and Russia's. Still even after that Wilhelm and Nicholas worked out an alliance in 1905, they both signed it, but the Russian government refused to ratify it and the deal fell apart. Von Bulow also had a problem with the treaty because Wilhelm amended it to limit it only to Europe, but Wilhelm had managed to get him to compromise over it only for the Russians to explicitly reject it and render their discussion moot.

Treaty of Björkö - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There is really just no way to keep Russia and Germany aligned without radically changing who is in charge in Russia and if that happened it would result in a quite different history outside of just your POD.

 

[WolfBear]

Without Russian support, there is no way in Hell that France would actually go to war against Germany. Yes, it did so in 1939-1940, but that was only after Germany has been severely weakened by Versailles for a while before it began to recover. Plus, even then, France had British support.