*On 8 April 1904, a series of agreements between England and France known as the Entente cordiale were signed. The product of long-running discussions between the two former rivals, the agreements officially marked the end of hostilities that intermittently flared across the Channel, settled more immediate questions of imperial expansion, and (re)distributed power in contested sites, including Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, and Nigeria. Historians have tended to focus on the imperial conflicts that led to the signing of the agreements, including those in Egypt and in Africa, as well as the legacy of the Entente in the twentieth century. What has attracted less attention are the ways in which the 1904 agreements served to formalize the more informal entente cordiale (French for “warm understanding”) that existed between England and France during the nineteenth century and paved the way for the British and French to join forces against German aggression during World War I.
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