Entente

The Entente is one of two major alliance systems which has spent the twentieth century in a contest for dominance of the Northern Hemisphere. Its founding members were France, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The Confederate States of America joined the Entente, giving it a second major presence on the North American continent. (Its first was the British Dominion of Canada.) Minor allies include (or have included at different points) China, Belgium, Mexico, and Argentina. Japan aligned itself with the Entente in the Great War for its own purposes but did not formally join.

During the Great War, Entente powers fought major land wars on the European and North American continents. On both continents it was able to force its principal enemy, Germany and the United States respectively, to engage in a two-front war. It also fought naval wars throughout the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The war remained stalemated for several years, but the Entente's rival, the Central Powers, outweighed it industrially and was able to fight a war of attrition. The four major Entente powers were forced to capitulate one at a time. First Russia's Tsarist government fell to a socialist revolution and became embroiled in a lengthy civil war. Next France was laid low by mutinies within its army. The Confederacy was simply outmatched in its land war with the United States. The UK's position became untenable as its allies collapsed and was ultimately forced to surrender when the Central Powers convinced Brazil to join their side and shut down the all-important shipping lanes to Argentina. Without these shipping lanes Britain would not have been able to maintain enough food to feed its population. Japan, knowing it could not defeat the United States singlehandedly, agreed to a ceasefire as it licked its wounds and awaited an opportunity to defeat the US.

Over the next twenty-four years, Entente nations came to be ruled by revanchist, militarist, nationalist and fascist governments. These governments took advantage of the complacency which had overtaken the Central Powers as they grew comfortable in their perceived dominance. The Entente made several tests of its military prowess, most notably the Spanish and Mexican Civil Wars, in both of which Entente nations were able to secure those countries for governments they supported, defeating governments backed by the Central Powers. In June of 1941, the Entente launched coordinated assaults on the United States and Germany.

While Entente powers remain nominally allied in the current war, the alliance is much looser and weaker than it was in the Great War and during the interwar rearming. Cooperation is at a much lower level than it was during the Great War, with halfhearted Ango-French cooperation on one of the western fronts and a joint operation to take Bermuda executed by the Royal and Confederate navies proving to be the exception rather than the rule.