The video Serbian posted a few days ago made me reconsider this question. As people here might know, the Germans and Russians had entered into an alliance, along with Austria, called the Three Emperor's Federation (Dreikaiserbund) in the late 19th century. So at the time it was essentially a Grossdeutschland-Panslav alliance in many ways. Had this alliance held firm the Central Powers would have been much stronger and perhaps history would have turned out differently.

It was the question of debt with France, i.e. an alliance of economic interest, which led the Russians to eventually side with the Allies instead (there was also conflict over interests such as the Balkans which led to the split, interestingly Jews were involved in this too - google 'von Aerenthal' for an example). The Tsarist regime relied upon French loans to finance their industrialization. What I want to investigate more is how much of a role the Jews played in this, and in the diplomacy which led to Russia officially signing a pact of mutual defense with France. Given the condition of France during the Third Republic (very Jewed) and the financial nature of the machinations, I find it next-to-impossible that the Jews were uninvolved in this plot. I think it was a deliberate plot to sever the alliances of the most durable empires of Europe, as always with the side benefit of making Jews rich.

Thoughts? Feelings? Info?