French prime minister René Viviani, from the ship on which he and President Poincaré were returning from St. Petersburg, had sent a telegram urging Paléologue to do everything possible to resolve the crisis without war. Paléologue, so determined to encourage Russian belligerence that he was in effect creating his own foreign policy, instead told Sazonov of the “complete readiness of France to fulfill her obligations as an ally in case of necessity.”
