After Russia’s disasters in her war with Japan (which the Kaiser had strenuously urged her into) and the revolutionary risings that followed when the regime was at its lowest ebb, he invited the Czar to a secret rendezvous, without attendant ministers, at Björkö in the Gulf of Finland. William knew well enough that Russia could not accede to his treaty without breaking faith with the French, but he thought that sovereigns’ signatures were all that was needed to erase the difficulty.
