The Triple Entente (from French entente [ɑ̃tɑ̃t] "good will") was the name given to the alliance among France, Britain and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907. The alliance of the three powers, supplemented by various agreements with Portugal, Japan, the United States, Brazil, Canada, and Spain, constituted a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. (Italy had concluded an additional secret agreement with France, effectively nullifying their alliance with Germany.)

Historians continue to debate the importance of the alliance system in igniting the First World War. At the start of World War I in 1914, all three members of the Triple Entente entered it as Allies against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Russia had previously been a member of the League of the Three Emperors with Austria-Hungary and Germany, an alliance established in 1873 between Tsar Alexander II, Emperor Franz Joseph I and Kaiser Wilhelm I. The alliance was part of the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck′s plan to isolate France diplomatically; he feared France had revanchist aspirations and might try to regain her 1871 losses, and to fight against radical sentiments the conservative rulers found unsettling, such as the First International.