Methuen Treaty Parliament, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Privy Counsellor, envoy and then ambassador extraordinary to Portugal. The first, signed in May, was a military alliance that cemented allegiances in the War of Spanish Succession, and was a 4-party treaty negotiated by Karl Ernst, Graf von Waldstein for the emperor, Franciscus van Shonenberg (AKA Jacob Abraham Belmonte) for the United Provinces, and King Pedro II for Portugal, with Methuen's son Sir Paul Methuen (1672-1757) aiding him. The second one, the more well-known trade treaty, was a 2-party treaty signed on December 27 for England by Methuen and for Portugal by Manuel Teles da
Secret treaty financial arrangements, and 'military understandings'" are commonly cited as one of the causes of World War I. For example, the Reinsurance Treaty of June 1887 between the German Empire and the Russian Empire (negotiated by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in order for Germany to avoid a two-front war), was a "highly secret treaty" in which the two powers pledged a three-year period to remain neutral should the other become involved in a war with a third country, unless Germany attacked Russia's longstanding ally France or Russia attacked Germany's longstanding ally Austria-Hungary. The use of "secret agreements and undertakings between