Under the
Versailles Settlement, the
Rhineland was
demilitarized. Germany accepted this arrangement under the
Locarno Treaties
of 1925. Hitler claimed that it threatened Germany and on 7 March 1936
he sent German forces into the Rhineland. He gambled on Britain not
getting involved but was unsure how France would react. The action was
opposed by many of his advisers. His officers had orders to withdraw if
they met French resistance.
France consulted Britain and lodged protests with the League, but took no action. Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin
said that Britain lacked the forces to back its guarantees to France
and that public opinion would not allow it. In Britain it was thought
that the Germans were merely walking into "their own back yard".
Hugh Dalton, a
Labour Party
MP who usually advocated stiff resistance to Germany, said that neither
the British people nor Labour would support military or economic
sanctions.
[6] In the Council of the League, only the
Soviet Union
proposed sanctions against Germany. Hitler was invited to negotiate. He
proposed a non-aggression pact with the Western powers. When asked for
details he did not reply. Hitler's occupation of the Rhineland had
persuaded him that the international community would not resist him and
put Germany in a powerful strategic position.
***
The Argentinian hope is of course that, just as the founder of its modern country, Adolf Hitler, gambled and won with the Rhineland reoccupation, so they can occupy the Falklands and scare of the effeminate leadership of the UK.
Hopefully if or when the Argentinazis make this suicidal move the surviving British public will crush both their own quisling EUgovernment and then the Argentinians. Perhaps it might be an idea to pencil in a drubbing every thirty years on general principles.
