Remilitarisation of the Rhineland

Remilitarisation of the Rhineland (, ) started on 7 March 1936. Soldiers from Nazi Germany went into the Rhineland. This broke the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. France and Britain did not want war, so they did nothing. After 1939, some people said stopping Hitler in 1936 could have stopped his plans. But newer historiography says most people and leaders in Britain and France did not want to fight, and their armies were not ready.Norrin M. Ripsman, and Jack S. Levy, "The preventive war that never happened: Britain, France, and the rise of Germany in the 1930s." Security Studies 16.1 (2007): 32-67.

After World War I, the Rhineland was under Allied occupation. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles said Germany could not have soldiers west of the Rhine or 50 km east of it. The 1925 Locarno Treaties said the Rhineland must stay without soldiers. In 1929, German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann made a deal for Allied troops to leave. The last troops left in June 1930.

After the Nazi regime took power in January 1933, Germany started building up its army again. On 7 March 1936, Hitler used the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance as an excuse. He sent 20,000 Wehrmacht troops into the Rhineland. Many Germans were happy. France and Britain did not want war, so they did not stop him.

This event and German rearmament made Germany stronger than France and its friends. Germany could now be aggressive in Western Europe. Before, the Rhineland being without soldiers stopped this.

Because Britain and France did not act, Hitler thought they would not stop him in the future. He decided to prepare faster for war and to try to control Europe. On 14 March 1936, in a speech in Munich, Hitler said, "Neither threats nor warnings will prevent me from going my way. I follow the path assigned to me by Providence with the instinctive sureness of a sleepwalker".

Background

Versailles and Locarno
Articles 42, 43 and 44 of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles said Germany could not build forts on the Left bank of the Rhine or within 50 km east of it. Breaking this rule was seen as a threat to peace.Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott, The Appeasers (Phoenix Press, 2000), p. 41. The Locarno Treaties were signed in October 1925 by Germany, France, Belgium, Italy and Britain. They said the Rhineland must stay without soldiers forever.Kallis, pp. 112–113. Locarno was important because Germany agreed to it freely, unlike the Versailles Treaty.Emmerson, pp. 22–23Shore, p. 7.Duroselle, pp. 116–117 Britain and Italy promised to help if someone broke the rules of Locarno.Emmerson, pp. 23 & 97. If Germany attacked France, Britain and Italy had to help France. If France attacked Germany, Britain and Italy had to help Germany. Historian Gerhard Weinberg said the Rhineland without soldiers was the "single most important guarantee of peace in Europe". It stopped Germany from attacking neighbors. If Germany attacked the East, France could attack Germany from the West.Weinberg (1970), p. 239.

The Versailles Treaty also said Allied troops would leave the Rhineland by 1935. At the Hague Conference, Britain said Germany could pay less money if Allied troops left. British troops left in late 1929. French troops left in June 1930.

While France had troops in the Rhineland, it could stop Germany from building up its army. After the troops left, Germany could rearm. France built the Maginot Line in 1929, showing it expected Germany to rearm soon.Emmerson, p. 25.Young (1996), pp. 19–21. French spies from the Deuxième Bureau said Germany was already breaking the Versailles Treaty with help from the Soviet Union. Without French troops, Germany could break the rules more openly.Young (1996), p. 21. The Maginot Line made the Rhineland less important for French safety.

Foreign policy
The foreign policy of Fascist Italy was to stay equal distance from big powers and to use its "determinant weight" to change the balance in Europe. Italy wanted support for its goals in Europe or Africa.Kallis, pp. 129 & 141.

The Soviet Union's goal was said by Joseph Stalin in a speech on 19 January 1925. He said if a war started between capitalist countries, "We will enter the fray at the end, throwing our critical weight onto the scale, a weight that should prove to be decisive".Ueberschär, Gerd & Müller, Rolf-Dieter Hitler's War in the East, 1941–1945: A Critical Assessment, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2002 page 14 To help this goal, the Soviet Union helped Germany secretly build up its army, which made France unhappy.

Another problem in Franco-Soviet relations was Russian debt. Before 1917, France was the biggest investor in Imperial Russia and bought the most Russian debt. In 1918, Vladimir Lenin said Russia would not pay its debts and took all private property. This hurt French business. These problems made relations bad until the early 1930s.

France's main foreign policy was the cordon sanitaire in Eastern Europe. It was meant to keep Soviets and Germans out. France made alliances with Poland in 1921, with Czechoslovakia in 1924, with Romania in 1926 and with Yugoslavia in 1927.Young, (1996), pp. 17–18. These countries replaced Imperial Russia as France’s eastern allies and became areas of French influence.Duroselle, pp. 172–182.

These countries thought if Germany attacked, France would fight back by attacking western Germany.

Before 1933, German leaders saw the Rhineland's no-soldier rule as temporary. They wanted to remilitarise it when the time was right.Kallis, pp. 78–79 & 82–83. In December 1918, German generals wanted to rebuild the army to become a world power again.Müller, Klaus Jürgen The Army, Politics and Society in Germany, 1933–1945, Manchester University Press, 1987, p. 48. In the 1920s and early 1930s, the Reichswehr planned for war with France and Poland and expected to remilitarise the Rhineland.Kallis, p. 79. They kept barracks, hid supplies, and built towers near the border.Emmerson, p. 28.

From 1919 to 1932, Britain spent less on defense because of the Ten Year Rule, which said no big war would happen for ten years.Bond, pp. 197–198. Britain did not like the idea of sending a big army to Continental Europe, especially after the losses in World War I.Bond, p. 198. Britain did not want to make promises in Eastern Europe, and was only ready for small actions in Western Europe.

In 1925, British Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain said the Polish Corridor was not "worth the bones of a single British grenadier". Arthur Harris echoed this in 1945, reminiscent of Otto von Bismarck's statement about the Balkans. He wanted the Polish Corridor to go back to Germany and did not promise to protect the German-Polish border. Even the Locarno promises were weak. Britain did not allow military talks with Germany, France, or Italy if Locarno was broken.Emmerson, p. 24.

In general, British foreign policy in the 1920s and 1930s supported appeasement. They wanted to change the Versailles system to help Germany, hoping this would keep peace. At Locarno, Britain wanted Germany to get land peacefully in Eastern Europe. They thought better ties between France and Germany would weaken France’s cordon sanitaire.Schuker (1999), pp. 48–49.

If France gave up its Eastern European allies to be friends with Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia would have to give Germany the land it wanted, like the Sudetenland, the Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). Britain often thought France was stronger than it really was. Even Sir Robert "Van" Vansittart, who liked France, wrote in 1931 that France had too much power and Germany needed to grow stronger to balance it.Bennett, Edward German Rearmament and the West, 1932–1933, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015 page 109

Whitehall did not understand how weak France was compared to Germany. Germany had a much larger population and economy than France. Germany was not badly damaged in World War I, but France was.

References

Category:1936 in Germany
Category:20th century in Germany
Category:Nazi Germany