1933-1939 Hitler’s foreign policy, 1933-1945 Nazi Germany, 5.02 The Move To Global War
Irredentism/Irridentist
Irridentism: a policy of advocating the restoration to a country of any territory formerly belonging to it
- post-WWI, France feared a repeated German attack and demanded security
- the Rhineland was identified as a demilitarized ‘buffer’ area that would give France assurance
- by this time, the Treaty of Versailles was no longer upheld and nobody cared about it
- obviously a German triumph
- the Rhineland sits between Germany and France
- Germany saw this buffer zone as a vulnerability and humiliation – France could invade Germany easily with little resistance, using the territory Germany lost
- Hitler essentially gambled with sending troops in – and won his bluff
- if it went badly → humiliation and loss of troop support
- he justified this attack with the fact that the Franco-Soviet Pac had just been signed, meaning that Germany was under attack
- LoN was too busy dealing with the Abyssinian Crisis to bother doing anything
- they were too incompetent to multitask (cough Galatic Senate cough)
- LoN was too busy dealing with the Abyssinian Crisis to bother doing anything
- Britain did nothing
- public opinion was that Hitler was merely walking into ‘his own back garden’
- Germany complained about land → take back land → no complaints → lesser sources of tension & conflict → PEACE!!
- (this is giving Senate incompetence during the Blockade of Naboo but ok go off Britain)
- so, if UK let Germany take Rhineland → Germans pacified → more cooperative with the UK → ally & bulwark against communism!!
- Germany complained about land → take back land → no complaints → lesser sources of tension & conflict → PEACE!!
- the UK worried more about France starting a conflict by remilitarizing Rhineland first
- France could no longer threaten Germany with invasion
- assured France that the British would aid any defense against unprovoked German invasion → essentially blessed Hitler’s re-taking of the Rhineland
- public opinion was that Hitler was merely walking into ‘his own back garden’
- France didn’t intervene, either
- the French border hadn’t been violated → no proverbial leg to stand on regarding an invasion
- little support in France and Britain in preventing Germany from taking back her own territory
- French army, at this point, wasn’t ready for a conflict foreign incursions into their own territory
- France was able to accept British assurances of aid in the event of any invasion
- BUT! military spending increased as a response/result
- OVERALL: a triumph for Hitler, and a major step in the policy of appeasement + official death of the ToV + positions Germany as an economic & military power
- general sense in Europe of the return of German strength
- marked the beginning of the end of the Treaty of Versailles → historically significant
- showed that Hitler could break the Treaty’s terms with no consequence → emboldened Hitler in his expansionist conquest to come