The Rhineland

By: Francesca Costamagna, Victoria Quiroga, Matías Giambruni and Eugenia Kenny

Connection: Treaty of Versailles and Re militarisation of the Rhineland

In one of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, (Germany's armed forces) it was established that no German troops were allowed into the Rhineland, which was the border area between France and Germany.

So, the connection between the Treaty of Versailles and the re militarisation of the Rhineland was that, in March 1936, Hitler took a big risk and moved the troops again into the Rhineland. He disobeyed the agreement.

Hitler excuses of his actions

Hitler had signed the Treaty of Versailles and then The Locarno Treaty in which he accepted most of the terms he had not accepted before.

One of the things he had finally agreed on, was that he wouldn't enter to the Rhineland, but when France signed an agreement with the USSR to protect each other against Germany, Hitler took it as an excuse to claim that Germany was under threat. So he demanded that he should put troops on the Rhineland, his own frontier to protect the country.

How was the crisis solved?

Hitler had finally achieved his goal, he had his troops into the Rhineland with no problem.

But what happened was that Hitler troops being in the Rhineland occurred at the same time as the Abyssinian crisis, so the League was more focused on the Abyssinian crisis than in the Rhineland.

That made Britain, which was deep in an appeasement mentality, to decide to do nothing on the contrary of France that she indeed wanted to do something about it but she didn't want to act without Britain´s help so at the end they did nothing.

Sources"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." Winston Churchill.

“At that time we had no army worth mentioning...If the French had taken any action we would have been easily defeated; our resistance would have been over in a few days. And the Air Force we had then was ridiculous…” Adolf Hitler after some years.

http://youtu.be/SpxdYTNkbe4

http://youtu.be/vK8sSht50P4

Analysis of the Source:➔ The nazi flags are showing that the Nazis

had support on the Rhineland.➔ The olive branch is representing the Peace

offering.➔ The weapons are showing that Germany

has rearmed.➔ It shows how The Locarno Treaty was

ripped up and ignored.➔ The Goose step, was the style marched by

the German army.

This source shows how Hitler went breaking all the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and how he succeeded in that.