All France had to do was NOT return the Rhineland and Germany would have been a toothless tiger who would be forced to play by the rules.With the Rhineland, in the case that Hitler illegally attacked Poland or another country, France along with the Brits could have invaded Germany with relatively little human cost and most importantly the theater of operations would be in Germany and would have made the Nazis extremely unpopular and maybe even removed them entirely.Imagine a hand on your throat that just rests. If you behave, everything is fine and you barely notice it. But if you start misbehaving and causing trouble all that hand has to do is squeeze and you can't do anything about it. The occupation of the Rhineland WAS that hand. And France gave it away for no good reason and made all other future campaigns of the Nazis possible.
France had no mean to do so. Germany recovered faster from WW1 (better demography and the country was kept intact) and France was isolated on the international stage : the US returned to isolationism and being the winner of WW1, UK perceived it at a potential continental hegemony and wanted to balance it. Belgium was too weak, Russia was communist. They could have still secure Italy as an ally at the time but Mussolini's actions in Africa made it impossible. Instead, the ally should have accepted the french peace plan in 1918. But the US wanted to spare Germany as a trade partner and the UK was happy with the loss of german navy and colonies, enforcing its own security. But France had few warranties playing in its favor and what they managed to get was later dumped or not enforced. But France was seen as a warmonger for trying to ensure its own security and the politicians accepted the current Versailles Treaty to please their allies. Meanwhile, the generals warned in 1918 the peace was just a 20 years ceasefire.
>>18484854this is what I was thinking but with more in depth knowledge of the overall situation, when Germany retook the Rhineland no one was in position to stop them without escalating things and everyone treated it like a concession to Germany after decades of them suffering from the results of the great war treaty, it was humility
>>18484672>All France had to do was NOT return the RhinelandPerfidious Albion literally forced France to give it up.
>>18484865The French army was still the biggest and most well equipped army in the world, retard.
>>18484854France was a war monger. All this bullshit went back to them consistently meddling in and sabotaging German affairs to try and keep them weak. A world without the Franco-Prussian war or France's involvement in the 30 years' war does not produce a man like Hitler.
>>18485101Wait, didn't Prussia create the Reich by waging a series of ruthless and brutal wars against their neighbors and were technically the bad guy? Not that familiar with that war
>>18485105Prussia was certainly not pacifistic, but they were not going around randomly annexing Nations like the Nazis later did. The 3 wars were essential for their political goals, Prussia did nothing to avoid them for this reason, but so did the other nations. The Danish-Prussian war was the most clear cut war, where Prussia can be considered the aggressor (but even then it's more complicated when you consider the territorial ambiguity). The Austrian-Prussian war was a territorial Dispute over Schleswig-Holstein against Austria, both nations are equally culpable for the war and in the Franco-Prussian War France could be considered the primary instigator.
