metre deep zone on the right bank. This action removed the political buffer of France, as the Rhineland had been her guarantee that she could if need arose strike at Germany without fear. Hitler had won his first major diplomatic success, their being no resistance by any nations, although verbal condemnation was issued by the League of Nations and gained great popularity at home. The Rhineland was a valuable asset to Hitler having great geographical importance, as it allowed greater German assertion in the East, having economic value and holding 15million Germans.Hitler, however felt isolated he found allies in Italy and Japan each offering military strength and fascist governments. Through Germanys intervention in the Spanish civil war and the signing of a friendship Treaty with Austria in 1936 Hitler secured the ‘October Protocols’ with Italy and the Anti-Comintern pact with Japan and Italy, the first preliminary steps in a highly beneficial alliances both militarily and economically. Hitler’s hopes for alliance however laid in Britain, a country he respected both militarily and diplomatically. He failed, unable to sway Britain from their peaceful foreign policy, making many mistakes including the appointment of the obstinate Ribbenntrop as the ambassador for London and perhaps the signing of the Comintern pact as Britain may have felt her colonies were threatened by such a move. 1938 is said by some historian to be the commencement of a new more radical phase in German fore3ign policy and strategy, marked by two major successes for Hitler, Anschluss and Czechoslovakia. Austria was detached from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, but not all Austrians thought the independent state was viable either economically of diplomatically. Many felt an affinity with German ideology and race, often joining the Austrian Nazi Party; and pleading for a union. Once again Hitler did not need to use...
