Les Balkans dans la politique française face à la réoccupation de la Rhénanie (7 mars 1936) d’après les Documents Diplomatiques Français

Abstract

From the French diplomatic documents published by the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, the author successively studies the first French reaction
against Hitler’s bold stroke of reoccupying the Rhineland and the response
of the various capitals of Central and Balkanic Europe; all were apparently
ready to support drastic action by France. The second part analyses the British
reaction, in fact radically appeasing, so the French government, unable to
change, adopted these views. The third part displays repercussions of the
“French passiveness” in the capitals of the Little Entente and Balkan Pact:
it was an indisputable loss of credit and glamour for France. To conclude,
reoccupying the Rhineland was a caesura in the history of the inter-war period
in Europe and heralded the future Europe of Hitler.