The Third Reich 1033

In 1935, Hitlers foreign policy entered a new and more aggressive
phase. He defied the Versailles Treaty in March by announcing that Ger­
many’s army would be increased to half a million men, that military service
would become compulsory, and that the German air force had already been
rebuilt, despite the prohibition of the peace agreement. British, French,
and Italian representatives met in Stresa, Italy, in April 1935 to discuss
Germany’s violation of the Treaty of Versailles—as did the League of
Nations itself—and to reaffirm the Treaty of Locarno of 1925, in which
the German government had joined Britain, France, and Italy in pledging
to resolve future international disputes peacefully. Hitler then made the
usual reassuring noises, stating that he would sign bilateral agreements
with any of the powers (as opposed to the collective security agreements he
had already helped shred), uphold the Treaty of Locarno, and recognize
the territorial integrity of Austria.
Great Britain expressed wariness by signing a naval agreement with Ger­
many in June 1935 that established a ratio of 100 to 35 between the two
navies. This agreement, however, enraged the French government, which
had not even been informed by Britain of the hasty negotiations that led to
the agreement. France then signed a secret treaty with Italy, the goal of
which was to assure Austrian independence.
In October 1935, Mussolini’s armies invaded Ethiopia, where Italian
forces had suffered humiliating defeat in 1896. Determined to expand
Italy’s fledgling empire, a quarter of a million Italian women, including the

Ethiopian soldiers use donkeys to carry machine guns to confront the Italian inva­

sion, 1935.