Explain why Britain did not intervene when Germany re-militarised the Rhineland in 1936?
After World War 1, Germany was forced to sign a document known as the Treaty of Versailles. This treaty prohibited a lot of things that Germany had such as taking away land mass and reducing military size. One of the things that were banned was the ability to field a military force in the Rhineland.
One of the reasons that Britain did not want to intervene when Germany re-militarised the Rhineland is that relations with Germany had improved vastly since the imposition of the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaty, with Germany not being considered a great threat to European peace despite the rhetoric of Hitler and the Nazi regime. So it would have been counterproductive to intervene when relations where getting a lot better and would possibly have led to another war.

Another reason that Britain did not intervene when Germany re-militarised the Rhineland was because the British government was already following a policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany which was started by Neville Chamberlain. He believed that following this policy which meant giving Nazi Germany what they wanted would ease them into good relations so that they would not take revenge on Britain and France, this was a very popular at the time but obviously from hindsight it did not work.

Furthermore, the government shared the view with many in Britain that Germany was entitled to reoccupy its ‘own back-yard’. Due to the Rhineland being a part of Germany everyone thought it was only right that Germany should be able to reoccupy it as it was rightfully theirs. Also due to it being a popular view in Britain, the government did not want to cause outrage by taking action against it as British people would think it unfair.

In addition to this, if France was not prepared to take action to defend the