The story is approaching its anticlimax, a fact that justifies a parenthesis. Looking back, some observers have called the Hoare—Laval Plan and the remilitarisation of the Rhineland turning points in the interwar politics — a moment when the Second World War could have been prevented, though perhaps not without some kind of a fight.1 As a result, historians have lavished attention on the two
... [Show full abstract] events.2 But viewed from London and Paris, they were turning points that failed to turn. Nothing associated with these episodes persuaded the British and French governments to change their policies towards Germany and Italy. The irony was that, unlike the French, the British thought they were doing the right thing.