Stresa Front

The Stresa Front was an agreement made in Stresa, a town on the banks of Lake Maggiore in Italy, between French prime minister Pierre-Étienne Flandin (with Pierre Laval), British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, and Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini on 14 April 1935. Practically, the Stresa Front was an alliance between France, Italy, and Great Britain, aimed against Nazi Germany. Formally called the Final Declaration of the Stresa Conference, its aim was to reaffirm the Locarno Treaties and to declare that the independence of Austria "would continue to inspire their common policy". The signatories also agreed to resist any future attempt by the Germans to change the Treaty of Versailles. Pat Buchanan in Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War, wrote that "the Stresa Front was the most important attempt to stop Hitler before the start of WW2". However, the Stresa Front began to collapse after the United Kingdom signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in June 1935 in which Germany was given permission to increase the size of its navy. It broke down completely within two to three months of the initial agreement, just after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. The Stresa Front was triggered by Germany's declaration of its intention to build up an air force, increase the size of the army to 36 divisions (500,000 men) and introduce conscription, in March 1935. All of these actions were direct violations of the Treaty of Versailles, which limited the size of the German Army to 100,000 men, forbade conscription in Germany and prohibited a German air force. The Stresa Front was in many ways the work of Baron Vansittart, of the British diplomatic corps. Vansittart was strongly against appeasement, and strongly for containing Germany. This had the practical effect of conceding to Italian desires in Ethiopia in an attempt to contain the Nazis. Italy was of crucial strategic importance in controlling Germany. Its geographic location made it well suited for a defense of Austria, which Italy had in fact done in the July Putsch of 1934, by sending four divisions to Austria to prevent the Nazis from taking power.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (7)

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (UKˌmʊsəˈliːni,_ˌmʌs- , USˌmuːs- , beˈniːto aˈmilkare anˈdrɛːa mussoˈliːni; 29 July 1883 - 28 April 1945) was an Italian dictator and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party (PNF). He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 1943, as well as "Duce" of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919 until his summary execution in 1945 by Italian partisans.

Stresa Front

Abyssinia Crisis

The Abyssinia Crisis (አቢሲኒያ ቀውስ; La crisi abissina) was an international crisis in 1935 that originated in what was called the Walwal incident during the ongoing conflict between the Fascist–ruled Kingdom of Italy and the Ethiopian Empire (then commonly known as "Abyssinia"). The League of Nations ruled against Italy and voted for economic sanctions, but they were never fully applied. Italy ignored the sanctions, quit the League, made special deals with the United Kingdom and France and ultimately annexed and occupied Abyssinia after it had won the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.