During the 1930's Italy and Germany followed a policy of aggressive territorial expansion; they invaded weak lands that could be taken over easily. The dictatorships (led by Hitler in Germany, and Mussolini in Italy) knew exactly what their goals were, to form the empire they didn't achieve during the Colonial Period. In 1935 Italian troops invaded Ethiopia. Italy's army was well equipped and had gained total control of the country in May 1936. In Germany, Hitler started violating the Treaty of Versailles soon after he took power; he began to build up Germany's armed forces. In 1936, Hitler sent troops in to the Rhineland, a region of Germany along the banks of the Rhine River, which was supposed to be kept free of troops. In 1938, German soldiers marched into Austria and united it to Germany. These acts of aggressions were easy victories for Italy and Germany. The aggressor soon formed an alliance; they agreed to support each other's foreign policy. The alliance came to be known as the Rome-Berlin Axis (it was called this because the believed that a straight imaginary line drawn from Berlin to Rome would form the axis on which the world would revolve from that point on. "British and French reaction to German and Italian aggression during the 1930's only bolstered Hitler's and Mussolini's belief that they could do anything".
             The United Kingdom and France were unwilling to risk another war so soon after World War I. The two powers knew they would bear the burden of any fighting. Any action taken by the French or the British would probably trigger off a Second World War. In 1938 a conference was held in Munich. In attempt to keep peace, Great Britain and France agreed to all the demands of the aggressors, and soon after France announced that it would neither honor its alliance with Czechoslovakia nor provide any assistance. The stapes taken by France and Great Britain to keep world p...