Published: June 24, 1935 | Le Figaro (Paris Edition)
By: Major Moreau
This month, the British government signed a document with Berlin. It was printed in quiet columns, with ceremonial handshakes behind closed doors.
The official name the Anglo-German Naval Agreement is clean, polite, diplomatic.
But history, as it often does, will rename it later.
I write these words not as a politician or diplomat, but as a soldier and more importantly, as a citizen of a republic that has forgotten too much, too quickly.
Let us not be deceived by elegant phrases or the illusion of prudence. The truth is simpler, colder.
The British government has broken the European front. It has shaken hands with ambition and left the continent in a fog of false security.
And the consequences of that act whether measured in months or years will reach far beyond naval treaties.
The agreement grants Germany the legal right to possess thirty-five percent of Royal Navy tonnage in surface vessels.
