upon the concIu ion of an international di armament tr aty. Chamberlain had however al 0 to reckon with con iderable oppo ition from rank and file Con rvative to the notion of compul ory arbitration and the kind of open-ended commitment the Protocol implied. It th refore hardly cam a a urpri e when on 12 March 1925 he revealed to a di appointed League Council that Britain rejected the Protocol. But Chamberlain wa r luctant to eem to b pur uing a purely negative cour e. A francophile, he, like hi predece or, recogni ed the importance of offering orne form of rea urance to th Fr nch. He had begun to think about reviving Lloyd George's propo al for a limited guarantee treaty, and rumour that the new Con ervative admini tration might be prepared to nter into an alliance with France and Belgium had aIr ady reached the ear of German diplomat . Thi wa worrying from th German point of view. Stre emann, who, though no longer Chancellor, wa till German Foreign Mini ter, wa perturbed by pre ure from the French to e tabli h on German soil permanent League in pection agencie to report on German di armament. Still mor alarming from the hi point of view wa the ruling by the Inter-AlIi d Control Commi ion that Germany had not yet complied with the di armament provi i n of the Ver aille Treaty, and the warning which the German Government had ree iv d on 24 Decemb r that the anticipat d rom withdrawal of force Cologne and the adjacent northern ctor of th Rhineland n Engli hman broad Austen Chamberlain. British Forei n ecrelary. Locarno, 1925. could not now take place in January. The pro p ct both of an Anglo-French alliance and a delay in the withdrawal of the army 0 ccupati n from the Rhineland truck at the whole ba i of Stre emann s foreign policy. He had hoped that through a policy of fulfillment he could recover for G rmany it freedom of diplomatic manoeuvre in the we t, and that thi would ultimately 1 ad to th progre ive revi ion of the Ver aille ettlement. But a n w Anglo-French combination would hamper hi diplomacy abroad, whil t an ext n i n of the allied cupati n would play int the hand of hi nationalist critic and opp n nt at h me.
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