234 NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN: MAN OF PEACE

country. Dr. Schuschnigg was not alone in attaching
this interpretation and corresponding importance to
the pact. Mussolini also considered that the German
guarantee removed the threat to his European
position, and with it the chief reason for his reluctance
to co-operate with Germany.

The third event was the outbreak of civil war in
Spain. Here again it would not be in point to canvass
the merits or underlying significance of that contest.
It is arguable that greater support for Republican
Spain would have resulted in the defeat of Franco,
and the establishment of a Spain better disposed
towards Britain and France: it is also arguable that
support for General Franco would have placed him
in a position of greater independence of his Axis
sponsors and thus, without affecting the actual result
of the contest, would have achieved the same effect.
In point of fact Great Britain adhered to a strict
policy of non-intervention, which was considered by
Nationalist Spain to assist her opponents, while the
Popular Front Government in France, together with
Russia, gave assistance to Republican Spain behind
the facade of non-intervention, and Italy and
Germany did likewise on behalf of Franco. Germany
and Italy therefore found themselves co-operating in
what was represented as an ideological struggle, but
in which strategical considerations no doubt played
a major part.

The result of all this was a complete reversal of the
policy of Stresa in 1934. In October of 1936 Musso-
lini sent his son-in-law, Count Ciano, to Berlin to
undertake negotiations. On November 1st he was
able to announce that the line between Rome and
Berlin was not a line of division but an Axis. It was
one of the catch-phrases of history.

The formation of the Axis, as the new line-up of
the Totalitarian Powers quickly came to be known,