The international horizon was darkening in 1936, with Fascism emboldened and the democracies infirm. In February extremist Japanese officers attempted a coup d’état by multiple murder of elder statesmen which, though it failed, had a subduing effect on opponents of militarism. In March Hitler occupied the Rhineland unopposed. In May Mussolini annexed Ethiopia; the League’s empty sanctions against Italy were called off and the British fleet, not to be provocative, withdrew from the eastern Mediterranean. Chiang was not the only one who failed to resist. At Geneva a small lonely cloaked figure,
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