ABSTRACT
1935 was a year of storm and stress in Anglo-French relations. The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of June 1935, and the Ethiopian crisis which simmered for much of the year before boiling over in the autumn, saw the two countries at loggerheads with one another. While the Disarmament Conference still held hopes of success the government could not contemplate rearmament, and not until November 1933 did the Cabinet set guidelines for defence expenditure to replace the Ten Year assumption. At an Anglo-French conference in London in January 1935, the two governments had agreed on the principle of joint negotiations with Germany on armaments questions, and had rejected the idea of unilateral changes in the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. As long ago as 1896 the Ethiopians had defeated an Italian army at the battle of Adowa, and the idea of revenge for this humiliation had lingered in Italian minds.
