Britain's Prime Minister during most of
World War One, David Lloyd-George
Lloyd-George was once an unabashed Hitler admirer, describing him in 1936 as "the George Washington of Germany", and as "one of the greatest of the many great men I have met." On July 27, 1936, he defended the actions of Hitler in the House of Commons, in the wake of the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance, when on March 7, 1936, Hitler ordered German troops to reoccupy the Rhineland
"The moment the Russo-French Pact was signed, no one responsible for the security of Germany could leave its most important industrial province without defence of any sort or kind when—and here is a thing which is never dwelt upon—France had built the most gigantic fortifications ever seen in any land, where, almost 100 feet underground, you could keep an army of over 100,000 and where you have guns that can fire straight into Germany. Yet the Germans are supposed to remain without even a garrison, without a trench. I am going to say here that if Herr Hitler had not taken some action with regard to that—whether it is a wise action or not I am not going to argue and whether he could have set it right by negotiation or not I do not know, but I am a little doubtful having regard to the past—but if Herr Hitler had allowed that to go without protecting his country he would have been a traitor to the Fatherland."
