in a military empire between the Baltic Sea, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea. At the Foreign Office in the 1930s, Vansittart was a major figure in the loose group of officials and politicians opposed to appeasement of Germany. Eden and Vansittart had already clashed during the Abyssinia Crisis with Eden supporting sanctions against Italy while Vansittart wanted Italy as an ally against Germany. Vansittart argued that there was no prospect of a "general settlement" with Hitler, and the best that could be done was to strengthen ties with the French in order to confront Germany. Vansittart had supported Eden's efforts to defuse the Rhineland crisis as British rearmament had only just begun, but Vansittart urged the government to use the crisis as a chance to begin forming an military alliance with France against Germany. By the spring of 1936, Vansittart had become convinced that a "general settlement" with Germany was not possible. A Foreign Office official Owen O'Malley suggested that Britain give Germany a "free hand in the East" (i.e. accept the German conquest of all Eastern Europe) in exchange for a German promise to accept the status quo in Western Europe. Vansittart wrote in response that Hitler was seeking world conquest, and that to allow Germany to conquer all of Eastern Europe would give the Reich sufficient raw materials to make Germany immune to a British blockade, which would then allow the Germans to overrun Western Europe. Vansittart commented that to allow Germany to conquer Eastern Europe would "lead to the disappearance of liberty and democracy in Europe". By contrast, Eden saw British interests as confided only to Western Europe, and did not share Vansittart's beliefs about what Hitler's ultimate intentions might be. In spite of his harsh opposition to appeasement with Germany, Vansittart had been on "very friendly terms with Herr (Konrad) Henlein". Henlein was the leader of the Sudeten German Party, which demanded autonomy for the Sudetenaland, as was eventually achieved through the Munich Agreement (1938). Vansittart genuinely liked Henlein, the mild-mannered and easy-going gymnastics teacher, and believed in assurances that all he wanted was autonomy for the Sudetenland. Much of Vansittart's later turn towards Germanphobia was provoked by his discovery that Henlein had deceived him. Vansittart told Henlein that "no serious intervention in favour of the Czechs was to be feared from Great Britain and probably also from France." That reached Hitler in the