standing army of 21 divisions based on soldiers and a large militia. Later in the year at the World Disarmament Conference, Germany withdrew to force France and Britain to accept German equality of status. London attempted to get Germany to return with the promise of all nations maintaining an equality in armaments and security. The British later proposed and agreed to an increase in the to men, and for Germany to have an air force half the size of the French. It was also negotiated for the French Army to be reduced. In October 1933, following the rise of Adolf Hitler and the founding of the Nazi regime, Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference. In March 1935, Germany reintroduced conscription followed by an open rearmament programme and the official unveiling of the Luftwaffe (air force), and signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement that allowed a surface fleet the size of the Royal Navy. The resulting rearmament programmes were allotted 35 billion Reichsmarks over an eight-year period. Territorial On 7 March 1936, German troops entered and remilitarized the Rhineland. On 12 March 1938, following German pressure to the collapse of the Austrian Government, German troops crossed into Austria and the following day Hitler announced the Anschluss: the annexation of Austria by Germany. The following year, on 23 March 1939, Germany annexed Memel from Lithuania. Historical assessments Historians are split on the impact of the treaty. Some saw it as a good solution in a difficult time, others saw it as a disastrous measure that would anger the Germans to seek revenge. The actual impact of the treaty is also disputed. In his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace, John Maynard Keynes referred to the Treaty of Versailles as a "Carthaginian peace", a misguided attempt to destroy Germany on behalf of French revanchism, rather than to follow the fairer principles for a lasting peace set out in President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, which Germany had accepted at the armistice. He stated: "I believe that the campaign for securing out of Germany the general costs of the war was one of the most serious acts of political unwisdom for which our statesmen have ever been responsible." Keynes had been the principal representative of the British Treasury at the Paris Peace Conference, and used in his passionate book arguments that he and others (including some US officials) had