a buffer between Germany on one side and France, Belgium and Luxembourg (and, to a lesser extent, the Netherlands) on the other side, which meant that no German forces were allowed there after the Allied forces had withdrawn. Furthermore, quite unbearably from the German perspective, the treaty entitled the Allies to reoccupy the Rhineland at their will if the Allies unilaterally found the German side responsible for any violation of the treaty. In 1932 Wetzlar (), formerly an exclave of the Rhine Province situated between Hesse-Nassau and the People's State of Hesse, was transferred to Hesse-Nassau. Nazi period In the last free German federal election in March 1933, two of the four parliamentary districts of the Rhine Province (Cologne-Aachen and Koblenz-Trier) were the only districts in Germany in which the Nazi Party did not win the plurality of votes. In violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the spirit of the Locarno Pact, Nazi Germany remilitarized the Rhineland on Saturday, March 7, 1936. The occupation was done with very little military force, the troops entered on tractors and no effort was made to stop it during the Western appeasement of Hitler) even though the French had an overwhelming force nearby. France did not act because of its political instability, and since the remilitarization occurred during a weekend, the British government could not find out or discuss actions to be taken until the following Monday. As a result, the governments were inclined to see the remilitarization as a fait accompli. Adolf Hitler took a risk when he sent his troops to the Rhineland. He told them to "turn back and not to resist" if they were stopped by the French Army. The French, however, did not try to stop them because they were about to hold legislative elections, President Albert Lebrun did not want to start an unpopular war against Germany and French intelligence greatly overestimated the number of German troops. The British government did not oppose the remilitarization in principle, and Lord Lothian famously stated that "the Germans are after all only going into their own back garden". However, the British government rejected the Nazi manner of accomplishing the act, which they had been willing to concede by negotiations with Germany. Winston Churchill advocated military action by co-operation by the British and the French but did not demand war over the issue. The remilitarization of the Rhineland was supported by