Locarno: Where France and Germany Signed the 1925 Pact of Non-Aggression

The Swiss town is Locarno, on the northern shore of Lake Maggiore in the canton of Ticino. In October 1925, representatives of France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Belgium, Poland, and Czechoslovakia gathered there to sign the Treaties of Locarno. The core Rhineland Pact guaranteed the Franco-German and Belgo-German borders and mandated peaceful dispute resolution—a brief beacon of hope before the 1930s unraveled.