On March 7, 1936, exploiting disagreements among the Western Powers and their preoccupation with the crisis in Ethiopia, Hitler occupied the Rhineland region, which had been demilitarised since the Versailles accords. Hitler had made up his mind to occupy this area in February, regarding the signing of a French-Soviet agreement in early March as a pretext to breach the 1925 Locarno accords, which had ended the border dispute between Germany and France. Despite this act of aggression, the European Powers refrained from taking meaningful action against Germany.