Although the French people were unaware of the conspiracy between Germany and Italy, this did not mean they took no action regarding the German-Italian Agreement.
In fact, the French had long perceived the crisis of rising dictatorial governments like Italy and Germany, and attempted to join forces with the British to strengthen restrictions on the Germans, ensuring that German military might would not expand as rapidly as Italy's.
The bad news, however, was that the current world number two was France, which also happened to be the British Empire's largest and most direct rival.
Compared to Germany, whose domestic affairs were somewhat chaotic and whose strength had yet to recover, the British were clearly far more worried about French power.
Precisely because of this, the second set of restrictions on German military strength planned by the French not only failed to materialize, but actually caused the British side to loosen its curbs on Germany.
At this point, the French also realized the British could not be depended upon, which was why they shifted the target of their alliance to Austria.
At least when it came to reining in the Germans, the Austrian Empire was quite willing. After all, Austria was Germany's neighbor and shared no conflicting interests with France, making it a relatively sound ally.
Once the German-Italian Agreement was exposed, France urgently contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Austrian Empire to discuss formulating a potential defensive alliance scheme regarding the relationship between Germany and Italy.
The French proposal received enthusiastic affirmation from Austria. On Christmas Day, the French Foreign Minister urgently traveled to the Austrian Empire to discuss this nascent defensive alliance plan.
This defensive alliance proposal was purely targeted at the union of Germany and Italy. According to the French proposal, the first article of the