The position of Greece on the international scene went through various phases. The break-up of big coalitions, and the revisionist policy followed by many countries in this period, forced her to seek diplomatic support among the Great Powers of the time (England, France, Italy). However, these orientations met with major obstacles and the desired axes of co-operation were not forged immediately. Through a number of manoeuvres towards the end of the 1920s, Andreas Michalakopoulos and, to a greater extent, Eleftherios Venizelos endeavoured to raise the country's capacity for negotiation and the consolidation of peace. The Greek-Turkish understanding (1930) as well as the process of rapprochement with other Balkan countries is characteristic of the early 1930s. The international crisis of 1933-39 did not alter the course of successive governments under initially Panayis Tsaldaris and later the dictator Ioannis Metaxas. The latter, along with the newly restored King George II, eventually expressed in the most categorical way his devotion to the idea of the English-Greek contact and co-operation. German penetration remained relatively low, despite its undoubted supremacy both in the field of trade exchanges and in its ideological affinity with the Regime. The escalation of tension led Greece to its ultimate integration with the British/ French network of influence.