However, after the UK opposed the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, he came to rank the UK as a potential ally.[17] In Mein Kampf, and even more in its sequel, Zweites Buch, Hitler strongly criticised the pre-1914 German government for embarking on a naval and colonial challenge to the British Empire, and in Hitler's view, needlessly antagonizing the UK.[18] In Hitler's view, the UK was a fellow "Aryan" power, whose friendship could be won by a German "renunciation" of naval and colonial ambitions against the UK.[18] In return for such a "renunciation", Hitler expected an Anglo-German alliance directed at France and the Soviet Union, and the UK's support for the German efforts to acquire Lebensraum in Eastern Europe.