Through the interwar years, German opinion had protested these restrictions as harsh and unjust, and demanded that either all the other states of Europe disarm down to German levels, or Germany be allowed to rearm to the level of all the other European states. In the UK, where after 1919 guilt was felt over what was seen as the excessively harsh terms of Versailles, the German claim to "equality" in armaments often met with considerable sympathy.