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Failure of the League and disarmament - Coggle Diagram
Failure of the League and disarmament
Why did disarmament fail in the 1930s?
The next big League of Nations was over disarmament.
When the international climate was better they don't matter as much.
In the 1930s
the pressure increased for the league of nations, they wanted them to do something about disarment.
The Germans had been angry because they had been forced to disarm after WW1 while other nations had not done the same. Many countries were actually spending more on their armaments than they had been before the First World War.
Disarmament conference:
In February 1932 the long-promised Disarmament Conference got under way. By July 1932 it had produced resolutions to prohibit bombing of civilian populations, limit the size of artillery, limit the tonnage of tanks, and prohibit chemical warfare.
But there was very little in the resolutions to show how these limits would be achieved.
For example: The bombing of civilians was to be prohibited, but all attempts to agree to abolish planes capable of bombing were defeated. Even the proposal to ban the manufacture of chemical weapons was defeated.
In the wake of the Manchurian crisis, the members of the League realized the urgency of the problem.
German Disarmament:
The Germans had been in the League for six years and now most people accept that they should be treat more equal under the treaty of Versailles.
The problem was that everyone else had to disarm to the level that German had been force to, or wether the Germans should be allowed to rearm to a level closer to that of the other powers.
The experience of the 1920s showed that the first option was a non-starter. But there was a great reluctance in the League to allow the second option. This is how events relating to Germany moved over the next 18 months.
July 1932: German tabled proposals for all countries to disarm down to its level. When the Conference failed to agree the principle of "equality" the Germans walked out.
September 1932: The British sent the Germans a note that went some way to agreeing equality, but the superior tone of the note angered the Germans still further.
December 1932: An agreement was finally reached to treat Germany equally.
January 1933: Germany announced it was coming back to the conference.
February 1933: Hitler became Chancellor of Germany at the end of January. He immediately started to rearm Germany, although secretly.
May 1933: Hitler promised not to rearm Germany if in five years all other nations destroyed their arms.
June 1933: Britain produced an ambitious disarmament plan, but it failed to achieve support at the Conference.
October 1933: Hitler withdrew from the Disarmament Conference, and soon after took Germany out of the League altogether. But all the powers knew that Hitler was secretly remaining Germany already. They also began to rebuild their own armament. Against that background the Disarmament Conference struggled on for another year but in an atmosphere of increasing futility. It finally ended in 1934.
Reasons for failure: The Conference failed for a number of reasons. Some say it was all doomed for the start. No one was very serious about disarmament anyway. But they were other factors at work.
It did not helped that Britain and France were divided on this issue.
By 1933 many British people felt that the treaty was unfair.
The British signed an agreement with Germany in 1935 that allowed Germany to build up its navy as long as it stayed under 35 per cent of the size of the British navy. But Britain did not consult either their allies and the League on these decision and these was considerate a violation in the treaty of Versailles. It seemed that each country was looking after itself and ignoring the League.
