FLASH REVISE CARDS - THE DISARMAMENT COMMISSION OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

FLASH REVISE CARDS - THE DISARMAMENT COMMISSION OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS,
To join the League of Nations, countries first had to commit to a policy of disarmament.

This meant that each nation had to take steps to reduce their arms buildup including soldiers and weapons. Those who signed the Treaty of Versailles also agreed to these terms as well.

To aid the process of disarmament the League of Nations held a disarmament conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Disarmament Conference sought to reduce a nations stockpiles of offensive weapons and ensure the independence of many countries. However, countries felt that the rate of disarmament was poor and many countries were not disarming fairly or at an even rate. This particularly annoyed Germany and Hitler who withdrew Germany from the conference in 1934.

1. League of Nations – Mr. D’s History – St. Peter’s College, Auckland, New Zealand
THE DISARMAMENT COMMISSION
OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

League of Nations Preparatory Commission on Disarmament
The Disarmament Commission made the most disappointing progress
of all League’s various agencies and commissions.
Article 8 of the League Covenant had called on all nations to disarm “to
the lowest point consistent with national safety”, yet by the end of
1920’s only the defeated powers had disarmed and that is because they
had been forced to by the terms of the peace treaties imposed on them.
There was a minor success for the Commission in organising the
Washington Naval Conference of 1921, which led to agreement on
naval limitation by the USA, Britain, France, and Japan but this
represented the high-water mark of voluntary disarmament during the
1920’s.
It even proved impossible for the Commission to convene a World
Disarmament Conference before 1932 largely due to a failure to agree
on a series of technicalities such as definitions, classifications, and
methods of armaments counting.

2. League of Nations – Mr. D’s History – St. Peter’s College, Auckland, New Zealand
An international non-governmental campaign to promote disarmament
developed in the 1920’s and early 1930’s.
A preparatory commission was initiated by the League in 1925; by
1931, there was sufficient support to hold a conference.
The motivation behind the talks can be summed up by an extract from the
message President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent to the conference:
"If all nations will agree wholly to eliminate from possession and use the
weapons which make possible a successful attack, defences automatically will
become impregnable, and the frontiers and independence of every nation will
become secure."
The Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments of
1932–1934 (Geneva Disarmament Conference) was an effort by member
states of the League of Nations, together with the U.S., to actualize the
ideology of disarmament.
The talks were beset by a few difficulties from the outset. Among these
were disagreements over what constituted "offensive" and
"defensive" weapons, and the polarization of France and Germany.
The increasingly military-minded German governments could see no
reason why their country could not enjoy the same level of
armaments as other powers, especially France.
The French, for their part, were equally insistent that German military
inferiority was their only insurance from future conflict as serious
as they had endured in the First World War.
As for the British and US governments, they were unprepared to offer
the additional security commitments that France requested in
exchange for limitation of French armaments.
It was easy for Germany to think that there was no real desire among
the former Allies to bring about a state of general disarmament
and this suspicion forms part of the background to the failure of the World
Disarmament Conference of 1932-1934.
The talks broke down and Hitler withdrew Germany from both the
Conference and the League of Nations in October 1933.
The 1930’s had proved far too self-interested an international period
to accommodate multilateral action in favour of pacifism.