The Story Of International Relations, Part Two: Cold-Blooded Idealists [1st Edition] 3030218236, 9783030218232, 9783030218249

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements......Page 6
Contents......Page 7
Abbreviations......Page 8
Sanctions Before Disarmament: The French Position and Its Critics......Page 9
The Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments: The Polish Memorandum and Moral Disarmament......Page 26
The Committee on Moral Disarmament......Page 36
Revisionism and the Dispute over Ways and Means......Page 43
Shotwell and the Anglo-American Declaration......Page 47
Perrier’s Report to the Fourteenth Plenary Session of the ICIC......Page 50
A Mission to China......Page 52
Manchuria: A Study in the Neutrality of the ICIC......Page 71
Towards a Second Reading......Page 74
Intellectual Cooperation and Fascist Italy......Page 83
The Milan Conference......Page 87
The Opening of the Conference......Page 90
The Liberal Versus the Corporative System......Page 93
The Aftermath of the Conference......Page 96
Surveys of Teaching and Research......Page 100
The Lexicon of Political Terms: 1932......Page 106
The Opening of the London Conference......Page 112
The State and Economic Life......Page 116
The Open Door and Colonial Policy......Page 122
A Canadian Complaint......Page 125
Administrative Matters......Page 127
The Reports of Hoetzsch and Jäckh......Page 131
The New Commonwealth Society......Page 137
The Tardieu Plan......Page 141
How to Accommodate Security and Disarmament?......Page 154
A Change of Government in France......Page 159
The LNU and the Question of an IPF......Page 161
The Einstein/Freud Correspondence......Page 163
Krüss Replaces Einstein on the ICIC......Page 169
The 1933 Plenary Session of the ICIC......Page 172
The Banff Conference......Page 177
A Meeting at Bessinges......Page 192
The Young Plan and the Future of Reparations......Page 201
The German Note and the Bank of International Settlements......Page 209
The Lausanne Conference Opens......Page 212
The Clean Slate Rejected......Page 217
A Consultative Pact?......Page 222
The Battle of the Preambles......Page 228
The Lausanne Accord......Page 232
The Gentlemen’s Agreement......Page 234
French and German Reactions......Page 241
The Accord of Confidence......Page 246
The German Memorandum of 29 August......Page 253
The Background to the French Constructive Plan......Page 255
Paul-Boncour’s Speech of 4 November......Page 262
The French Intervention of 14 November......Page 269
Analyses of and Reactions to the Plan......Page 275
The Conference Resumes......Page 285
German Obstructionism......Page 288
The Origins of the MacDonald Plan......Page 292
MacDonald and Simon Visit Paris......Page 293
Conversations in Geneva: 11 March......Page 298
Conversations in Geneva: 13 March......Page 303
The Prospect of a Four-Power Conference......Page 305
Daladier in Geneva......Page 310
The Presentation of the MacDonald Plan......Page 314
Reactions to the Plan......Page 320
Concerns About Revision......Page 322
The Rome Meeting and Its Aftermath......Page 323
MacDonald’s Speech to Parliament......Page 333
Churchill’s Response......Page 337
The Conclusion of the Four-Power Pact......Page 339
Renewed German Obstructionism......Page 343
Roosevelt’s Telegram......Page 351
Hitler’s ‘Peace Speech’......Page 356
Norman H. Davis’s Intervention......Page 359
Defining the Aggressor......Page 363
Condemning Recourse to Force......Page 368
Article 11 and the Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War......Page 374
The Draft Convention Is Adopted......Page 386
A Meeting at the Quai d’Orsay......Page 390
Germany Withdraws from the League......Page 393
Paris and Its Preparations......Page 397
Security, Sovereignty and War......Page 405
Collective Security and Neutrality......Page 409
The Organisation of Peace and the Peace Treaties......Page 426
Closing and Administrative Meetings......Page 445
The New Commonwealth and Air Power......Page 447
Repairing the Breach with Germany......Page 463
The Opening of the Eighth International Studies Conference......Page 470
Views of Collective Security......Page 474
Revisionism......Page 484
Anti-revisionism......Page 488
Concrete, Political, and Realistic: A German View......Page 491
The Closing Meeting......Page 499
The Ethiopian Crisis......Page 501
Peaceful Change......Page 514
University Teaching of International Relations......Page 519
A Turning Point......Page 525
A Hardening of Attitudes......Page 527
The Committee of Five......Page 533
Italy Condemned Ethiopia......Page 537
The Shift to Sanctions......Page 545
The Hoare–Laval Plan......Page 549
Weaknesses in the Sanctions Regime......Page 562
The End of Collective Security......Page 567
Index......Page 572

Citation preview

PSIR · PALGRAVE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The Story of International Relations, Part Two Cold-Blooded Idealists

Jo-Anne Pemberton

Palgrave Studies in International Relations Series Editors Mai’a K. Davis Cross Northeastern University Boston, MA, USA Benjamin de Carvalho Norwegian Institute of International Affairs Oslo, Norway Shahar Hameiri University of Queensland St. Lucia, QLD, Australia Knud Erik Jørgensen University of Aarhus Aarhus, Denmark Ole Jacob Sending Norwegian Institute of International Affairs Oslo, Norway Ayşe Zarakol University of Cambridge Cambridge, UK

Palgrave Studies in International Relations (the EISA book series), published in association with European International Studies Association, provides scholars with the best theoretically-informed scholarship on the global issues of our time. The series includes cutting-edge monographs and edited collections which bridge schools of thought and cross the boundaries of conventional fields of study. EISA members can access a 50% discount to PSIR, the EISA book series, here http://www.eisa-net.org/sitecore/content/be-bruga/mci-registrations/eisa/login/landing.aspx. Mai’a K. Davis Cross is the Edward W. Brooke Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University, USA, and Senior Researcher at the ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Norway. Benjamin de Carvalho is a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway. Shahar Hameiri is Associate Professor of International Politics and Associate Director of the Graduate Centre in Governance and International Affairs, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, Australia. Knud Erik Jørgensen is Professor of International Relations at Aarhus University, Denmark, and at Yaşar University, Izmir, Turkey. Ole Jacob Sending is the Research Director at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway. Ayşe Zarakol is Reader in International Relations at the University of Cambridge and a fellow at Emmanuel College, UK. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14619

Jo-Anne Pemberton

The Story of International Relations, Part Two Cold-Blooded Idealists

Jo-Anne Pemberton School of Social Sciences University of New South Wales Sydney, NSW, Australia

Palgrave Studies in International Relations ISBN 978-3-030-21823-2 ISBN 978-3-030-21824-9  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21824-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © GFC Collection/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

I am considerably indebted to a number of people who have supported me in preparing this manuscript. I would like to thank the following: Christian Pemberton, Gail Pemberton, Gregory Pemberton, Mark and Sally Pemberton, Martin Peter Leggett, Tina Leggett, Christopher and Alison Hodel, Richard and Yvonne Fordham and Cecily L. Steptoe. I would also like to thank Jan Breckenridge, Helen Pringle and Mark Rolfe for their support. Many thanks to Peter Carman and Jean-Michel Ageron-Blanc, president and chef d’enterprise respectively of the Paris American Academy for their thoughtful and generous attention to my needs during my stays in Paris in order to conduct research. I am especially grateful to the following archivists: Jens Bol, Mahmoud Ghander, Steve Nyong and Alexandre Coutelle. Their help and expertise made it possible for me to access archival records and other materials of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s held in the UNESCO Archives in Paris.

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Contents

1 1932: Material and Moral Disarmament, a Mission to China and a Conference in Milan 1 2 The International Studies Conference 105 3 The Hoover Plan, Reparations and the French Constructive Plan 185 4 The MacDonald Plan 279 5 The Fate of the Disarmament Conference 337 6 Collective Security, Air Police and Defining the Aggressor 391 7 The League of Nations and Collective Security 465 Index 567

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Abbreviations

BCCIS British Coordinating Committee for International Studies Bulletin of International News (of the Royal Institute of International BIN  Affairs) BIS Bank of International Settlements CFR Council on Foreign Relations CISSIR Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939 DBFP  DHP Deutsche Hochschule für Politik ICIC International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation ICO International Cooperation Organisation IICI Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle IIEC International Institute of Educational Cinematography IIIC International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation ILO International Labour Organisation IPF International Police Force IPR Institute of Pacific Relations ISC International Studies Conference LNU League of Nations Union LON League of Nations LSE London School of Economics and Political Science Official Journal (of the League of Nations)  OJ RIIA Royal Institute of International Affairs SDN Société des Nations UA UNESCO Archives WEC World Economic Conference ix

CHAPTER 1

1932: Material and Moral Disarmament, a Mission to China and a Conference in Milan

Sanctions Before Disarmament: The French Position and Its Critics In the view of French policy-makers, the defiance of the Covenant of the League of Nations (LON) in the form of the occupation of Manchuria by Japanese forces during the last quarter of 1931 and thereby on the very eve of the LON’s Conference for the Limitation and Reduction of Armaments (Disarmament Conference), only served to reinforce the ‘wellknown French thesis’ that there can be no disarmament unless means are found to replace national forces.1 The French insistence on this thesis meant that France was singled out for much criticism before and during the Disarmament Conference. For example, in an address at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) in London in October 1931, V. A. G. R. Bulwer-Lytton the 2nd Earl of Lytton stated that while ‘year after year’ Germany had been the ‘great protagonist of disarmament,’ the French had increasingly adopted an ‘obstructive and immovable attitude’ towards it. A delegate of Great Britain at the Twelfth Assembly of the LON in September 1931, Lytton observed that whereas alongside other nations Britain had stood for disarmament, the French had ‘stood for security.’ He noted

1 Henri Rollin, ‘The First General Disarmament Conference,’ Problem of Peace: Sixth Series: Lectures Delivered at the Geneva Institute of International Relations, August 1931 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1932), 59.

© The Author(s) 2019 J. Pemberton, The Story of International Relations, Part Two, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21824-9_1

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in relation to this that a German delegate at the Twelfth Assembly had remarked in contemptuous tones following a speech by the French foreign minister Aristide Briand that one only had to ‘pinch the French bird and he…utters “Security”.’2 Lytton told his audience that the behaviour of the French delegates at the assembly that year was ‘in many ways deplorable,’ however, he warned that there was a ‘great danger’ in the British tendency to dismiss the French as ‘perfectly impossible’ and urged that an effort should be made to understand their point of view.3 Lytton suggested that a means of overcoming the impasse between the French demands for security and the push by other states for disarmament might be found in a proposal put by the Spanish delegate Salvador de Madariaga at the Twelfth Assembly. As an alternative to the International Police Force (IPF) that France had advocated at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and of which Joseph Paul-Boncour had on occasion spoken in favour as a French delegate to the LON, Madariaga proposed that should an outbreak of violence occur, states would combine forces to put an end to the fight.4 He contended that while mutual protection was as necessary to states as it was to individuals, its practice in the international arena had been greatly hindered by the policy of ‘neutrality towards war.’5 Madariaga argued that given that the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy (Pact of Paris) of 1928 had declared that the use of force is no longer an acceptable means of imposing one state’s will on another and denied that war is a right of states, it was incumbent upon those states which had signed this pact to put an end to any outbreaks of violence: in his view, the pact entailed that there can be no such thing as the ‘rights of neutrals.’6 In relation to Madariaga’s proposal, Lytton stated that it did not involve states agreeing, as the French had proposed they should, on a definition of the aggressor, such that states would be obliged to enter a dispute on 2 Earl of Lytton, ‘The Twelfth Assembly of the League of Nations,’ International Affairs 10, no. 6 (1931): 740–59, 742–3, 748. 3 Ibid., 743, 759. 4 Ibid., 749. 5 Ibid., 750. 6 Ibid., 751. The General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National

Policy was unofficially known as the Pact of Paris. It was also often referred to as the KelloggBriand Pact after its two official sponsors: the American secretary of state, Frank B. Kellogg, and the French foreign minister, Aristide Briand.

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the side of one state or another. Rather, Madariaga’s proposal, which Lytton emphasised did not involve any derogation from the ‘full sovereign rights and powers and…full discretion’ of states, simply stipulated that those engaged in violent quarrels should be pulled apart: the rights and wrongs of the matter could be resolved once the violence had been curtailed. Lytton expressed the hope that should any situation arise, states would meet and ‘decide in conference what each was prepared to do to maintain the peace of the world.’ Lytton suggested that such an approach might satisfy states such as Britain which were wary of entering into obligations in advance and those states demanding security guarantees.7 The French position in relation to the nexus between security and disarmament was a central feature of an address by Otto Hoetzsch at the RIIA on 17 November. Hoetzsch was a noted expert in Russian history at the University of Berlin where he lectured in foreign policy and Russian and Eastern European history and a member of faculty at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik (German Political Academy or German Academy of Political Science) in Berlin where he taught courses in international politics. He chaired and was a founding member of the German coordinating committee for international studies, that is, the Committee for Foreign Affairs (Ausschuss für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten). The Committee for Foreign Affairs would become the German unit of the Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations (CISSIR), an association which was established following an international meeting of experts interested in the study of international relations. This meeting was held at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik (DHP) in March 1928 and was attended by Hoetzsch along with other members of the Committee for Foreign Affairs. As the RIIA was the host organisation of the CISSIR’s British unit, that is, the British Coordinating Committee for International Studies (BCCIS), the institutional link between Hoetzsch and the RIIA should be clear. Hoetzsch’s address had been arranged in light of the adoption by the CISSIR, which was soon to be renamed the International Studies Conference (ISC), of a proposal issued by Arnold J. Toynbee, director of studies at the RIIA, for an exchange of speakers on disarmament in the period just prior to the opening of the Disarmament Conference. At a conference in Copenhagen in June 1931, Toynbee had told members of the CISSIR that he thought such an exchange would

7 Ibid., 750–2.

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help facilitate comprehension of the different national points of view on the question of disarmament. For this reason, Toynbee probably would have been pleased to see that Hoetzsch’s address garnered some publicity. For example, a version of it was later published in the Spectator under the heading of ‘Germany and Disarmament.’8 In his address, Hoetzsch expressed support for the LON and for the Pact of Paris or what Hoetzsch preferred to refer to as the Kellogg Pact after one of its two principal sponsors: the former American secretary of state Frank B. Kellogg. The probable reason why Hoetzsch preferred to label the pact in this way, a practice common among American commentators, was because he ascribed its creation to the United States alone. In his address at the RIIA, he declared that the pact was ‘the work of the first Great Power in the world’ and that it fulfilled the ‘demand of the movement for outlawry of war’ without denying to states the ‘right of self-help and the right of selfdefence.’ Having thus lauded the Pact of Paris, Hoetzsch noted that its practical application was being sorely tested by the Sino-Japanese dispute.9 Hoetzsch observed that states ‘represent a society of moral personalities’ and that therefore their relations must be ‘governed according to the laws of justice and morality.’ Such a requirement, he added, in no measure diminished the ‘independence and the sovereignty’ of states. To the contrary he stated, drawing on Georg Hegel’s notion that states receive their ultimate legitimation through reciprocal recognition, it is only on the basis of participating in a society of moral personalities that the ‘real essence’ of the state, that is, its ‘moral spirit,’ can become an ‘organic reality.’10 Turning to the German demands in relation to the question of disarmament, Hoetzsch stated that the German view was that a ‘just solution’ based on the principle of ‘equality of right’ required that disarmament must be undertaken ‘by all states on the same basis and by the same methods.’11 He claimed that the

8 ‘Can War Be Abolished?’ Signs of the Times 47, no. 22 (1932): 3. For the meeting of

savants in Berlin in March 1928, see ‘Experts pour la coordination des hautes études internationales: Réunion des 22–24 Mars 1928—Berlin,’ Bulletin de la Section d’Information et de Documentation, no. 19 (1928): 8–10, 9. This bulletin was published under the auspices of Institut International de la Coopération Intellectuelle (IICI) and the Société des Nations (SDN). 9 Otto Hoetzsch, ‘The German View of Disarmament,’ International Affairs 11, no. 1

(1932): 40–54, 42–5, 53–4. 10 Ibid., 44. 11 Ibid., 48.

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French and German positions on the question were ‘irreconcilable’: the staggered French approach to disarmament, that is, the French demand for security first, arbitration second and disarmament third, could not be reconciled with the German insistence that ‘these three be taken as a whole because of their closely connected relationship.’12 Hoetzsch then echoed a key theme of the lectures he had given on Germany’s domestic and foreign policies at the eighth session of the Institute of Politics at Williamstown in the United States in 1928: The only way to abolish war is to find means for a peaceful consideration of the conflicts which cause war, and through their settlement through arbitration. This thought must underlie all discussions concerning the attainment of peace. To approach the subject from the principle of war and of military sanctions is an impossible method. War is not averted by preparing for war against war, but by removing the fundamental causes. A system of sanctions would be practical if a settlement of the problem of armaments is reached. Unless this takes place, there will never be League action against a strongly armed State, but only League action by armed States against weaker States.13

Essentially, Hoetzsch was arguing that the key to disarmament lay with treaty revision: the League system had to be flexible enough to accommodate demands for just change. Such flexibility required, he argued, a revivification of Article 19 of the covenant which provided that the assembly ‘may from time to time advise the reconsideration…of treaties which have become inapplicable and the consideration of international conditions whose continuance might endanger the peace of the world.’14 Hoetzsch warned that unless this article was operationalised and strengthened or some other means of ensuring the ‘necessary revision’ was found, there was little if any chance of eliminating the frictions among states in Europe. He suggested that if left unaddressed, these frictions

12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. See also Otto Hoetzsch, Germany’s Domestic and Foreign Policies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929). 14 Ibid., 49–50. William Horsfall Carter claimed that the guarantee of political independence and territorial integrity under Article 10 of the covenant, ‘was originally bound up with a guarantee of peaceful change, as adumbrated in the present Article 19, and was disjoined from it only in one of the later meetings of the League of Nations Commission.’ W. Horsfall Carter, ‘Naming the Aggressor,’ The New Commonwealth: Being the Monthly Organ of a Society for the Promotion of International Law and Order 2, no. 10 (1934): 142–4, 142.

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might culminate in a ‘clash of empires’ in which the ‘cultural values’ of Europe would be destroyed and out of which Bolshevism would emerge triumphant.15 Towards the end of his address, Hoetzsch issued a warning concerning Germany specifically: he advised his audience that while the younger generation of Germans appreciated the importance of disarmament and international understanding, they also strongly believed that states should enjoy equal rights. The younger generation believed this so strongly, he added, that they felt that an ‘offence to the dignity’ of the state is even ‘greater than to that of a man.’ Hoetzsch stated that it was for this reason that the younger generation of Germans, among whom the LON was not popular he said, were vehemently opposed to ‘unequal treaties’ and were calling for the peaceful revision of the Treaty of Versailles. Alongside the resolution of the Sino-Japanese dispute, Hoetzsch insisted in concluding, the revision of the Versailles settlement was the ‘most serious test’ that the LON would face in the months to come.16 Henri Bonnet was the director of the Paris-based International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) which served as the executive organ of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC) of the LON. The IIIC also served as the secretariat of the CISSIR. The IIIC’s role in relation to the CISSIR grew out of the fact that the meeting of experts in March 1928 which lead to the creation of the CISSIR had been initiated within the framework of the IIIC by the IIIC’s deputy director Alfred E. Zimmern whose official duties encompassed the promotion of instruction in the aims and ideals of the LON: what was sometimes referred to as League of Nations Teaching. Zimmern served as the Berlin meeting’s rapporteur which he attended as a representative of the Geneva School of International Studies of which he was the founder and director. The IIIC was represented in Berlin by Julien Luchaire, Bonnet’s predecessor in the role of director; by Werner Picht, who had been appointed head of the IIIC’s University Relations Section in 1927; and by Margarete Rothbarth. Rothbarth, who before her appointment to the IIIC had been a member of faculty at the DHP, was the head of the IIIC’s German service which had been established following Germany’s admission to the LON in September 1926 with the aid of a German subvention. (Although this subvention ostensibly came from the DHP, there is evidence that it actually

15 Hoetzsch, ‘The German View of Disarmament,’ 50. 16 Ibid., 50–1, 54.

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came from the German Foreign Office.) It is noteworthy that at its conclusion, the meeting of experts issued a resolution calling on the ICIC to facilitate the convening of another such meeting as soon as possible and decided to form a committee with a view to ensuring continuing collaboration between the institutions represented at the meeting and the IIIC. In October 1931, Hoetzsch informed Bonnet that he would be coming to Paris in November as a member of the German delegation to the Congrés international d’études pour le désarmement: an international congress of private disarmament organisations.17 The congress met on 26 and 27 November in the form of three study meetings, all of which were held in the large conference hall of the IIIC and a public meeting which was held in the grand amphitheatre of the Palais 17 Otto Hoetzsch to Henri Bonnet, 23 October 1931, Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales, 1 October 1931–31 March 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. Werner Picht’s appointment as head of the University Relations Section was announced in a bulletin which appeared on 15 July 1927. See ‘Appointments,’ Bulletin of the Section of Information and Reference, nos. 9–10 (1927), 2. This bulletin was published under the auspices of the League of Nations (LON) and the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC). For details of the meeting of experts in Berlin, see Bulletin de la Section d’Information et de Documentation, no. 19 (1928), 8–9. For Margarete Rothbarth, see Jean-Jacques Renoliet, L’UNESCO oubliée: La Société des Nations et la Coopération Intellectuelle (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1999), 239. In a letter addressed to the president of the ICIC in November 1926, Julien Luchaire stated that he had concluded an agreement with the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik (DHP) as a result of which the DHP had given the IIIC a grant. In view of this grant, Luchaire stated, that Rothbarth, a professor at the DHP, had been accorded a role at the IIIC. According to Renoliet, Rothbarth, who was born in Frankfurt, remained at the IIIC until 1940. See also Ute Lemke, ‘“La femme, la clandestine de l’histoire” Margarete Rothbarth—ein Engagement für den Völkerbund,’ Lendemain 37, nos. 146–147 (2012): 45–58, https://www.periodicals.narr.de/index.php/Lendemain/ article/view/472/450. Ute Lemke quotes a letter penned by Luchaire in October 1926, in which he states that the IIIC had created a ‘German service’ in the Section of Information and Documentation and that Rothbarth would be responsible for the service. Her ‘mission’ was to ‘observe the intellectuals of Germany from the point of view of international cooperation’ and to concern herself with all those matters addressed by the IIIC insofar as they interested Germany. Julien Luchaire, 1926, quoted in Lemke, ‘“La femme, la clandestine de l’histoire” Margarete Rothbarth—ein Engagement für den Völkerbund,’ 52. Citing a letter penned by Hugo Andres Krüss, the head of the Prussian State Archives who sometimes stood in for Einstein at meetings associated with the ICIC before going on to replace him on the committee following Einstein’s resignation from it, Lemke states that the funding for Rothbarth’s position did not in fact emanate from the DHP but came from the German Foreign Office. Lemke points out that when Germany withdrew German from the LON in October 1933, Rothbarth remained at the IIIC because ‘[f]or her as a Jew, the return to a now National Socialist Germany had become impossible.’ Lemke, ‘“La femme, la clandestine de l’ histoire” Margarete Rothbarth—ein Engagement für den Völkerbund,’ 53.

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du Trocadéro. The IIIC was located at 2 rue de Montpensier in a section of the Palais Royal and the Palais du Trocadéro on the hill of Chaillot. If Hoetzsch was present at the opening meeting of the congress, he would have been part of an audience numbering around 600 persons who heard calls on the part of French and Polish speakers for the creation of an IPF. If he was present at the closing meeting, he would have been among a gathering which, according to the most conservative estimate appearing in French newspapers at the time, numbered 2000 persons, included within that estimate being 1043 delegates representing 362 organisations from thirty different nations.18 The arrangements for the congress had commenced on 26 July 1931 at a conference held in Paris at the office of L’Europe Nouvelle, a bi-monthly publication founded in 1918 by Louise Weiss which was noted for its focus on international politics and its championing of the LON: L’Europe Nouvelle regularly documented major international treaties and the proceedings of the LON.19 The conference was chaired by its initiator, namely, Robert Cecil, otherwise known as 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood. Cecil, a British diplomat, was one of the architects of the LON. At the time of the meeting in Paris, he was president of the British League of Nations Union (LNU). The conference in Paris played host to representatives of about fifty organisations. In addition to the representatives of French organisations, there were representatives from organisations based in the following countries: Britain, Czechoslovakia, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. In addition to Cecil, the British delegation included Philip Noel-Baker, a former Labour parliamentarian who had served as parliamentary private secretary to Arthur Henderson when he was foreign secretary, and Sir Andrew Macfadyean, a former treasury official, an expert on German war reparations and a member of the RIIA. In addition to Weiss, the French delegation included the following

18 ‘Le Congrés international d’études pour le désarmement tenu hier sa première séance,’

L’Oeuvre, 27 November 1931; ‘Campaign Against Disarmament: French Press Quote Cardinal Bourne,’ Manchester Guardian, 27 November 1931; ‘Une conférence sur le désarmement au Trocadéro,’ L’Oeuvre, 28 November 1931; ‘Les incidents au congrés international d’étude pour le désarmement au Trocadéro,’ Le Matin, November 28, 1931; and ‘War Mentality in Paris: Breaking Up of Peace Meeting,’ Manchester Guardian, November 30, 1931. 19 Louise Weiss (1893–1983) journaliste, féministe et femme politique française, École nationale d’administration, Centre de documentation, May 2016, 3–5. https://www.ena. fr/…/2/…/Dossier%20WEISS.pdf.

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´¯ leading Radical Party figures: Edouard Herriot and Henry de Jouvenel, both of whom were on the editorial committee of L’Europe Nouvelle, and the Radical Party deputy Pierre Cot, a future minister for air.20 The congress of private disarmament organisations was conceived with a view to placing moral pressure on governments on the eve of the Disarmament Conference. In a resolution issuing from the conference of 26 July, the congress was ascribed the following purpose: that of expressing ‘the sentiments of the people of all countries in favour of a substantial reduction in armaments by means of an international pact.’21 To this end, the same resolution proposed that leading representatives of political, social, religious and intellectual organisations from a large number of countries should be brought together ‘in an extraordinary international assembly.’22 In order to focus efforts, facilitate propaganda and contribute to moral disarmament, the conference of 26 July recommended in its resolution that the organisations participating in the congress in Paris in November should adopt the four following resolutions: firstly, that disarmament is vitally important to the organisation of peace and the restoration of the confidence on which economic prosperity depends; secondly, that ‘true security’ is based not on ‘competition in armaments but only on the cooperation and solidarity of civilised peoples with a view to preventing and if necessary stopping war’ and that therefore ‘it is necessary to establish an international juridical organisation capable of being an obstacle to any aggression’; thirdly, that those powers who signed the peace treaties of 1919 and other international documents were ‘bound on their honour’ to undertake disarmament; and fourthly that a system of limitation and reduction of armaments and of categories should make it possible to impose on all the States under the control of an international commission obligations of the same nature, and to realise progressively by reduction in armaments the equality of the peoples in security. This system should lead to the exclusion of certain…armaments of a particularly aggressive character which in the case of aviation can be realised by the method of internationalisation.23 20 ‘New Campaign for Disarmament,’ Manchester Guardian, July 27, 1931, and Louise Weiss (1893–1983) journaliste, féministe et femme politique française, 5. 21 Conference Resolution, 26 July 1931, quoted in Manchester Guardian, July 27, 1931. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid.

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It is useful to note here that in October 1924 during his first incarnation as prime minister, Herriot had introduced at Geneva the ‘formula of “arbitration, security, and disarmament,” thus indicating the priority of security over the reduction of armament’ within the framework of French foreign policy.24 It would seem that the resolution issuing from the conference of July 26 did not approach the question of security in a way that would have been entirely reassuring for those who insisted on this particular order of priorities: on the priority of security, if not in the form of a strong system of national defence then in the form of the organisation of collective resistance against aggression, over disarmament. Rather, aspects of the resolution were suggestive of the view that security is a byproduct of disarmament itself. In a section of a report published in the Manchester Guardian which bore the subheading of ‘The French Delegation,’ the newspaper’s Paris correspondent stated that it was his understanding that the conference had witnessed ‘an unsuccessful attempt’ to incorporate in the resolution a declaration ‘making disarmament depend on “security.”’ Although the correspondent in question did not specify which delegation made this attempt, it is noteworthy that report went on to complain that the French delegation was not ‘as fully representative as it might be of French supporters of disarmament,’ that is, it did not include representatives of those members of the Left in France who were inclined to identify security with disarmament.25 The only parts of the resolution which touched on French security anxieties was a somewhat airy statement concerning the need for an international juridical organisation capable of being an obstacle to any aggression and the proposal that aviation be internationalised. Jouvenel, who was among those appointed to the organising committee of the private disarmament congress, had proposed the internationalisation of aviation as a means of furthering the goals of security and disarmament some years earlier. In an article published in October 1928, he pointed out that the LON Assembly had declared in that year’s annual disarmament resolution (a resolution more hotly debated than any of its predecessors because of a dispute between France and Germany as whether or not political conditions were ripe for the staging of a disarmament 24 Walter Lippmann with the assistance of the research staff of the Council on Foreign Relations, United States in World Affairs: An Account of American Foreign Relations (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932), 137. 25 Manchester Guardian, 27 July 1931.

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conference), that ‘a close connection exists between international security and the reduction and limitation of armaments.’26 Jouvenel stated that this was a proposition he could hardly deny given that it was he who in collaboration with Cecil had won recognition for it at the LON six years earlier. He stated in his article that military aviation was a cause of insecurity for all and a source of security for no one in Europe and he urged France to propose to ‘the Commission eternally preparatory for the Conference always hypothetical’ the following: the internationalisation of civil aviation; the suppression of military aviation with the sole exception of colonial aviation; the placing of the different forms of aviation at the disposition of the League in times of war; and the placing of commercial craft of no military use to that body at the disposition of the International Red Cross.27 Jouvenel maintained that France must take such a step because France could not expect Germany to respect the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles without at the same time itself respecting the article which made German disarmament a preface to general disarmament. He suggested in this regard that France could ill afford to treat the German threat to rearm as hollow. Nor was there any risk to France involved in taking such a step. The French, Jouvenel noted, constantly complained of the German superiority in the field of aviation and of the potential of Germany’s aviation industry. He pointed out that this complaint was based on the recognition that the requirements and development of both civil and military aviation closely paralleled each other.28 Indeed, it was in recognition of this close parallel that the assembly, after having noted the recommendations of the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference, resolved in 1927 that ‘the development of civil aviation should be directed solely towards economic ends to the exclusion of military interests.’29 Jouvenel’s proposal obviously went further than this: he maintained

26 ‘The League of Nations 1928,’ in Editorial Research Reports 1928, vol. 4

(Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1928), 1027. http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/ cqresrre1928110800, and Henry de Jouvenel, ‘Internationalisez l’aviation,’ La Revue des Vivants: Organe des Générations de la Guerre 2, no. 10 (1928): 725–33, 732. 27 Jouvenel, ‘Internationalisez l’aviation,’ 732–3. 28 Ibid. 29 League of Nations, Eight Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the League of Nations: Arbitration, Security, Disarmament and the Work of the Preparatory Commission of the Disarmament Conference, League of Nations Document A. 24. 1927. IX (Geneva: LON, 26 September 1927), 1.

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that the only way to control the manufacture of aircraft of military value by Germany (and by Russia), was the internationalisation of the aeronautical industry.30 The first session of the congress of private disarmament organisations was held on the morning of 26 November and was chaired by Noel-Baker who would go on to serve as an assistant to the president of the Disarmament Conference, namely, Henderson in the following year. (Noel-Baker also chaired discussions held at the Sorbonne on the occasion of the congress in which 500 students representing the greater part of the world’s international students organisations as well as a considerable number of French students’ associations took part.) The opening speech at the congress was delivered by Cecil who, according to [Le] Figaro which deplored the whole event, after 10:30 a.m. was not seen for the rest of the day. Among the speakers were Marie-Elisabeth Lüders, who for thirteen years was a member of the Reichstag and who was now chair of the German Academic Association; Lord Willoughby Dickinson, who on behalf of the World Alliance for International Friendship whose international council he chaired, expressed faith in ‘the progressive, simultaneous‚ and controlled reduction of armaments’; René Cassin, a professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Paris, a member of the French unit of the CISSIR, namely, the Commission française de coordination des hautes études internationales, a deputydelegate to the assembly from 1924 to 1935 and soon to be a member of the Disarmament Conference’s Committee on Moral Disarmament, who insisted that what was to be feared was not armaments themselves but the bringing up of ‘thousands of young men…to worship war as a method of settling disputes’; and Nikolaos Politis, the Greek diplomat and lawyer who discussed disarmament as a legal obligation in view of Part V of the Treaty of Versailles and Article 8 of the Covenant of the LON and the realisation of security through the further development of international legal instruments and judicial organs.31 30 Jouvenel, ‘Internationalisez l’aviation,’ 732. 31 Gaëtan Sanvoisin, ‘Le Congrès du Désarmement provoque un discours imprévu et

courageux de M. Painlevé,’ Figaro, November 27, 1931, 5; Maria Vérone, ‘La foi dans la Paix,’ L’Oeuvre, November 28, 1931; René Cassin, ‘Moral Disarmament and Intellectual Co-operation,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 22 (1932): 20–9, 20–3; and L’Oeuvre, November 27, 1931. Between 1922 and 1933, under the proprietorship of François Coty, Le Figaro was entitled Figaro. On the discussions held at the Sorbonne, see ‘Le désarmement moral et les organisations intellectuelles,’Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 15 (1932): 723–8, 724. IICI/01, UA. The Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle was published

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According to Le Temps, the atmosphere at the morning session of the conference was calm; by contrast, the afternoon session witnessed loud protests (mostly issued, according to certain news reports, in a foreign language), when at the end of the meeting Paul Painlevé spoke in defence of the theory of security.32 Painlevé was a French mathematician who had served in 1917 and again in 1925 as prime minister and minister of war. He was also a member of the ICIC, having been appointed to it following the retirement of the French philosopher Henri Bergson from the position of president of the ICIC on 11 December 1925 on the ground of ill-health. By virtue of his membership of the ICIC and his nationality, Painlevé was also head of the board of directors of the IIIC, it having been informally agreed by members of the ICIC in July 1925, that the French member of the ICIC should occupy that position, presumably in view of the fact that the IIIC had been placed at the disposition of the LON by the French government.33 At the aforementioned afternoon session of the congress held in the great hall of the IIIC, Painlevé insisted with much vigour that it would be madness for France to disarm immediately and without conditions, that is, without guarantees of security. He warned that modern inventions had made total destruction a possibility and that commercial aircraft could be ‘transformed overnight into engines of war,’34 Painlevé complained that people were very forceful in urging France to disarm, yet when asked about the international organisation of security they responded with vagueness and imprecision. Having alluded to the German invasion of French soil during the Franco-German War and the Great War, Painlevé declared that France was always ready to make ‘great sacrifices in favour of peace,’ however, he added that under the circumstances he believed it his duty as a man who had known ‘the responsibilities of power’ to speak frankly of the

under the auspices of the IICI and the SDN. The Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle became Coopération Intellectuelle dating from issue no. 17–18, 1932. 32 ‘Le Congrès international d’études pour le désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 28, 1931; ‘Speakers for Disarmament Guarded by Policy in Paris: Nationalist Threat,’ Manchester Guardian, 28 November 1931; and Vérone ‘La foi dans la paix,’ L’Oeuvre, November 28, 1931. 33 Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (London: Hodder and Staunton, 1996), 345; Renoliet, L’UNESCO oubliée, 72; and Henri Bonnet, Intellectual Co-operation in World Organization (Washington, DC: American Council on Public Affairs, 1942), 9. 34 Le Temps, November 28, 1931.

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French position.35 Although a part of the assembly, the most cosmopolitan part according to Figaro, almost booed at the conclusion of his speech (causing a contributor to that newspaper to declare that one could now clearly see to what a ‘bolshevizing public people have opened the doors of the Institute of Intellectual Cooperation’), another part responded with lively applause.36 Presumably among those joining in the applause was Stanislas Stronski, a professor at Warsaw University who too would be appointed to the Moral Disarmament Committee in the following year. At the end of the morning session, Stronski had insisted on behalf of the entire Polish delegation that the word security—as it was understood in the context of the French thesis—be inserted in the conference’s resolutions, an amendment that was strongly supported by the Romanian delegation and of which some others were inclined to approve.37 After having pointed out that the Radical Party’s Painlevé was a man ‘well known for his pacifist opinions’ and that he was ‘no friend of ours,’ Figaro saluted him for his ‘courageous intervention,’ affirming that with a ‘sureness of tone’ he had ably defended the French thesis of ‘security first’ and awoken minds to just how dangerous was the ‘odious propaganda of disarmament at any price.’38 Suggesting that the conference had lost all credibility as a result of the episode involving Painlevé since this had exposed the sharp cleavage within the ranks of the pacifists, that is, the cleavage between the partisans of the French thesis and the partisans of disarmament without conditions, Figaro reported on 27 February that although the Romanian president Nicolae Titulescu had been scheduled to speak at the conference that day, he would not be appearing. It further reported that Paul-Boncour, who embraced the view that one must always

35 Sanvoisin, ‘Le Congrès du Désarmement provoque un discours imprévu et courageux de

M. Painlevé,’ 5; Gaëtan Sanvoisin, ‘Painlevé chez les pacifistes: une courageuse intervention,’ Figaro, November 27, 1931, 1; and Le Temps, November 28, 1931. 36 Sanvoisin, ‘Le Congrès du Désarmement provoque un discours imprévu et courageux de M. Painlevé,’ 5; Sanvoisin, ‘Painlevé chez les pacifistes: une courageuse intervention,’ 1; and Le Temps, November 28, 1931. 37 Le Temps, 28 November 1931. 38 Sanvoisin, ‘Painlevé chez les pacifistes: une courageuse intervention,’ 1, and San-

voisin, ‘Le Congrès du Désarmement provoque un discours imprévu et courageux de M. Painlevé,’ 5.

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be mindful of security in the pursuit of disarmament, was hesitating about whether or not to keep his engagement.39 Paul-Boncour was at the time the leader of the Union socialiste républicaine but had previously been a member of the Socialist Party and had served in that capacity as deputy for Tarn. At the party’s congress at Tours in May 1931, several motions were put forward which heralded a return to the ‘easy and traditional’ position of the party before the war of 1914 but which had been abandoned from the time when ‘the motherland was in danger,’ that is, the position that held ‘[n]ot a man, not a penny for the army of the bourgeois State.’40 Against this background, quit the party, albeit ‘not without mature reflection and without regrets,’ and his post as deputy for Tarn (his candidacy for that seat being courtesy of the Socialist Party), following which he was elected senator for Loir-et-Cher.41 It was in his role as senator that Paul-Boncour spoke at the final study meeting of the international disarmament congress on the afternoon of 27 November, telling the audience the following: I fear that…[my view]…is above all the antithesis of the theses that come out of this congress….I do not believe that disarmament is a security, not more moreover than armaments. After 1918, I thought only that a greater willingness to achieve international concord would be born of [the war’s] bloody labours. I stand against theories of a mystical peace. Peace, have the courage to say it, is not a virtue in itself.42

Echoing Painlevé, Paul-Boncour concluded his speech by stressing the point that there was a solid link between security and disarmament and by insisting on the need for those definite engagements that France had 39 Sanvoisin, ‘Le Congrès du Désarmement provoque un discours imprévu et courageux de M. Painlevé,’ 5. 40 Joseph Paul-Boncour, Entre deux guerres: souvenirs de le III 0 République, vol. 2, Les lendemain de la victoire 1919–1934 (Paris: Plon, 1945), 264–5. See also Maurice Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord: la politique française en matière de désarmement, 9 décembre 1930–17 avril 1934 (Paris: Pedone, 1981), 38, 163; and Serge Berstein, ‘Le milieu genevois dans la France de l’entre-deux-guerres,’ Les Internationales et le problème de la guerre au XX siècl e, Actes du colloque de Rome: 22–24 November 1984 (Rome: École française de Rome, 1987), 321–35, 330. https://www.persee.fr/doc/efr_0000-0000_1987_act_95_1_2904. 41 Paul-Boncour, Entre deux guerres: souvenirs de le III0 République, vol. 2, Les lendemain de la victoire 1919–1934, 268. See also Vaisse, Sécurité d’abord, 38, 162–3, and Berstein, ‘Le milieu genevois dans la France de l’entre-deux-guerres,’ 330. 42 Le Temps, November 29, 1931.

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sought but never obtained in relation to the security provisions of the covenant. Although there were no incidents during Paul-Boncour’s speech, the applause that greeted it according to Le Temps was prompted more by the personal regard in which this sincere internationalist was held rather than enthusiasm for the ideas that he had espoused.43 Indeed, the Manchester Guardian observed that the fact that among those chosen to speak at the congress were figures such as Paul-Boncour and Herriot, both of whom the newspaper described as opponents of disarmament and proponents of a policy that was antithetical to the thrust of the resolutions before the congress, gave it ‘a certain unreality.’44 The newspaper opined that it was their presence at the congress along with that of certain others, that had probably caused the Second International to refuse to participate in it.45 Among the foreign dignitaries addressing the closing meeting, over which Herriot presided, were Cecil, Alanson Bigelow Houghton, a former American ambassador at Berlin and London, and Senator William Edgar Borah, this last speaking from Washington via a radio broadcast. On the day of 27 November, Figaro published an article entitled ‘The good apostles of the Disarmament of France’ in which it claimed that certain of the German delegates (one of whom, namely, Joseph Joos, a member of the German Centre Party (Deutsche Zentrumspartei) in the Reichstag), was due to speak that evening, were partisans of the German ‘right to force.’ Following this particular provocation, the newspaper accused Cecil, Borah and Houghton of effectively seeking to undermine French security.46 The same article accused Cecil of being openly sympathetic to the German thesis, quoting a statement that he had made at the final meeting of the Preparatory Commission on 9 December 1930: that although he did not believe it likely that the first disarmament conference would embrace the propositions of either the USSR or Germany, ‘one can never know, and one must never lose hope.’47 The article then declared that Borah was ‘known for his total ignorance’ of European history and politics and

43 Ibid. 44 Manchester Guardian, November 27, 1931. 45 Ibid. 46 ‘Les bons apôtres du désarmement de la France,’ Figaro, November 27, 1931. 47 Ibid.

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for his ‘complacency in regard to the Germanophile propaganda.’48 As to Houghton, the article stated that people would remember that on leaving New York for Paris, he had threatened that should France not cede ground then it might face ‘a sort of political blockade.’49 Houghton remained, the article declared, ‘impregnated with the Germanic culture received in his youth.’50 A strong police guard was stationed around the Trocadéro on the occasion of the closing meeting of the congress due to nationalist threats of disturbances. It became apparent that nationalist groups had stolen into the audience when a speech by Herriot was met with interruptions that were so noisy that the audience was unable to hear a large part of it. Loud protests greeted many of the speakers throughout evening but were at their most intense during Joos’s speech which also saw scuffles break out at different points in the hall. Later, when some calm had been restored, Cecil gave a speech in which he announced that the three elements of the forthcoming conference in Geneva would be reduction, security and equality. Borah’s broadcast from Washington, which was relayed after Cecil’s speech and in the course of which the senator emphasised how much the cost of armaments weighed on countries, was heard in silence. Painlevé then gave a speech in which he declared that the doctrine of disarmament without conditions was simplistic: only arbitration, pacts of mutual assistance and the internationalisation of aviation would permit a gradual disarmament.51 Painlevé’s speech appeased the nationalists in the hall and they joined others in applauding it. Later however, a speech by Henri Pichot, a delegate of the Conférence internationale des associations de mutilés de guerre et anciens combattants, raised another tumult. Madariaga, a former head of the Disarmament Section of the League Secretariat, and Houghton tried to control the situation from the stage, the former, ‘with some irony’ in that he praised the French for their courtesy.52 François de La Rocque, the vice-president of the Croix de Feu, members of which were numerous

48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Manchester Guardian, November 28, 1931; ‘War Mentality in Paris: Breaking Up of Peace Meeting,’ Manchester Guardian, November 30, 1931; L’Oeuvre, November 28, 1931; Le Temps, November 29, 1931; and Le Matin, November 28, 1931. 52 Le Temps, November 29, 1931, and Le Matin, November 28, 1931.

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among the demonstrators, then climbed on stage and tried to speak but was seized by the secretary of the League of Pacifist War Veterans (Ligue des anciens combattants pacifistes) and was forced to withdraw at which point a brawl erupted with the result that the meeting ended in complete uproar.53 The scandal of the Trocadéro, as one German newspaper described it, was covered at length in the German nationalist press which drew particular attention to the treatment of Joos. The same press cited the incident as proof that France did not want to disarm.54 The nationalist demonstration was not just a gift to anti-French propaganda in Germany. As the Manchester Guardian noted under the heading of ‘War Mentality in Paris,’ the fact that speakers on disarmament, as the French papers of the left acknowledged in decrying the incident, were denied a hearing in Paris was damaging to France’s reputation around the world. The newspaper stated that although the majority of the French people wanted peace, it was very disturbing that the sabotage of the closing meeting had met with the approval of the French press of the right without exception The Manchester Guardian pointed out that Figaro had gone as far as to threaten that if another international disarmament congress were staged in Paris, foreign dignitaries attending it would not escape ‘personal violence.’55

The Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments: The Polish Memorandum and Moral Disarmament The Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments opened on 2 February 1932, and would continue its work over two and half years with periods of adjournment.56 From the outset, there was much nervousness about its outcome, especially as it opened against a background of bombs raining down on Manchuria. Archibald Hamilton Charteris was a 53 L’Oeuvre, November 28, 1931, and Le Temps, November 29, 1931. 54 ‘La manifestation du Trocadéro et l’opinion allemande,’ L’Oeuvre, November 29, 1931. 55 Manchester Guardian, November 139, 931. See also Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 154. 56 United Nations Library (Geneva), League of Nations Archives, ‘The Geneva Protocol

and the Disarmament Conference of 1932,’ in United Nations Library (Geneva), League of Nations Archives, The League of Nations, 1920–1946: Organization and Accomplishments; A Retrospective of the First Organization for the Establishment of World Peace (New York: United Nations, 1996), 143.

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professor of international law at the University of Sydney and a member of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR). The IPR had been established in Honolulu in 1925 with a view to studying international relations in the Pacific area. Notably, it was the chief model on which the CISSIR was based both at the time of its first incarnation in Berlin in 1928 and in the years 1930 and 1931 when it was transformed into a study conference. Indeed, this transformation took place under the guidance of two key figures from the IPR: John Bell Condliffe, research secretary at the International Secretariat of the IPR in Honolulu and Edward C. Carter, the secretary of the American Council of the IPR in New York. Charteris observed in July 1933 that when the delegates to the Disarmament Conference first convened in February 1932, the ‘long shadow’ of the bombardment of Manchuria ‘lay so heavily on Geneva that it was but natural to waste five months in futile discussions on qualitative disarmament—as who should say—on the question of whether a stair led up or down.’57 At the same time, many pinned great hopes on the conference and it is telling of these hopes that Radio-Nations, the LON’s wireless station which was located at Prangins on Lake Geneva, commenced its broadcasts with a transmission of its opening proceedings.58 Much of the fanfare surrounding the conference was the result of the work of peace groups, these having increased their activism in the degree that the international political temperature had risen. By the time the conference commenced, a truly international peace campaign had emerged and it should be pointed out that certain participants in this campaign would also serve as delegates to the conference. For example, Cecil, who in addition to his other activities chaired the Disarmament Committee of the International Federation of League of Nations Societies, represented Britain at the conference and Christian L. Lange, the chairman of the Disarmament Committee of the Inter-parliamentary Union, represented Norway.59

57 A. H. Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ Australian Quarterly 5, no. 18 (1933): 69–79, 72–3. See also Jan Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation: The League Experience and the Beginnings of UNESCO (Wraclaw: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, ´ 1962), 1, 124. 58 ‘Publicity and Press,’ in United Nations Library (Geneva), League of Nations Archives, The League of Nations, 1920–1946, 132 and S. H. Bailey, International Studies in Great Britain (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), 291. 59 Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 113–4.

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Writing from the vantage point of 1935 and chiefly in relation to French public opinion at the time of the Disarmament Conference, Cassin and Georges Scelle, the latter being a professor of public international law at the University of Paris, a technical advisor to the French delegation at the Fifth Assembly in 1924 and another member of the French unit of the CISSIR, stated that the opening of the conference witnessed the ‘most remarkable upheaval of opinion, the last movement of enthusiasm’ for the Geneva institutions. They noted that at the public session of the conference at the Bâtiment électoral which served as the reception point for the massive petitions pouring into Geneva, the French orators attracted ‘particular attention by the generous tone of their speeches and by the bold ideas they expressed.’ Cassin and Scelle observed that the general mood at the time was one of fervent hope: it was hoped that a ‘different atmosphere was about to be created’ and that governments would be willing to leave to one side their ‘technical preoccupations and secret political purposes’ and ‘act boldly.’ They recalled that such was the ‘passionate longing for an age of fraternity,’ that it was as if public opinion had been swept up in a ‘wave of mysticism,’ adding that in reality that section of public opinion ‘inclined towards a mystical state of mind’ was expecting nothing less than a ‘miracle.’ Meanwhile, Cassin and Scelle continued, ‘other more practical minds’ surveying the general situation, ‘could not fail to observe’ that conditions were ‘unfavourable as possible’ to a satisfactory resolution of the problem and could not help but wonder whether the ‘favourable moment had not already gone by.’60 Certainly, Cassin and Scelle considered that the prevalent mood in France in respect to disarmament was one of doubt. Although the ‘flame of enthusiasm’ for the Geneva institutions had been ‘rekindled’ in France in February 1932, it was quickly extinguished against the background of certain events in Germany. In this regard, Scelle and Cassin pointed to the disappointment caused by the ‘reprisals’ which followed the evacuation of the Rhineland, the disturbed conditions which marked the end of the presidency of the Marshal, the difficulties experienced by the Brüning, von and Schleicher Governments, the sterility of the visit to Berlin of M. M.

60 Georges Scelle and René Cassin, ‘French Public Opinion and the Problem of Collective Security,’ in Maurice Bourquin, ed., Collective Security: A Record of the Seventh and Eighth International Study Conferences, Paris 1934-London 1935 (Paris: IIIC, 1936), 73–74. On the petitions arriving in Geneva, see Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 114.

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Laval and Briand, and especially the increasing growth since 1929 and the final triumph of the Hitlerian movement.61

They wrote in connection with this last the following: Mein Kamph was translated into French and…the press gave wide publicity to the passages which were the most characteristic, the most violent and the most filled with hate toward France, those in which the aims of war and of revenge were stated with greatest brutality. The adversaries of the policy of Aristide Briand had already made use of the papers of Stresemann and of the famous ‘finassieren’, but these documents were open to interpretation and discussion, whereas the Hitlerian credos were glaringly clear. It is to be noted also that this was the time of the twilight of Briand’s policy, of his failure to be elected President, and the passing of that statesman.62

The LON’s Intellectual Cooperation Organisation (ICO), which was composed of the ICIC, the IIIC, the National Committees of Intellectual Cooperation, and the delegates of state appointed to IIIC, welcomed the dawning of the Disarmament Conference, not least because of the organisation’s hope that it would find itself assigned a central role in the campaign for moral disarmament, a subject due to be brought to the conference’s attention. The expression moral disarmament had long been in use in League and related circles. At a plenary meeting of the Third Assembly on 27 September 1922, the assembly, after having adopted fifteen other resolutions on disarmament (one of which concerned a treaty of mutual guarantee which was declared at the time to be the means of achieving a general reduction of armaments and three of which concerned the Washington Naval Treaty for the limitation of naval armaments of 6 February 1922), resolved the following: ‘moral disarmament is an essential preliminary condition of material disarmament, and that this moral disarmament can only be achieved in an atmosphere of mutual confidence and security.’63 In 1925, when the assembly’s Second Committee discussed the revision of school textbooks, it took note of a resolution submitted by the delegation 61 Scelle and Cassin, ‘French Opinion and the Problem of Collective Security,’ 74. 62 Ibid. 63 League of Nations [hereafter LON], special supplement, Official Journal [hereafter OJ ], no. 9 (1922): 25–7. In the publications of the International Cooperation Organisation, the ICO was often referred to in English as the Organisation of Intellectual Cooperation. In French, it was called the Organisation de Coopération Intellectuelle.

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of Haiti which urged a reduction of ‘the space in history manuals devoted to war and Jingoism…[with]…a view to moral disarmament.’64 In 1927, the Conference of Press Experts, which was held in Geneva at the behest of the LON, issued in a ‘warm appeal to the Press of the world to contribute by every means at its disposal to the consolidation of peace, to combat hatred between nationalities and between classes, which are the greatest danger to peace, and to prepare the way for moral disarmament.’65 With the same concerns in mind as the conference of press experts, the fifteenth plenary Congress of the International Federation of League of Nations Societies at a meeting in Budapest held from 24 to 28 May 1931, resolved that ‘false and tendentious news’ and ‘hostile opinion’ was a ‘grave danger’ to peace among nations. It called on the assembly to establish mechanisms for an international right of reply in response to press reports or radio broadcasts that were either false or ‘calculated to disturb international relations’; a summary procedure of international inquiry into the diffusion of information calculated to achieve this last; and for the penal repression in each state of the ‘mischievous diffusion of inexact information or of false documents’ with the intention of disturbing the peace among nations. The Budapest meeting resolved that the cause of moral disarmament could be greatly advanced through the ‘abandonment of bellicose or aggressive propaganda’ and that the LON should consider measures appropriate to that end.66 Finally in this context, we might note that in Brussels between 5 and 10 July of that same year, the Twenty-Eighth Universal Peace Congress insisted on ‘intellectual and moral disarmament by means of education in the home and teaching in the schools, through the medium of the Press and by action on the part of the Church’ and that this was both the condition and guarantee of military disarmament.67 The aforementioned international conferences all had a direct bearing on the famous memorandum which the Polish government sent to the secretary-general on 17 September 1931: the Memorandum from the Polish Government Concerning the Attainment of Moral Disarmament. This 64 LON, special supplement, OJ, no. 35 (1925): 35. 65 Moral Disarmament: Memorandum from the Polish Government (Geneva, LON, 23

September 1931), Désarmement moral, 1931–1937, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 114–5. 66 Moral Disarmament: Memorandum from the Polish Government, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 67 Twenty-Eighth Universal Peace Congress, 1931, quoted ibid. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 115.

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memorandum was attached to a letter signed by the Polish foreign minister, Auguste Zaleski, which requested that the question of the means by which moral disarmament might be translated into practice be examined ‘in its entirety’ at the Disarmament Conference. In making this request, Zaleski recalled statements on this subject issued by the Swedish government in the context of a special committee appointed by the LON to prepare a draft convention for strengthening the means of preventing war; by Briand at the Tenth Assembly and by Sir John Simon, the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, at the 1931 annual meeting of the Burge Memorial Trust; by the Spanish delegation at the Twelfth Assembly; and by Zaleski himself at the LON Council in May 1931. In his letter, Zaleski drew the attention of the secretary-general of the LON to the resolutions passed in 1931 by two ‘great international associations’: the International Federation of League of Nations Societies and the Universal Peace Congress. These resolutions and the resolutions of the 1927 Conference of Press Experts were appended to the Polish memorandum and Zaleski, in his letter accompanying that memorandum, urged that the appeals to governments contained within them ‘should not be in vain.’68 Also appended to the memorandum was the text of an agreement concluded on 31 March 1931 by the German and Polish national broadcasting companies: by the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft m.b.H and Polskie Radio. Under this agreement, the two networks undertook ‘in future to do everything in their power to ensure that matter—whether political, religious, economic, intellectual or artistic—broadcast from their stations shall not compromise in any way the spirit of co-operation and good understanding which is necessary if broadcasting is to fulfil its mission of drawing nations together.’69 This agreement was cited in the Polish memorandum as a demonstration of the fact that practical results in this field were achievable. Despite striking a positive note in this regard, the memorandum gave expression to certain fears concerning the political situation in Europe. It warned that this situation threatened to become increasingly unstable owing to the dangerous agitation of certain elements which are endeavouring to poison relations between the peoples and sew the seeds of fresh conflict in the minds of their supporters. The appeals to 68 Moral Disarmament: Memorandum from the Polish Government, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 116n. 69 Moral Disarmament: Memorandum from the Polish Government, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

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hatred in certain quarters are arousing universal uneasiness and creating an atmosphere of distrust which frustrates all efforts for the consolidation of peace….Everyone who wishes the [Disarmament] Conference to meet with the fullest possible success is therefore faced with an important question— namely, how to counteract the movement against peace and assure a moral détente by concerted actions of the Government.70

In relation to this, the Polish memorandum posed the question as to why domestic legislation should not have to take into account the interests of the ‘higher’ or ‘international society’ of which nations form a part. It noted that this issue had been raised at the First International Conference for the Unification of Criminal Law held in Warsaw in 1927, and that legislative work along these lines had been undertaken in Brazil, Poland and Romania where penal codes had been drafted that ‘explicitly’ stipulated that ‘any person guilty of incitement to war shall be punished with imprisonment.’71 The memorandum argued that such penal codes were a logical extension of the outlawry of war as an instrument of national policy: domestic policy should reflect the principle of the condemnation of aggression such that ‘severe measures’ should be taken against any person or group ‘attempting to undermine the moral bases of world peace through a propaganda of hatred.’ Further to this, and echoing resolutions passed by the International Federation of League of Nations Societies, the memorandum highlighted the danger to peace, most especially in the context of periods of crisis, of ‘mischievous Press campaigns’ and urged that the penal codes of states should contain an article providing for the punishment of the authors of ‘false and tendentious reports of the international situation’ and that a ‘right of reply’ to such reports should be extended to foreign governments. In respect to the latter proposal, the memorandum argued that foreign governments should have the right to request via the ministry of foreign affairs in the country in which any false and tendentious reports of the international situation are published, that the newspapers carrying such reports correct them. As a final measure, the memorandum suggested that bodies such as the ICIC, the IIIC and the International Institute of Educational Cinematography (IIEC) in Rome (the origins and nature of which are discussed below), should be instructed to investigate moral 70 Ibid. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 118. 71 Moral Disarmament: Memorandum from the Polish Government, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 116.

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disarmament ‘in so far as it is affected by broadcasting, the theatre and the cinema’ and develop ‘practical suggestions’ that might form a basis for joint government action.72 The secretary-general, namely, Sir Eric Drummond, communicated Zaleski’s letter and the attached memorandum to governments participating in the Disarmament Conference on 23 September. The document was also forwarded by the secretary-general to Gilbert Murray, the Australianborn Regis Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford and at that time the father-in-law of Toynbee. Murray, who had succeeded Bergson as president of the ICIC following the latter’s retirement, submitted the document to the ICIC’s executive committee for its consideration at its meeting of 30 November. This meeting issued in a request that the secretary-general keep the ICIC informed of any measures the disarmament conference might take with reference to the Polish memorandum. Further to this, it instructed the LON’s Secretariat and the IIIC to prepare statements for the conference when it met in February, concerning the work already undertaken by the ICO in the ‘promotion of better understanding between peoples and to further their intellectual rapprochement’ and to suggest actions which might be undertaken by the ICO in order to execute any proposals on moral disarmament emanating from the conference.73 The general view in the secretariat was that there was ‘very little chance’ that the Polish proposals, framed as they were, would achieve any ‘practical results.’ Nonetheless, it was thought that as a means of involving the ICO with the work of the Disarmament Conference, the Polish memorandum was worthy of consideration: it would provide the ICO with an opportunity to showcase its work in a highly visible and influential forum.74 It was on the initiative of the secretariat, that Murray drafted a letter addressed to Henderson by way of introducing a general statement prepared by the

72 Moral Disarmament: Memorandum from the Polish Government, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 73 ‘Moral Disarmament and Intellectual Co-operation,’ Information Bulletin of the League of Nations’ Intellectual Co-operation Organisation [hereafter Information Bulletin], 1, no. 1 (1932): 12–6, 12–3. 74 Jean-Daniel de Montenach to James T. Shotwell, 25 November 1932 and Shotwell to Montenach, 27 December 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 116.

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IIIC giving an ‘idea of all the efforts’ of the ICO in the field of moral disarmament.75 Murray explained in his letter, which was dated 19 January 1932, that the ICIC had two aims: first, that of advancing knowledge and maintaining ‘intellectual standards,’ and second, that of increasing ‘mutual understanding and good will between nations.’ Murray added that both of these aims required the ‘regular practice of intellectual co-operation in the fields of science, arts and letters.’ He then went on to describe the achievements of the ICIC in respect to the two aims he mentioned in his letter, stating that it was in the work of the International Committee of Experts on Instruction in the Aims of the League and the ‘regular Conferences of the various National Institutes for the scientific study of international relations’ that this ‘double object’ was most clearly attained. In concluding, Murray stated that the ICIC was more than ready to accept the direction of the conference should it ‘think fit to lay upon us’ any further tasks and that he and his colleagues would undertake any such tasks with ‘all the care and zeal of which we are capable.’76 On 13 February, the Polish delegation submitted a second memorandum to the conference in which, under the heading of ‘Proposals with Regard to the Gradual Attainment of Moral Disarmament,’ it represented its earlier proposals with some minor modifications. It insisted therein on the ‘absolute necessity of achieving moral disarmament in every field of public life controlled by the organs of government.’77 To this end, it requested that the conference establish a special committee ‘charged with

75 Montenach to Gilbert Murray, 11 January 1932 and Montenach to the Secretary of the

IIIC, 22 January 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 76 Gilbert Murray, ‘Letter from Professor Gilbert Murray, President of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation,’ in International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1932 (Paris: IIIC, 1933), 5–6, and ‘Moral Disarmament,’ in LON, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1932, 22–6. See also Moral Disarmament and the International Co-ordination of the Study and Teaching of International Affairs: The Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations: Its Organisation and Activities, 19 January 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. For the ICIC’s resolutions on the Polish memorandum, see Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932): 12–6. 77 Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932), 14, and Series of League of Nations Publications, IX, Disarmament, 1932 IX. 18, quoted in Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 117. Jan Kolasa notes that apart from the request for the formation of a special committee there was ‘no substantial difference’ between the first and second memoranda. Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 117.

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the drafting of appropriate international conventions.’78 On 15 March, the Political Commission of the conference conducted a discussion of the Polish proposals, in the course of which Marjan Szumlakowski, a delegate of Poland, stated that the ‘question is not only one that envisages the disarming of minds but also their transformation with a view to creating a solid psychological basis for the future development of international society.’ The Polish delegate stressed the importance of governments entering into ‘formal engagements on this subject.’79 In fact, the Polish delegation had presented that same day a draft convention which called on governments to introduce into their penal codes provisions concerning the punishment, by means of imprisonment, of anyone found ‘culpable of public incitation to war’ or, more generally, of inciting their country to violate international laws currently in force. Under the draft convention, states would be obliged to ‘not tolerate on their territories’ any group or organisation carrying out such acts and to forbid all activities in schools and all radio transmissions, film projections and public spectacles likely to encourage hatred of foreign peoples or trouble the good relations among nations.80 In addition to the Polish submissions, the commission was presented with documentary materials prepared by IIIC and the secretariat which contained suggestions as to how the ‘exhaustive and far-reaching work’ of moral disarmament might be undertaken and which provided a detailed the history of the ICO’s activities in this area.81 In light of intense lobbying by non-government associations (including a ‘special message’ addressed by the Liaison Committee of the Major International Associations to Henderson, the latter having openly encouraged public involvement in the conference), the Polish submissions and the more detailed papers submitted by the IIIC and the secretariat, the 78 Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932), 14. 79 LON, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ Intellectual Co-operation, 1932, 22–3, and ‘Désarmement

moral: première réunion du Sous-Comité de la Conférence de Désarmement,’ Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 15 (1932): 705–6. See also, IIIC, School Text-Book Revision and International Understanding, 2nd ed. (Paris: IIIC, 1933), 39. 80 ‘Désarmement moral: Projet de convention présenté par la délégation polonaise á la Conférence pour la réduction et la limitation des armaments, Genève le 15 Mars 1932,’ Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 15 (1932): 753–4. 81 LON, IIIC, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ Intellectual Co-operation, 1932, 22–3. See also ‘Pour le Désarmement moral: Les gouvernements sont consultés sur un projet de protocole,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 17–18 (1932): 909–12, and IIIC, School Text-Book Revision and International Understanding, 40–1.

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Political Commission of the conference declared that an ‘obvious connection’ existed between ‘material and moral disarmament.’82 Having recognised this connection, the Political Commission approved the formation of an ad hoc committee on moral disarmament, a move regarded as remarkable at the time given that the original Polish memorandum had been welcomed with ‘sceptical smiles, otherwise ironic.’83 Comprised of twenty-one persons (chosen from among those conference delegates ‘who had in other connections given proof of their interest’ in the subject), and chaired by Ernest Perrier, councillor of state of the canton of Fribourg and a deputy in the Swiss National Council, it was given the task of studying, on behalf of the ICO, the problem as posed by the memoranda submitted by Poland.84 The conference’s endorsement of the principle of moral disarmament clearly enthused Murray: in a letter written a few days after the formation of the ad hoc committee, Murray told Bonnet that he was going to try and ‘stir up the British government, or at any rate some influential people in England to take an interest’ in the ICO’s moral disarmament work, adding that he thought that there was a ‘real opportunity for that here.’85

82 LON, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ Intellectual Co-operation, 1932, 23–4 and IIIC, School TextBook Revision and International Understanding, 40. See also Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 17–18 (1932), 909–11. Arthur Henderson assured the Liaison Committee of the Major International Associations that its message would be mentioned in the conference journal. For the text of the committee’s message and Henderson’s response to it, see Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 15 (1932), 727. For Henderson’s role in involving the public in the conference, see Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 114. 83 Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932), 15. On the initial response to the Polish Memorandum, see M. C. Lebrun, ‘La France et le Désarmement Moral,’ Manuel Scolaire de l’Instruction Primaire, no. 42 (1932): 803. 84 The following countries were represented on the committee: Belgium, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay, the USSR and Yugoslavia. For the names of those appointed to this committee, see IIIC, School Text-Book Revision and International Understanding, 40. For Ernest Perrier’s status, see Gonzague de Reynold, preface to LON and ICO, National Committees on Intellectual Co-operation (Geneva: LON, 1937), 12–3. 85 Gilbert Murray to Henri Bonnet, 18 March 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

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The Committee on Moral Disarmament The first meeting of the Committee on Moral Disarmament was held on 16 March, the very day that Henderson received a communication insisting on the relation between moral and material disarmament in the name the forty-five million adherents of the principal international women’s organisations.86 During this meeting, Vespasian V. Pella, a Romanian legal expert who had been a key figure in the development of the ground-breaking provision in the Romanian criminal code which prohibited war propaganda, gave a documented exposé on relevant penal law.87 It was Pella who would serve as the committee’s legal adviser and who would, in that role, consistently attempt to give ‘juridical form’ and an ‘important place’ to such a prohibition in the prospective moral disarmament convention.88 At the same meeting, the committee established a sub-committee, comprised of Count Albert Apponyi (Hungary), Margery Corbett Ashby (Great Britain), Louis de Brouckère (Belgium), Perrier and Szumlakowski, this last being the committee’s rapporteur, and charged it with establishing a ‘concrete programme of work.’89 The sub-committee held three meetings, its deliberations being based on documentation and a memorandum prepared for it by the IIIC and the secretariat.90 The sub-committee was also presented with a memorandum entitled ‘The Cinematograph and Moral Disarmament’ which had been prepared by the IIEC at the request of the ICO.91 86 Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932), 14–5, and Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 15 (1932), 728. 87 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 15 (1932), 705–6. For Vespasian Pella’s role in relation to the Romanian penal code, see ‘Intellectual Co-operation Before the Assembly and the Council of the League of Nations,’ Information Bulletin, 1, nos. 15–16 (1933): 409–19, 413–4, and ‘Discours prononcés à la XIVe session de l’Assemblé,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 34–35 (1933): 570–6, 575. 88 Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 34–35 (1933), 576. On Pella’s advisory role, see ‘Moral Disarmament: First Results of the Collaboration of the Intellectual Co-operation Organisation in the Work of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments,’ Information Bulletin, 1, no. 4 (1932), 104–6. 89 ‘Le Désarmement moral à la Conférence du désarmement: troisièmes et quartrièmes séances,’ Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 16 (1932): 769–73. 90 Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932), 15. See also ‘Introductory Note,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932): 5–9, 7. 91 Albert Dufour-Feronce to the President of the Committee on Moral Disarmament, 15 April 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA and Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932): 15. See also ‘Introductory Note,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932), 7.

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The memorandum prepared by the secretariat and the IIIC was divided into five parts: general principles; education; broadcasting; cinematography; and theatre. The part addressing general principles pointed out that international problems have a ‘theoretical aspect which action often fails to bring out.’ Thus, under general principles, the memorandum stressed the ‘utility of the help which can be given by the thinkers, scholars scientists who devote their lives to the disinterested study of social, economic and political problems’ and the need to group and coordinate efforts ‘applied to the study of international problems.’ Beyond this, the memorandum insisted on the importance of ‘increased comprehension of other countries and the world as a whole’; the need to overcome the ‘tendencies to isolation which lie at the root of misunderstanding’; the ‘interpenetration of cultures and civilisations’; and the ‘necessity of progressively raising the moral and intellectual standard of humanity.’ Finally, under general principles, the memorandum called on governments and the LON to lend their official support to the ICO in order to realise these ends.92 The sub-committee completed the ICO memorandum and attached it to a report of its recommendations, submitting these materials to the Committee on Moral Disarmament for its consideration at its meetings on 25 and 27 April. In its report, the sub-committee proposed that the committee should concentrate at the outset on the four areas mentioned in the ICO memorandum and on which it offered detailed suggestions: education, broadcasting, cinematography and theatre.93 It recommended that ‘questions concerning the Press and Juridical questions’ should be addressed ‘at a later stage.’94 While the Polish memorandum had given the highest priority to these questions, they were not touched on in the ICO memorandum. Although in communication with international journalists’ organisations and already having volunteered to study the question, the ICO would only begin to study the role of the press in educating and raising the ‘intellectual level’ of the masses and promoting international understanding on 10 October 1932 as a result of a directive by the LON Assembly. In regard to juridical questions, the ICO regarded the issue of

92 Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932), 15–6. 93 Ibid., 15 and LON, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ Intellectual Cooperation, 1932, 24. See also

Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 120. 94 Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932), 15.

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the adaption of national penal legislation to international law as falling outside its remit.95 Irrespective of the recommendation of the ICO, the committee adopted a draft resolution prepared by the Polish government concerning the ‘assistance which the Press might afford to the work of moral disarmament,’ following which it appointed a sub-committee to further explore this question. The recommendation of this sub-committee was that the committee should ‘get into direct touch with international journalists’ associations.’96 The Moral Disarmament Committee also appointed a subcommittee to examine juridical and constitutional questions, the basis for the work of this sub-committee being a comprehensive memorandum prepared by Pella in which he sought to demonstrate ‘the need for an international agreement under which acts directed against the organisation of peace would be made punishable offences.’97 The committee appointed one other sub-committee: an educational sub-committee which was charged with drawing up a text on elementary education. At its first meeting on 6 May, the ICO’s secretary, a Swiss national named Jean-Daniel de Montenach, presented this sub-committee with a preliminary draft text which had been drawn up by the IIIC and the LON Secretariat and which embodied various proposals submitted to the committee concerning education, cooperation of the intellectual world, broadcasting and cinema. Resembling in some ways a draft convention, it consisted of a preamble, twenty-six chapters and extra-textual provisions. In light of the comprehensive nature of this draft and the fact that it addressed all the areas to which the committee had given priority, the educational subcommittee decided to consider the ICO’s suggestions in their entirety. At its second and final meeting on 18 May, it settled on a draft text which it submitted to the committee as a basis for discussion.98 95 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 15 (1932), 705. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 119. On the assembly’s request, see ‘Annex: Assembly Report and Resolutions on the Work of the International Committee of Intellectual Co-operation,’ Information Bulletin 1 nos. 5–6 (1932): 180–4, and ‘Annex 2: Report on Intellectual Co-operation Adopted by the Fourteenth Session of the Assembly of the League of Nations, League of Nations,’ Information Bulletin 1, nos. 15–16 (1933): 444–7. 96 Standislas Stronski, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932): 16–9, 18, and Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 105–6. 97 Stronski, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ 18, and Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 105. 98 ‘Introductory Note,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932), 7, and Mar-

jan Szumlakowski, ‘Report Submitted by M. Szumlakowski on Behalf of the Sub-committee

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The draft text adopted a similar format to that of the ICO’s submission. It was comprised of a preamble and twenty-six articles, the articles being organised under the same four chapter headings which featured in the ICO’s text: education of the younger generation; cooperation of the intellectual world; utilisation of technical means of spreading information; and ‘ways and means of giving effect to possible undertakings.’99 Immediately following the committee’s plenary meetings of 3 and 4 June, the draft text was submitted to governments for their approval and amendment.100 The committee met again between 11 and 19 July in order to further deliberate over the text, making various adjustments to its provisions in order to accommodate the expressed wishes of states.101 It should be recalled here that Poland had insisted that incitement to war should become a punishable offence under national penal codes. The Polish government argued that this was a logical extension of the legal obligations stemming from the covenant’s presumption against aggression and the renunciation of war under the Pact of Paris. As Warsaw University’s Stronski pointed out in a memorandum appearing in the September issue of League of Nations Educational Survey, a quarterly published by the LON Secretariat, the ‘flagrant contradiction between the outlawry of war on the one hand and its glorification on the other is a fact which has to be faced.’102 Romania and Portugal advanced arguments along similar lines.103 The French position was articulated by Cassin who argued that the value of the ‘negative method…[of]…banishing from…every medium of propaganda or dissemination of thought any chauvinist agitation’ should not be underestimated, adding that experience in Western countries had shown that

Appointed for the Examination of Questions Relating to Education, Co-operation of the Intellectual World, Broadcasting and the Cinematograph,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932): 49–52. See also Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932), 16 and Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 105. 99 Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 105, and Szumlakowski, ‘Report Submitted by M. Szumlakowski,’ 50. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 124. 100 Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 17–18 (1932), 911. Governments had been expected to submit their observations on the draft text by 25 June. 101 Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 105. For these dates, see Stronski, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ 18. 102 Stronski, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ 17. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 22. 103 Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 122.

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such measures could be reconciled with the preservation of essential liberties. Yet Cassin, after having associated the concept of moral disarmament with Paul Valéry’s oft-repeated declaration that a ‘true League of Nations presupposed the existence of a “league of minds” [société des esprits ],’ also insisted that the formation of a true international spirit depended, above all, on the adoption of ‘positive measures’: measures that would make people aware that their own ‘race, language or art is not the one and only source of civilisation.’104 The draft text prepared by the Moral Disarmament Committee largely advocated the kind of positive measures to which Cassin alluded, reflecting not just the will of the majority of the committee, but also the strategy adopted by the authors of the ICO’s preliminary draft text. It should also be recalled that much of the content of the former text was based on the content of the latter. Montenach was one of the authors of the ICO’s preliminary draft. In a letter to James T. Shotwell, professor of history at the University of Columbia, one of the principal authors of the Pact of Paris a draft of which he had presented at the second IPR conference which took place in Honolulu in 1927 and member of the American National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, Montenach explained that in light of the nature of the ICO’s work in fields relevant to moral disarmament and given a belief that the Polish proposals would not command significant support, he and the other authors had produced a document that was inspired only on a very few points by the tendencies for repressive measures. Of course we were obliged to embody some of these ideas in our draft, but our main endeavour was to keep in view in the various articles some of the activities of intellectual cooperation which could only be developed through more direct official help. When M. Perrier…and I explained this to Mr. Henderson…he was most encouraging.105

In a concession to the Polish insistence on the need to legally ground moral disarmament, the preamble of the draft text noted that duties concerning the ‘promotion of international co-operation and the achievement of international peace and security’ were consequent upon the ‘solemn declaration’ of the covenant and recognised that ‘similar obligations’ devolved from the adoption of the Pact of Paris. At the same time, the preamble, 104 Cassin, ‘Moral Disarmament and Intellectual Co-operation,’ 20–3. 105 Montenach to Shotwell, 25 November 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

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having observed that moral disarmament was an ‘essential aspect’ of general disarmament, stated that mutual understanding does not ‘depend solely on the good will of Governments, but presupposes also in each country the spontaneous concurrence and co-operation of the principal intellectual and moral forces.’ Pointing to the results already achieved in regard to international intellectual cooperation, the preamble concluded with a statement very similar to that which featured in the conclusion of the statement of general principles in the ICO’s draft text: that the League ‘has now, in the International Organisation of Intellectual Co-operation…a machinery adapted to certain aspects of moral disarmament’ and that it would be ‘highly desirable’ to assist it in its work of international coordination.106 In regard to this statement, it is worth noting that Cassin, doubtless with the cause of the IIIC in view, was particularly insistent that the ICO was ‘pre-eminently qualified to become the central point’ of all efforts in the field of moral disarmament. While Cassin lamented the fact that the ICO’s work was constrained due to the limited resources available to it, he also noted that due to its active participation in the deliberations of the Moral Disarmament Committee there was a ‘gradually growing confidence extended to it in circles which had regarded its inauguration with mistrust.’107 In regard to the bulk of the draft text’s substantive recommendations, the chapter on education, which was the first chapter of the draft text, stipulated that governments should ensure that the education provided in their country was not of a ‘character to create or maintain…hatred, contempt or misunderstanding of other peoples’ and that it instead fostered mutual understanding and respect. Following closely the recommendations of the ICO, this also insisted that at every stage of education, there should be instruction in international relations in its cultural, economic, social and political aspects. Such instruction, the draft text urged, should aim to bring to light the ‘interdependence’ of the various countries and hence, the necessity of international cooperation; it should call attention to the ‘new situation’ created by establishment of the LON, and acquaint students with the ‘objects, methods and activities’ of that organisation. Specifically in regard to higher education, the draft text urged that the study of international 106 ‘Draft Text Submitted by the Sub-committee as a Basis of Discussion,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932): 52–7, 52–3. For the relevant statement in the OIC’s preamble, see Information Bulletin 1, no. 1, 16. 107 Cassin, ‘Moral Disarmament and Intellectual Co-operation,’ 28–9.

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relations should be ‘organised in connection with vocational training’ and that to that end special chairs and institutions should be established where necessary. Continuous with the work that had already been undertaken in the context of the LON in this area, this chapter stipulated that the ‘works and textbooks in use should not contain passages prejudicial to the mutual understanding and harmony of peoples.’108 Addressing the question of intellectual cooperation, Chapter 2 of the draft text called on governments to facilitate the cooperation of the intellectual circles in their respective countries with the LON with a view to international ‘intellectual rapprochement ’; encourage international manifestations which affirmed the ‘solidarity of different cultures’; take steps to ‘prevent the representation of theatrical performances prejudicial to good international understanding,’ while supporting those who fostered a ‘greater appreciation of the special genius of other peoples’; oversee the translation of works eligible to be considered as forming part of the ‘common heritage of humanity’; ensure the protection of intellectual rights by legislative means or by international agreements; and assist the development or establishment of national committees of intellectual cooperation. In respect to technical means of diffusion, which was addressed in Chapter 3 of the draft text, governments were called upon to prevent, by means of ‘special regulations,’ the broadcasting of ‘tendentious news or utterances capable of embittering international relations or affronting the legitimate sentiments of other peoples,’ and to agree to the ‘general introduction of certain rules of censorship or supervision’ with a view to preventing the showing of films ‘prejudicial to good understanding’ among nations. In the same chapter, governments were asked to encourage the dissemination of broadcasts and films which promoted mutual understanding and knowledge of the work of the LON.109

108 ‘Draft Text Submitted by the Sub-committee as a Basis of Discussion,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932), 53–4. On the content of the articles in regard to education included in the OIC’s draft text, see Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 16 (1932), 771–2. 109 ‘Draft Text Submitted by the Sub-committee as a Basis of Discussion,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932), 54–6. See also ‘Moral Disarmament,’ and ‘Broadcasting and Peace,’ in LON, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1933 (Paris: IIIC, 1934), 33–6, 42–51. The conclusions of the Committee on Moral Disarmament were in agreement with those of the OIC’s Committee of Experts on Broadcasting and Peace. See also Reynold, preface to LON, ICO, National Committees on Intellectual Co-operation, 13.

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Revisionism and the Dispute over Ways and Means The Moral Disarmament Committee did not come to a decision as to the final form of the text: whether it should be embodied in a general disarmament convention, take the form of an additional protocol or simply be presented as a declaration of principle. Indeed, the discussion concerning its final form had given rise to a ‘question of principle’: whether or not moral disarmament permitted of ‘definite and juridical engagements on the part of States.’110 As one would expect, the response to this question by the representative of Poland was in the affirmative and in adopting this position he was joined by the representatives of Romania, Portugal and Japan, albeit with reservations in the Japanese representative’s case.111 In order to ensure that the legal obligations which Poland believed were essential to the realisation of moral disarmament had real force, the Polish representative proposed that under Article 24, which was one of the three articles comprising the draft text’s Chapter 4, that is, the chapter concerning ways and means, each government would be obliged to report annually to the council on the steps that it had taken to carry out its obligations. This particular proposal enjoyed the support of the representatives of Yugoslavia and Uruguay but was stridently opposed by Apponyi who insisted that ‘moral disarmament cannot be obtained by force, but only by moral means.’ In light of his opposition to the proposal, the Hungarian delegate submitted a general reservation in regard to any legal obligation being embodied in the draft text.112 In the context of the debate concerning ways and means, Apponyi sought to link moral disarmament to the cause of revisionism. He complained bitterly of what he described as the violent alteration and mutilation of his country by a ‘one-sided act of external force, covered though it be by the transparent mask of a treaty,’ and declared that moral disarmament ‘can only be achieved by the removal of

110 ‘Moral Disarmament,’ in LON, Intellectual Co-operation, 1932, 25, and ‘Annex 2: The International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation and Moral Disarmament, Extracts from the Minutes of the Fourteenth Plenary Session of the ICIC, Geneva, 21 July 1932,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932): 132–8, 132. 111 Otto Hoetzsch, ‘Remarks Upon Moral Disarmament from the German Point of View,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932): 34–41, 34–5. 112 ‘Draft Text Submitted by the Sub-committee as a Basis of Discussion,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932), 51–2.

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those factors of injustice and absurdity contained in the international order of things as set by the Peace Treaties.’113 In a memorandum explaining the German position also published in the September issue of League of Nations Educational Survey, Hoetzsch insisted that there were ‘obvious difficulties of control’ by the council ‘inherent in the present situation’ on the ground that confidence in the LON and its work had been ‘severely shaken.’ He stated that Germany agreed with the declaration by a Russian delegate to the committee that, as had earlier been stated at the Disarmament Conference by Maxim Litvinov, the USSR’s people’s commissar for foreign affairs, ‘moral disarmament can have but scant hopes of success until material disarmament is an accomplished fact.’ In relation to this point, Hoetzsch suggested that the Polish memorandum had approached the issue of moral disarmament the wrong way round.114 Indirectly referring to German grievances in relation to France and to the peace treaties more generally, Hoetzsch observed in his memorandum that the sense of security required for moral disarmament was lacking in those countries upon which disarmament had been imposed and which bordered lands in which ‘warlike preparations’ and armaments were being increased.115 Recalling the French formula of arbitration, security and disarmament, Hoetzsch called for the establishment of judicial mechanisms for the ‘peaceful revision of existing treaties.’ Although acknowledging that any attempt to establish such mechanisms would come up against serious difficulties, Hoetzsch declared that these difficulties could be overcome if it were carefully explained in various forums that peaceful change in the guise of treaty revision was a ‘practical consequence of the disarmament question itself.’ The disarmament question, Hoetzsch maintained, must not be treated in isolation, but should be ‘placed in its organic and effective setting which, being justified by law and ethics alike, for that very reason makes the fullest allowance for the vital interests of States as such.’116 113 Count Albert Apponyi, ‘Hungarian Point of View Concerning Moral Disarmament,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932): 30–3. 114 Hoetzsch, ‘Remarks Upon Moral Disarmament from the German Point of View,’ 35, 37. While recognising that it was a worthy goal, Maxim Litvinov stated that until that time an agreement on material disarmament was reached, ‘the Conference ought not to waste its time and energy’ on moral disarmament. Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 123. 115 Hoetzsch, ‘Remarks Upon Moral Disarmament from the German Point of View,’ 37. 116 Ibid., 37–9.

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Hoetzsch maintained that there had been a sharp decline in public confidence in the LON, maintaining also that this had indirectly contributed to a decline in enthusiasm for the activities organised by the ICO. The latter development, he observed, underlined the limits of the ICO’s action in the field of moral disarmament. Nonetheless, Hoetzsch was keen to affirm his commitment to that aspect of the ICO’s work with which he was connected.117 Hoetzsch it would seem greatly valued that ‘special form of intellectual cooperation’ which was the work of the CISSIR.118 In his memorandum, Hoetzsch observed that he was ‘glad’ that Murray in his submission to Henderson had placed a particular emphasis on the ‘Scientific Study of International Problems’ and the ‘Conferences for the Scientific Study of International Relations.’ Hoetzsch was equally glad to note that Albert Dufour-Feronce, one of three under secretaries-general at the LON Secretariat, director of the secretariat’s Section of International Bureaux and Intellectual Cooperation and a former member of the German Foreign Office, had forwarded an ‘admirable’ letter concerning the CISSIR to Perrier on 12 April. Hoetzsch appreciatively pointed out in his memorandum that in his letter, Dufour-Feronce had drawn ‘special attention…to the value of our work and of our conference.’ Hoetzsch thus particularly welcomed the provision in the draft text concerning the study of international relations.119 In concluding his memorandum, Hoetzsch suggested that intellectual cooperation in this and other areas might be ‘endowed with greater impetus’ and correspondingly with greater ‘popularity and influence,’ should the political causes of the loss of faith in the LON be removed: ‘if the various members were granted equality of status’ which was the ‘most vital need of all.’120

117 Ibid., 39. 118 Hoetzsch to Bonnet, 23 October 1931, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. 119 Hoetzsch, ‘Remarks Upon Moral Disarmament from the German Point of View,’ 39. 120 Ibid., 40–1. Note that in a letter sent from the French Foreign Ministry, Bonnet was

asked by François Brière, press attaché to the French delegation at the Disarmament Conference, for information on IIIC’s work in connection with moral disarmament on behalf of Gaston Strauss who was an advocate at the Court of Appeal and a collaborator of PaulBoncour, the latter being at this point minister of war and a permanent delegate to the LON. More specifically, Bonnet was asked what the ‘German attitude’ was within the framework of the IIIC and whether it was true that Albert Einstein had resigned from the ICIC. François Brière to Bonnet, 22 October 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. On Brière, see also ‘French Consul Lauds War Step,’ Sarasota-Herald Tribune (Florida), 9 November 1942.

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The Hungarian and German opposition to legal compulsion in respect to moral disarmament was shared by most of the other members of the Moral Disarmament Committee. As Hoetzsch noted, in addition to Apponyi, the representatives of Belgium, China, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and the United States ‘took the view that the disarmament of men’s minds cannot be brought about by legal measures, but only through a sense of moral obligation.’121 Thus, an alternative to the Polish draft of Article 24 which provided for ‘less rigid governmental action’ was put forward: the alternative draft provided that the national committees on intellectual cooperation would submit reports to the ICO on the steps they had taken in the field of moral disarmament and that the ICO would then incorporate its observations on these submissions in its annual report to the LON Council. As a final measure, it was proposed that the government reports and the ICO’s observations concerning them should be published by the secretarygeneral. This version of Article 24 was supported by Belgium and the United States, the representative of the latter expressing a desire for ‘as elastic a system as possible’ on the ground that educational questions in the United States generally came ‘within the competence of the several States.’ Although prepared to support the second alternative text of Article 24, Hungary put forward a third alternative which simply stated ‘no annual report’; it preferred that all mention of reports, along with any mention of the council, be omitted.122

Shotwell and the Anglo-American Declaration Meanwhile, on 18 July, the delegations of Great Britain and United States submitted to the Political Commission a draft declaration on moral disarmament which they proposed should be annexed to the Disarmament Convention.123 The draft declaration was ‘inspired’ by a text prepared by

121 Hoetzsch, ‘Remarks Upon Moral Disarmament from the German Point of View,’ 35. 122 Szumlakowski, ‘Report Submitted by M. Szumlakowski on Behalf of the Sub-committee

Appointed for the Examination of Questions Relating to Education, Co-operation of the Intellectual World, Broadcasting and the Cinematograph,’ 51–2 and ‘Draft Text Submitted by the Sub-committee as a Basis of Discussion,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932), 56. ´¯ 123 Déclaration presentée par les délégations des Etats-Unis et du Royaume-Uni qui propose qu’elle soit annexée à la Convention du désarmement, 18 July 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

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Shotwell who had been in Europe in the spring of 1932 on the occasion of the 1932 session of the CISSIR in Milan. Descending on Geneva at a time when the first phase of the Disarmament Conference was in full swing, Shotwell was handed what he later described as a ‘somewhat elaborate draft of clauses’ concerning moral disarmament: the Committee on Moral Disarmament’s draft text.124 Shotwell immediately realised that some governments, above all, the American and British governments, would find it difficult to embrace the proposed text. Indeed, as he explained to Bonnet and Montenach, the ‘measures of government control over education and organs of public opinion’ called for in the text involved a level of censorship and policing that he was certain that ‘Anglo-Saxon nations’ simply would not accept.125 Shotwell, an active member of the American National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation and soon to be its head, considered the expression moral disarmament to be a little ‘misleading’; at the same time he acknowledged that it had ‘more popular appeal’ than what he considered to be the more accurate expression, namely, intellectual cooperation.126 Enthused by the campaign for what was also called moral ‘détente,’ Shotwell set about preparing a text, which, once completed, was enclosed in a letter sent to Bonnet on 5 July. In that letter, Shotwell explained that the enclosure was ‘a suggested text of moral disarmament in place of the one prepared in the committee of the Disarmament Conference.’ Touching on a concern that he and Bonnet shared, Shotwell advised Bonnet in concluding his letter as follows: ‘I need not point out to you how important this opening wedge might be for the cooperation of the United States with the League of Nations through our particular angle of it.’127 In contrast with the Committee on Moral Disarmament’s draft text, the declaration inspired by Shotwell’s text contained only nine articles and 124 Montenach to James T. Shotwell, 25 November 1932, and James T. Shotwell, Memorandum on ‘Moral Disarmament,’ Annex to Montenach to Bonnet, 18 January 1933, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 125 Shotwell to Bonnet, 4 November 1932, and Shotwell, Memorandum on ‘Moral Disarmament,’ AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. See also First American Conference of National Committees of Intellectual Cooperation, Santiago, Chile, 6–12 January 1939, Report of the Delegation of the United States of American on Intellectual Cooperation (New York: National Committee of the United States of American on Intellectual Cooperation, 1939), 92. 126 Shotwell to Bonnet, 20 August 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 127 LON, IIIC, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ Intellectual Co-operation, 1932, 21, and Shotwell

to Bonnet, 5 July and 4 November 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

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made no mention of repressive measures. Exemplifying its wholly positive thrust, Articles 1, 2 and 3, recognised that reduction and limitation of armaments depended in a great measure on ‘increasing the confidence and trust of nations’ in their relations with each other; that a ‘sense of security’ depended not just on the current policies of governments, but also on ‘international understanding of the history and outlook of the peoples themselves’; and that the growing ‘interdependence of countries’ rendered international cooperation ‘a necessity.’ In view of these considerations, Articles 4 and 5 urged governments, ‘as far as the special regulations in force in each country permit,’ to utilise all educational means to ensure the development of ‘good understanding and mutual respect among peoples’ and to encourage the ‘service that cinema, theatre and radio-diffusion can render the furtherance of international and the ways and means for increasing the spirit of tolerance, fair play and justice among nations.’128 For Shotwell, the key feature of the text which he drafted and which he subsequently gave to the American delegation to the Disarmament Conference, was its prescription that a ‘knowledge of the substitutes for war and of the implications of the renunciation of war’ would be ‘subjects in all examinations for public office.’129 The significance of this prescription was twofold. First, as he explained to Bonnet, Shotwell considered it as important to have the ‘strategy of peace in the mind of government officials as the strategy for war,’ something which he thought was ‘far from being the case’ at that time.130 Second, as he explained to Montenach, Shotwell considered that a provision concerning examinations for public office would ‘inevitably lead to the inclusion…in the whole educational curriculum of almost every country…[a] new subject that might be called “International Civics” or “International Politics”’ of which there was at present, he observed, ‘the densest popular ignorance.’ It was to Shotwell’s disappointment that the provision in his draft text concerning the introduction of the subject of international civics into all examinations for public office, the political implications of which he thought escaped American officials, was not incorporated into the Anglo-American declaration on moral

128 Shotwell, Memorandum on ‘Moral Disarmament,’ AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 129 Ibid., and Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 104. 130 Shotwell to Bonnet, 20 August 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

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disarmament.131 Rather, that declaration simply stated in its sixth article that the high contracting parties agree to ‘recommend to their competent educational authorities the study of the principles and application of the pacific settlement of international disputes and of the renunciation of war as an instrument of policy.’132 In respect to the question of accountability, Article 7 of the Anglo-American declaration required that the National Committees of Intellectual Cooperation submit a report each year to the ICIC ‘on the measures which have taken in execution of [their] obligations.’133

Perrier’s Report to the Fourteenth Plenary Session of the ICIC The Moral Disarmament Committee suspended its work on 20 July after having adopted the provisional text at a first reading. This text was incorporated into a report on the committee’s work written by Perrier which was then forwarded to the delegations present at the Disarmament Conference. The committee also established a new drafting committee, charging it with further adapting the text examined at the first reading in anticipation of additional suggestions by states and, most importantly, in light of the recent Anglo-American declaration.134 The following day, Perrier attended a meeting of the fourteenth plenary session of ICIC which had dedicated the whole of the afternoon to a discussion of moral disarmament. At this meeting, Perrier noted that the advocates of moral disarmament had often met the objection that the basis of the idea of moral disarmament is ‘negative’: it focusses on the disagreements between and mutual suspicions of nations.135 In regard to its

131 Shotwell, Memorandum on ‘Moral Disarmament,’ AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA, and ‘The Study of International Relations in the Public Schools of the United States of America,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 4, no. 2 (1933): 127–69, 154. 132 Shotwell, Memorandum on ‘Moral Disarmament,’ AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. ´¯ 133 Déclaration presentée par les délegations des Etats-Unis et du Royaume-Uni qui pro-

pose qu’elle soit annexée à la Convention du Désarmement, 18 July 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 134 Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932): 104–6. See also LON, IIIC, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ LON, Intellectual Co-operation, 1932, 25. 135 Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 132, and ‘Introductory Note,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932), 8. See also Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 106.

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negative aspect, Perrier noted that the question of the state undertaking ‘repressive measures to eliminate certain abuses,’ had been ‘keenly discussed’ by the committee. However, he added that although the adoption of international instruments concerning such measures might well be anticipated, at this stage, their introduction remained an ‘open question.’136 Indeed, Perrier insisted that the committee had considered that its core business was that of bringing to light the ‘positive idea’ that was obscured by moral disarmament’s ‘superficial’ or negative aspect: the furthering of intellectual rapprochement and mutual sympathy among nations.137 As was noted in an account of the meeting, the general view of the Committee on Moral Disarmament was ‘nearer the standpoint long since adopted’ by the ICIC.138 In elaborating on its positive meaning, Perrier observed that moral disarmament is based in a ‘humane philosophy’: in a philosophy that accepts that an international community exists and that there is a ‘group of interests common to mankind as a whole.’ He pointed out that the theory that an international community exists and that it is ‘antecedent to substantial law’ had its basis in natural law and had been widely embraced in post-war legal circles. Echoing the preamble of his committee’s draft text, Perrier stated that the Covenant of the LON was evidence of the shift away from the pre-war tendency to insist that international law existed only to the extent that the ‘State desired it.’ Perrier then informed the ICIC that the feeling of the Moral Disarmament Committee was that in order to ‘remove the causes of misunderstanding between the peoples and to bring them together,’ a ‘sense of their duty’ to the international community needed to be fostered.139 The choice of the word peoples is significant because, as Perrier explained, although the committee had been called upon to ‘define the obligations of the States,’ it was his view that the ‘State could not do everything in this sphere’ and even that it ‘must not do too much.’140 Perrier 136 ‘Moral Disarmament,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932): 13–5. 137 Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 132 and ‘Introductory Note,’ League of Nations

Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932), 8. 138 ‘Introductory Note,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932): 8. 139 Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 132–3. On the natural law basis of moral disar-

mament, see Ernest Perrier, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 2 (1932): 13–15, 14, and Cassin, ‘Moral Disarmament and Intellectual Co-operation,’ 21–2. 140 Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 132–3, and Perrier, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ 14.

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declared that in the sphere of moral disarmament, the state should generally ‘leave a free field for all those great moral forces,’ or what Cassin referred to as all those ‘living forces’: religious bodies, the press and all those other non-government institutions interested in and capable of bringing about international rapprochement. Indeed Perrier, who expressed concern about intensifying nationalist sentiments at the meeting, warned that the ‘more the State takes over the field of culture,’ the more difficult would become the realisation of moral disarmament.141

A Mission to China Aside from Perrier, there were two other invited guests at the Fourteenth Plenary Session: Carl Heinrich Becker, the orientalist and former minister of culture in Prussia, and the French physicist, Paul Langevin, both of whom were members of and rapporteurs for the LON’s recently completed Mission of Educational Experts to China, the topic of which, alongside moral disarmament, ‘occupied the Committee’s particular attention.’142 The origins of the mission of experts concerns a telegram signed by T. V. (Tse-ven) Soong, the vice-president of the Yuan Executive Council and the Chinese finance minister, which was presented to the council at its sixtythird session held between 18 and 23 May 1931. The telegram requested the collaboration of the LON’s technical organisations in the Chinese government’s plan of total reconstruction. This request was made in light of the practical results already achieved as result of cooperation between the Nanjing government and Geneva in the domain of public hygiene based on a plan developed by Ludwik Rajchman, the Polish director of the secretariat’s Health Section and a future founder of UNICEF, who had visited China in 1929.143 Among its other requests, the telegram asked the LON to send to China a mission of ‘advisers who would assist the development of the Chinese education system and facilitate intercourse between the centres

141 Perrier, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ 14–15, and Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 133. See also Cassin, ‘Moral Disarmament and Intellectual Co-operation,’ 26. 142 ‘International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation: Fourteenth Plenary Session, Geneva, 18–23 July 1932,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 99–101. 143 ‘Note,’ Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 5 (1931): 209–11, and ‘L’Institut de Coopération Intellectuelle et la réorganisation de la instruction publique en Chine,’ Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 5 (1931): 213–4.

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of intellectual activity in China and abroad.’144 In the context of considering the Chinese request, the delegates of Great Britain, Italy, Japan and Venezuela applauded China for its reconstruction efforts. Subsequent to this on 19 May, the council unanimously approved the Chinese request.145 However, it should be noted that the Japanese approval of the request was accompanied by observations of a cautionary nature. The Japanese representative on the council, namely, Yoshizawa Kenichi observed that the plan referred solely to work of a purely technical character, leaving aside all assistance of a political nature. It was in that way that the Secretary-General, in his suggestions, had interpreted all the Chinese proposals. The one and only aim of the plan was to assist in the development of the natural resources of the country and the well-being of the Chinese people without in any way affecting the general progress of the friendly and close relations between the Members of the League in the Far East….With these observations, M. Yoshisawa was glad to express Japan‘s approval of the scheme submitted to the Council.146

These observations supplied the basis for Japanese objections later that year to the appointment of Robert Haas as secretary of the LON’s Commission of Enquiry into the Sino-Japanese dispute concerning Manchuria which was headed by Lytton. Haas, a Frenchman, was the director of the secretariat’s Transit and Communication Section and was sent to Shanghai in that capacity following the council’s approval of the Chinese request for further technical cooperation with the LON. The Japanese government contended that appointing the then Shanghai-based Haas as secretary of the so-called Lytton Commission appeared to involve the casting of a technical adviser into a political or ‘quasi diplomatic’ role. The Japanese observations in regard to the Chinese request also supplied the basis for Tokyo’s complaints later that year concerning the activities of Rajchman who had been sent back to China following the approval of the 144 Carl Heinrich Becker, Marian Falski, Paul Langevin, and Richard H. Tawney, The Reorganisation of Education in China (Paris: IIIC, 1932), 11. See also Henri Bonnet, L’œuvre de L’Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle (Paris: Recueil Sirey, 1938), 33. 145 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 5 (1931), 213–4, and Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 11. 146 League of Nations [hereafter LON], Official Journal [hereafter OJ ] 12, no. 7 (1931), 1082–3. See also Felix Morley, The Society of Nations: Its Organization and Constitutional Development (New York: Brookings Institution, 1931), 318.

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Chinese request. After the eruption of the Sino-Japanese dispute in September 1931, Rajchman became a ‘close adviser’ to Soong, playing, according to Felix Morley, a close observer of the LON’s action in respect to this dispute, an ‘energetic’ role in seeking to settle the dispute. To this end, Rajchman made frequent radio contact with Geneva while in China.147 The Chinese request in respect to education and intellectual cooperation was forwarded to the ICIC for action on its part.148 In the context of a discussion of the proposed mission of advisers at a meeting of the ICIC in July 1931, Lin Yutang, who was standing in for Wu Zhihui (Wu Shi Fee), stated that he felt it necessary to warn the prospective members of the mission against any interference or pressure in relation to China’s political affairs. This warning was echoed by his Spanish colleague, José Castillejo who stated that the mission’s ‘services should be at the disposal of China, not of any particular interest.’149 Such a cautionary note did nothing to curb the excitement generated by the Chinese request, for what is clear from the discussion of it at this meeting and in the context of the ICO more generally, is that it was believed to have presented the ICO with three historic opportunities. Firstly, and from a purely technical perspective, the Chinese request involved the most ‘concrete and far-reaching undertaking in international mutual aid’ that the ICO had yet to mount.150 Secondly, it provided the ICO with the opportunity to assist China in the awakening of its national self-consciousness and, thereby, to assist China in the assumption of its proper role amidst world culture in general.151 Thirdly, the Chinese request provided the ICO with the opportunity to foster intellectual cooperation between European members of the LON and ‘un pays d’Extrême Orient.’152 In relation to this last matter, Gonzague de Reynold, the Swiss writer and historian and the ICIC’s rapporteur, declared that the educational mission 147 Morley, The Society of Nations, 318–9. 148 Pham Thi-Tu, La Coopération Intellectuelle sous la Société des Nations (Paris: Librairie

Minard, 1962), 193. 149 LON, ICIC, Minutes of the Thirteenth Session, Geneva, 20–25 July 1931, 42–3, C.471.M.201.1931.XII, Fourth Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales, 1931 (avant la Conférence), AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.b, UA. 150 LON, International Intellectual Cooperation, 1932 (Paris: IIIC, 1933), 44. 151 LON, ICIC, Minutes of the Thirteenth Session, Geneva, 20–25 July 1931, 43, AG

1-IICI-K-I-1.b, UA. 152 Pham, La Coopération Intellectuelle sous la Société des Nations, 5.

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to China was the ‘most important event in the work undertaken’ thus far by the ICIC. Notably, he stated that it would consist in ‘not destroying an ancient civilisation, but in adding something new in such a manner as to bring about a kind of combination of Eastern culture and Western civilisation,’ a point echoed by Painléve. In urging that the mission should also visit India and Japan, Painléve observed that ‘harmonious relations between East and West…[are]…so important to the future of mankind.’153 Both Reynold and Painléve expressed the hope that that as a result of the educational mission to China, the ICO would emerge, as Reynold put it, as a ‘centre of exchange and a regulatory intermediary between Western civilisation and Eastern civilisation.’154 In response to another request by the Chinese government, the ICIC had charged the IIIC in April 1931 with the task of arranging for an exchange of professors between China and Europe. In consequence of this, a professor of geology, of geography and of literature from the Universities of Geneva, Vienna and Nottingham respectively, left Europe in the autumn of 1931 to lecture at the University of Nanjing and other centres of intellectual activity in China. Contracted to this work until September 1933 and with salaries largely paid by the LON, the professors in question also provided various forms of practical assistance to Chinese authorities.155 Following this action, the IIIC turned to the more complicated task of organising the mission of educational experts which was to be charged with studying ‘the present situation in regard to public education current education system and the long traditions of culture peculiar to the ancient civilisation of China, and with a view to submitting recommendations on the most suitable procedure to adopted to ensure a better adaptation of this educational system to present-day conditions of life.’156 Like the ICIC, the IIIC attached enormous importance to this task, declaring in its monthly

153 LON, ICIC, Minutes of the Thirteenth Session, Geneva, 20–25 July 1931, 43, AG

1-IICI-K-I-1.b, UA. 154 ‘Note,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 20–21 (1932): 1065–9, 1067. 155 ‘The Re-organisation of Education in China: The League’s Mission of Experts,’ Infor-

mation Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932): 9–11, 9, and ‘Relations with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1933 (Paris: IIIC, 1934), 62–6. In the spring of 1932, arrangements began to be made for a corresponding visit of Chinese scholars to Western countries. See also Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 5 (1931), 209, 214. 156 Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 11.

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bulletin that for the first time, it had ‘found itself called upon to put its services at the disposition of a Government to help it to profit from some international experiences in the intellectual domain.’157 Aside from Becker and Langevin, then professors at the University of Berlin and the Collège de France respectively, this mission included Marian Falski, a philologist and director of primary education at the ministry of education in Poland, and Richard H. Tawney, professor of economics at the University of London. As a sign of the importance attached to the mission by the LON, it was accompanied by Frank P. Walters, the chef de cabinet of the secretary-general.158 The mission began its journey at the end of August, travelling to China via the United States, Canada and Japan. Its visit to Japan was a consequence of a request made by the Japanese member of the ICIC, namely, Tanakadate Aikichi. The mission arrived in Shanghai on 30 September and would remain in China for a period of just under three months.159 In Shanghai, the mission was greeted by representatives of the minister of national education and by members of the National Economic Council, this body having been recently constituted in order to direct the work of reconstruction in China.160 A few days after its arrival, the mission’s members proceeded to the central headquarters of the national government in Nanjing in order to interview the minister of education and members of his ministry and visit the Central University of Nanjing. The mission then travelled to Tianjin (Tiensin) where it visited what the mission described as the ‘most highly developed teaching institutions in the country’ and where it was received by Nankai University which the mission described as ‘one of the most modern’ universities in the country. It is noteworthy that Nankai University had profited in recent years from its collaboration with the IPR.161

157 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 5 (1931), 209. 158 Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 11. 159 Ibid., and Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932), 9–10. See also LON, ICIC, Minutes of the Thirteenth Session, Geneva, 20–25 July 1931, 42, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.b, UA. 160 ‘Pour la réorganisation de l’instruction publique en Chine,’ Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932): 577–86, 577, and Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 12. 161 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 578, and Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 12.

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The mission then moved to Beijing where it stayed for almost three weeks, visiting the national university, private universities, high schools, scientific institutions such as the Academia Sinica and the Institute of Geology, and artistic bodies. While based in Beijing, the mission visited Ding Xian (Ting Hsien), the centre of the Chinese Mass Education Movement which, under the leadership of Y. C. James Yen (who had so greatly impressed those participating in the first IPR meeting in 1925), focussed on programmes for the illiterate, the organisation of technical courses for adults and the provision of libraries.162 At the beginning of November, in the course of returning to Shanghai, the mission spent a week at Hangzhou (Hangchow), the capital of the province of Zhejiang (Chekiang) and a place ‘known in China for its intellectual traditions.’163 The mission then conducted a detailed investigation of education in Greater Shanghai and, following this, spent several days in the town of Wuxi (Wuhsi), an industrial centre for the production of silk located in the province of Jiangsu (Kiangsu), where it made a study of its primary schools, facilities for adult education and college of agricultural instruction.164 The mission then returned to Nanjing where it remained for three weeks dating from 15 November.165 At the end of November, the mission was joined by Baron Alexander Sardi who, on the nomination of Alfredo Rocco, a member of the ICIC and the Italian minister of justice from the beginning of 1925 until July 1932, was sent on behalf of the IIEC in Rome. The involvement of the IIEC in the Mission of Educators had been requested by the ICIC in view of the fact that the Nanjing government had been studying with the ‘greatest interest all sides of the Cinema problem’: it was concerned about the need to preserve the ‘masses from influences judged to be pernicious’ and interested in the utility of cinema as a means of popular education. According to a report appearing in the IIEC’s monthly journal, namely, the International Review of Educational Cinematography, Sardi was ‘an eminent political personality’ who had ‘for years been concerned 162 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 578, and Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 12. 163 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 579, and Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 12. The mission also visited rural schools in this province. 164 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 579–80, and Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 13. 165 Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 13, and Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 579.

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with educational Cinema’ and had been, in the context of his Chinese visit, ‘entrusted with a special mission.’166 Sardi’s mission was to visit cinematographic installations in China’s major cities in order to determine how documentary films might be used in order to publicise and facilitate the work of China’s diverse reconstruction enterprises which were then working in collaboration with the LON’s technical organisations.167 What China needed, declared the International Review of Educational Cinematography after the conclusion of Sardi’s visit, was a ‘vast, organic and systematic work of propaganda, of hygiene, of social prevention, of agricultural development etc.…[and]…quite apart from the definite role of the Cinema in education itself, the lifting up of the education level of the masses.’ In addition to submitting proposals to the Nanjing government in regard to educational propaganda, Sardi was charged with investigating how cinema might be used to acquaint foreign audiences with China and its ways of life, the result of both these efforts being the constitution of a National Educational Film Centre in China in November 1931 and the formation of a Chinese Committee of the IIEC in March the following year.168 The mission was also joined in November by Bonnet who had been directed by the ICIC to explore the possibility of closer collaboration between China and the ICO in the intellectual and cultural spheres more generally.169 Members of the ICIC had stressed that in his discussions with the Chinese authorities, Bonnet should use the word education in the widest possible sense: he should use it to refer to literature and the fine arts and not simply to public instruction. Reynold, for example, had suggested that Bonnet might explore with the Chinese authorities the idea of establishing under the auspices of the ICO a collection of Chinese literature, both ancient and contemporary, along the lines of the ICO’s Ibero-American collection. Meanwhile, Jules Destrée, a lawyer, writer and former minister of arts and sciences in Belgium, urged Bonnet to explore 166 ‘China and the IIEC,’ International Review of Educational Cinematography 4, no. 1, 1932, 49–50; Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 12; and ‘Note,’ Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 573–5. 167 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 580–1. 168 International Review of Educational Cinematography 4, no. 1, 1932, 49; ‘The Chi-

nese Committee of the IIEC,’ International Review of Educational Cinematography 4, no. 6 (1932): 467–8; and Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 580–1. 169 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 573–4, 585.

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the question of collaboration between China and the ICO’s International Museums Office with a view to conserving Chinese art and displaying it in front of wider audiences. Observing that it appeared as if the ‘new China’ wanted turn its back on its past, Destrée contended, that ‘if it [China] desired to find itself again it should take pride in its own art.’ Acknowledging with sadness that many of the masterpieces of Chinese art had been ‘carried off by America and Europe, whereas logically their place was in China,’ he declared that if museums were established in the large towns this would serve to ‘introduce China to the Chinese.’170 While based in Nanjing, the mission began to lay the foundations of its report, studying the documentation placed at its disposal by the Chinese government and conducting ‘exhaustive’ interviews with the minister of education, his ministerial staff, and members of the Public Education Commission.171 In respect to these discussions, the members of the mission later stated they had been ‘deeply impressed by the remarkable degree of agreement obtaining among Chinese educationalists and public men both as to the urgency of educational reform and as to the general lines upon which such reform should proceed.’172 In Shanghai in mid-December, after a visit to Zhenjiang (Chingkiang), then the provincial capital of Jiangsu (Kiangsu), and Suzhou (Soochow), this last being a town ‘noted for its great intellectual and cultural activity,’ the mission came to an end, whereupon its members and those accompanying them departed the city.173 Not all, however, departed the country: Becker and Langevin remained in China for some time yet. Becker quit Shanghai for Canton in order to study the functioning of schools and universities in that city. Meanwhile, Langevin returned to Beijing where he lectured at the national university, studied the organisation of courses of scientific research and the possible organisation of scientists in China into national groups with a view to their affiliation with international unions.174

170 LON, ICIC, Minutes of the Thirteenth Session, Geneva, 20–25 July 1931, 42–3, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.b, UA. 42–43. 171 Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 13, and Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 579. 172 Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 14. 173 Ibid., 13 and Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 580. 174 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 580.

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Bonnet departed China along with most of the rest of the group, however, he did not return immediately to Europe: following what he described in a letter to Shotwell as an ‘extremely interesting but, as one might well guess, difficult visit,’ he travelled from China to Japan. Arriving in Tokyo on 24 December and remaining there until 31 December, Bonnet proceeded to consult with Japan’s foreign and education ministers, representatives of its national committee on intellectual cooperation and its League of Nations’ association and various other dignitaries, among this last group being Tanakadate.175 The mission’s report was finalised at a meeting at the Palais Royal in April and, following its publication by the IIIC, was submitted to the ICIC by Becker and Langevin, the mission’s rapporteurs, on 10 July for consideration at the ICIC’s fourteenth plenary session. In the course of this session, Becker and Langevin informed the ICIC of the ‘sincere desire’ of the Nanjing Government ‘to regard the reorganisation of public education as an integral part of the programme for the political and economic reform of China,’ adding that they were convinced that this should involve a ‘comprehensive plan’ and the ‘development of the specifically Chinese elements of culture already existing.’176 Following a discussion of its report, the ICIC passed a resolution commending the members of the mission for the ‘skill and devotion with which they…accomplished their task.’ The resolution also noted that it was to the ICIC’s ‘great satisfaction’ that the Chinese government appeared ‘disposed to collaborate continuously’ with the ICO and that the ICIC expected ‘from such collaboration the happiest results in the development of intellectual exchanges between China and Western countries.’ The ICIC then instructed the IIIC to forward the mission’s report to the Chinese government and to ‘maintain close touch’ with it.177 In terms of the substance of the mission’s report, it should be noted that one of the essential premises of the report was that the education system of a country ‘is one of the strongest bonds of national unity.’ While the 175 Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932), 575 and Bonnet to Shotwell, 3 February 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. 176 ‘The Reorganisation of Education in China: Report of the League Mission of Experts,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932): 106–8, 107. 177 ‘Annex 1: Resolutions, Fourteenth Plenary Session of the International Commission of Intellectual Co-operation,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932): 124. On the report’s finalisation, see LON, IIIC, International Intellectual Cooperation, 1932, 41.

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mission knew that this principle had always been understood in China, it considered that the current educational system in China, which had developed often under the influence of foreigners, had ‘endangered the unity of the national culture.’178 The report noted that while great advances had been made in China in recent years in the field of education, the number of schools and teachers having increased, new scientific institutions having been established and methods of teaching and programmes of study modernised, what China sorely needed was a unified system of public education. Schools and institutions of higher learning, it pointed out, had been ‘modelled on the forms and ideology of private education instead of being included in an organised system of public education’ that was ‘related to immediate social problems.’179 Elaborating on this last point and the danger the current system posed to national unity, the report noted that educational developments in China favoured the creation of expensive schools and institutions of a high standard catering to a social élite rather than the creation of institutions for the primary and vocational instruction of the mass of population. The tendency of the current system, the report continued, was to create an ‘enormous abyss between the masses of the Chinese people, plunged into illiteracy, and not understanding their country’s needs, and the intelligentsia, educated in luxurious schools and indifferent to the needs of the masses.’ Such a system, the report insisted, was not conducive to the rebirth of China: China needed to harness the mass of its people in the work of reconstruction and thus could ill-afford to sustain an ‘unproductive clique enclosed within the narrow bounds of its own interests.’180 In light of this, the starting-point of the mission’s proposals concerning the reconstruction of the Chinese educational system was the ‘desire to re-establish’ the unity of national culture, ‘under the altered conditions of modern China and to emphasise the national and social character of her education system.’181 The United States, Japan, Great Britain, France and Germany were among the sources of the foreign educational influences to which the report referred. Of the new educational institutions established in China, the report pointed out, a considerable number of these had been founded

178 Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 198. 179 Ibid., 20. 180 Ibid., 20–1. 181 Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 198.

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by foreigners, above all, by Americans. The founders of these new institutions, the report observed, ‘brought in their own ideas of culture and methods of education,’ without modifying these in accordance with local traditions and culture. Another cause of foreign influence on Chinese education, concerned the fact that Chinese students studying in Japan, Europe or the United States, returned ‘full of what they had learned abroad and almost strangers to their own national traditions of culture.’182 Having noted all this, the report then stated that the American influence on those officials responsible for educational policy in China was ‘excessive,’ claiming that these officials tended to identify modern education with the American system. Viewing the traditional Chinese system as ‘obsolete’ and something to be ‘condemned,’ these same officials, the report continued, had made ‘without any transition,…the teaching programmes and methods of the United States…supersede the centuries-old learning and wisdom of China.’ Chinese officials in charge of education, the report added, sought to imitate the American model without considering that it was an outgrowth of conditions entirely different to those that existed in China.183 In relation to this problem, the mission reached the following conclusion: China cannot be modernised without the exploitation of foreign civilisations but the danger of mechanical imitation cannot be overstressed. And with the tendency to copy from one model only, the risk of imitation pure and simple is increased. The autonomy of modernistic development in China requires a comparative study of all foreign civilisations, rather than the adoption of one to the exclusion of others; for it must not be the aim of the development to Americanise or Europeanise China, but to modernise China’s own national and historical individuality….China is a country of long-standing traditions, and no country has ever sacrificed the whole of its historical culture without suffering the most baleful consequences….New China must mobilise its forces, and, from its own history, from its own literature, and from all that is truly indigenous, extract the materials for a new civilisation which is neither American nor European but Chinese.184

The report of the mission was received very favourably among educationists in various countries who saw it as not merely a set of prescriptions

182 Ibid., 20, 23. 183 Ibid., 24–5. 184 Ibid., 24, 26, 29.

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of relevance to China but as a statement of educational principles of general applicability. Out of all the countries outside of China, the report attracted the most attention in the United States, a matter that was attributed to a fervent American interest in education, the ‘widespread’ interest in China in the United States and the ‘dominating position’ Americans had established for themselves in regard to foreign educational institutions in China. Given the report’s criticism of the importation of American ideals and culture by American educational institutions in China, along with the importation of American educational methods into China by the Chinese themselves, it is not surprising that the American reception of the report was not without a critical flavour.185 Most noted in this regard was an article entitled ‘A Critique of the Report of the League of Nations Mission of Educational Experts to China’ penned by Stephen P. Duggan, a prominent American educationist, which was published in January 1933 in the bulletin of the New York-based Institute of International Education of which Duggan was the director. Therein, Duggan expressed his admiration for the report and heartily endorsed most of its conclusions and recommendations. At the same time however, Duggan criticised the mission on the ground that it did not include a representative of the United States. As a result of this omission, he stated, the mission seemed unaware that American educators had since the war urged China to ‘modify its system in conformity with the local environment.’ Duggan stated that to criticise American and Chinese educators for failing to recognise the importance of taking local conditions into account in developing educational programmes in China was to ‘joust at a straw-man.’ Duggan then observed that the pre-war educational policy of European powers in their dependencies had been one of assimilation rather than adaptation.186 While the LON’s educational experts took care to state in their report that their objective was by no means to promote European, or more specifically French and German methods of education in China at the

185 ‘Educational Reform in China: American Comments on the Report of the League of Nations Mission,’ Information Bulletin 1, nos. 9–10 (1933): 281–8, 281, and ‘Relations with the Chinese Government,’ LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 51. 186 Information Bulletin 1, nos. 9–10 (1933), 284. See also Stephen P. Duggan, A Critique of the Report of the League of Nations Mission of Educational Experts to China (New York: International Institute of Education, 1933).

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expense of American methods, Duggan appeared to detect otherwise.187 He drew attention to the mission’s declaration that the ‘cultural conditions of Europe were more suitable than American conditions for adaption to Chinese requirements because, precisely, American civilisation has developed in spite of a total absence of local tradition, whereas Europeans, like Chinese civilisation, must always take account of local traditions dating back thousands of years,’ suggesting that this declaration betrayed an ignorance of American civilisation and the place of local tradition within it.188 Duggan strongest criticism of the report, however, concerned its insistence on the importance of tradition and the fact that it warned against the danger of China being so seduced by the West’s material success, that it would sacrifice Chinese culture on the altar of science and technique.189 In relation to this, Duggan stated the following: If China is to survive in the twentieth century she must of necessity modify her institutions and her traditions in such a manner as will enable her to meet the demands which a fluid and dynamic civilisation founded upon scientific concepts and technical equipment places upon all nations to-day. The famines, floods, droughts and plagues which afflict China, the control of which is of primary significance if she is to enhance the material and spiritual welfare of her people, demand improvements in transportation, communication sanitation and industry….A knowledge of them cannot be obtained by a study either of Chinese traditionalism or of European feudalism of previous centuries.190

The Information Bulletin of the League of Nations’ Intellectual Co-operation Organisation, a publication launched in April 1932 which was largely intended for British and American readers, fully described and

187 Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 28–9, and ‘Collaboration of the Intellectual Co-operation Organisation with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, Intellectual Co-operation, 1934 (Paris: IIIC, 1935), 64–5 and ‘Fifteenth Session of the International Committee of Intellectual Co-operation: The Objective Study of International Relations,’ Information Bulletin 1, nos. 13–14 (1933): 347–80, 372. 188 Information Bulletin 1, nos. 9–10 (1933), 283. 189 Becker et al., The Reorganisation of Education in China, 27, 35. 190 Information Bulletin 1, nos. 9–10 (1933), 283–4.

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analysed the mission’s report.191 It also subsequently reprinted parts of the Duggan critique as well as a critique penned by William F. Russell, the dean of the Teachers’ College at Columbia University, ‘because of their length (36 and 12 printed pages), but chiefly in consideration of the personalities who wrote them.’192 Both Duggan and Willliam Russell were members of the American National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation and their criticisms of aspects of the report were brought before its advisory committee on education: the Committee on Problems and Plans of the American Council of Education, this being the central committee of one of the most important bodies of education in the United States.193 Featuring alongside these critiques, was a commentary written by Y. C. James Yen, who was described therein as the distinguished director of the Chinese National Association of the Mass Education Movement. In his commentary, James Yen complained that the three pages in the report dealing with his movement ‘contained certain errors of fact and expressed too drastic a judgement.’ By way of mollifying James Yen, at the plenary session of the ICIC in July 1933, Langevin paid tribute to him and to the Mass Education Movement for the great strides he and his movement had made in combatting illiteracy and furthering adult education in Ding Xian.194 Yen’s complaint aside, according to the various responses received by the ICO, the report had received an ‘excellent reception’ in China, the Nanjing government being especially appreciative, as stated by Weiching William Yen (Yan Huiqing) at the LON Council on 23 September 1932, of the fact that the mission had visited China at a time of ‘unprecedented

191 Gilbert Murray. ‘Messages,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932): 3 and ‘The Re-organisation of Education in China: The League’s Mission of Experts,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1932): 9–11. 192 ‘Relations with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 51. See also William F. Russell, ‘A Review: The League of Nations Mission of Educational Experts: The Reorganisation of Education,’ Teachers College Record 36, no. 3 (1933): 449–58. 193 ‘Work of the National Committees of Intellectual Co-operation: The American National Committee,’ Intellectual Co-operation: Monthly Bulletin, 2, no. 1 (1934): 61–5. The Committee on Problems and Plans considered Duggan’s and William F. Russell’s Criticisms on 1 April 1933. Intellectual Co-operation: Monthly Bulletin was published under the auspices of the IIIC of the LON. 194 ‘Relations with the Chinese Government,’ LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 52. See also ‘Mr. Y. C. James Yen’s Views on the League Mission’s Report,’ Information Bulletin 1, nos. 9–10 (1933): 288–94.

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national calamity.’195 In that context, Yen stated that while he did not agree entirely with all the details in the report, he supported its recommendations in the main and signalled that he was confident that China would bring into effect a system of education that would be ‘free from the dangers’ to which certain members of the ICIC had drawn attention: the ‘danger of too material a conception of civilisation’ becoming prevalent in China. What the Chinese would seek, he assured his audience as had his colleague Hoshien Tchen in the context of the ICIC, was a ‘blending of the best thought of West and East,’ adding that this ‘would go far to lay a new foundation for world culture and peace.’196 In a memorandum submitted to the secretary-general on 1 October, a few days after speaking at the council, Yen offered a more cautious and more critical assessment of the report. In his memorandum, Yen stated that it would be difficult for the national government to involve itself extensively in the provision of primary and secondary education and to rapidly introduce a national public education system at this stage. This, he explained, was because of the ‘ancient traditions of the country, the grave political and economic situation, the absence of a sufficiently qualified teaching personnel, and the difficulties of the system of Chinese script.’197 Yen was also somewhat dismissive of the warnings that China might embrace a too material conception of civilisation, albeit from two different angles. First, because such warnings tended to gloss over the parlous conditions within China and second, because they overlooked the fact that character-building had been a traditional aim of education in China. While commending the ‘distinguished service’ the experts had rendered China, their ‘scientific spirit and high idealism,’ and their mastery of a ‘mass of facts and figures’ in a short space of time, Yen noted in relation to the members of the mission that

195 ‘Relations with the Chinese Government,’ LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 52, and ‘Annual Review of International Co-operation,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 5–6 (1932): 145–9, 146. The minister of public education in Nanjing wrote to Bonnet in order to tell him that his government was in ‘absolute agreement as to the success of the work accomplished by the Mission.’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 107. 196 Information Bulletin 1, no. 5–6 (1932), 146–7, and Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 107. 197 ‘The Re-organisation of Education in China: Chinese Comments,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 5–6 (1932): 150–2, 151.

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in their loyalty to a high educational idealism, they have disparaged the utilitarian aspect of education. They conceive education as the material and spiritual liberation of man, but make no attempt to show us how education can liberate a poverty-stricken society faced with foreign oppression and internal disintegration… The building of a new manhood, still grounded on the classical traditions but broadened and strengthened by scientific discipline, must be placed at the forefront of the Chinese educational programme.198

The Nanjing government, in collaboration with the LON and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), commenced the recommended process of reform in the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Heibei (Hopei) in the first half of 1933. In preparation for this, and on the recommendation of the LON’s mission of experts, the government sent a Chinese Educational Mission to study the public education and university systems of Europe.199 The programme of this mission was planned by the IIIC in consultation with both the League experts and the members of the Chinese mission.200 Arriving at the end of August 1932, the mission of educationists spent approximately six months touring in succession, the League member states of Poland, Germany, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Italy and Austria with the assistance of the governments and national committees of intellectual cooperation of these countries. On 5 February 1933, the mission arrived in Moscow, the last destination of the study tour, where it was received by representatives of VOKS, that is, the USSR’s Organization for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, and where it stayed until the evening of 18 February, visiting schools, factories, museums and places of culture and

198 Ibid., 152. 199 ‘Relations with

the Chinese Government,’ LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 52–3, and Organisation de la Coopération Intellectuelle, Commission Nationale Chinoise de Coopération Intellectuelle (Shanghai: Commission Nationale Chinoise de Coopération Intellectuelle, 1937), 8–11. The members of the Chinese Education Mission were as follows: Cheng Chi-Pao, director of the College of Education College at Nanjing; Li Shi Mou, director of the College of Engineering, National Cheklang University, Hangzhou; Kuo You Shou, director of Higher Education at the Ministry of Education at Nanjing; Lee Chia Hsiang of Jena and Heidelberg Universities; and Yang Lien, a professor at the National Beijing University. The first three of these members of the mission would later join the ministry of national education. Yang would become Commissioner for Education in the province of Ngan-houei (Anhui). 200 ‘Relations with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 53.

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generally being lavishly entertained.201 As a measure of the esteem in which the Chinese government held the LON’s mission of experts, the Chinese educators then paid a special visit to Berlin to lay a wreath on the grave of Becker who had died after a short illness on 10 February, and at whose funeral the ICO had been represented by Hugo Andres Krüss, the directorgeneral of the Prussian State Library, who, with the support of Rocco and despite serious misgivings on the part of Murray, had been appointed to the ICIC following Albert Einstein’s departure from the committee.202 On 2 November 1932, while this extensive study tour was underway, Bonnet wrote to Shotwell, suggesting to the latter that the Chinese mission should return home via the United States rather than via the Indian Ocean in order that it might spend three or four weeks studying American educational institutions. Bonnet asked Shotwell if the American National Committee on International Cooperation, the headquarters of which Shotwell had recently transferred to his office at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at 405 West 117th Street, New York, could defray the travelling and accommodations costs of the proposed visit.203 Whether or not Bonnet’s suggestion was prompted by American criticisms of aspects of the mission’s report, which Bonnet had promised to send to Shotwell immediately upon it being published, is not clear.204 Bonnet simply told Shotwell, that he thought it would be an ‘excellent plan’ in light of the ‘interest taken in America in the question of public education in China.’ Bonnet later tactfully informed Shotwell, the latter having stated that in raising funds it would be helpful to know if America had been included in the Chinese mission’s original itinerary, that as a result of conversations in Paris and Geneva, ‘the mission itself expressed the wish to visit the United States on the homeward journey’ and that it had the support of Nanjing in this.205 A meeting of the American national committee on 10 December, expressed great interest in the proposed visit, its subsequent preparations in that regard being supported by the Institute of International Education

201 Ibid., 54–60, and ‘Chinese Educationists in the U.S.S.R.,’ Information Bulletin 1, nos. 9–10 (1933), 294–5. 202 ‘Relations with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 62. 203 Bonnet to Shotwell, 2 November 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 204 Bonnet to Shotwell, 3 February 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. 205 Bonnet to Shotwell, 2 November 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

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and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. However, due to the financial crisis, the American national committee, in the form of Shotwell and Duggan, was unable to obtain the funds to finance the visit.206 In any case, the Nanjing government ‘urgently recalled’ the Chinese mission back to China and so it journeyed home by the Indian Ocean as originally planned, arriving in Nanjing in the spring of 1933.207 Bonnet had discussed the prospect of the formation of a Chinese National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation when in China and during their tour of Europe, the members of the Chinese educational mission had also raised this idea.208 Thus, in the winter of 1932, Li Yu-ying (Li Shizeng), president of the National Academy of Beijing and member of the National Economic Council, and Tchen, a former commissioner of education in the province of Jiangsu and a delegate of state to the IIIC in 1932 who had assisted in the Chinese educational mission, discussed with members of the ICO in Geneva and Paris, and most especially with Bonnet, future collaboration between China and the ICO.209 Against this background, Li Shizeng announced at a meeting of the executive committee of the ICIC in Geneva on 17–18 December 1932, that the Nanjing government had decided to establish in Geneva a permanent delegation ‘charged with the special task of co-operating continuously in the work of the technical organisations’ of the LON. He added that this delegation would, in particular, seek to ensure a ‘system of permanent and close collaboration’ between the ICO and intellectual and scientific circles in China. The mooted delegation, which was also to have an office in Paris, was to be under the direction of Li, who stated that in this role one of his first tasks would be the creation of a Chinese national committee on intellectual

206 ‘Relations with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, International Intellectual

Co-operation, 1933, 60, and Shotwell to Bonnet, 16 December 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA, and Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 1 (1934), 65. 207 ‘Relations with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 60. 208 ‘La Coopération Intellectuelle et la Chine,’ Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 13 (1932): 585–6, and Organisation de la Coopération Intellectuelle, Commission Nationale Chinoise de Coopération Intellectuelle, 3–5. 209 Organisation de la Coopération Intellectuelle, Commission Nationale Chinoise de Coopération Intellectuelle, 3.

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cooperation.210 In the spring of 1933, a little after their return from Europe, Li and Tchen established under the auspices of the Chinese Ministry of National Education exactly such a committee, the impressive headquarters of which were located at 1836 Avenue Joffre in Shanghai.211 By the end of 1933, the Ministry of National Education had formed the view that the preparation of schemes for educational reform, based on the recommendations of the educational mission, were sufficiently advanced as to warrant new initiatives in terms of collaboration with the LON and its intellectual cooperation organisation in the field of education.212 These initiatives took the form of collaboration in regard to the technical training required in order to meeting the needs of China’s industrial and rural reconstruction, furthering the vocational training of Chinese students in Europe and the United States and ‘its adaptation to the current needs of China’s economic reconstruction’ and the preparation of a report by a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Paris in consultation with the Nanjing government on the development of the science and teaching of law in China.213 While after 1935, collaboration between China and the ICO in the educational field declined, China continued to involve itself in a range of the ICO’s other activities: in respect to the fine arts, popular and folk art, ancient music, museums and the preservation historic monuments.214 The Chinese government’s initiative at the beginning of 1931, involving the creation of closer ties between China and the ICO, an organ of an institution sometimes disdained by China as a European club, is easily

210 ‘Executive Committee of the I.C.I.C., Eighth Session, Paris, December, 17–18, 1932: Welcome to M. Li Yu Ying,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 7 (1932): 191, and ‘Relations with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 61. 211 Organisation de la Coopération Intellectuelle, Commission Nationale Chinoise de Coopération Intellectuelle, 3; ‘Collaboration of the Intellectual Co-operation Organisation with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1934, 63; and ‘Collaboration of the Intellectual Co-operation Organisation with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1935 (Paris: IIIC, 1936), 39. 212 ‘Collaboration of the Intellectual Co-operation Organisation with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, International Intellectual Co-operation, 1934, 61. 213 Ibid. See also ‘Discussion of the Statement Made by Maurette at the XVth Session of the I.C.I.C,’ Intellectuel Coopération: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 10–12 (1934): 360, and ‘Collaboration of the Intellectual Co-operation Organisation with the Chinese Government,’ in LON, International Institute on Intellectual Co-operation, 1935, 36–9. 214 LON, ICO, The National Committees on Intellectual Co-operation, 39–45.

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explained in terms of the Chinese national government’s policy of ordering China within. The pursuit of such a policy was seen as essential to China’s national survival and as key to the attainment of full Chinese autonomy, which was at that time a subject of negotiation with the treaty powers. China’s collaboration with the LON’s other technical organisations from 1929 onwards is explicable in the same terms, however, it is worth noting that in respect to collaboration with the LON’s technical organisations, it was on the ICO that most Chinese attention was focussed.215 The explanation for this focus concerns not only the vital importance of education in forging a national consciousness and the crucial need for an education system geared to the requirements of China’s modernisation: the ICO served as a forum in which influential audiences could be reminded that despite its current chaotic conditions, China was in possession of an ancient civilisation that had produced, as Destrée expressed it at the 1931 plenary session of the ICIC, masterpieces ‘at a time—it must not be forgotten—when Europe was still plunged in barbarism.’216

Manchuria: A Study in the Neutrality of the ICIC During the discussion of moral disarmament on the afternoon of 21 July 1932, Langevin stated that during his visit to China, a visit which had enabled him to represent the LON at the Fourth Biennial Conference of the IPR, he had become particularly aware that the international community was a living reality and active force in world affairs. Langevin declared that it had struck him ‘how much the Eastern countries were neighbours to the Western both in fact and preoccupation’ and, in relation to this, he observed that China had ‘had moral disarmament for centuries and was glad that the Western countries were supporting her ideal.’217

215 Information Bulletin 1, no. 7 (1932), 191. 216 LON, ICIC, Minutes of the Thirteenth Session, Geneva, 20–25 July 1931, 43, AG

1-IICI-K-I-1.b, UA. 217 ‘Intellectual Cooperation and Moral Disarmament: Extracts from the Minutes of the Fourteenth Plenary Session of the I.C.I.C, held at Geneva from 18 to 23 July 1932,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932): 73–80, 75–6. On Langevin’s participation in the 1931 IPR conference, see Bruno Lasker and William L. Holland, eds., Problems of the Pacific 1931: Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations, Hangchow and Shanghai, China, October 21 to November 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1932), 508.

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During the discussion of the education mission to China at the fourteenth plenary session of the ICIC, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, a professor of philosophy at the University of Calcutta and a member of the ICIC, applauded the success of the mission, stating that it reflected a ‘sincere effort’ on the part of the LON ‘to understand the Far East.’ As such, Radhakrishnan added, the mission had rendered a ‘signal service’ not just to China but to all countries in Asia.218 By contrast, Radhakrishnan appeared a little less enthused by the campaign for moral disarmament, seizing the opportunity provided by Langevin’s observations to highlight the sceptical attitude towards moral disarmament entertained in certain Asian countries. Radhakrishnan stated that there were indeed, ‘several very pacific nations in Asia,’ however, he added that the political situation of these nations was causing them ‘little by little to feel that their pacifist past had prejudiced them.’ This feeling, he continued, could only be ‘removed if the injustice from which they were suffering were also removed and all oppression done away with.’ Although expressing support for moral disarmament, Radhakrishnan observed that it was pointless to treat the ‘superficial symptoms’ of misunderstanding and conflict without treating the ‘deep-seated diseases.’219 Immediately following Radhakrishnan’s intervention, Tchen, serving as a substitute for Wu Zhihui, declared that it was with ‘great interest and emotion’ that he had listened to Perrier speak. By way of explaining his response to the Perrier’s discourse and touching also on Langevin’s observation, Tchen stated that it was a ‘pleasure to China, which for thousands of years had taught and practised the idea of moral disarmament, to realise it was no longer alone.’ However, Tchen, referring to the ongoing invasion of Manchuria by Japanese forces, warned that at a time when China was ‘suffering from the horrors of war,’ statements on moral disarmament held little attraction for Chinese public opinion. Striking a similar note of scepticism to that of Radhakrishnan in regard to moral disarmament, Tchen observed that it would appear that China was the ‘victim of her own theories, and it would have been much better for her had she armed morally and materially.’ He added that if ‘moral support’ could not be given to

218 Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 107–8. 219 Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 78.

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China in her ‘present very painful situation,’ then the programme of moral disarmament would yield ‘no results.’220 In a letter addressed to Murray published in A League of Minds or Pour une société des esprits (1933), the first volume in what was called the International Series of Open Letters or Correspondances (an initiative of the ICIC’s Permanent Committee of Letters and Arts), Cai Yuanpei (Tsai Yuan Pei), a member of the Chinese National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation and founder and president of the Academia Sinica, pointed out that in the Kung-yang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Confucionist Kung-yang had stated the following: that in the ‘final stage of world peace, all the barbarians (non Chinese) states, large and small, far and near, have come up to the same level of civilisation, and every citizen conducts himself as a perfect gentleman.’221 Cai stated that the LON embodied this third phase: it gave expression to the idea that the word peace denotes a stage when all states, no matter their size or their proximity to the main centres of power are treated as equals and in which each citizen is sufficiently ‘mentally disciplined that they can form the ever-widening units which culminate in a world of universal peace.’ Such conditions, he added, were incompatible with the theories developed by certain European philosophers wherein ‘state sovereignty is pushed to the extreme.’ Both Confucian teaching and the Christian Golden Rule, he stated, insisted that ‘selfishness’ is a cause of shame and that ‘helping the weak and defenceless’ is a virtue in relations among individuals. Chinese scholars, he added, were thus ‘puzzled’ as to why the ‘reverse attitude of aggression and wholesale slaughter’ and the ‘dictum that might is right’ should be tolerated in international affairs.222 Murray well understood the specific instances of aggression which Cai had in mind and to what he was alluding in lamenting the tolerance of aggression in the context of international affairs. Murray thus pointed out in his letter in response that if governments, ‘or the few most important governments, had really lived up to the undertakings of the Covenant; if 220 Ibid. 221 Kung-yang Commentary, quoted in Tsai Yuan Pei, ‘To Mr. Gilbert Murray,’ in LON, A League of Minds: Letters of Henri Focillon, Salvador de Madariaga, Gilbert Murray, Miguel Ozorio de Almeida, Alfonso Reyes, Tsai Yuan Pei, Paul Valéry, An International Series of Open Letters (Paris: IIIC, 1933), 89–90. See also ‘The Open Letter Series: “A League of Minds”,’ Information Bulletin 1, nos. 9–10 (1933): 274–80. 222 Gilbert Murray, ‘To Mr. Tsai Yuan Pei,’ in A League of Minds, 61–2.

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they had really disarmed really “pooled their security” and regarded “any threat war or threat of war” in any part of the world as an attack on themselves…civilisation would now be safe.’223 At the ICIC’s fourteenth plenary session, Murray, in response to Tchen’s plaint, expressed ‘great sympathy’ for China. However, he then noted that all countries represented in the ICO ‘had at some time suffered similarly,’ adding that this was all the more reason to develop the idea of moral disarmament. Murray’s observation concerning the past sufferings of countries represented on the ICO clearly disappointed Tchen who might well have responded that the covenant was supposed to put an end to the kind of sufferings to which Murray referred. The only possible explanation for Murray’s bland response to Tchen is that he was seeking to uphold the ICIC’s policy of political neutrality. Despite Murray’s attempt to ward off controversy, Tchen persisted, telling Murray that while he appreciated his sympathy he could not forget that his country was at that moment prey to the greatest difficulties. At this point, the Japanese member of the ICIC, namely, Tanakadate, intervened. Perhaps in an allusion to the antiJapanese boycotts that periodically flared in China, he stated that while he agreed that China had for ‘twenty centuries’ taught theories of moral disarmament, he considered it a matter of regret that such theories were not ‘widespread among the public.’ Tanakadate declared that he felt sympathy for China, but added that he ‘felt the same sympathy for Japan as well as for all countries, near and far, which are suffering from the present dispute.’224

Towards a Second Reading In the months following the adjournment of the Disarmament Conference, Shotwell continued to communicate with IIIC and the secretariat in an effort to have the moral disarmament committee adopt a text along the lines of the text that he had earlier drafted. Responding to Shotwell, Montenach stated that he and Bonnet had welcomed the Anglo-American initiative that had been ‘inspired’ by Shotwell’s text, adding that it offered an ‘appreciable minimum’ to which other elements might be added. 223 Ibid., 79. 224 Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932), 135–6; ‘À la Commission internationale de la

Coopération intellectuelle: Le désarmament moral devant la C.I.C.I,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 20–21 (1932): 1086–102, 1095–6; and Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 124.

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Montenach, who considered that American support was of ‘essential importance to the success of our task,’ assured Shotwell that he and Bonnet ‘felt pretty sure that at the second reading of our present draft, most of the repressive measures—censorship and police control—will be dropped or greatly weakened.’ Yet Montenach also stated that he and Bonnet remained of the view that for the ‘future of intellectual cooperation’ and in order to ensure collaboration by governments in the field of moral disarmament, a formal protocol annexed to the prospective disarmament convention was ‘highly desirable.’ As things stood, he informed Shotwell, the text prepared by the ICO was ‘not quite incisive enough to satisfy all the tendencies represented in the original Polish proposals.’ At the same time, Montenach continued, some delegations regarded it as ‘too detailed and precise’ and wished therefore to ‘confine themselves to a simple gesture of good will.’ If the American delegation were to ‘appreciate the attitude we have adopted and encourage it,’ Montenach stated in concluding, then it was likely that a ‘favourable conclusion’ could be reached.225 Shotwell was concerned by Montenach’s characterisation of the AngloAmerican declaration as an appreciable minimum, explaining to Montenach that as far as the text was concerned he was ‘anxious to secure something that will not fail of ratification,’ pointing out that the United States had a ‘sad history of failures of ratification’ and that this made Americans working with the LON and in the international field ‘very wary of overdoing the formal obligations.’ It was for this reason, Shotwell added, that he had ‘concentrated the whole issue in the few paragraphs’ which served as the basis of the Anglo-American declaration.226 Yet while Shotwell favoured the form of the Anglo-American declaration, he shared the view that the instrument in question should be a protocol and not a declaration ‘so as to make it a binding obligation.’227 He also shared the view that were they to ‘succeed in having a text on Moral Disarmament incorporated in the Disarmament Treaty,’ this would ‘give an added validity’ to the work of the ICO and would ‘certainly attract the 225 Montenach to Shotwell, 25 November 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. See also LON, ‘Moral Disarmament,’ Intellectual Co-operation: 1932, 25, and ‘Introductory Note,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 3, no. 1 (1932), 8–9. 226 Shotwell to Montenach, 27 December 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 227 Shotwell to Bonnet, 4 November 1932, Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scien-

tifique des relations internationales, 1 November 1932–31 January 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.g, UA, and Shotwell to Bonnet, 4 November 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

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attention of governments.’228 Shotwell thus proceeded to redraft his protocol. In the spirit of his previous effort, the centrepiece of the redrafted version was an article specifying that the high contracting parties prescribe a knowledge of the ‘principles and applications of the pacific settlement of disputes and the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy…in examinations of all government positions which may involve relations with other countries, not only in the consular and diplomatic service, but in all branches of government.’ Shotwell also included in his new draft a stipulation concerning the publication by the secretary-general of the annual reports of the national committees of intellectual cooperation. This had been a key feature of his earlier draft but had been left out of the AngloAmerican declaration.229 Shotwell forwarded the redrafted protocol to Montenach on 27 December, informing him, as he had earlier indicated to Bonnet, that no one he had spoken to in the United States opposed it. In fact, Shotwell told Montenach that it had the backing of the secretary of the interior, the federal commissioner of education and numerous influential private citizens.230 Montenach, who was particularly favourable to Shotwell’s idea concerning compulsory examinations for civil and foreign servants and his effort to ‘strengthen the publicity of reports,’ forwarded Shotwell’s draft protocol to Bonnet on 18 January, observing in an accompanying letter that it was of ‘considerable interest’ and that Shotwell had ‘made a move forward’ in regard to ‘our Protocol.’231 Nonetheless, Montenach told Bonnet that he 228 Ibid. 229 Shotwell to Montenach, 27 December 1932, and Shotwell, Memorandum on ‘Moral Disarmament,’ AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 230 Shotwell to Bonnet 4 November 1932, and Shotwell to Montenach, 27 December 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. The secretary of the United States Department of the Interior, Ray Lyman Wilbur, communicated to Mary E. Woolley, the president of Mount Holyoke College and the American representative on the Moral Disarmament Committee, on 27 June the following: that the department was ‘sympathetic’ to the program of moral disarmament as far as its ‘general principles’ were concerned, although he pointed out that the Federal government had no ‘centralized control’ of education. Wilbur stated that the draft text and that it looked ‘promising.’ He added that the department would be ‘gone over carefully’ by the Office of Education and that it was ‘watching everything that you do with the keenest of interest.’ See Moral Disarmament: Message from the Department of the Interior, AG 1-IICIB-V-9, UA. See also ‘The Study of International Relations in the Public Schools of the United States of America,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 4, no. 2 (1933), 153–4. 231 Montenach to Shotwell, 25 November 1932 and Montenach to Bonnet, 18 January 1933, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

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thought Shotwell’s draft protocol was not wholly ‘satisfactory’ and that it went too far in taking into account the American ‘point of view.’ He observed that Shotwell’s ‘main preoccupation’ seemed to be that of composing a text that would prove acceptable to American authorities. The ICO, Montenach continued, could not limit its further action ‘within such a framework’ as it had ‘to take into account the wishes of countries disposed to go very much further and for whom the problem of moral disarmament is more acute than for the Americans.’232 Shotwell acknowledged that his draft protocol was weaker than the ICO would have liked. However, he contended in its defence that he was certain that in ten years time it would affect a ‘fundamental’ change in international relations, thereby allowing the LON to succeed in resolving international crises like the crises it underwent that year in the form of the continuing Japanese occupation of Manchuria and the outbreak of the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay.233 This was not the only reason that Shotwell persisted with his draft. Enlarging on an observation that he had made some months earlier, Shotwell concluded a letter sent to Bonnet on 4 November with the following statement: ‘In short, [a] Moral Disarmament “Declaration” if changed to a “Protocol” with the teeth in it that I have put there can be made the basis of an international action of the C.I.C. [ICIC] which will bring the United States fully into this section of the LON’s work, and not in a minor but in a major way.’234 Shotwell, who would become chairman of the American National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation and a member of the ICIC in the autumn of 1932, following the retirement of Robert A. Millikan, a Nobel-prize winning physicist and chairman of the executive committee of the California Institute of Technology, from both these positions, stated that he doubted that ‘no more important matter would come before the C.I.C.’235 The Committee on Moral Disarmament next met 26 May 1933. On this occasion, the meeting was chaired by Ashby who had been since 1921 the president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. A participant 232 Montenach to Bonnet, 18 January 1933, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 233 Shotwell to Montenach, 27 December 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 234 Shotwell to Bonnet, 4 November 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.g, UA, and Shotwell to Bonnet, 4 November 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 235 Ibid. See also First American Conference of National Committees of Intellectual Cooperation, Santiago, Chile, 6–12 January 1939. Report of the Delegation of the United States of American on Intellectual Cooperation, 92.

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in the Conference of Woman Suffragists of the Allied Countries and the United States which had commenced in Paris on 10 February 1919, Ashby, along with other delegates to that conference as well delegates to the International Council of Women, were received by members of the Commission of the League of Nations at the Hôtel de Crillon, where the American delegation to the Peace Conference had domiciled itself, on 10 April 1919, at 8:00 p.m. Receiving the women were the French statesman Léon Bourgeois, Cecil, President Woodrow Wilson’s adviser Colonel Edward M. House, the Belgian foreign minister Paul Hymans, the Italian prime minister Vittorio Orlando, President Wilson, the chair of the commission, the diplomatic representative of Serbia Milenko Radomar Vesni´c and the Greek prime minister Elefterios Venizelos among others. Called upon by Wilson, Ashby, along with an American member of the women’s delegation, thanked the commission for acceding to the alliance’s expressed wish ‘that women should form part of the committees and officials of the League.’ Following this, the delegation presented the commission with a series of demands in respect to the field of activities of the LON some of which would be either wholly or partially met. Among other things, the delegation called upon states entering the LON to undertake measures to ‘suppress traffic in women, girls, and children of both sexes,’ establish an international ‘bureau of hygiene on the same footing as labour,’ create a permanent international education commission with a view to rendering the LON ‘not only an instrument of peace but also civilization’ and ensuring that the young are taught to understand the ‘usefulness’ and ‘benefits’ of the LON.236 At the meeting of the Moral Disarmament Committee on 26 May, the committee decided to shorten its draft text, confining it to those ‘essential provisions as could actually be embodied in articles to be inserted in the future disarmament convention.’237 On 2 June the committee resolved that the provisions concerning moral disarmament should be drawn up ‘to stand on the same footing as the provisions regarding material disarmament’ in

236 Suzanne Grinsberg, ‘The Inter-Allied Conference in Paris,’ International Woman Suffrage News, May 1919, in Sybil Oldfield, ed. International Woman Suffrage: Ius Suffragii, 1913–1920, October 1918–September 1920, vol. 14 (London: Routledge, 2003), 104–5. See also The International Woman Suffrage Alliance: Report of the Eighth Congress, Geneva, Switzerland, June 6–12, 1920 (Manchester: Percy Brothers, 1920). 237 Committee on Moral Disarmament, 1933, quoted in Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 125.

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the final convention adopted by the Disarmament Conference.238 On that same day, Montenach informed Bonnet that a drafting committee composed of Poland’s Titus Komarnicki, the drafting committee’s rapporteur, Pella, Cassin and Germany’s Otto Goeppert, would spend the next ten days preparing a series of articles. These would concern firstly, questions relating to teaching, intellectual cooperation, broadcasting, theatre and cinema; secondly, questions relating to the ‘adaptation of municipal laws to the present development of international relations,’ this being the special responsibility of Pella; and thirdly, questions relating to the press.239 Montenach noted that the IIIC also had been asked to prepare a set of articles and in this regard he urged the importance of safeguarding ‘the essence’ of the draft the IIIC had composed in the previous year. The task of synthesising the text composed by the drafting committee and that developed by the IIIC was completed by Montenach and Komarnicki on the morning of 17 June.240 On 22 July, in a formal letter sent on behalf of the ICIC and addressed to Komarnicki, Murray noted the great interest with which his committee had followed the work of the Committee on Moral Disarmament and how gratified it was by its collaboration with the secretariat and the IIIC. Murray registered the ICIC’s keen interest in and sympathy for the new draft text which Komarnicki proposed to submit to the committee.241 Murray also pointed out that in the course of its current session in Geneva, the ICIC had been led to draw up its own draft text based on suggestions submitted to it. Proceeding with delicacy, Murray stated that the ICIC had ‘no intention whatever of recommending new bases of discussion,’ adding that while the ICIC thought its draft might prove a useful addition to the committee’s existing materials, it was up to the committee to decide

238 LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, July 1936, Conf.

D.171(1) (Geneva: LON, 1936), 144. 239 Ibid., and Montenach to Bonnet, 2 and 17 June 1933, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 240 Montenach to Bonnet, 2 and 17 June 1933, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 241 ‘Extracts from the Report of the Committee on the Work of Its Fifteenth Plenary Session,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 4, no. 2 (1933): 178–9, and Gilbert Murray, ‘Letter from Professor Gilbert Murray, Chairman of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation to M. Komarnicki, Rapporteur to the Moral Disarmament Committee of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, Geneva, July 22nd, 1933,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 4, no. 2 (1933): 217–8.

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what use they made of it.242 The text of this draft was appended to the letter Murray addressed to Komarnicki under the heading of ‘Proposals of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation into Regard the Preliminary Draft Texts Concerning Moral Disarmament.’243 As Montenach had presaged the year before, the mention of repressive measures in the draft on which he had most recently worked had been greatly reduced in comparison with the text examined at the first reading. In the case of the ICIC draft text, they were eliminated almost entirely. Both the Montenach/Komarnicki draft text and the ICIC’s draft text contained a provision calling on governments to ‘prevent and discourage the showing of films, the broadcasting of programmes and the organisation of performances likely to wound the legitimate sentiments of other nations,’ albeit in accordance with the ‘means at their disposal’ in the case of the former and their ‘respective Constitutions’ in the case of the latter.244 Beyond this, there were two outstanding differences between the Montenach/Komarnicki draft text and that of the ICIC in respect to repressive measures. First, the former contained quite stringent guidelines regarding the revision of scholarly works and school manuals, whereas the latter simply stated that school textbooks should be prepared in a spirit of ‘mutual respect’ and understanding between peoples. Second, the Montenach/Komarnicki draft text contained more detailed guidelines regarding ways and means, notably allowing for the possibility of council intervention in the case of a dispute between parties regarding the application of the principles expressed in the text.245 242 Murray, ‘Letter from Professor Gilbert Murray, Chairman of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation to M. Komarnicki,’ 218, and ‘Extracts from the Report of the Committee on the Work of Its Fifteenth Plenary Session,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 4, no. 2 (1933), 179. 243 Murray, ‘Letter from Professor Gilbert Murray, Chairman of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation to M. Komarnicki,’ and ICIC, ‘Proposals of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation Regarding the Preliminary Draft Texts Concerning Moral Disarmament,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 4, no. 2 (1933): 217–9. 244 ICIC, ‘Proposals of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation Regarding the Preliminary Draft Texts Concerning Moral Disarmament,’ 218–9, and Avant project de textes concernant le désarmement moral qui pourraitent être inserés dans la Convention Générale pour les Limitations des Armements, soumis par le rapporteur, M. Komarnicki, aux membres du Comité de Redaction, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA. 245 Avant project de textes concernant le désarmement moral qui pourraitent être inserés dans la Convention Générale pour les Limitations des Armements, soumis par le rapporteur, M. Komarnicki, aux membres du Comité de Redaction, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

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With regard to the considerations that may have lead the ICIC to draft its own text, one need only note that the wording of Article 2 and part of Article 3 of the ICIC’s draft was largely the same as the wording of the first two articles of the two protocols that Shotwell had earlier drafted. Under Article 2, for example, the high contracting parties agreed to urge their competent education authorities to provide for the teaching of the principles of the peaceful settlement of international disputes and the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy, and the application of these principles in practice, and to cause these subjects to be included subsequently by the competent authorities in the list of subjects prescribed by the competent authorities in the list of subjects prescribed for the entrance examinations to the more important official careers, and, in particular, such careers as may entail relations with other Governments.246

As we have seen, Shotwell considered that a provision of this nature should be the centrepiece of a protocol concerning moral disarmament, his expectation being that it would conduce to the teaching of ‘International Civics’ in a scientific and objective manner, free from propaganda, throughout the ‘whole civilised world.’247 Following the revisions put forward by the ICIC in July 1933 and further amendments by the committee in October and November, the Committee on Moral Disarmament on 1 December forwarded to the president of the conference its third draft. By this time, its draft text had been reduced to a preamble and four articles. The provisions of the latter, which concerned education, intellectual cooperation, plays, cinema and broadcasting and were largely similar to those contained within the ICIC’s draft text albeit with two noteworthy differences. First, under Article 3 of the committee’s third draft, governments were simply asked to ‘use their influence to avoid’ the dissemination of films and broadcasts and the production of performances ‘obviously calculated’ to wound the legitimate sentiments of other nations. Second, and even more crucially, the committee’s draft of 1 December, unlike the ICIC draft as well as the committee’s own previous drafts, left out the stipulations 246 Murray, ‘Letter from Professor Gilbert Murray, Chairman of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation to M. Komarnicki,’ and ICIC, ‘Proposals of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation Regarding the Preliminary Draft Texts Concerning Moral Disarmament,’ 217–9. 247 ‘The Study of International Relations in the Public Schools of the United States of America,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 4, no. 2 (1933), 153–4.

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concerning ways and means altogether.248 The committee, unable to reach a decision on this matter, had decided to leave this question in abeyance until the General Commission of the Disarmament Conference ‘indicated methods of ensuring the execution of the articles of material disarmament.’249 Also left in reserve was the question of the final form of the text, the committee having determined that the selection of the most appropriate form also should be left to the General Committee of the Conference.250 At the same time, the committee remained of the opinion that the provisions on moral disarmament should have the same footing as the provisions regarding material disarmament in the final texts to be adopted by the conference. Henderson was informed of this in a letter penned by Ashby on behalf of the committee on 1 December. In the same letter, Ashby also informed Henderson that the question of the cooperation of the press in moral disarmament and the draft protocol drawn up by Pella on the adaption of municipal laws to current international life would be considered by the committee at a later stage.251 It was in view of the possible development of such a protocol, that Hélène Vacaresco, a Romanian delegate to the LON, pronounced on 9 October at the Fourteenth Assembly, after having paid homage to Pella, that the theme of ‘death to calumny, death to the false noises, death above all to the wickedness, to the hatred of race’ 248 Margery Corbett Ashby, ‘Letter Addressed to the President of the Conference for the

Reduction and Limitation of Armaments by the Chairman of the Committee for Moral Disarmament on December 1st, 1933,’ League of Nations Educational Survey 4, no. 2 (1933): 220–222, and Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 126. 249 Ashby, ‘Letter Addressed to the President of the Conference,’ 220, and ‘Moral Disarmament,’ LON, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 35. 250 ‘Moral Disarmament,’ LON, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1933,

35. 251 Ashby, ‘Letter Addressed to the President of the Conference,’ 220. See also, Annexe: Resolutions adoptée par le Comité le 2 juin 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA, and LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, July 1936, 145. Pella submitted the text of a preamble and three draft articles. These provided the following: the contracting parties should introduce legislation enabling them to punish certain acts detrimental to good international relations. The acts to be covered by this legislation would include the preparation and execution of in the territory of a State of measures directed against the safety of a foreign Power, efforts to induce a State commit certain specified acts in violation of its international obligations the aiding or abetting of armed bands formed in the territory of a State and invading the territory of another State, the dissemination of false information likely to disturb relation or the false attribution to a foreign State of actions likely to bring it into public contempt or hatred.’ LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, July 1936, 144–5.

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which had inaugurated the moral disarmament campaign had finally taken wing.252 However, in the following month, in view of the adjournment of the Disarmament Conference, the Committee on Moral Disarmament suspended all its work. It was the beginning of the end of the official moral disarmament campaign, the fate of which would mirror that of the Disarmament Conference itself. Yet the suspension of the committee’s work by no means entailed that all work on moral disarmament in the context of the LON ceased. The ICO continued to affirm that its increasingly numerous activities, such as its studies of questions concerning broadcasting and peace, its examination of the educational role of the press, its International Series of Open Letters, its coordination of collaboration in the field of education and its new endeavours in the field of the social sciences, were ‘directed entirely towards the so-called moral disarmament.’253

Intellectual Cooperation and Fascist Italy As indicated in Murray’s letter to Henderson, at the beginning of 1932 the CISSIR was seen as one the major achievements of the ICO in the field of moral disarmament. In turn, many of the members of the conference, notably figures such as Shotwell and Zimmern, the latter now being the Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, saw moral disarmament through fostering of the teaching of international politics as one of the organisation’s major tasks. While this continued to be an important feature of the CISSIR’s identity as is further discussed below, so was its developing identity as a study conference: its identity as a body devoted to the ‘scientific study of great international problems’ with a view to contributing to policy.254 At the time of the CISSR’s conference in Copenhagen in 1931, it was thought that its first study conference would he held in Warsaw in June 1932. However, the Polish national committee on the scientific study of international relations had to withdraw its

252 ‘L’Assembée de la S.D.N. reconnaît et sanctionne les progrès de la Coopération Intellectuelle,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 34–35 (1933): 565–6, and Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 34–35 (1933), 575–6. 253 ‘Moral Disarmament,’ LON, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 33–5. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 127. 254 ‘Note,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 32–33 (1933): v-ix, vii.

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offer to host the conference due to a lack of funds.255 On the initiative of the Italian National Committee for Intellectual Cooperation (Commissione nazionale italiana per la cooperazione intellettuale) and the Italian Coordinating Committee for the Scientific Study of International Relations (Centro nazionale italiano di coordinamento degli istituti di studi scientifici per le questoni di carratere internationale), it instead took place in Milan from 23 to 27 May 1932.256 One might pause here consider the substantial engagement by Fascist Italy with the LON and its intellectual arm, especially in light of Mussolini’s 1932 denunciation of League pacifism as ‘foreign to the spirit of Fascism’ and the tributes paid by Mussolini and other Fascist spokesmen to the will to imperial expansion, such expansion being according to their world view a sign of a nation’s health and virility.257 In attempting to explain Fascist Italy’s political engagement with the LON, one might begin by noting that as an organisation that offered Italy the opportunity to collaborate with other major European powers, it was an organisation which Rome was hardly likely to ignore. It seemed at the outset a shrewder policy to exploit

255 Zygmunt Cybichowski, President of the Central Committee of Polish Institutions of Political Science, to Werner Picht, 20 January 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. 256 Alfredo Rocco to Picht, 15 February 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. The IIIC suggested Rome for the next conference and that it be held in May. However, Rocco informed Picht that Rome was a practical impossibility and that he would seek to organise a convocation in Milan instead. 257 The contribution of Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile to the Enciclopedia Italiana in 1932 stated the following: ‘[A]ll doctrines which postulate peace at all costs are incompatible with Fascism. Equally foreign to the spirit of Fascism, even if accepted as useful in meeting special political situations—are all internationalistic or League superstructures which, as history shows, crumble to the ground whenever the heart of nations is deeply stirred by sentimental, idealistic or practical considerations. Fascism carries this anti-pacifistic attitude into the life of the individual…The Fascist accepts and loves life; he rejects and despises suicide as cowardly. Life as he understands it means duty, elevation, conquest.’ Benito Mussolini, ‘The Ideology of the Twentieth Century,’ in Roger Griffin, ed., International Fascism: Theories, Causes and the New Consensus (London: Arnold, 1998), 250. Reprinted from Benito Mussolini, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions (Rome: Ardita, 1935), 7–22. Mussolini had earlier stated the following: ‘Imperialism is the eternal and immutable law of life. At bottom it is but the need, the desire, and the will for expansion which every living, healthy individual or people has in itself.’ Mussolini, 1919, quoted in Herbert W. Schneider, Making the Fascist State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1928), 273.

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Italy’s position at the LON in order to realise Fascist Italy’s ambitions rather than to adopt an openly hostile attitude towards it.258 Fascist participation in the work of intellectual cooperation may be viewed in a similar light: it offered a means of advancing Italian interests through enhancing Fascist soft power. It should also be noted that in the mid-1920s, the National Fascist Party had become concerned by the activities of those anti-Fascist intellectuals in Italy who sought to ‘discredit’ Fascism among people of culture in insisting that there was ‘almost an antithesis’ between Fascism and culture.259 In order to counter this campaign, the philosopher and former Fascist minister of education, Giovanni Gentile, moved to establish the National Institute for Fascist Culture (Istituto nazionale fascista di cultura), it being created by Royal Decree no. 1408 on 6 August 1925, and solemnly inaugurated on 19 December 1925, in the presence of Benito Mussolini and with a speech by Gentile who was to preside over the organisation.260 It should also be noted that for a certain period international prestige was to be gained by states through having an institutional association with the LON, a factor which helps explain the objections raised by certain countries to the location of the IIIC in Paris. A desire for prestige would have been a significant motivation behind the Italian government’s offer to the LON on 26 September 1924, of an International Institute for the Unification of Private Law. This offer was inspired by Vittorio Scialoja who as acting president of the LON Council would be among the dignitaries presiding at the inauguration of the IIIC in Paris in January 1926. (In the form of a letter addressed to Bergson dated 24 July 1924, the French

258 Frank M. Russell, Theories of International Relations (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1936), 496. Russell noted that this view of the LON was expressed by Cesare Salvati in Critica Fascista, 15 September 1926. 259 ‘Fascismo,’ Enciclopedia italiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, vol. 14 (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1932), 851–4, 870–1. 260 Ibid., 871. For the Istituto nazionale fascista di cultura, see Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales, publications (préparation): Répertoire des institutions pour l’études scientifique des relations internationales, 4 October 1929–2 November 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-II-1, UA. See also Guido Bonsaver, Censorship and Literature in Fascist Italy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 59; Christopher Rundle, Publishing Translations in Fascist Italy (Bern: Peter Lang, 2010), 27; and Ruth Ben Ghiat, Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 21. For an example of Gentile’s theoretical writings on Fascism, see Giovanni Gentile, ‘The Philosophic Basis of Fascism,’ Foreign Affairs 6, no. 2 (1928): 291–304.

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government had expressed its wish to offer the money and premises necessary for the foundation of the institute, an offer that was endorsed by the assembly on 23 September 1924). The Italian proposal to place at the disposal of the LON an institute with the purpose ‘harmonising and coordinating private law between states and groups of states’ was accepted by the Fifth Assembly on 30 September and by the council on 3 October.261 Pierre Widmer records that although the institute was founded in 1926, its official inauguration took place some time later: it was officially inaugurated at Villa Aldobrandini on the 30 May 1928, at a ceremony attended by King Vittorio Emmanuel III, members of the Italian government, League officials and representatives of states which were members of the LON.262 In inaugurating the institute, Mussolini stated that the Italian ‘government had been keen to make an effective contribution to the intellectual collaboration which has made such promising progress under the auspices of the League of Nations.’263 In a similar move on 6 September 1927 and in light of a ‘wish expressed by several international congresses with regard to the use of the cinematograph for intellectual development,’ Count Antonio Cippico announced at the assembly that the Italian government was prepared to establish and fund an international educational cinematographic institute: the IIEC Imitating once more the French offer concerning the IIIC, the Italian government proposed to place the IIEC under the direction of the LON.264 The assembly warmly greeted the Italian offer and thus a statute for the institute was drawn up between 6 and 7 February 1928, by Dufour-Feronce, Bonnet

261 Charles André, L’Organisation de la Coopération Intellectuelle (Rennes: Imprimerie Provinçale de l’Ouest, 1938), 150. Pierre Widmer states that the Italian government’s proposal was ‘on the initiative of Vittorio Scialoja, the well-known romanist.’ Pierre Widmer, ‘The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law: Shipyard for World-Wide Unification of Private Law,’ European Journal of Law Reform 1, no. 3 (1999): 181–92, 181. For Scialoja’s speech at the inauguration of the IIIC, see IICI, Travaux de l’Institut de Coopération Intellectuelle pendant la année 1926 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1927), 7. For the French offer concerning the IIIC, see Hsu Fu Teh,L’acitvité de la Société des Nations dans le domaine intellectuel (Paris: Marcel Rivière, 1929), 53–4, 61. 262 Widmer, ‘The International Institute for the Unification of Private,’ 181. 263 Benito Mussolini, 1928, quoted in Widmer, ‘The International Institute for the Unifi-

cation of Private Law,’ 181. 264 The League of Nations from Year to Year (October 1926–October 1927 ) (Geneva: Information Section, League of Nations, 1927), 103. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 33–4.

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and the relevant authorities in Rome.265 This statute was approved by the assembly on 30 August 1928, and the institute formally inaugurated the following November. Its stated objective was the encouragement of ‘the production, distribution, and exchange between the various countries of educational films concerning instruction, art, industry, agriculture, commerce, health, social education, & c’ and to this end IIEC published a monthly magazine under the auspices of the LON called in succession the follow´¯ ing: Revue Internationale du Cinéma Educateur (1929–1934), Interciné 266 Its statute specified that the presi(1935) and Cinéma (1936–1937). dent of its board of directors was to be the Italian member of the ICIC just as the statute of the IIIC specified that the president of its board of directors was to be the French member of the ICIC. In recalling that the institute’s seat was at the Villa Torlonia in Rome and that the institute also had a branch not far from there in the ‘celebrated’ Villa Falconieri, the ICIC’s former secretary and member of the governing body of the IIEC, namely, the Romanian art historian George Oprescu, observed that these edifices were no less prestigious than the ‘monumental Palais Royal.’267

The Milan Conference Another manifestation of Fascist efforts in the field of cultural diplomacy was the aforementioned Italian National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation which was constituted by Royal Decree no. 1534, 14 June 1928, this decree becoming law on 31 December. Initially based first at 1 salita

265 Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 34. See also the ‘Lettre du Gouvernement Italien au Secrétariat-Général de la Société des Nations, Rome le 11 février, 1928,’ Bulletin de la Section d’Information and de Documentation no. 19 (1928), 3. This bulletin was published under the auspices of the SDN and the IICI. 266 H. R. G. Greaves, The League Committees and World Order (London: Oxford University

Press, 1931), 124. See also George Oprescu, ‘Souvenir de la Ligue des Nations,’ Revue Romaine de l’Études Internationales 6 (1969): 61–74, 67. Charles André points out that the institute became ‘integral part’ of the ICO in light of an assembly resolution of 24 September 1931. André, L’Organisation de la Coopérational Intellectuelle, 148. 267 Oprescu, ‘Souvenir de la Ligue des Nations,’ 67, and ‘Sir Eric Drummond in Rome,’ International Review of Educational Cinematography (December 1929): 689–92. On the Italian Government’s determination to provide the LON’s cinematic institute with premises of equal prestige to the Palais Royal, see Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 34. For the statute of the IIEC, see ‘Projet de Statut Organique (Extraits ),’ Bulletin de la Section d’Information and de Documentation no. 19 (1928), 3–4.

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del Grillo, the committee was later given lodgings at Palace of the Ministry of Justice on via del Conservatorio.268 Rocco, an exponent of the theoretical basis of Fascism who boasted that it was he, in his capacity as minister of justice, who had created the legal basis for the Fascist state, was president of this committee until his death in August 1936. Its secretarygeneral was another jurist, namely, Giuseppe Righetti who from 1924 to 1927 had held a senior post at the secretariat and who from February 1935, served as secretary-general of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law. (Righetti’s activities in the field of intellectual cooperation came to an end upon his death in early 1937, this being the result of an accident which befell him when visiting Ethiopia in 1936 in his capacity as superior officer of artillery in the Italian army.) The Italian National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation was the host organisation of the Italian Coordinating Committee for the Scientific Study of International Relations, over which Gentile also presided and which had been established in 1928 in view of the forthcoming meeting of experts in Berlin.269

268 LON, ICO, National Committees on Intellectual Co-operation, 73. See also ‘Notes et communications: Commission nationale italienne de la coopération intellectuelle,’ La Coopération Intellectuelle 1, no. 3 (1929): 173–5. According to the constitution of the Italian national committee on intellectual cooperation, the members of the committee were appointed by royal decree on the proposal of the ministry of education with the approval of the ministry of foreign affairs. The first appointments were made on 8 October 1928. 269 For Gentile’s role, see Rocco to Julien Luchaire, 8 June 1929, Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales, publications (préparation): Lexique des termes politiques, 1929–1933, AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA, and Fergus Chalmers Wright to Giovanni Gentile, 28 October 1932, Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales, 27 May–31 October 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.f, UA. See also ‘Giuseppe Righetti,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 73–74 (1937): 1–2. According to the obituary of Giuseppe Righetti appearing in Coopération Intellectuelle in 1937, between 1919 and 1925, Righetti took part in diverse national and international commissions relating to the treaties of the peace. In 1925 and 1927, he served in the office of the two successive Italian under-secretariesgeneral of the LON: Bernardo Attolico, and Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli, the latter having been a personal assistant to Mussolini. It was Rocco who appointed Righetti secretary-general of the Italian National Committee for Intellectual Co-operation at the end of his tenure in Geneva. It was Rocco and Righetti above all, who were responsible for the development of this committee. Righetti also served as a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. Elisabetta Tollardo states that Righetti joined the office of the under secretary-general in 1924. She notes that ‘according to the French diplomatic service, Righetti was the head of a Fascist surveillance service at the LON and at the ILO: he was spying on anti-Fascist activities of the Italian civil servants in Geneva.’ Tollardo points out that Righetti left the secretariat on 10 September 1927 following ‘disagreements’ with Paulucci and that he was appointed as secretary-general of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law in 1934.

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Rocco, Righetti and Gentile were all involved in organising the Milan Conference and the efforts they made in order to ensure that it went ahead is evidence of the desire of certain elements within the Fascist regime to enhance that regime’s reputation in the cultural and intellectual sphere. Rocco happily reported to Bonnet that it was due to the personal interventions of himself, Gentile and Righetti in regard to the local authorities in Milan that the conference was able to be held there. In informing Bonnet of the complete success of their interventions, Rocco stated that Italy had ‘in its traditions the cult of juridical studies, even in the international field,’ and that ‘our beautiful city of Milan cannot not attach a great interest to this manifestation of high culture’ that was about to unfold in its midst.270 From the perspective of those involved in the ICO and more specifically the CISSIR, a great deal was riding on the success of the Milan meeting. As one of the participants stated on the first day of the conference, it was hoped that through the work of the CISSIR, intellectual cooperation would be transformed from a ‘vague phrase, which has occasioned ridicule among the Philistines from time to time, into a living fruitful reality.’271 It was for this reason that, as Bonnet advised Shotwell not long before the latter embarked on his journey to Europe in the spring of 1932, that what was ‘in the nature of an experiment,’ all in a ‘spirit of independence,’ in coordinating research into and conducting a discussion of concrete international problems, or what the preface to the conference proceedings described as ‘a first experiment in a new method of studying international relations,’ would be followed closely by the ICIC and that the ICIC planned to discuss the results of the Milan conference at its annual plenary meeting in July. Bonnet also told Shotwell that he thought that success at Milan would greatly focus the attention of the ICIC, a body in which Bonnet was keen for Shotwell to participate as a member, on another matter it planned to address in July and which he knew was of vital interest to Shotwell: how to further the study of and instruction in international relations.272

Elisabetta Tollardo, Fascist Italy and the League of Nations, 1922–1935 (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2016), 124. 270 Rocco to Bonnet, 2 March 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. 271 ‘The State and Economic Life,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 2–3 (1932): 49–60, 49. 272 Bonnet to Shotwell, 3 February, and 7 March 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. See also

LON, A Record of a First International Study Conference on the State and Economic Life with Special Reference to International Economic and Political Relations, Held at Milan on May 23–27 1932 and Organised by the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation in

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How was success at Milan to be defined? A letter written by Picht to Hugh Dalton, a reader in economics at the University of London and the rapporteur for one of the forthcoming conference’s two committees, well illustrates what this term meant from the perspective of the IIIC. The letter is also suggestive of the fact that the IIIC sought to exercise a degree of control over the CISSIR in its early years. In the letter in question, Picht stated that the success of the conference would depend on the ‘objectivity and scientific character of the general discussion and upon the manner in which the debate is guided and directed.’ He advised Dalton that as rapporteur, he must make it clear at the outset that the aim of the conference was ‘not to pronounce itself in favour of some specific principle or to advocate any given policy’ but instead was to ‘make a contribution to a knowledge of the subject through the method of international cooperative study.’273

The Opening of the Conference As Rocco had as much as promised Bonnet, the municipal and provincial authorities of the city and province of Milan and the Italian National Committee for Intellectual Cooperation spared no effort in making their foreign guests welcome. Dinners were hosted by the mayor (podestà) of Milan, by Duke Marcello Visconti di Modrone and the Italian National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. There were also two formal receptions, one at the Circolo del Giardino in the presence of Adalberto di Savoia, the duke of Bergamo, and another at the Royal University of Milan. In addition to these gestures of welcome, the conference participants were treated to a visit to the Borromean Islands and offered a month’s railway pass ‘available to any station on the Italian railways.’ As to the conference itself, its meetings took place in the ‘beautiful and historic’ Castello Sforzesco a whole wing of which was dedicated for use by the conference and its secretariat: the IIIC.274

Collaboration with the Italian National Committee of Intellectual Co-operation (Paris: IIIC, 1932), xiii. 273 Picht to Hugh Dalton, 9 May 1932, Conférence des Institutions pour l’études scientifique internationales: 1 April–27 May 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.e, UA. ‘Les participants à la Conférence,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 17–18 (1932): 898–901. Hugh Dalton was a former under-secretary of state at the ministry of foreign affairs. 274 LON, A Record of a First International Study Conference on the State and Economic Life,

xviii.

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The conference was opened by Rocco on 23 May at 9:30 a.m., its inaugural ceremony taking place in the sala del Consiglio of the castello in the presence of not only conference participants but also municipal and provincial dignitaries, among them the mayor of Milan and the duke of Bergamo. The quasi-official atmosphere of the ceremony was further enhanced by the appearance alongside Rocco, not only of Dufour-Feronce and Bonnet, both of whom represented the ICO, but also of the federal secretary of the National Fascist Party: Erminio Brusa.275 In his opening address, Rocco noted a contemporary paradox: the fact that while there had never been ‘so much talk as to-day about the fraternity of nations’ and the imperative of ‘international understanding and collaboration,’ never had ‘intellectual co-operation on an international plane been so difficult.’ This was because, he explained, the ‘contemporary period is the period of nationalities—that is, not only of political but also of cultural particularism.’ Up until the eighteenth century, Rocco continued, intellectual life was of a European or universalistic character. However, in the nineteenth century, he added, this situation began to change as increasingly, culture became ‘more and more nationalised’ and intellectual life ‘shut up within the limits of political frontiers.’ Rocco then complimented ICIC in Geneva, the IIIC in Paris and the various national committees on intellectual cooperation for leading efforts to unify the world on an intellectual and cultural plane, observing in passing the often ‘mediocre success’ of the chiefs of governments in regard to efforts to ‘organise the world.’276 Rocco then noted the urgent need for cooperation in the field of the ‘scientific study of international relations,’ highlighting the work conducted under Gentile’s presidency of the Italian coordinating committee in ensuring liaisons between the CISSIR and Italian national institutions in the field of international affairs: the Istituto di Scienze Sociale in Florence, the Scuola di Scienze Politiche in Milan, the Scuola de Scienze Politiche e Sociali in Padua, the Faculty di Scienze Politiche of the University of Pavia, the Faculty Fascista di Scienze Politiche of the University of Perugia and the Facotà di Scienze Politiche of the University of Rome. Rocco suggested that now the conference had achieved considerable success in terms of establishing and coordinating relations between institutions concerned with the study of international relations, it was now faced with the

275 Ibid., 3. 276 Ibid., 3–4.

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more difficult but ‘noble’ and ‘lofty’ task of ‘formulating and discussing with absolute freedom, and on a purely objective and scientific basis, certain questions of fundamental importance to the political and economic life world.’277 The first study meeting was held immediately after the inaugural ceremony at 10:30 a.m. in the Sala di Leonardo da Vinci and was chaired by Rocco who called upon the conference’s other rapporteur, namely, Moritz Julius Bonn, rector magnificus of the Berlin School of Commerce (the Handelshochschule), to deliver his introductory report. Bonn was at that time one of the most distinguished economists in Germany and had close ties with the Weimar government. He was a member of faculty at the DHP, belonging to its progressive or liberal wing in contrast with Hoetzsch, his colleague at the DHP, who was of a politically conservative stripe.278 Bonn’s report directly addressed the burning issue of the day in the economic sphere: the efforts by nations to achieve self-sufficiency. Bonn explained that since the Great War, nations had been ‘terrified’ in regard to their economic security; the war had starkly demonstrated that ‘they cannot safeguard themselves by armaments on water or land against an interruption in the supply of goods from abroad,’ hence the widespread embrace of the ‘scheme of the self-sufficient State.’279 Upon the conclusion of Bonn’s address, Dalton delivered an analysis and gave a summary of the memoranda submitted to the conference by member institutions, noting that the more ‘positive’ response to the current economic malaise advocated, not the ‘withering away of the State’ as prescribed ‘by the extremists both of communism and individualism,’ but the rendering of the modern state as ‘an instrument for the deliverance

277 Ibid., 5–6. 278 According to John Bell Condliffe, an economist who served as research secretary at the

International Secretariat of the IPR in Honolulu from 1927 to 1931, Moritz Bonn had ‘very close contact’ with the German government and business circles up until 1933 and was noted for his ‘philosophical detachment’. J. B. Condliffe to Tracey Barrett Kittredge, 19 May 1938, Conférence des hautes études internationales, Geneva Research Centre, correspondence as far as 1 June 1939, AG 1-IICI-K-I-16.a, UA. For Bonn’s professional positions and his political alignment, see Steven D. Korenblat, ‘A School for the Republic? Cosmopolitans and Their Enemies at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik,’ Central European History 39, no. 3 (2006): 394–430, 400. 279 LON, A Record of a First International Study Conference on the State and Economic Life,

10–1.

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of peoples from the economic evils of to-day.’280 Dalton expressed sympathy for national economic planning and stated that in light of the ‘exceedingly interesting experiments’ in economic planning being undertaken in Italy and Russia, and the fact that more liberal economic systems were not conspicuously successful at that point in time, the conference could hardly ‘afford to ignore’ the issue.281 However, like many liberals and socialists supporting state economic intervention, Dalton wanted to see a degree of economic planning on an international scale as well. Dalton, who had been a delegate to the Fourth Assembly and who described his role at the conference as that of a ‘supranational commentator,’ stated the following: ‘the modern State’ should be ‘made into an instrument for the deliverance of the peoples from the economic evils’ of the day, ‘linked in co-operative union with other similar States within the framework provided by our League of Nations, of which this Conference is an emanation.’282

The Liberal Versus the Corporative System At the second study meeting on the following afternoon, Toynbee replaced Alberto De Stefani, a former minister of finance and president of the Italian delegation at the assembly’s first International Economic Conference (or World Economic Conference) in 1927, in the chair as De Stefani was keen to play a prominent role in the ensuing debate. In the course of this debate, De Stefani offered a spirited defence of the Fascist economic system, stating that as yet, no international conference or society which remained ‘under the domination of economic and political demo-liberalism’ had witnessed the springing forth of an idée-force in response to the economic crisis. No idea, he added, had issued from international conferences or ‘demo-liberal’ societies with the capacity to carry ‘men away with the compelling force of a faith.’283 However, an idée-force, De Stefani insisted, had emerged in Italy: the idea of the corporative system. According to De Stefani, the corporative system was at one with the direction of events: ‘the transition from the system of economic self-adjustment to a new order in which the

280 Ibid., 17. 281 Ibid., 19. 282 Ibid., 17, 19. 283 Ibid., 24, 27. For Alberto De Stefani’s background, see Giuseppe Righetti to Picht, 1

March 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA.

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distribution of labour and capital, as well as the system of production, will be planned in advance and as a whole on the basis of a knowledge of every need.’284 The realisation on which the corporative system was based, De Stefani maintained, was that the state and economic life were not antithetical but were ‘two interconnected facts.’ A growing appreciation of this interconnectedness, he added, meant that the ‘binomial expression,’ namely, the state and economic life, which had been used to sum up the conference’s theme, was ‘losing its element of duality.’285 The corporative system was also defended staunchly by Luigi Amoroso who stated that its aims were to break ‘down the walls of particular interests’ and to regroup and coordinate ‘all the forces and all the wills in the general interest.’ As such, the corporative system marked a decisive break with that ‘centuries-old process’ which had ‘given free rein to individual selfishness,’ which had ‘destroyed—through freedom of judgement—the unity of European moral consciousness’ and which had ‘armed the nations and classes against each other.’286 As one would expect of a person who laid its legal foundations, Rocco too offered praise of the corporative system, declaring in the course of his opening address as chair of the fifth study meeting that it was a third way between socialism and capitalism. Elaborating on this point, Rocco boasted that the corporative system resolved the conflict between socialism and capitalism while incorporating the advantages of both.287 The championing of Fascist economics probably would not have excited controversy at the meeting had it not been for a letter authored by De Stefani and Amoroso that Rocco took it upon himself to read out. This letter stated that all the facts indicated that economic liberalism is undergoing radical transformation owing to the everincreasing contradictions found therein, and that it has proved inadequate to solve the theoretical and practical problems that have recently arisen; note that State control of economic institutions…is steadily growing stronger, and

284 LON, A Record of a First International Study Conference on the State and Economic Life,

30. 285 Ibid., 31. 286 Ibid., 38. 287 Ibid., 97.

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that the State is tending to transform along corporative lines the principle of private initiative.288

Based on these considerations De Stefani and Amoroso expressed the view that the ‘historical’ tendency towards transformation along corporative lines should be fostered, suggesting that this should be a matter of international policy.289 In the course of the discussion which followed, Toynbee reminded those present, as he had reminded them earlier when occupying the chair of the second study meeting, that the conference’s constitution stipulated that it ‘should not express opinions or pass resolutions’ and for this reason it was necessary to emphasise that the letter of De Stefani and Amoroso was a ‘personal contribution…in no way binding the Conference as a whole to a particular policy or point of view.’290 Toynbee’s note of caution was echoed by Célestin Bouglé. A former student of Émile Durkheim, Bouglé was a professor in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Paris, deputy-director of the École normale supérieure and a delegate of the French government to the IIIC. He told the conference that he did not want to see it ‘give or appear to give…[its]…adhesion to the Corporative system …as the result of a letter which comes, as it were, as a conclusion to our discussion.’ Bouglé observed that the word corporatism aroused mistrust in France, later pointing out to Amoroso who accused the French of having a tradition of ‘exaggerated individualism’ that the ancien régime had ‘suffered cruelly’ from the corporative system and that against this background the corporations had been dissolved with Le Chapelier law of 1791. Bouglé countered Amoroso’s accusation in observing that later on in France, in the face of new economic circumstances, other doctrines arose: the doctrines of Henri de Saint Simon and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Hence, as Bouglé declared elsewhere, the thesis that ‘“[t]he administration of things will replace government by persons,” is also a thesis of French thinkers.’ Bouglé told the conference in Milan that in France people preferred to use the term syndicalism or what Paul-Boncour referred to as ‘professional federalism’ rather than use the term corporatism. Bouglé stated that he was pleased that Toynbee had made the conference’s position clear: it would be unfortunate if it were ‘said in the press that…the

288 Ibid., 97, 165. 289 Ibid., 165. 290 Ibid., 98.

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only practical and positive conclusion reached by the Conference was an apologia for a system the exact results of which…we do not know.’291 The slight contretemps caused by the letter of De Stefani and Amoroso was somewhat papered over by Dalton who, in his summary of the conference, suggested that Italian delegates might present at the next conference a detailed study of the Fascist corporative system. In a similarly conciliatory vein, Bonn stated in his summary that he agreed with Dalton concerning the need to hear more about this system, although he added a warning concerning the dangers of and hence the need for limits on state intervention.292 Amoroso responded to these comments in stating that in regard to their letter, he and De Stefani had wanted merely to draw the attention of the conference to the corporative system ‘in general’ and the way in which ‘economic systems have been modified’; he proposed that the corporative as well as other economic tendencies be placed on the agenda of the next conference, a proposal adopted by a programme committee on the conference’s final day.293

The Aftermath of the Conference It was for the disagreement between the advocates of Fascist corporatism and those in favour of more liberal economic and political arrangements that the Milan Conference was most noted in its aftermath. Indeed, it was perhaps because of this disagreement, or, rather, the fact that it was addressed in a diplomatically constrained manner, that some were 291 Ibid., 99, and LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life Held in London from May 29 to June 2 1933 and Organised by the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation in Collaboration with the British Co-ordinating Committee for International Studies (Paris: IIIC, 1934), 192. See also Joseph Paul-Boncour, Le fédéralisme économique (Paris: F.Alcan, 1901), and William H. George, ‘Proudhon and Economic Federalism,’ Journal of Political Economy 30, no. 4 (1922): 531–42. 292 Ibid., 98–9, 102, 107–110. IICI, L’Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle:

1925–1946 (Paris: IICI, 1946), 262. The Milan Conference resolved in the end that the Italian members should prepare such a study. It was later reported that the ‘question of the State and economic life had more especially given rise to a controversy between the Italian representatives who were in favour of the corporative State, and various members of the Conference.’ See ‘International Studies Conference,’ Intellectual Co-operation: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 8–9 (1934): 270–1. 293 LON, A Record of a First International Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 110–1.

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encouraged in the view that the CISSIR should become completely independent of the IIIC and the ICIC. This was the view of Carter who in 1932 remained the secretary of the American Council of the IPR but who in 1933 would become the IPR’s secretary-general. Carter attended the Milan conference just as he had attended the CISSIR’s conference in Copenhagen in the previous year. In Milan, he served as a member of the conference’s programme committee. It is noteworthy that this committee included three representatives of the IIIC, namely, Bonnet, Picht and Fergus Chalmers Wright.294 Carter’s view was of concern to the IIIC and the ICIC both of which were keen to ensure that an institution which had developed within the interior of the IIIC did not move outside its orbit and therefore outside the orbit of the LON. In contrast to Carter, Shotwell, who observed at the Milan conference on behalf of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, pronounced himself ‘entirely satisfied’ with the CISSIR’s relations with the ICO. In a report on the conference that he wrote for the benefit of that organisation, Shotwell expressed support for the conference’s continuing affiliation with the LON. Later, Dufour-Feronce informed Murray that he had discussed Shotwell’s report with Drummond and that Drummond’s response had been that he too considered it ‘distinctly desirable’ that the meetings of the various institutions for the study of international relations ‘should take place under the auspices of the League.’ However, Drummond had also told Dufour-Feronce that it was ‘equally desirable’ that the ICO ‘should not in any way exert any official influence either on the subjects chosen for discussion at such meetings, or on the methods by which they are treated,’ adding that the member institutions should be given ‘full freedom in this respect.’ Drummond maintained that in adopting this stance, the ICO would be able to ‘satisfy two rather divergent elements’: those such as Shotwell who tended to favour ‘perhaps too close a contact’ with the ICO and those who adopted the ‘Carter line’ which preferred ‘absolute independence’ from it.295 The sometimes fraught character of relations between the CISSIR and the IIIC in Paris, was made explicit in a letter sent early in 1933 by Picht to the director-general of the RIIA, namely, Ivison S. Macadam. 294 Ibid., 183. 295 Sir Eric Drummond quoted in Albert Dufour-Feronce to Murray, 11 June 1932, AG

1-IICI-K-I-1.f, UA. On Shotwell’s status at the conference, see LON, A Record of a First International Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 177.

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In his letter, Picht complained that in a leaflet advertising the forthcoming CISSIR session in London, the British organisers had conveyed ‘a wholly inadequate conception’ of the relationship between the CISSIR and the IIIC. Although the leaflet acknowledged that the CISSIR was originated by the IIIC, it had completely ignored the fact, Picht stated in his letter to Macadam, that the IIIC organised its meetings, paid most of its expenses and provided it with a permanent functioning secretariat.296 In any case, it was because of concerns that the Carter line might prevail, that in 1934 the ICIC declared that what by then went under the name of the ISC, was an ‘autonomous and independent organisation.’ In light of this, the role of the IIIC, which up until then was ‘exclusively responsible for the direction of its work,’ was modified such that the ISC was not subject to any ‘exterior authority’ and its responsibilities were confined solely to its member institutions.297 That the CISSIR was constrained in certain ways because its association with the LON seemed to confer on it a quasi-official status, was not the only concern to which the Milan conference gave rise. There was also concern about the intellectual quality of the CISSIR’s approach. During an extensive discussion at the conference’s fourth study meeting, Shotwell praised the ‘method followed at Milan,’ declaring that the ‘miscellaneous character of the discussions’ reflected the nature of the subject at hand and the different experiences brought to bear on it. Shotwell maintained that to attempt to reduce the problems addressed in Milan to ‘any, logical system of discussion’ would be to falsify the scientific approach.298 Offering a somewhat different assessment of the method of approach adopted in Milan was the historian Paul Mantoux. Mantoux had attended the Paris Peace Conference as an interpreter for Georges Clemenceau and had gone on to serve as the first director of the Political Section of the LON Secretariat. In 1927, he co-founded the Graduate Institute of International Studies in association with William E. Rappard, the latter being a member of the Swiss delegation to the Peace Conference, 296 Picht to Ivison S. Macadam, 19 March 1933, Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales: 1 February–31 March 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.h, UA. 297 IICI, L’Institut de la Coopération Intellectuelle 1925–1946, 300. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 95. 298 LON, A Record of a First International Study Conference on the State and Economic Life,

xxi.

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director of the Mandates Division of the LON until 1925, a member of its Permanent Mandates Commission and rector of the University of Geneva. Mantoux informed Picht that his personal impression was that the subject matter covered in Milan was too ‘vast.’ He told Picht that he expected that the forthcoming reports of the various national groups would only with great ‘difficulty’ succeed at forming a ‘coherent’ whole.299 This view was more delicately expressed in the ICO’s monthly bulletin which noted that the conference was ‘less remarkable by its scientific results than for having permitted organisers to know the nature of the problems raised by such an enterprise.’300 Despite these concerns and despite the confrontation, albeit relatively muted, between the partisans of corporatism and their liberal opponents at Milan, the Milan ‘experiment’ was ‘generally admitted’ by delegates to have been a ‘success,’ something that was due in many ways, some delegates claimed, to the ‘very helpful and considerate attitude’ of its ‘Italian hosts.’301 Thus, in September 1932, the efforts undertaken in Milan in May were given the imprimatur of the Sixth Committee of the Thirteenth Assembly, which requested that the ICO continue to extend itself into the domain of international relations and that it diffuse the Milan conference’s results as widely as possible.302 That Shotwell wanted a close association between the conference and the ICO is to be understood in terms of his desire to see closer relations between the United States and the LON more generally. Clearly, he felt that the CISSIR was an important conduit in this respect. One should also consider here his interest in the teaching of international civics: instruction in the principles underlying the new situation created by the LON. That Shotwell urged a continuing and close association between the ICO and the CISSIR also concerned his larger ambitions for the ICIC: he wanted 299 Paul Mantoux to Picht, 12 July 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. 300 ‘L’État et la vie économique 1933,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 37 (1934): 15–

21, 16. 301 Picht to Macadam, 18 March 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. ‘A debate of a particularly

high standard was possible and the proceedings at all times remained within the limits of a disinterested and objective discussion in spite of the fact that divergent theories were advanced on a highly momentous and controversial subject which touched on the very organisation of the State, its rôle and its responsibility…. The delegates all agreed that this first experiment carried out at Milan was a complete success and thus demanded to be fully developed.’ IIIC, Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle: 1925–1946, 259. 302 ‘Rapport de la Sixième Commission à l’Assemblée,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 20–21 (1932): 1193–1197, 1197.

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it to become the focal point for the internationalisation ‘of the outlook of those sciences which deal with human affairs,’ such that they would ‘do for the community of nations what they had done for the national state.’ At this point, Shotwell considered the CISSIR to be the main organ for this activity of internationalising the sciences dealing with human affairs. In a note submitted for consideration at the ICIC’s plenary session of July 1932 on behalf of the American National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation which was subsequently endorsed by the ICIC, Shotwell declared that the success of the Milan conference showed that the CISSIR could ‘further the study of concrete problems’ and suggested that the CISSIR should commence to study the range of problems addressed by the LON’s technical divisions. He maintained that in this way, the LON’s intellectual cooperation organisation might serve as an ‘ancillary body’ to these divisions, ‘bringing to them the objective and scientific statement of general principles and theory’; in relation to this, he suggested that the details of the ‘proper subjects’ to be studied by the CISSIR be ‘left in the hands’ of the IIIC along with the CISSR’s programme committee.303

Surveys of Teaching and Research It was because of his concern that international civics should form part of the university curriculum, along with his desire to see research in the field of international relations constructively planned, that Shotwell initiated a ‘preliminary draft’ of a ‘guide to the study of international relations’ in the United States in 1932.304 As he reported to Bonnet in August of that year, he had wanted a guide to the study of international relations along the same lines as a guide to education that had been prepared under the auspices of the World Peace Foundation and to which Shotwell had contributed the introduction.305 Edited by Grover Clark and issued in mimeographed form under the auspices of the American Social Science Research Council,

303 ‘The Study of International Relations: Professor Shotwell’s Proposals,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932): 108–9, and ‘Annex 3: The Study of International Relations; Introductory Note Submitted by Professor James Shotwell to the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932): 139–40. 304 Edith E. Ware, ed., The Study of International Relations in the United States: Survey for 1934 (New York: Columbia University Press), xi. 305 Shotwell to Bonnet, 20 August 1932, AG 1-IICI-B-V-9, UA.

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this preliminary guide or survey covered the years 1932–1933.306 The preparation of such a survey had been urged for some years. Shotwell noted that it was the first project put forward at the Social Science Research Council in 1927 ‘when, for the first time, the council recognised international relations as a distinct area of research.’ Another consideration leading to the preparation of the survey, according to Shotwell, was that the IPR had stressed the need for such surveys in order that it could coordinate ‘the studies in its wide program with those of a similar nature in other parts of the world.’307 The IIIC too had emphasised the importance of guides to the study of international relations in its case in relation to the work of the CISSIR. Indeed, Shotwell later stated that it was in order to ‘meet the obligations of American membership’ in what he tellingly called ‘this European organization,’ that he had initiated another and more comprehensive survey of the study of international relations in the United States, this time under the auspices of the American National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.308 It was this survey that lead to the publication of The Study of International Relations in the United States: Survey for 1934 under the guidance of Edith E. Ware who had been appointed the survey’s editor by Shotwell.309 The origins of the obligations to which Shotwell referred concern a discussion that took place on 12 June at the CISSIR’s meeting in Paris in 1930. In a letter to Picht, Anne Hallsten-Kallia, a Finnish national who was a member of the Intellectual Cooperation Section of the LON Secretariat, explained that in the course of this discussion, the sentiment was expressed that it would be regrettable if the domain of instruction remained uninformed by the ‘methods and the results of the most recent research’ that had been achieved by savants in the field of international relations. Hallsten-Kallia observed that during the same discussion, it had been stated that ‘the situation of the modern world,’ and, indeed, the maintenance of peace itself, demanded the ‘application of healthy intellectual methods’ in the field of instruction. It was in view of this discussion, Hallsten-Kallia pointed out, that the CISSIR had passed a resolution asking for cooperation

306 Ware, The Study of International Relations in the United States: Survey for 1934, xi. 307 James T. Shotwell, introduction to Ware, ed., The Study of International Relations in

the United States: Survey for 1934, 18. 308 Ibid., 20. 309 Ware, ed., The Study of International Relations in the United States: Survey for 1934, ix.

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with the LON’s Sub-committee of Experts on the Instruction of Youth in the Aims and Activities of the League on the matter of promoting closer relations between the domain of public instruction and the scientific study of international relations.310 A direct result of this resolution was the formation of a Mixed Committee, comprising three CISSIR members, Carter being among them, and three members of the Sub-committee of Experts on the Instruction of Youth in the Aims and Activities of the League. The first meeting of the Mixed Committee took place in the course of the CISSIR’s conference in Copenhagen in 1931. Zimmern, who served as one of the representatives of the Sub-committee at Copenhagen at the direction of Murray, ‘attached great importance’ to the meeting of the Mixed Committee, telling Bonnet (who would also attend the meeting), that this would be the first time that the scientific study of international relations would be ‘officially brought into contact with the world of public instruction.’311 At the meeting in question, the Mixed Committee resolved on the basis of a proposal of another representative of the sub-committee, namely, Wilhelm Schellberg of the Prussian Ministry of Education, that a ‘permanent liaison’ be established between the work of the sub-committee and that

310 Anne Hallsten-Kallia to Picht, 3 November 1930, Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales 1930, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.1, UA. See also IIIC, The International Studies Conference: Origins, Functions, Organisation, (Paris: IIIC, 1937), 62. This booklet was compiled by Fergus Chalmers Wright. 311 Alfred E. Zimmern to Bonnet, 4 April 1931, and Montenach to Bonnet, 27 April 1931, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.b, UA. The members of the Mixed Committee representing the CISSIR at Copenhagen were the following: the Danish historian and foreign minister Peter Munch (chairman), Edward C. Carter (replacing Earle B. Babcock), and Louis Eisenmann, a professor of history in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Paris. The Representatives of the Sub-committee were Professor Giuseppe Gallavresi, Professor Wihelm Schellberg and Alfred E. Zimmern. Picht and two representatives of the LON secretariat, namely, Gustave Gérard Kullmann (who gave the Burge Memorial Lecture in 1933 under the heading of Youth and Moral Disarmament ) and Anne Hallsten-Kallia were also present. See Delegation of the Subcommittee of Experts for the Instruction of Youth in the Aims of the League of Nations: Report by M. Gallavresi on the Work of the Joint Committee of the Representatives of the Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations and of the Subcommittee of Experts, 1. Quartrième Conférence des institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales, 1931 (aprés la Conférence), AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.v, UA. Zimmern himself had already been planning a conference of teachers of international relations at the Geneva School of International Studies since before Copenhagen. The school hosted the first of several of these in September 1931. See the note by Margaret E. Cleeve, Secretary of the Library and Publications at the RIIA, 26 June 1931, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA.

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of the CISSIR. It requested that the ICIC ‘instruct’ the secretariat’s Educational Information Centre to coordinate a series of studies concerning the types and methods of instruction insofar as they touch on the LON as well as on international affairs more generally. Two important reasons for the adoption of the latter proposal was that the Mixed Committee felt that it would serve to bring ‘into prominence what is commonly called “League of Nations teaching”’ and because it was felt that in this area of instruction there was a certain tendency to propagandise or sermonise. The investigation recommended by the committee was thus intended to ensure that instruction in the aims and activities of the LON was based ‘on a foundation of solid facts.’ In this regard, the Mixed Committee thought that the CISSIR could be of great assistance: it could disseminate information concerning the experiments of its member institutions such as those undertaken at the DHP. In turn, the Mixed Committee thought that the CISSIR’s member institutions could profit from engagement with the subcommittee as it had already ‘collected a number of ideas and methods useful for all who are called upon to teach what is nowadays called “International Relations”.’312 The Mixed Committee’s resolution was subsequently endorsed by the CISSIR, the Sub-committee of Experts and by the ICIC. Upon endorsing the resolution, the ICIC proclaimed that there was an ‘urgent need’ for such a study, noting that the ‘problem of the nature of international studies, of the relationship of this subject to other university courses, of its place within the curricula and the question of sources and material for teaching had provoked lately important national and international discussions.’ The process commenced by the Mixed Committee’s resolution concluded with the adoption of resolutions on the subject of the study of international relations by the LON Council and the Twelfth Assembly. In its resolution on the subject, the assembly called upon the ICIC to instruct the Educational Information Centre that to undertake a study of the activities of the various ‘Institutes for the scientific Study of International Relations’ in regard to the imparting of knowledge of the LON and the development of

312 Delegation of the Sub-committee of Experts for the Instruction of Youth in the Aims of the League of Nations: Report by M. Gallavresi on the Work of the Joint Committee of the Representatives of the Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations and of the Sub-committee of Experts, Quartrième Conférence des institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales, 1931 (aprés la Conférence), AG 1-IICI-KI-1.c, UA.

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the ‘spirit of international cooperation with special reference to the scope, nature, methods and results of such activities.’313 The Educational Information Centre thus sent to the coordinating committees and institutes affiliated with the CISSIR a questionnaire concerning the ‘scope, nature and organisation of the study of international relations.’314 In light of this questionnaire, the BCCIS initiated in January 1932, a survey of international relations teaching in Great Britain. Compiled by Stanley Hartnoll Bailey, an assistant lecturer in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), it addressed not only university teaching, but also teaching in schools and in then burgeoning field of adult education.315 Bailey’s report excited such ‘keen interest’ that the BCCIS sought from and gained the permission of the Educational Information Centre to have it published before the planned general study ‘containing the replies of the different countries was printed.’316 Thus, International Studies in Great Britain, as Bailey’s survey was entitled, was published by Oxford University Press on 6 April 1933, in view of which the BCCIS convened an informal meeting of educational experts at Chatham House in St. James’s Square, the home of the RIIA, on 23 June to discuss how the study of international relations in Britain might be furthered.317 As noted above, there was concern in some quarters about the tendency among some in the field of international studies to propagandise or 313 Memorandum Concerning an Enquiry into the Various Activities of the Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations in so Far as They Tend to Impart a Knowledge of the League of Nations (Geneva: LON, 14 January 1932), AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. See also Helen McCarthy, The British People and the League of Nations: Democracy, Citizenship and Internationalism, c. 1918–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 109. 314 League of Nations, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 64. 315 Bailey, International Studies in Great Britain, xi-xii. See also Stanley Hartnoll Bailey to

Picht and the attached preliminary report of the BCCIS entitled Progress of the Enquiry into the Scientific Teaching of International Relations, 25 April 1932, Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales, 1 April–27 May 1932, AG 1-IICI-KI-1.e, UA. 316 LON, IIIC, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 65. 317 For the date of publication, see Cleeve to Picht, 29 March 1933, Conférence perma-

nente des hautes études internationales, 1 February–31 March 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-, UA. The BCCIS reported that the meeting discussed the ‘possibilities of taking action in connection with suggestions put forward in…[Bailey’s]…Report,’ Reports on activities from the British Co-ordinating Committee for International Studies, 1930–1934, AG 1-IICI-K-VI-1, UA.

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sermonise: to regard the teaching of international relations as a vehicle for promoting the LON and the ideals which it embodied. Such a concern is explicable not only in intellectual terms but also in institutional terms: international relations at that time was a field of study still struggling to establish itself and gain institutional respectability. This concern no doubt helps explain the ad nauseam insistence of the CISSIR and then the ISC on the scientific character of their intellectual work. Bailey touched on this concern in the introduction to International Studies in Great Britain, noting therein that the resolution adopted by the Twelfth Assembly referred not only to the need for educational institutions to provide for the study of international relations but also to the need to foster the ‘spirit of international co-operation.’318 Bailey observed that there was obviously an ‘essential difference between the two branches’ of the resolution as the first concerned the ‘scientific study’ of international relations whereas the second concerned the ‘widest possible acceptance of a given social objective.’ Bailey did not deny that the scientific study of international relations may well lead to the conclusion that, in a given context, the spirit of international cooperation is ‘essential.’ However, he added that the promotion of this spirit ‘cannot be recognized as an accepted part of the direct official teaching of a university without endangering the latter’s scientific reputation’ and risking the charge of propaganda. Bailey’s outlook was more in accord with that of the Charles A. W. Manning, the successor to Noel-Baker as the Sir Ernest Cassel Professor of International Relations at the LSE in 1930 and a former personal secretary to Drummond in the latter’s role as secretary-general, than it was with that of Zimmern. Bailey explained in his introduction to International Studies in Great Britain that it was thought that in view of its ‘status and functions,’ the BCCIS ‘was more qualified to investigate the first than the second branch’ of the assembly’s resolution. Thus, although Bailey’s study addressed ‘measures to promote the study of the League of Nations,’ its main focus was on ‘the wider question of international studies in general.’319 The question of the scientific standing of the discipline of international relations aside, Bailey’s conclusion in regard to the scope for undertaking international studies in Britain in the context of institutions of higher education, was that it remained very limited. His finding was that in most

318 Bailey, International Studies in Great Britain, xii. 319 Ibid., xii–xiii.

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universities, ‘any knowledge of or instruction in international relations’ gained by students enrolled in such institutions was ‘the result of implication (or even hazard) and not of any explicit teaching.’320 The great exceptions to this were, Bailey noted, the LSE and the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth, these being the only institutions at that stage where undergraduate and postgraduate studies of international relations were ‘organized independently of other departments.’321

The Lexicon of Political Terms: 1932 In London in 1929, the CISSIR approved a project for a lexicon of political and politico-philosophical terms: a lexicon of those terms which may mean different things when employed in different languages or which are peculiar to a particular language and which are not easily translatable into another. The lexicon project had been proposed by the political psychologist Wilhelm Haas, another member of faculty at the DHP involved with the conference. Haas had argued that misunderstandings of a linguistic kind can lead to profound misunderstandings in the context of international relations. In order to help break down barriers to mutual understanding, Haas proposed the preparation of a handbook of key politicophilosophical terms. According to Haas’s original plan, this handbook was to be published in English, French, German and Italian. It should be noted that the original endorsement of the project appeared to stem more from the opportunity it offered for intellectual collaboration with German scholars rather than from any great enthusiasm for the project itself. Although the Milan conference saw the project reconfirmed, it was decided that only a single edition of the handbook would be published. The approach to the lexicon as of May 1932 was as follows: the terms selected from each of the aforementioned languages were to have their meanings discussed in turn in those same languages, in view of which the pages of the lexicon were to be formatted in the form of four parallel columns. Having reconfirmed the lexicon project and determined that only a single edition would be published, the conference appointed an international editorial committee

320 Ibid., 8–9. 321 Ibid., 3.

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under the directorship of Haas with the expectation that by the time of the next conference the work would be near completion.322 The editorial committee met for the first time on 30 January 1933 at the Palais Royal under the chairmanship of Haas. H. A. Smith, a professor of international law at the LSE, represented the British group; Bouglé, Louis Joxe, the latter being an assistant to Pierre Cot who was by then the French minister for air, and Mantoux represented the French group; Ernst Jäckh, the founder and president of the DHP, represented the German group; and Giannino Ferrari dalle Spade, then the rector of the Royal University of Padua, and Massimo Pilotti, represented the Italian group. (Pilotti, an Italian delegate to the Disarmament Conference, in the previous month had been appointed to the position of one of three under secretaries-general at the LON Secretariat. In July 1933, he would become one of two deputy secretaries-general, the other being another former under secretary-general, namely, Yotaro Sugimura, serving in that role under Drummond’s replacement as secretary-general, namely, Joseph Avenol). The meeting of January 1933 was also attended by Earle B. Babcock, who had acted as a substitute for Millikan, at the ICIC’s plenary session in 1932. Babcock’s principal occupation was that of deputy-director of the European Centre of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an institution that had provided considerable financial support for the lexicon project. Picht also attended in order to represent the IIIC.323 322 Information Bulletin 1, no. 2–3 (1932), 60. See also LON, ‘The Scientific Study of International Relations (Milan Conference),’ International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1932, 33. Note that Rothbarth was a firm supporter of the lexicon project because as a frequent participant in international conferences, she was conscious ‘of the importance of foreign languages.’ Lemke, ‘“La femme, la clandestine de l’histoire” Margarete Rothbarth—ein Engagement für den Völkerbund,’ 50. 323 Première réunion internationales des comités des rédaction pour le lexique politique, 30 January 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA. It was expected that the lexicon would run to 900 pages. Massimo Pilotti was early associated with the ICO. In a publication dated 15 July 1927, the IIIC announced the following: ‘M. Massimo Pilotti, Italian legal adviser to the Reparations Commission and to the Ambassadors Conference [of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers]’ has been ‘appointed Italian delegate to the International Institute [of Intellectual Cooperation.’ ‘Appointments,’ Bulletin of the Section of Information and Reference, nos. 9–10 (1927), 2. See also Gentile to Bonnet, 9 May 1930, Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales, 1930, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.a, UA; Righetti to Wilhelm Hass, 21 May 1931, AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA; and Gentile to Picht, 1 May 1931, AG 1-IICIK-I-1.b, UA. Gentile sent Pilotti on his behalf to attend the 1930 CISSIR in Paris. Presumably, it was in light of Pilotti’s appointment to the position of under secretary-general that Giannino Ferrari dalle Spade replaced Pilotti on the committee overseeing the lexicon project and

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It was telling of developments in Germany, that the committee decided at its meeting that in addition to certain other terms that were common to the vocabulary of the German Right such as Volkstum and Deutschtum, the lexicon should address the term Führer.324 Although Haas would continue as the project’s international director into 1934, his role in directing its German end was not to last much longer.325 At the beginning of April, the teaching department of the DHP was brought under the control of Joseph Goebbels and his Ministry

attended the CISSIR’s Copenhagen conference in 1931 in place of Pilotti. The creation of two deputy secretary-general posts resulted from a review of the organisation of the secretariat in 1932. In addition to his role as under secretary-general, Yotaro Sugimura was director of the Political Section of the secretariat. Considered a LON loyalist, when Japan withdrew from the LON, Sugimara was forced to resign. F. P. Walters, A History of the League of Nations (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), 557–8. Frank P. Walters observed that Pilotti was a lawyer ‘of profound learning…[who]… had made his peace with Fascism, but was by temperament utterly opposed to its aggressive and bombastic character. Like other Italian members of the Secretariat, he was watched and spied upon by the numerous Fascists who frequented Geneva as delegates, consular officers, or propagandists, and who sought to win the approval of the men in power in Rome by parading their dislike for the League. Pilotti did his best to reason with his former chiefs: but he could do little to change their purposes’ (ibid., 558). For Sugimura, see also Morley, The Society of Nations, 278n. Tollardo notes that Massimo Pilotti’s legal expertise had seen him participate in Italian delegations to a number of important international conferences, including the Disarmament Conference. She notes that he had also been a deputy delegate to the LON. She adds that although Pilotti approached his role as a ‘legal expert’ rather than as a politician, ‘he was asked to put into practice his expertise when the crisis between Italy and the institution peaked as a result of the Italo-Ethiopian conflict’ and that he ‘played a key role in presenting the Italian case during the Ethiopian crisis.’ Tollardo further observes that Pilotti’s ‘approach to the [League] organization and to internationalism was opportunistic and his relationship with Fascism ambiguous.’ Tollardo, Fascist Italy and the League of Nations, 1922–1935, 81–3. 324 SDN, IICI, Cinquième Session de la Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des Relations Internationales, Milan, 23–25 May 1932: Lexique de termes politiques, liste des termes, and SDN, IICI, Seiziéme session de la Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des Relations Internationales, London 29 May–2 June 1933: Lexique de termes politiques, rapport du directeur de la publication, AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA. Eric D. Weitz notes that the terms Volkstum and Deutschtum conveyed the idea of a a ‘kind of German essence…based on shared “blood”’. Eric D. Weitz, Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 333. 325 Haas reported optimistically to the administrative meeting of the CISSIR at its 1933 session that although the German editorial committee would ‘have to undergo a certain change’ in light of recent events he was confident that a new committee would be formed in the near future. SDN, IICI, Seiziéme session de la Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales, London 29 May–2 June 1933: Lexique de termes politiques, rapport du directeur de la publication, AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA.

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of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. It was not a surprising move: a school devoted to the study of politics which had strong links to the Weimar Republic was an obvious candidate for Nazi takeover.326 Indeed, Jäckh stated a short time after the takeover that he had been given to understand that Hitler ‘had long ago promised the school to Goebbels.’327 The fulfilment of this promise was devastating for students and staff. Steven D. Korenblat records that within the next twelve months eighty per cent of a student body numbering some 2000 had been replaced and almost fifty per cent of the permanent academic staff had exiled themselves.328 A much smaller but nonetheless striking change concerned the typeface used on the stationery bearing the institution’s letterhead and the details of its address. Consistent with the general typographical trend in Germany at the time, during the Weimar period the DHP had replaced the traditional gothic typeface it had at first used on its stationery with a modern-looking roman sans-serif typeface.329 However, after its nazification, the DHP once again announced itself in blackletter gothic.330 As Simon Garfield points out, the Nazis considered ‘roman text degenerate, believing that only traditional gothic text could fully express the purity of the nation.’331 On 21 April, Carter, concerned by the developments in Germany, wrote to Picht with whom he had become acquainted while at the Milan conference. In his letter, Carter asked Picht on behalf of the American Council

326 Korenblat, ‘A School for the Republic?,’ 395. See also Peter Gay, Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974), 42. 327 Korenblat, ‘A School for the Republic?,’ 395. 328 Steven D. Korenblat observes that among those who left the DHP following its takeover

were ‘some of the most talented scholars of the great intellectual migration of the 1930s’. Korenblat, ‘A School for the Republic?,’ 395. 329 On the shift away from a gothic type-face in Weimar Germany, see Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts (London: Profile Books, 2010), 190–1. 330 The typeface used to display the name Deutsche Hochschule für Politik on the stationery used by Ernst Jäckh in a letter to Picht on 2 November 1929, indicates that the DHP had at first used blackletter before switching to roman text. When such a switch occurred is not clear, especially as the typeface displayed on the DHP’s stationery in a letter sent by Haas to Picht on 6 June 1929, is roman. See AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA. For a comparison between the typeface used by the DHP in the Weimar period with that used by the DHP following its nazification, see Friedrich (Fritz) Berber to Chalmers Wright, 8 May 1936, Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales: Peaceful Change, March–April 1936–1 June 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-I-15.c, UA. 331 Garfield, Just My Type, 191.

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of the IPR, whether the ‘new situation’ in Germany affected ‘in any way plans’ for the upcoming session of the CISSIR in London.332 The answer to Carter’s question is to be found in a letter dated 24 April sent by Hoetzsch to Picht. In that letter, Hoetzsch informed Picht that as the DHP was now under the control of the propaganda ministry, its relationship with the Committee for Foreign Affairs had come to an end. This development explains why Hoetzsch crossed out the name Deutsche Hochschule für Politik and the address of that institution as they appeared on the official stationery he used in order to write to Picht: the DHP’s name and address appeared directly below the name of the German unit of the CISSIR on the same official stationery. Hoetzsch indicated in the same letter that the Berlin address of the German coordinating committee, of which Hoetzsch remained president, would be for the time being be Hoetzsch’s personal address.333 Irrespective of the administrative difficulties that the German coordinating committee now faced, Hoetzsch persisted with the organisation of a German delegation to assist at the London conference, informing Picht in the following month that it would include himself in his capacity as professor at the University of Berlin, Herbert von Beckerath of the University of Bonn and Carl Brinkmann of the University of Heidelberg. In the event, these three men would be joined in London by Arnold Bergstraesser, another former member of faculty at the DHP who was at this point an instructor at Heidelberg University, as well as Jäckh. In regard to Jäckh, it should be noted that while he was listed among the five representatives of the Committee for Foreign Affairs in an appendix to the proceedings of the conference in London, his name, unlike the names of the other four German delegates, was not associated with any institution. As Hoetzsch told Picht, Jäckh was no longer associated with the DHP as he had retired from it following its nationalisation as was also the case, Hoetzsch pointed out in his 24 April letter to Picht, with another member of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, namely, Arnold Wolfers.334 332 Edward C. Carter to Picht, 21 April 1933, Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationals, 11 April–14 June 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. 333 Hoetzsch to Picht, 24 April 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. 334 Hoetzsch to Picht, 18 May 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. In a paper read at Chatham

House in October 1932, Arnold Wolfers argued the following: that ‘despite…[Hitler’s]…antidemocratic tendencies,’ the movement Hitler lead was a mass movement and thus Hitler had developed a stronger awareness of the need for popular support than had the leaders of other

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In his 21 April letter to Picht, Carter had also inquired as to whether Wolfers’ recent ‘change of residence’ was a barrier to him ‘acting as Director of the Conference,’ by which he meant Wolfers’ role as generalrapporteur within the framework of the CISSIR’s 1931–1933 study cycle on the subject of the state and economic life.335 In regard to this, it should be noted that a letter Wolfers sent to Picht under the date of 12 May and in which the former elaborated on the work that he was undertaking in preparation for the CISSIR’s next conference, had been posted from the town of St. Gallen in Switzerland: from Wolfers’s home-town. This letter may be indicative of the change of residence to which Carter referred. Yet even if this were the case, what the letter also shows is that Wolfers had not as yet quit Germany altogether: in the same letter, Wolfers asked Picht to send communications in relation to his work for the conference to his private address in Berlin, an address to which, Wolfers added, he would be soon returning.336 The question of Wolfers’s place of residence aside, there was no question of Wolfers being removed from the position of general-rapporteur irrespective of where he was domiciled. As Picht had earlier told Hoetzsch in an exchange concerning the composition of the German delegation, Wolfers’s position as general-rapporteur, which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, was an international position and thus, as Picht also told Hoetzsch, Wolfers was not considered to be a member of the German group.337

conservative groups. Wolfers further argued that Hitler ‘may therefore become a force for making democracy He is fighting to-day against what he believes to be threat of class dictatorship by some small privileged minority, particularly the Junkers…[T]he further we go the more this character of his movement as a safeguard against social reaction is likely to come to the fore.’ Arnold Wolfers, ‘The Crisis of the Democratic Régime in Germany,’ International Affairs 11, no. 6 (1932): 757–782, 769. 335 Carter to Picht, 21 April 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. 336 Arnold Wolfers to Picht, 12 May 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. 337 Picht to Hoetzsch, 4 May 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. On the funding of

Wolfers’s position, see IICI, L’Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle: 1925–1946, 260.

CHAPTER 2

The International Studies Conference

The Opening of the London Conference The inaugural meeting of the ISC’s 1933 session, which ran from 29 May to 2 June, was held at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Lord Eustace Percy, a former president of the British Board of Education, member of parliament and the author of the preface to Bailey’s International Studies in Great Britain, gave the address of welcome.1 Sir James Arthur Salter, who had been elected chairman of the British Coordinating Committee for International Studies (BCCIS) following Sir William Beveridge’s retirement from the position due to his other commitments, among them being directorship of the LSE, occupied the role of conference president.2 Given that the second International Monetary and Economic Conference (or World Economic Conference [WEC]), would be taking place London in two weeks time (a conference which was considered along with the Disarmament Conference to potentially exceed in importance any 1 Lord Eustace Percy, preface to Bailey, International Studies in Great Britain, v–x. 2 ‘La conférence à Londres sur l’État et la vie économique,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 31

(1933): 347–64, 347. For Sir William Beveridge’s account of his resignation, see Beveridge to Picht, 21 October 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.f, UA. After retiring from the position of chairman of the BCCIS, Beveridge became its vice-chairman. See also Report of the Council of the RIIA, 1932–1933, Fourteenth Annual General Meeting of the Institute, 7 November 1933, 42–45, Reports on Activities from the BCCIS, 1930–1934, AG 1-IICI-K-VI-1, UA.

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congress which had taken place since the Peace Conference in 1919), both the BCCIS and Bonnet had been very keen to secure the presence of Salter. Salter had been appointed director of the Economic and Financial Section of the secretariat of the LON at the time of its creation and continued to occupy that until 1931, overseeing during his tenure a considerable expansion of that section. Following his departure from the secretariat, he authored an acclaimed economic study called Recovery: The Second Effort (1932).3 For Bonnet, the London conference represented an opportunity for getting the work of the Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations (CISSIR), the name of the ISC prior to a decision made in London on 1 June 1933, known among ‘informed opinion’ in Britain.4 For this reason Bonnet strongly urged Murray to attend the conference, stating in a letter to the latter that as the CISSIR had ‘entered upon a new and important phase of its activities’ and could now be said to ‘represent one of the most promising activities’ of the ICO, it would be highly ‘desirable’ that the chair of the ICIC associate himself directly with it.5

3 Cleeve to Chalmers Wright and Chalmers Wright to Cleeve, 11 and 13 January 1933, Conférence des institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales, 1 November 1932–31 January 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.g, UA. On the importance accorded the Disarmament Conference and the World Economic Conference, see Report of the Council of the RIIA: 1932–1933, Fourteenth Annual General Meeting of the Institute, 7 November 1933, 5, AG 1-IICI-K-VI-1, UA. For James Arthur Salter’s role at the LON see Morely, The Society of Nations, 279–80. Morley noted that for some years, the Communications and Transit Section of the secretariat was under the general supervision of Salter by virtue of his position as director of the Economic and Financial Section. When the Communications and Transit Section gained complete autonomy, Robert Haas, who had earlier enjoyed the title of chief of section, became its director. In 1931, following Salter’s departure from the LON, the Economic and Financial Section was divided into two sections: the Economic Relations Section and the Financial Section. Pietro Stoppani, an Italian, was appointed director of the former section, and Alexander Loveday, a Briton, was appointed director of the latter section. See also Patricia Clavin and Jens Wilhelm-Wessels, ‘Transnationalism and the League of Nations: Economic and Financial Organisation,’ Contemporary European History 14, no. 4 (2005): 465–92, 475–6. Patrician Clavin and Jens Wilhelm-Wessels explain that the division of the Economic and Financial into two sections was the result of a ‘bunfight over who should take over’ which was spurred by ‘the usual national rivalries’ that attended such matters. They also note that under Salter’s watch, the Economic and Financial Section ‘expanded from seventeen to sixty members of staff in the years between 1921 and 1931’ (ibid., 475). 4 Picht to Macadam, 18 March 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.h, UA. 5 Bonnet to Murray, 8 March 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.h, UA.

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The conference’s social activities were elaborate, overly so in Zimmern’s view. Indeed, in a letter sent to Picht, who attended the conference in his role as principal secretary of the IIIC, immediately after the conference, Zimmern proposed that at the next meeting of the ISC’s executive committee a motion be put recommending that at future conferences ‘social entertainment on an elaborate scale should be avoided’ and that the conference should be organised with a view to delegates becoming ‘better acquainted with one another and with their fellowworkers.’6 Zimmern did not specify which social activities had prompted him to issue this proposal, but among the grander events staged in celebration of the London conference was a reception held at Lancaster House on 29 May by invitation of His Britannic Majesty’s Government and a banquet held at Claridge’s Hotel on the night of 1 June by the invitation of Sir Abraham Bailey on behalf of the RIIA.7 No less than the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of London attended the latter function, arriving, according to Margaret Elisabeth Cleeve, secretary of the Library and Publications Department of the RIIA, secretary of the BCCIS and editor of International Affairs, ‘mit coach.’8 The BCCIS decided that at the dinner at Claridge’s two formal toasts would be made: the first to ‘The Guests’ and the second to the ‘The Study of International Relations.’ It proposed that the first toast be made by Abe Bailey since he was host of the event, and that the second be made by a member of the German delegation.9 Fergus Chalmers Wright was a Briton who had become an official of the IIIC in Paris at the beginning 6 Zimmern to Picht, 5 June 1933, Conférence des institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales: 1 April–14 June 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. For Picht’s role as principle secretary of the IIIC and for the participation in the conference of other figures connected with the LON, see LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 419–20. Chalmers Wright also represented the IIIC at the conference, in his case in his role as secretary at the institute. Gustave Gérard Kullman, a Swiss lawyer, represented the Intellectual Cooperation Section of the LON Secretariat. Also represented at the conference were three delegates of the Subcommittee of Experts for the Instruction of Youth in the AIms and Activities of the League of Nations: Giusepppe Gallavresi, professor at the Royal University of Milan; Wilhelm Schellberg, Ministerialrat at the Prussian Ministry of Education; and Zimmern. 7 Report of the Council of the RIIA, 1932–1933, Fourteenth Annual General Meeting of the Institute, 7 November 1933, 9, 44, AG 1-IICI-K-VI-1, UA. Two hundred and seventyeight guests attended the dinner at Claridge’s Hotel. 8 Cleeve to Chalmers Wright, 17 May 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. 9 Chalmers Wright to Hoetzsch, 9 May 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA.

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of 1931. He worked at the institute for most of the 1930s with a ‘couple of interludes,’ the first of which saw this University of London economics graduate, ‘seconded to the…National Economic Council of China as foreign person assistant to’ the Chinese finance minister, namely, Soong, a post which Soong held from late October 1928 to early November 1933.10 In May 1933, it fell to Chalmers Wright to write to Hoetzsch on behalf of the conference in order to tell him that the BCCIS ‘would be very much gratified’ if one of the German delegates would make the toast in reply. Chalmers Wright stated in his letter that the members of the BCCIS had expressed to him their ‘especial satisfaction’ that he, Hoetzsch, would be attending as president of the German unit of the ISC and that it would give them ‘much pleasure’ if he would agree to make the requested speech.11 It was an invitation that Hoetzsch promptly accepted.12 In his address of welcome, Percy, who was accompanied on the podium by Beveridge, Bonnet, Sir Neill Malcolm, chair of the council of the RIIA, James Scorgie Meston, 1st Baron Meston and one of the RIIA’s founders, and Murray among others, characterised the conference as an unofficial international monetary and economic conference and called on it to demonstrate that ‘there is such a thing as a dispassionate and scientific approach’ to the problems which the nations faced despite the ‘jealousies and ambitions’ which coloured international affairs.13 In replying to Percy’s address on behalf of the delegates, Sébastien Charléty, rector of the University of Paris and president of its council, member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques and chairman of the Commission française de coordination des hautes études internationales, associated the work of the conference with the LON and the ‘great enterprise of Moral Disarmament and Intellectual Co-operation.’14 10 Chalmers Wright, Fergus Camille Yeatman (Oral History), Imperial War Museum (production company), Laurie Milner (recorder), Chalmers Wright, Fergus Camille Yeatman (interviewee/speaker), no. 1, 1984–1985, Imperial War Museum, Sound Archive, Catalogue no. 8188. For the dates bookending T. V. Soong’s period as finance minister, see ‘Foreign News: Chiang’s Cabinet,’ Time, 29 October 1928 and ‘CHINA: Soong Out,’ Time, 6 November 1933. 11 Chalmers Wright to Hoetzsch, 9 May 1933, Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales, 1 April–14 June 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. 12 Cleeve to Chalmers Wright, 17 May 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. 13 LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on

the State and Economic Life, 3, 5. 14 Ibid., 9.

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Following Charléty’s address, the general rapporteur for the conference’s study cycle on the state and economic life, namely, Wolfers, submitted his report on the preparatory work undertaken by the institutions affiliated with the conference. Then took place a brief administrative meeting, which saw the conference divide itself into two committees. At this point, the inaugural meeting terminated and Salter took Percy’s place in the chair in order to deliver a presidential opening address to a plenary study meeting. In his address, Salter also underlined the significance of the theme and timing of the London session and hailed the ‘prophetic vision’ of those who had planned it. London, he noted, soon would witness ‘such a concentration of world authority as has never yet met to consider the world’s economic problems,’ adding that this offered the members of the conference an ‘extraordinary opportunity.’15 This opportunity concerned the ISC’s capacity to convey to the state officials participating in the WEC a broader perspective on the two major issues confronting the world: the need to reform the capitalist system in light of the challenge posed by communism and the question of whether the world trading system would continue to ‘expand and develop’ or whether the world would move towards a system consisting of ‘separate, closed, and possibly hostile units.’ Salter explained that it was in order to avoid the latter outcome, that efforts in respect to the organisation of the WEC had been directed, adding that should it fail to arrive at an agreement on repairing and restoring the world economic structure then there was a ‘serious danger’ that the world would enter ‘an era of more deliberate nationalism.’16

The State and Economic Life All of the work of the two committees into which the conference divided itself was undertaken at Chatham House. The first of these committees, that is, Committee I, addressed the topic of ‘Measures Affecting International Trade’ and was chaired by the French economic historian Henri Hauser. The second of the two committees, that is Committee II, addressed the topic of ‘State Intervention in Private Economic Enterprise’ and was

15 Ibid., xvi, 9, 15. 16 Ibid., 16–7.

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chaired by the American economic historian Edwin F. Gay.17 In the context of the meetings of second of the two committees, there was once again disputation over the issue of the extent of state intervention in the private economic sphere. The Italian delegation to the conference numbered seven. One of these delegates, namely, Etore Rosbach, a member of the Chamber of Deputies and a former under-secretary of state at the ministry of finance, was vice-president of the conference. At the conference, certain of the Italian delegates, along with certain of the German delegates, argued that ‘orderly economic progress was not possible without an all-pervading system of State control,’ thereby, according to a report in the IIIC’s monthly bulletin, giving voice to the ‘authoritarian ideals’ of the Fascist State and the new German Reich.18 As the above comment of the IIIC’s monthly bulletin would suggest, the discussion of state intervention went beyond a confrontation between different visions of the economic system to encompass a confrontation between different political philosophies and forms. Amoroso insisted that economic liberalism, which he maintained was based in a ‘[m]aterialisic empiricism,’ was a ‘relic of the past.’ Giving expression to the vitalistic side of Fascism, he declared that the twentieth century was a ‘century of will’ and of ‘living forces’: it was a political as opposed to an economic century. Forthwith, he prophesied, it would be ‘men of genius,’ that is, those with a capacity to foresee events and a ‘will to act’ who would lead the masses.19 On behalf of the German delegation, Brinkmann insisted that the economic laws which hold individual economic forces together can only obtain to the extent that there is a ‘present a definite cultural, social and political background, a definitely social and political morality.’ This background and morality, Brinkmann added, having noted that on this point he thought the

17 Report of the Council of the RIIA, 1932–1933, Fourteenth Annual General Meeting of the Institute, 7 November 1933, 42–5, AG 1-IICI-K-VI-1, UA. See also LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, xvi. 18 ‘The State and Economic Life: 1933,’ Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 2 (1934): 54–8, 57, and LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, xvi, 417. 19 LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 183–4.

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Germans and the Italians were united, ‘are, for us, embodied in the State and the Nation, and nothing but the State and the Nation.’20 Wholeheartedly endorsing Brinkmann’s observations, Bergstraesser stated that ‘orderly economic progress was not possible without an allpervading system of State control.’ Bergstraesser then observed that what has been called ‘Der totale Staat ’ represented more than an ‘administrative device’ or ‘form of discipline.’ The state, Bergstraesser maintained, is the ‘living existence of the Nation’ or rather ‘Volk:’ it is ‘the productive and spontaneous forces of the soul of the Nation, which form an intimate relationship with the State and internal economic policy.’ Bergstraesser, who had been a member of faculty at the German Political Academy until his recent black-listing and who in 1936 would have to leave the University of Heidelberg following which he went into exile, agreed with Brinkmann that it was the extent to which the state embodied the nation and society and not the ‘fiction of general elections’ that qualified a state as democratic.21 John H. Richardson, a professor of industrial relations at the University of Leeds and the rapporteur for this particular discussion, later noted that ‘several German speakers’ at the meeting had insisted that their new system was ‘fundamentally democratic,’ arguing that the current ‘transitional period was misleading’ as it gave ‘the appearance of autocracy.’ Richardson added that the same speakers were of the view that ‘democratic forces would ultimately constitute the basis of the state’ under the new regime, albeit via plebiscitary rather than parliamentary mechanisms.22 Reprising his performance at Milan in the previous year, Bouglé challenged those he referred to as the ‘Gentlemen’ from the ‘organic States’; he added that ‘we in France…do not seem to be in the mood for merging the Nation and the State into one’ through abdicating in favour of a ‘despot-organiser.’23 Specifically addressing Amoroso, Bouglé asked:

20 Ibid., 194. 21 Brinkmann stated that ‘it is practically certain that the will of the nation, as expressed by

Parliament, did not correspond to the will of the nation in general.’ LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 200, 209. For Arnold Bergstraesser’s black-listing, see Korenblat, ‘A School for the Republic?’ 394. 22 LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 307. 23 Ibid., 205, 207.

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‘What remains in Italy of political liberty and intellectual liberty?’ Answering his own question, Bouglé spoke as follows: Your workers are content, you say…excuse me, my dear colleague, I do not wish to be ironical, but how should I know? For in all countries where political repression reigns one never gets to know what those affected are thinking. Why?— Because silence reigns, a silence which you call peace….When you say that Liberalism is no longer a faith, I reply that as regards economic Liberalism I agree, but in the matter of liberty, intellectual Liberalism, there are still people who are ready to die in defence of it; they are a race which still exists, which is not yet quite extinct. This sentiment must be taken into account; it is a thing which still has value in our eyes—and I do not believe that the experiments made, as yet, in any country in the world can show that on this point we should abdicate. It is the future that which will judge between you and us; it is experience which will divide us.24

It is worth noting here that Bouglé, with the support of figures such as Bergson and Scelle, had helped establish in Paris that year a bureau of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt Institut für Sozialforschung) which had been proscribed by the Reich on the grounds of ‘tendencies hostile to the state.’25 Jean-Michel Palmier points out in his study Weimar in Exile: The Antifascist Emigration in Europe and America, that Bouglé did not share the political beliefs of the Frankfurt Institute, noting in relation to this that Bouglé belonged to the Radical Party.26 As evidenced by his interventions at the 1933 ISC however, Bouglé was a tenacious defender of political and intellectual liberty and it was Bouglé who secured the institute offices within the confines of the École normale supérieure on the rue d’Ulm.27 In the context of the discussion concerning state intervention, Toynbee pointed to the contradictory nature of the National Socialist and Fascist points of view: they condemned the ‘individualism of laisser-faire’ yet then 24 Ibid., 192–3. 25 Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute

of Social Research, 1923–1950 (London: Heinemann, 1973), 29–30. 26 Jean-Michel Palmier, Weimar in Exile: The Antifascist Emigration in Europe and America, trans., David Fernbach (London: Verso, 2006), 719. 27 Ibid., 194, 212.

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proceeded immediately to advance ‘the most complete individualism and laisser-faire’ at the interstate level. Toynbee cautioned that as states do not exist in a ‘vacuum’ but rather intersect with each other at many levels, they must ‘take account of the co-existence’ of other states as otherwise there would be collisions between them.28 Yet Toynbee also struck a conciliatory note in relation to the National Socialist and Fascist points of view, stating that it was only ‘natural’ that countries which ‘adopted the first form of the modern industrial organization at second hand from England, should now be pioneers and experimenters’ and that a country such as England in which liberalism ‘had its roots,’ would now find it difficult to ‘make experiments.’ Toynbee added that he welcomed the implementation of new economic policies because he thought that when faced with ‘unprecedented situations,’ what is required is ‘a great variety of experimentation.’29 It was also in a spirit of conciliation that Toynbee declared at the conclusion of the discussion the following: I am speaking plainly and frankly. We can still admire the idealism in movements like the National Socialist revolution in Germany and Fascism in Italy, even though we are shocked at some of the violences that have accompanied this movement. When I say ‘shocked,’ you will remember the historic British hypocrisy; but even British hypocrites do sometimes remember the parable of the mote and the beam; and people like people like me, when we see and hear of things that shock us in other parts of the world, do take care to remind ourselves of the last chapter of Irish history, or repeat to ourselves the name of Amritsar, or consider that the Government of which we happen to be ‘subjects’ is holding up the workings of the Disarmament Conference just now by insistence on bombing primitive tribesmen in far parts of the world for policy purposes. So, if I mention violence, I am not using names I am not prepared to apply to myself.30

Having declared this, Toynbee then drew attention to a ‘remarkable’ speech that the German chancellor had made in the Reichstag on 17 May and to the German chancellor’s broadcast address on the day of the Danzig elections, that is, on 28 May. Toynbee observed that the point made by the 28 LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 195. 29 Ibid., 185, 187. See also Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 2 (1934), 57. 30 LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on

the State and Economic Life, 293.

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chancellor in his speech of 17 May and in his broadcast eleven days later, was that the National Socialist movement in Germany, as a movement that is ‘deeply conscious of its own national life’ and is intent on securing ‘its own national existence, must, ipso facto, in human justice, have the same regard for other nationalisms of neighbouring peoples.’31 Overall, the discussion of state intervention in London in 1933 was thought to be calmer than had been the discussion of the same topic in Milan in the previous year. The IIIC’s monthly bulletin explained that the relative calmness of the former discussion was due in part to the fact that participants had brought with them to the London ‘carefully prepared memoranda’ on the topics of the corporative state, liberalism, socialism and economic planning.32 In should further be noted in this regard that the Italian and German delegates had been at pains to stress in their written and verbal contributions that while National Socialist and Fascist systems required a ‘controlled and regulated’ economy, this form of economy was ‘perfectly compatible with the tendencies and necessities of a relatively liberal world economic order.’33 It also needs to be pointed out in this context, as was also pointed out by the IIIC’s monthly bulletin, that opinion on the question of state intervention in the economic sphere had been shifting in those countries which had long favoured a more liberal approach to economic matters.34 Indeed, as Wolfers noted in his general introductory report to the conference’s proceedings, the memoranda submitted to the conference were ‘practically unanimous in stressing the increase in intervention or the swift decrease in laisser-faire.’35 At the same time, many delegates, concerned by the phenomenon of intensifying economic nationalism, urged the view that planned economies should be treated as bases on which to develop 31 Ibid., 294. See also ‘Nazis Expect Victory: Danzig Election: Big Demand for Swastikas,’ Brisbane Courier, 29 May 1933. 32 ‘International Studies Conference,’ Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 8–9

(1934): 270–1. 33 In his report of the conference’s proceedings, Wolfers observed that the Italian memorandum bore ‘witness to a planned, energetic and completely comprehensive State economic policy’ and praised the Italian delegation’s attitude of ‘moderation’ in insisting on the maintenance of the ‘essence of the Liberal economic order.’ LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 40, 55. 34 Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 8–9 (1934), 271. 35 LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on

the State and Economic Life, 39.

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an international economic plan.36 In relation to this, widespread support was expressed for the creation of an international economic organism to address economic disputes between states and to bring to bear a ‘moral code’ on international economic relations.37

The Open Door and Colonial Policy The second of the conference’s two committees, that is, the committee addressing the question of measures affecting international trade, witnessed a vigorous debate concerning the policy of the Open Door versus that of imperial preference. This topic had become especially sensitive and controversial in recent times in light of Ottawa Agreements: as a result of the pressure placed on Britain by the Dominions at the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa in 1931, imperial preference had been extended within the British Empire.38 The rapporteur for the conference’s committee on international trade was Rappard and he observed in his report of the proceedings of Committee I that the ‘tendency of the Ottawa Agreements to substitute Imperial Preference for the traditional Open Door policy was generally deplored.’39 In the context of the committee’s proceedings, Rappard himself had argued that from the point of view of the rest of the world the decisions taken at Ottawa must be regretted to the extent that they ensure preferential advantages to the Empire in its relations with the Colonies. How is the possession of a Colony to be justified? Historically there is the right of conquest; morally there is the incapacity of the natives to govern themselves well; economically there are the claims to natural riches, which are only to be found in the Colonies. But if colonisation can be justified that way, there still remains one condition: it is that the primitive population shall be governed in their own interests— as has always been the splendid British tradition—and also in the interests of the whole world, and not preferentially in the interests of the administrator.

36 Ibid., 186, 286, 318. 37 IICI, L’Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle: 1925–1946, 262. 38 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 31 (1933), 361. 39 LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 71–2.

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It is in regard to this last point that I cannot see any sign of progress in the decisions taken at the Ottawa Conference. There is progress in the recognition of a liberty which is to be assured to the Colonies in the future. But whereas the pre-Ottawa system assured the natives of equality in their relations with the rest of the world, and assured the world of outlets for the industrial products and free sources of supply, the liberal regime has been replaced by a system which is more restrictive in every way.40

Yet the Ottawa agreements were not only regarded as regrettable from the perspective of the world at large: it was pointed out that they were also viewed in this light in parts of the British Empire. For example, Condliffe’s successor as research secretary at the International Secretariat of the IPR, namely, William L. Holland, told delegates in London that the agreements were of concern to both Malaya and Hong Kong because the development of these parts of the empire largely depended on each of them being ‘a great entrepôt and distributing centre.’ In relation to Hong Kong specifically, Holland observed that what was happening in China was of great moment for Hong Kong that what was happening in the empire, adding that ‘alarm is already beginning to be expressed’ in Hong Kong in regard to the ‘effect of Preferences within the Empire.’ Implicitly criticising the Ottawa Agreements for the example they set, Holland observed that the closed system of colonial tariff policy that Japan had developed in Manchuria, had been justified by ‘public men in Japan’ with reference to the ‘example of the British Empire.’41 The discussion concerning the Open Door policy and Imperial Preference saw Italian and German speakers raise the interrelated issues of emigration and access to markets and raw materials.42 Addressing these matters, Giuseppe Gallavresi, a sometime substitute Italian delegate to the LON and a member of the Sub-Committee of Experts for the Instruction of Youth in the Aims of the League, noted that ‘thickly populated countries’ such as Italy and Poland which had ‘no raw materials to export but only some few manufactured goods which they export at the cost of heavy sacrifices,’ had managed in the past to ‘equalise their balance of payments’ as a result of the remittances sent home by their ‘nationals working abroad.’ Gallavresi added that a closed door policy which destroyed the ‘possibility of 40 Ibid., 90. 41 Ibid., 93–4. 42 Ibid., 87–9, 96.

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emigration from over-populated countries’ upset the balance of payments of such countries, thus giving them further cause to abandon free trade. Calling attention to recent legislation in Australia, Gallavresi stated that the closing of the door to ‘foreign labour’ from certain European countries was an affront to ‘great and ancient nations’ and showed disregard for their power and ‘contribution to civilisation.’43 The Open Door policy was also defended by the Italian delegation on the ground of equity: it argued that the policy served to mitigate the ‘disadvantages of an unequal distribution of Colonial possessions.’44 A similar argument was presented by Beckerath who stressed that the Open Door was of ‘immense importance’ to countries like Germany and Italy because of their great need for access to foreign markets and their lack of colonial possessions. He warned that the continuation of ‘the Closed Door policy’ would inevitably cause these countries to ‘ask for Colonies or mandated territories of their own.’45 Zimmern, who had expected that the discussion would take this course, conceded that as a scholar he did not approve of the outcome of the 1932 Ottawa Conference, stating that he wished it had taken place after the WEC. Nonetheless, he maintained that the Open Door policy was ‘unsatisfactory’ on the basis that it was ‘in essence reactionary’: it made a ‘clean cut between self-governing areas and non-self-governing areas, treating the latter as the more passive elements in the world’s economy.’46 Touching on the notion of imperial trusteeship, Zimmern insisted that it was simply no longer possible to treat the ‘colonial areas without any regard to the wishes of their inhabitants,’ adding that this was exactly what the Open Door policy entailed in its unilateralism. Zimmern went on to state that in Germany and Italy in particular, there was much discussion of the ‘desirability for industrial countries without colonies to obtain them,’ noting that this discussion was ‘carried on without any reference to the wishes of the inhabitants of the areas concerned.’ Zimmern contended that when it came to 43 Ibid., 87–9. 44 Ibid., 98. 45 Ibid., 96. Toynbee, who knew Herbert von Beckerath well, later recalled that he had ‘no time’ for the Nazi regime, pointing out that his opposition to the regime caused him to quit Germany for the United States. Arnold J. Toynbee, Acquaintances (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 268–9. 46 LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 87, 99.

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the question of access to raw materials, the correct approach was to ‘bring the Colonial areas on an independent basis into discussion, so that they can get better terms from countries which would otherwise like to annex them.’47 John Coatman, a professor of imperial economic relations in the University of London, argued similarly, warning that a complete open door policy, no less than a closed door policy, would ‘drag…primitive societies into the orbit of the economic system of the highly developed Powers, and put them and their welfare at the sport of conditions over which they have no possible control and cannot even understand.’48

A Canadian Complaint Given that conference on the state and economic life had been engaged in a ‘scientific study’ of certain of the economic and financial problems that were certain to be faced by those about to assemble for the International Economic and Monetary Conference, it was ‘generally felt and subsequently agreed upon that a statement of opinion based on the rapporteur’s reports, representing the thoughts of scholars and experts, as well as indicating certain broad lines of policy…should be made generally available to all the delegates’ to the WEC.49 Thus, at the suggestion of Salter, the conference instructed the IIIC to ‘immediately’ prepare a statement on some of the subjects discussed by the conference ‘together with an introductory letter by M. Henri Bonnet, the Director of the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, addressed to the Secretary-General of the Economic and Monetary Conference, requesting that the document be submitted to that conference.’50 47 Ibid., 87. 48 Ibid., 92. 49 LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, xvii, and Report of the Council of the EIIA, 1932–1933, Fourteenth Annual General Meeting of the Institute, 7 November 1933, 43, AG 1-IICI-KVI-1, UA. 50 Report of the Council of the RIIA, 1932–1933, Fourteenth Annual General Meeting of the Institute, 7 November 1933, 43, AG 1-IICI-K-VI-1, UA; Alfred E. Zimmern, Report on the Administrative Meeting of Sixth Session of the International Studies Conference (1), 29 May–2 June 1933, 1 June 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA; and LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, xvii, 15. The record of the CISSIR’s second study conference on the state and economic life includes details on the scheduling of the WEC.

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Within days of the conclusion of the conference, the IIIC published a pamphlet bearing the following title: For Communication to the Monetary and Economic Conference: League of Nations, Sixth International Studies Conference, Statement on the Proceedings of an International Conference on the State and Economic Life, London, 29 May to 2 June 1933.51 Included in the pamphlet was Bonnet’s letter to the secretary-general of the WEC, Rappard’s report on Committee I, extracts of Richardson’s report on Committee II, the memoranda submitted to the conference, the names and identities of the participants in the conference and a note on the two committee reports.52 Despite the hope that the efforts of the ISC thus summarised might somehow influence the proceedings of the WEC, perhaps the pamphlet’s greatest impact was to earn the ire of Richard Bedford Bennett the Canadian prime minister. Bennett was angered by those passages in the pamphlet which voiced criticism of the Ottawa Agreements and with regard to this he sent a strongly worded letter of complaint to Avenol.53 After having consulted Bonnet, Avenol forwarded a letter to Bennett, attaching to it a memorandum explaining that the work of the conference was of a ‘scientific character’ and that like the IPR ‘which brings together distinguished personalities…of the countries of the Pacific basin,’ the ISC did ‘not adopt conclusions in the form of resolutions or even recommendations.’ In particular, Avenol sought to minimise the significance of the 51 LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, xvii, and Chalmers Wright to Bonnet and attached document, 5 June 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. 52 Chalmers Wright to Bonnet and attached document, 5 June 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA, and LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, xvii. 53 Michael Riemans, ‘International Academic Cooperation on International Relations in the Interwar Period: The International Studies Conference,’ Review of International Studies 37, no. 2 (2011): 911–28, 919. Pham Thi-Tu, La coopération intellectuelle sous la Société des Nations (Paris: Librairie Minard, 1962), 21n, 24. Following a general discussion of the activities of the council, the LON Assembly at each session would distribute the questions that required examination among six committees. The First Committee addressed constitutional and juridical questions; the Third Committee addressed disarmament; the Fourth Committee addressed budgetary and administrative questions; the Fifth Committee addressed social questions and the Sixth Committee addressed political questions. Questions concerning Intellectual Cooperation were addressed by the Fifth Committee in 1921 and 1923; by the Second Committee in 1922 and from 1924 to 1927; by the Sixth Committee in 1928; by the Second Committee from 1929 to 1930 and then by the Sixth Committee from 1931 to the outbreak of the Second World War.

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association between the conference and the LON, insisting that the fact that the opinions set out in the pamphlet were expressed at a conference organised by ‘an organ of the League,’ namely the IIIC, ‘in no way invests them with official authority or League approval.’ All this, Avenol pointed out, was indicated by the title of the pamphlet and the introductory letter written by Bonnet.54 That the brochure emanated from an organ of the LON was at the heart of Bennett’s complaint which was reissued by a Canadian delegate to the LON, namely Robert James Manion, at a meeting of the assembly’s Sixth Committee later that year. Responding to Manion’s criticism of the ISC’s submission, Bonnet, representing the IIIC in front of the Sixth Committee, underlined the ‘impartial, scientific spirit’ in which the ISC conducted its business; he pointed out that the conceptions which inspired the Ottawa Agreements had been ‘duly represented’ in London and that the savants participating in the conference had no intention of assuming the role of ‘men of State.’55

Administrative Matters The London gathering saw representatives of the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain participate for the first time as full members of the conference. At its plenary administrative meeting on the afternoon of 1 June, the Netherlands Coordinating Committee for International Studies (Nederlandsch Comité voor de Coördinatie van Internationale Studiën), the New Zealand branch of the IPR and the Federation of Spanish Associations for International Studies (Federación españoles de estudios internacionales), were all warmly welcomed. With the admission of these groups, the total number of countries affiliated with the conference now numbered fourteen. At the same meeting, the executive committee authorised the conference to accept the admission of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and the Japanese Council of the IPR as members should these institutions be willing to act as national coordinating committees.56 54 Joseph Avenol to Richard Bedford Bennett, 22 August 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.h, UA. 55 ‘Les échanges de vues á la VIe Commission,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 34–35

(1933): 577–81, 579–80. In 1933, the Sixth Committee met on 30 September and 5 October. 56 Zimmern, Report on the Administrative Meeting Sixth Session of the International Studies Conference (1), AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA. For a complete list of participants in the ISC’s session in London in 1933, including both conference members and observers, see LON:

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In respect to the question of the admission of new members, the conference adopted a set conditions of membership which were based on what had been its practice thus far. These conditions included the specification that member institutions ‘must not engage in political propaganda or direct political activities,’ but should study international relations in a ‘disinterested spirit’ and that neither individuals nor governments or governmental organs may be admitted to membership.57 Also at its administrative meeting, the executive committee proposed a change in the name or names of the conference. The committee proposed that instead of what Charléty described as the ‘somewhat pedantic’ title of Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations, the conference be referred to as either the Conference on International Studies or International Studies Conference. The English-speaking members of the conference decided on the latter title as the name for the association. It was a name which, according to Manning, demonstrated a tacit recognition that a ‘single theme demanded to be studied under numerous scientific perspectives.’58 It was thus under the heading of International Studies Conference that the English-language record of the proceedings of the 1933 conference and, as indicated above, the English-language version of the pamphlet submitted to the International Economic and Monetary Conference were published. The new French and Italian titles for the conference proposed by the executive committee were respectively, ‘Conférence des Hautes Etudes Internationales’ (which was accepted by the Francophone members at the Sixth International Studies Conference, Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 14–7. Representatives of Dutch and New Zealand institutions were present as observers at the CISSIR’s 1931 session. Five international institutions were represented at the 1933 conference: The Hague Academy of International Law; the European Centre of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; the Geneva School of International Studies; the Graduate Institute of International Studies and the IPR. For the names of the Dutch and Spanish members of the conference, see LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 417–8. 57 LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, xii. Emphasis in the original. See also Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 31 (1933), 362. 58 ‘Collective Security: A Preliminary Study Conference: IV Opening Meeting,’ Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin 11, no. 5–6 (1934): 152–5, 153; Zimmern, Report on the Administrative Meeting of the Sixth Session of the International Studies Conference (1), AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA; and C. A. W. Manning, ‘Observations sur l’enseignment universitaire des relations internationales,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 68–69 (1936): 52–7, 54.

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meeting only to be changed to Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales in the following year), and the ‘Conferenza di Studi Superiori Internazionale.’ The German title selected by the committee was ‘Studienkonferenz für internationale Politik,’ although it was left to the German members to decide on whether to adopt the new title or retain the old one. In the event, the German members decided to retain the original title of ‘Konferenz der Institutionen für das wissenschaftliche Studium internationaler Beziehungen.’59 The administrative meeting endorsed the recommendation of the conference’s programme committee in regard to its determination of the subject for next study conference. Among the criteria set down for the purpose of guiding this committee in its decision was that the subject chosen ‘should result in a publication capable of exercising some influence on public opinion’; that it ‘should be in a field of study where there has been little organised research’ and that the ‘subject should be one that opinions are likely to be divided at the outset.’60 Based on these criteria and on the feeling that it would be timely to turn from economic questions to a question of capital political importance, the topic chosen was ‘collective security: the principles and methods involved’ or, more specifically, the ‘rules and procedures ’ necessary to ensure ‘in so far as possible the maintenance of peace’ with a view to reinforcing the ‘security of every state.’61 Proponents of this topic believed that it had ‘acquired

59 Zimmern, Report on the Administrative Meeting of the Sixth Session of the International Studies Conference (1), AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA. For the change in the French title in 1934, see ‘Ouverture de la Conférence,’ Coopération Intellectuelle no. 40–41 (1934): 188. ‘The work carried out on the subject of State intervention in economic life supplied material for a volume of 450 pages published in a French and English edition. This volume represents the result of two years’ work by the Conference, its national groups and the international institutes affiliated to it.’ ‘International Studies Conference,’ LON, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1934 (Paris: IIIC, 1935), 35. 60 Zimmern, Report on the Administrative Meeting of the Sixth Session of the International Studies Conference (1), AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA. The members of the Programme Committee were Cybichowski, Eisenmann, Ferrari dalle Spade, Hoetzsch, Salter, Wolfers, Zimmern, John V. Van Sickle (assistant director of the Division of Social Sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation, Paris), Holland, Macadam and Commander Stephen King-Hall (secretary of the Study Groups Department, RIIA). See also League of Nations Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 415–20. 61 ‘Collective Security: Meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Studies Conferences of 1934 and 1935,’ Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 2 (1934): 44–53, 44–5.

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exceptional interest’ due to the ‘efforts of the Disarmament Conference,’ recalling here that France had been insisting at this conference on the need for mutual guarantees of security. More particularly in this context, the choice of this topic should be viewed against the background of a plan put forward by the French delegation at the Disarmament Conference for the organisation of force.62 It is important to point out that in addition to nervousness about the political situation in Europe, a nervousness that explains the French calls for mutual guarantees and the organisation of force, the choice of collective security was greatly spurred by the failure of the LON to fully activate its collective security mechanisms in relation to the Japanese aggression in Manchuria and the inability of the LON to ‘prevent or stop’ the war between Bolivia and Paraguay: Chaco War.63 Allan W. Dulles, who was the legal adviser to the American delegation at the Disarmament Conference and who would chair the ISC’s 1935 session, suggested at the opening of that session that the embrace of the subject of collective security was not solely driven by a concern that international relations had entered a more precarious phase: it may have also reflected a degree of confidence that the prospects for collaborative international efforts were improving. Dulles observed in mid-1935 that when the subject of was chosen in the summer of 1933, ‘we were on the eve of the World Economic Conference, and the Disarmament Conference…had entered a stage of its work which held out real hopes of concrete results.’ Nonetheless, he added that even under those conditions the subject was ‘at best an ambitious one.’64 The ISC’s administrative meeting was certainly of the view that the subject was ambitious: departing from the approach it adopted in regard to its study of the state and economic life, the meeting decided that as it ‘seemed almost impossible to finish the preparatory work [on collective security] in one year,’ it would hold a preliminary conference

62 ‘Intellectual Co-operation in the Service of the League of Nations,’ Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 1 (1934): 13. 63 G. P. Gooch, ‘The Breakdown of the System of Collective Security,’ in Problems of Peace: Twelfth Series: Geneva and the Drift to War Order (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1938), 68. 64 Fergus Chalmers Wright, Population and Peace: A Survey of International Opinion on Claims for Relief from Population Pressure (Paris: IIIC, 1939), 3. For Allan W. Dulles’s statement, see ‘Addresses Delivered at the Inaugural Meeting,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 40. See also, Fergus Chalmers Wright, Population and Peace: A Survey of International Opinion on Claims for Relief from Population Pressure (Paris: IIIC, 1939), 3.

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in 1934, but ‘postpone the actual discussion till 1935.’65 The ISC’s executive committee met at the Palais Royal on 25 January 1934. The meeting was chaired by Louis Eisenmann, a professor history in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Paris. Also present were Babcock; Maurice Bourquin, a Belgian jurist and diplomat who was then a professor at the Graduate Institute for International Studies and who had been appointed ‘rapporteur-general of the Conference on Collective Security’; Ferrari dalle Spade, who was described in the record of the meeting as the former rector of the Royal University of Padua; Gilbert Gidel, secretary-general of the Academy of International Law at The Hague, Haas; Jäckh; Mantoux and Zimmern. The secretariat of the LON was represented at the meeting by Hallsten-Kallia and the IIIC by Bonnet. The meeting was also attended by Joxe in the capacity of expert appointed by the institute. The meeting decided that the ISC’s preparatory study meeting on collective security would be held in late May or early June and that it would take place in France on the invitation of the French coordinating committee in a city to be chosen later. The meeting noted that the arrangement adopted by the ISC’s administrative meeting in the previous year in regard to the study of collective security, namely, that of holding a preparatory conference in 1934 to be followed by a full discussion of the subject at a conference in 1935, would allow for ‘more thorough and more detailed exposés.’66 The committee further noted that according to Gay, such an arrangement was ‘calculated…to increase chances of agreement between experts.’67

The Reports of Hoetzsch and Jäckh Before the ISC’s administrative meeting in London discussed the matters described above, it addressed the reports on the activities of the national groups for the year 1932–1933. While many of the national groups had submitted written reports in advance, the representatives of the Dutch, Italian and German committees delivered oral reports. Needless to say, there was considerable interest in what the representative of the German

65 Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 2 (1934): 44. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid.

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committee, namely, Hoetzsch, had to say in relation to the changes in Germany and the ‘re-organisation’ of the DHP.68 Hoetzsch commenced his report with the observation that the committee of which he was president had worked hard over the previous year. He then stated that the ‘national revolution’ in Germany, which, he insisted, was being conducted in a ‘positive and constructive’ manner, had not ‘diminished the interest’ that Germany brought to bear on the ‘scientific study of the political sciences.’ Hoetzsch declared that in fact it was with a ‘growing and ceaseless zeal that the young generation’ dedicated themselves to the study of these sciences. Having declared this, Hoetzsch stated that he expected that the German national committee would continue to work fruitfully in order to ‘develop the task’ that had been embraced by what was now the ISC. Hoetzsch then informed his audience that the DHP, as a result of the ‘application of new dominant principles,’ had been transformed and that this transformation was of a nature that it could no longer form part of the German National Committee for International Studies. He could not see at present how that situation might change. Further to this, Hoetzsch explained that the Central Department for Home Service (Reichszentrale für Heimatsdienst), which had been responsible for public relations work under the Weimar Republic and had served as a permanent host of the German national committee (along with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prussian Ministry of Education), had been ‘transferred to the new minister of propaganda’ and thus could no longer host the committee. He told the audience he was confident that a new permanent host would be found.69

68 Zimmern, Report on the Administrative Meeting Report of the Sixth Session of the International Studies Conference (1), AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA. 69 SDN, IICI, Seizième session de la Conférences des Institutions pour les études scientifique des relations internationales: rapport sur les activités du Ausschuss für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten de Berlin en 1932–1933, présenté par le professeur Otto Hoetzsch, président du Ausschuss, Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales—Institutions nationales, Allemagne, 1926–1935, AG 1-IICI-K-IV-2.c, UA. Hoetzsch suggested that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prussian Ministry of Education (which, as indicated above, was represented at the conference in the form of Schellberg), might continue to serve as permanent hosts of the German committee. He further suggested that the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) might serve as a host. It was a condition of membership of the ISC that organisations have sufficient equipment and resources to participate in the conference and that they were able to function ‘at least for an appreciable period of time in each year,’ hence the need for a host organisation. LON,

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After Hoetzsch had concluded his report, Jäckh proceeded to review the history of the DHP and elaborate on its recent fate. Jäckh commenced as follows: May I add to this general report of Professor Hoetzsch a few words, concerning my ‘Hochschule für Politik’ and the changes which have been made in the last few weeks. I should like to do so, not only because I feel it necessary to say farewell (so to say) to the old Hochschule just in midst of this circle, the machinery of which has been originated within that Hochschule; but also because—as I gather from your questions—you are specially entitled to have full particulars.70

Jäckh recalled that the DHP had been founded in memory of his only son Hans who, at the age of eighteen on 16 September 1918, had been killed in action on the Chemin des Dames. Jäckh stated that he had founded the DHP in order to help those of his son’s ‘generation overcome the chaos of the world as it was by the creation of a new order.’71 He pointed out that to this end, the DHP had initiated collaboration with the IIIC in 1926, adding that this was two years before Germany ‘officially decided’ to be represented at the IIIC and formed its own national committee of intellectual cooperation. Jäckh observed that it was the DHP, with the ‘help of our friend Zimmern,’ that had laid the groundwork for the first meeting in Berlin of what would become the CISSIR and that it was the DHP that had organised the German coordinating committee for international studies and appointed Hoetzsch as its president.72 Jäckh then recalled that it was at the DHP that the Austrian ambassador at Berlin issued the first draft of what became the Locarno Treaties and that the ‘first public European impulse’ was given to the Pact of Paris by ‘our friend’ Shotwell. Referring to himself and to the declaration of the delegates of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States concerning equality of rights of 11 December 1932, Jäckh asserted that it was the president of the academy who ‘formulated for the problem of disarma-

Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, xii. 70 Enrst Jäckh (address, Sixth CISSIR, London, 1 June 1933), AG 1-IICI-K-IV-2.c, UA. 71 Dedication in Jäckh, The New Germany, and Jäckh (address, Sixth CISSIR, London, 1

June 1933), AG 1-IICI-K-IV-2.c, UA. 72 Jäckh (address, Sixth CISSIR, London, 1 June 1933), AG 1-IICI-K-IV-2.c, UA.

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ment and security literally the same principles which the Geneva agreement of the Five Great Powers accepted one year later.’ It was this same president he continued, who had tirelessly sought to explain to audiences in the United States, Canada, London, Paris and Geneva, ‘the principles and aims, the unique and inescapable necessities which are bound to be pursued by every government of Germany – from Stresemann through Brüning up to Hitler.’73 As to the fate of the DHP, Jäckh pointed out that it had always been divided into two sections: a teaching department and a research school. He noted that while the former was now controlled by the state, the latter, remained in private hands. Jäckh took care to draw attention to the fact that the DHP’s research school was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He also claimed that it comprised his ‘principal colleagues from the old Hochschule.’ It was a mark of the esteem in which the DHP was held by the National Socialist government, Jäckh declared, that immediately after the ‘national socialist revolution three ministries competed with each other as to which should take it totally under its wing.’ Jäckh stated that the fact that the academy was now under state control was ‘quite natural and logical’ given the totalitarian principle on which the new German state was based. However, he added that a consequence of this state control was that the new regulations regarding state officials and public servants, ‘including the “Arian [sic] paragraphs”’ had to be applied. Jäckh explained that if he had remained in his position as president, he would have had to dismiss those ‘tried and valued friends and fellow-workers’ who came under these regulations; as he could not bring himself to do this, he stated, he had decided to resign.74 The National Socialist government, Jäckh asserted, had ‘shown full appreciation’ of his position. He pointed out that following a ‘private and intimate conversation’ that he had with Chancellor Hitler, it had been ‘induced’ to ‘conduct the formalities of liquidating’ the DHP ‘in a correct and generous spirit.’ This was a gesture, Jäckh stated, to which in ‘full fairness’ he wanted to give ‘full recognition’ at the administrative meeting. Despite his obvious sadness at losing the academy which he had founded, Jäckh concluded his speech on a positive note. He informed his audience that 73 Ibid. 74 The two other ministries Jäckh mentioned were the Prussian Ministry of Sciences and the old Reich Ministry of the Interior. Jäckh (address, Sixth CISSIR, London, 1 June 1933), AG 1-IICI-K-IV-2.c, UA.

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‘with the express consent of the new State,’ he was currently working on plans to convert the research department of the old academy, which, he insisted, remained independent, into an institute of international relations. Jäckh concluded his speech in stating that he hoped that it would be in his capacity as head of such an institute that he would be able to collaborate with an international studies conference that would be ‘more international than ever in spite of all nationalismes [sic].’75 Jäckh’s speech moved this audience and upon its conclusion Salter, who had chaired the administrative meeting, ‘gave expression to the deep admiration’ with which the conference viewed the accomplishments of the academy under Jäckh’s leadership. Mrs. Alfred Zimmern, as Alfred Zimmern referred to his wife Lucie Zimmern (formerly Lucie Hirsch-Flotron) in his report of the administrative meeting, attended the meeting in her capacity as assistant director of the Geneva School of International Studies, a school which had been founded by her husband in 1925. Speaking on behalf of the conference, she ‘voiced the sympathy with which the news of the resignation of Dr. Jäckh and some of his collaborators at the Hochschule had been received.’76 Expressions of admiration and sympathy aside, there were at least two people in the audience who may have privately marvelled at Jäckh’s presentation of himself as a man of strict principle: his colleague Hoetzsch and John V. Van Sickle, the latter being assistant director of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Division of Social Sciences in Paris and a past supporter of Jäckh.77 With regard to Van Sickle’s views concerning Jäckh’s behaviour at this time, Korenblat draws attention to a memorandum concerning a conversation Van Sickle held with Jäckh on 18 July 1933. Therein Van Sickle noted that John W. Wheeler-Bennett (the deputy chairman of the 75 Ibid. Jäckh advised the audience in London of the recent publication of the first ‘yearbook for Political Research’ of the DHP’s research department, noting that therein the problems of the German constitution were addressed. The next year-book, he stated. would examine developments in international affairs since the war and would look at the ‘various national contributions to a new international organisation’ (ibid.). 76 Zimmern, Report on Administrative Meeting of the Sixth Session of the International Studies Conference (1), AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.b, UA. 77 Korenblat, ‘A School for the Republic?’ 412. Korenblat notes that Jäckh claimed that he had been ‘disheartened’ by the behaviour of Hoetzsch during the ‘final period of the old Hochschule’s existence’ and that Hoetzsch had ‘attempted to block his departure to England’ (ibid., 409). For John V. Van Sickle, see also LON: Sixth International Studies Conference, A Record of a Second Study Conference on the State and Economic Life, 420.

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RIIA’s Information Committee and someone who had been issuing regular reports to the RIIA on the course of German politics), ‘had the impression that Jäckh was manoeuvring or being manoeuvred into the post of an intellectual ambassador for the new regime. W-B was distinctly sceptical, and [I have] had cause to wonder in the last few months at the extraordinary capacity of adaptation shown by Jäckh.’78 Korenblat records that Jäckh obtained a private audience with Hitler courtesy of Jäckh’s association via the DHP with Hans Heinrich Lammers, now the chief of the Reich Chancellery. Korenblat notes that this meeting, which lasted up to an hour, took place on 1 April 1933, which was also, as Korenblat points out, ‘the first day of the nation-wide anti-Jewish boycott.’ In ensuing weeks, Jäckh would attend meetings with Goebbels and his assistants.79 Korenblat’s research reveals that far from adopting a principled stand in his negotiations with the new regime, Jäckh instead quickly turned to a strategy of accommodation in the hope of preserving a role for himself as the director of a proposed Rockefeller Foundationsponsored research institute. To the foundation Jäckh claimed his proposed institute would be independent and protected from political interference through his leadership and influential contacts in high places, though obviously there could have been no Jews affiliated with the endeavour. To the Nazis, Jäckh openly indicated that the institute would be obligingly friendly, pursuing research projects suggestively responsive to Nazi priorities, and that Rockefeller Foundation support would, in turn, open doors to the regime abroad.80 78 John V. Van Sickle, 1933, quoted in Korenblat, ‘A School for the Republic?’ 412. John W. Wheeler-Bennett was the principal founder of the Association for International Understanding and its Information Service on International Affairs in 1924. Another of those private organisations established after the war in order to study international affairs, the association published a Bulletin of International News as well as an Information Series. In July 1930 it was integrated into the RIIA becoming ‘the nucleus of its Information Department.’ See S. H. Bailey, International Studies in Modern Education (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), 24. On Wheeler-Bennet’s reports on Germany, see Report of the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs: 1932–1933, 26–7, Reports of Activities from the British Co-ordinating Committee of International Affairs, 1930–1934, AG 1-IICI-K-VI-1, UA, and John W. Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The German Political Situation,’ International Affairs 11, no. 4 (1932): 460–72. Like many others, Wheeler-Bennett took a rather sanguine view of Hitler and the National Socialists in respect to international affairs. He considered the National Socialists to be more socialist than nationalist. 79 Korenblat, ‘A School for the Republic?’ 409, 415. 80 Ibid., 410.

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Korenblat points out that although Jäckh subsequently claimed that he had instructed Lammers to inform Hitler of his ‘opposition to the Nazis, his involvement in Jewish causes,’ and that his wife, Marta, was Jewish, the minutes of the meeting, as noted by Rainer Eisfeld, simply record that Jäckh was instructed to be mindful of certain government policies when giving lectures in foreign countries.81 It was advice to which Jäckh evidently adhered in delivering his address on the fate of the DHP at the ISC’s administrative meeting in London on 1 June 1933. Despite the seeming confidence Jäckh expressed in his London address regarding his proposed international relations research institute, his efforts at gaining financial support for it proved futile. At some point within the next few months, he quit Berlin for London.82 Soon after arriving in London, that is, in the latter part of 1933, Jäckh was appointed director general of the research bureau of the New Commonwealth Society, the German section of which he had previously headed.83 Bonn, Haas and Wolfers, who as we saw were among Jäckh’s colleagues at the DHP, also departed the continent. Bonn moved to London where he lectured for some years at the LSE. Haas settled in Teheran where he taught at the University of Teheran. Later, in 1940, he left Teheran for the United States where he obtained a position at Columbia University in New York. As to Wolfers, he departed Germany in the summer of 1933, moving to the United States where he gained a position at Yale University, initially enjoying the title of visiting professor of international relations.84

81 Ibid., 413. 82 Korenblat notes that contrary to his later assertions, Jäckh ‘remained in Germany well

into the summer and possibly even later, seeking support for his proposed venture’ (ibid., 410n). 83 Ernst Jäckh to the IIIC, 6 March 1934, Rapprochement international: Généralités, AG 1-IICI-B-V-4, UA. For Jäckh’s appointment to the New Commonwealth’s Research Bureau, see Notes et biographiques sur les participants à la neuvième Conférence permanente des hautes études internationale, 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-IX-2, UA. See also Michael Pugh, ‘Policing the World: Lord Davies and the Quest for Order in the 1930s,’ International Relations 16, no. 1 (2002): 97–115, 109. 84 For Moritz Julius Bonn, see C. Paul Vincent, ‘Bonn, Moritz Julius,’ in C. Paul Vincent, ed., A Historical Dictionary of Germany’s Weimar Republic, 1918–1933 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997), 40–1. On Wolfers, see Korenblat, ‘A School for the Republic?’ 397, and Bruno Lasker and William L. Holland, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1933: Economic Conflict and Control, Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations, Banff, Canada, 14–26 August 1933 (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), 458.

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The New Commonwealth Society The New Commonwealth Society was founded and significantly funded by David Davies (or the first Baron Davies of Llandinam as became in 1932), in October 1932, partly in response to the Japanese aggression in Manchuria and what Davies considered to be, however unfairly, the ‘spineless acquiescence’ of Simon to it.85 It was dedicated to the promotion of international law and order.86 Unlike other pro-league organisations in Britain such as the LNU, the New Commonwealth Society sought to influence elites rather than gain mass adherence.87 Indeed, the list of names associated with it read like a roll-call of some of the most influential figures of the day and it is worth adding that many of these figures participated to a greater or lesser degree in the work of the ISC. Among the New Commonwealth Society’s members were Norman Angell, Nicholas Murray Butler, René Cassin, Robert Cecil, Margery Corbett Ashby, Pierre Cot, Philip C. Jessup, Manley O. Hudson, Basil Liddell Hart, Hans Kelsen, Salvador de Madariaga, Paul Mantoux, David Mitrany, Gilbert Murray, Philip Noel Baker, Nikolaos Politis,William E. Rappard, James Arthur Salter, Georges Scelle, Wickham Steed, Harold Temperley, Oesten Undén, Alfred Verdross, Charles K. Webster and Alfred E. Zimmern. In December 1934, the New Commonwealth Society’s research bureau was reconstituted as the New Commonwealth Institute, the headquarters of which were at Thorney House at Smith Square in London. Temperley was appointed its president, Madariaga and Rappard its vice-presidents, and Jäckh its ‘Director of International Studies.’ The object of the Institute, as described in its official materials, was the ‘study of the fundamental problems of international relations and research into particular problems of justice and security.’88 This second part of this description relates to 85 J. Graham Jones, ‘Biography: David Davies: The Peacemonger,’ Journal of Liberal Democrat History, no. 29 (2000–2001): 16–23, 22 and Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 97. 86 See for example, The New Commonwealth: Being the Monthly Organ of a Society for the Promotion of International Law and Order 2, no. 10 (1934). 87 Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 109. 88 On the renaming of the Research Bureau, see Jäckh to Bonnet, 10 December 1934,

Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales, 1 December 1934–31 January 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.o, UA and Jäckh to Chalmers Wright, 12 May 1935, Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales, 1–15 May 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.r, UA. On the institute’s foundation and membership, see New Commonwealth Institute: Annual Report 1935, Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales, New Commonwealth, AG

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the two policies that the New Commonwealth advocated from the very outset: the creation of an ‘Equity Tribunal’ and an ‘International Police Force.’ As the New Commonwealth Society’s monthly organ, namely, The New Commonwealth, editorialised in July 1934 under the heading of ‘Our Purpose,’ a ‘durable peace can only be founded upon justice and…justice is unattainable without the means of changing the public law and enforcing it.’89 In regard to the proposed equity tribunal, the New Commonwealth conceived of it as a permanent organ of the LON which, as such, would possess the ‘authority of a final tribunal’; the tribunal would give effect to treaty revisions, that is, to what the New Commonwealth referred to as ‘peaceful change.’90 At the same time, according to the plan of the New Commonwealth, should a state seek to change the status quo by violent means, the IPF would be on hand to constrain it, the normative basis for this constraint being the fundamental principle that ‘no-one has the right to take the law into his own hands.’91 Davies considered the creation of two such organs, namely, an equity tribunal and an IPF, as essential to the restoration of the ‘prestige and authority’ of the LON, which he and others thought had been unquestionably damaged as a result of its ‘handling of the dispute between China and Japan.’ While he commended the work of the LON’s Commission of Enquiry into the events in Manchuria as a ‘splendid example of the way to obtain competent equity judgement,’ he considered that it had exercised ‘no deterrent effect on the “aggressor” because it was appointed too late.’92 In relation to the IPF, it should be noted that Davies had been convinced almost a decade before founding the New Commonwealth of the French view that the LON should have military wing; in the process, he 1-IICI-K-I-11, UA. See also Jäckh to IIIC, 6 March 1934, AG 1-IICI-B-V-4, UA. The New Commonwealth Society’s first address was Mowbray House, Norfolk Street, Strand. For Jäckh’s new title, see Jäckh to Chalmers Wright, 26 June 1934, Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales, 1 May–30 June 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.m, UA. 89 ‘Our Purpose,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 137. See also David Davies, ‘An International Police Force?’ International Affairs 11, no. 1 (1932): 76–99. 90 ‘The Irish Thorn,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 138–9. See also ‘Wales Gives a Lead: Decisive Vote for Equity Tribunal and I.P.F,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 147, and ‘From Press and Platform: Current Public Opinion on Our Policy,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 148–9. 91 New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934), 137. 92 New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934), 148.

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had rejected the British view that the LON should be based on ‘sentiment rather than sanctions.’93 By 1932, Davies had already written at great length on the subject of sanctions, most notably in The Problem of the Twentieth Century (1930).94 The question of an IPF (as well as that of an equity tribunal), was addressed by Davies in a paper read at Chatham House on 15 October 1931 and which was published in International Affairs the following January. Therein, Davies highlighted a statement made by Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, in an address given in May 1907 at the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration in view of forthcoming Hague Peace Conference. In his address Butler, who several years later in his role as director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Division of Intercourse and Education in New York would coin the expression international mind (esprit international ), stated that the world required international police in order to subject the ‘animal appetites’ of human being to ‘rational control.’95 In the paper he read at Chatham House, Davies sought to add 93 Michael Pugh notes that David Davies had been persuaded by French representatives at

a meeting of the Federation of the League of Nations Societies in 1923 that the LON should have a military wing and that ‘henceforth Davies staunchly supported the French and other continental theses’ such as that entertained by the Pan-Europa movement and the proponents of a European Union. Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 98–9. 94 David Davies, The Problem of the Twentieth Century: A Study in International Relationships (London: Ernest Benn, 1930). See also Waqar H. Zaidi, ‘“Aviation Will Either Destroy or Save Our Civilisation”: Proposals for the International Control of Aviation, 1920–45,’ Journal of Contemporary History 46, no. 1 (2011): 150–78, 154. 95 ‘So long as human nature remains human, the several nations will each require their systems of police, and the world at large will require an international police; but this international police while constituted of arms and navies, will, when it comes, be constituted in a way and from a point o five quite different from armies and navies maintained for offensive war.’ Nicholas Murray Butler, The International Mind: An Argument for the Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, ed. Charles F. Howlett (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2013), 5. See also Davies, ‘An International Police Force?’ 82. One of Nicholas Murray Butler’s early invocations of the expression international mind was in his opening address as chair of the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration on May 15, 1912. In that context, Butler explained that the expression denoted a way of thinking and acting in regard to foreign relations, such that the ‘several nations of the civilized world’ were to be regarded, not as antagonists, but ‘as friendly and co-operating equals in aiding the progress of civilization, in developing commerce and industry, and in spreading enlightenment and culture throughout the world.’ At this stage, Butler was director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Division of Intercourse and Education in New York which had the mission of enlightening public opinion and imbuing minds with an ‘Esprit International’ based on the view that in the absence of an international mind there cannot be a ‘durable peace.’ Butler had previously touched on the

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further weight to Butler’s argument. He observed that one of the two major lessons of the Great War was that the destructive potential of the machinery that science had recently placed at the disposal of the ‘mechanism of war’ was such that this mechanism must now be transferred to a supreme international military command, the possibility of such a command being the war’s other had major lesson according to Davies. In this way, Davies declared, ‘the scientific achievements in the military sphere’ would be ‘transformed into the custodians of peace.’ 96

The Tardieu Plan A plan to guarantee security through the international organisation of force had been brought before the Disarmament Conference by André Tardieu, the French minister of war, on the afternoon of 5 February 1932.97 The

idea of an international mind in his opening address as chair of the Lake Monhonk Conference on May 22, 1907. ‘One of the chief problems of our time is to bring the nations’ minds and the nations’ consciences to bear on the moral problems involved in international relations.’ Nicholas Murray Butler, The International Mind: An Argument for the Judicial Settlement of International Disputes (New York: Charles, Scribner’s Sons, 1913), 5,102. See also Nicholas Murray Butler, ‘The International Mind: How to Develop It,’ Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York 7, no. 22 (1917): 16–20. It was on Butler’s initiative that the Carnegie Endowment established a centre in the ‘old world’ which was dedicated, above all, to the promotion of the idea of an international mind. This centre was established in Paris and formally inaugurated in Paris on March 23, 1912. From 1927, the European centre of the endowment would publish a trimestral review entitled L’Esprit International or International Mind, which the centre described as a review of international politics, La Dotation Carnegie pour la Paix Internationale, Le Centre européen de la Division des relations internationals et de l’éducation: foundation, administration, activité (Paris: Centre européen de la Dotation Carnegie,1931), 15, 17, 34–5, 38, 54. See further Alfred Zimmern, ‘The Development of the International Mind,’ Problems of Peace Lectures Delivered at the Geneva Institute of International Relations at the Palais des Nations, August 1926 (New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1970),1. Originally published in 1927. The expression international mind soon entered the vocabulary of those involved in the ICO. For example, in his capacity as deputy director of the IIIC, Zimmern opened the proceedings of the Geneva Institute of International Relations in 1926 with an address entitled ‘Development of the International Mind.’ 96 Davies, ‘An International Police Force?’ 83. According to Davies, the possibility of establishing a supreme international military command had been demonstrated by military cooperation among the allied and associated powers during the war. 97 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 321. The plan was submitted by Tardieu again on 12 April this time in his dual role, dating from 20 February, as prime minister and foreign minister. See also Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 104.

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first of the five propositions that comprised the plan prescribed the placing of civil aviation and bombing aircraft at the disposal of the LON or, ‘in the case of the accession of States non-members of the League of Nations of which several had taken part in the work of the Preparatory Commission, at the disposal of the international authority which would be constituted to ensure their co-operation.’98 Contracting parties would agree to prohibit their nationals from constructing or using aircraft capable of military use: aircraft exceeding a certain tonnage, designated as x, which would be determined by the conference. An international civil air service would be created and entrusted to continental, intercontinental or intercolonial organisations which would operate under the auspices of the LON and which alone would have the right to manufacture and employ civilian aircraft of military value: machines of a greater tonnage than x. The LON would have the permanent right to requisition all such aircraft for the international civil air service and signatory states would agree not to place an embargo on or sequester craft belonging to that service but do all within their power to facilitate the LON’s right of requisition.99 The internationalisation of civil aviation was the necessary condition of the proposals concerning the limitation of heavy bombing aircraft.100 Under these proposals, the LON alone would have the ‘right to dispose of heavy bombing machines of a wide action radius—that is of more than Y tons.’101 Such machines were to be transferred by those who owned them to the LON for the constitution of an international military air force. The LON would decide where they would be stationed and to this end would organise an international air force command. Contracting parties would be able to make free use of military aircraft of less than a certain tonnage 98 LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments: Proposal of the French Delegation, Conf. D. 56 (Geneva: LON, 5 February 1932), 1. 99 LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments: Proposal of the French Delegation, 1–2. The following qualification was added to the matter of international control of civil transport in the French proposal: ‘The right to create lines between the home country and colonial territories presenting particular interest for one or more of the Contracting parties, provided always that they undertake to bear the costs, if requested to do so by the League of Nations, and that they submit to the League for its approval the number, the type and the unladen tonnage of the machines to be used’ (ibid., 2). 100 Ibid., 2. 101 ‘Disarmament: The French Plan, from Our League Correspondent,’ Times, 6 February

1932.

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designated as z. Military aircraft with a tonnage between the limits of y and z would only be permitted to those parties who undertook to place them at the disposal of the LON should Article 16 of the LON Covenant be applied and a decision on common action be taken. In the eventuality that a nation was subject to aerial bombardment, it would have the freedom to use all its air forces, including those machines earmarked for the LON, on the sole condition that it notified the organisation.102 Under the second proposition, ‘batteries of long-range artillery; Capital ships carrying guns exceeding 8 inches or of a tonnage exceeding (W. T.) 10,000 tons; Submarines with a tonnage exceeding n tons,’ were to be placed at the disposal of the LON (or the aforementioned international authority) in the eventuality of the application of Article 16 and common action, although in case of aggression the parties would recover the full right to dispose of such means of defence subject to the same conditions applying to military aircraft with a tonnage between y and z.103 The third proposition provided for the creation, by contributions from each of the contracting parties, firstly of an ‘international police force to prevent war’ and secondly, of a ‘first contingent of punitive forces to repress war and bring immediate assistance to any State victim of aggression.’104 The fourth proposition provided for new rules to be added to existing rules concerning the protection of the civilian population in war-time, such as through prohibiting the use by aircraft or artillery of projectiles containing poison gases, bacteria or materials which are specifically incendiary. The fifth and final proposition set out the political measures without which all the preceding proposals would not be conceivable. It affirmed that a reduction in armaments cannot be achieved by ‘empirical and technical’ methods, but rather required common action to ensure the security of each and every nation. The memorandum then echoed the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the Social Contract: ‘[w]hoever desires the end…must also

102 LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments: Proposal of the French

Delegation, 2. 103 Ibid., 2–3. 104 Ibid., 3.

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desire the means.’105 In a passage which even the London Times singled out for its eloquence, the memorandum observed the following: The present Conference offers the greatest opportunity which has ever occurred for a definite choice between a League of Nations disposing of an executive authority and a League of Nations paralysed by an intransigence of national sovereignty. France has made her decision; she asks that other nations should make theirs.106

The political means that the memorandum stated must be desired if the plan were to be given effect were as follows: compulsory arbitration; definition of the aggressor; guarantees as to the rapidity of the decision of the authority controlling the international force; the bringing of the action of that authority into conformity with international law, which is still insufficiently precise, but the permanent and contractual elements of which result from international treaties and pacts; and the international control of the execution of all agreements concerning armaments.107

In concluding, the memorandum pointed out that in a French memorandum of 15 July 1931, and in annexes attached to it, that the government of the French Republic had provided precise details concerning the modifications and reductions of armaments that France had already carried out 105 Ibid., 3–4. In relation to the proposition concerning new rules for the protection of civilians in war-time, note the statement issued by René Viviani, a former French prime minister and French delegate to the assembly in 1920 and 1921, in response to a request by the Second Assembly that governments furnish it with statements concerning the requirements of their national security: ‘It is not enough…to report in writing proofs that one country has as many soldiers as another, although its population is smaller; it is not enough to say that one country expends such-and-such a sum on its military and naval budget, and that another does not spend so much. Equality of expenditure is not always a proof of equality of strength by its natural frontiers and by its distance from all the battlefields of the world, has nothing to fear, is not so likely to have a strong army as a country which has enemies, or which has had, or may have, enemies. The element of national security must therefore enter into the scope of enquiries of the Sub-Committee [on Statistics].’ LON, Report of the Temporary Mixed Commission of Armaments, Doc. A.31.1922 (Geneva: LON, 7 September 1922), 7. ‘He who wills an end wills the means to that end.’ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), Book II, Ch. v, 71. 106 LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments: Proposal of the French Delegation, 4. See also ‘A Discouraging Reception,’ Times (a), 8 February 1932. 107 LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments: Proposal of the French Delegation, 4.

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of its own volition in execution of Article 8 of the LON Covenant, since the covenant had come into force and since the finalisation of the Locarno agreements.108 The Tardieu Plan was the product of careful preparations that had commenced some months before the council announced on 24 January 1931, its decision to convene the Disarmament Conference. These preparations were based on the following premise: ‘It is the political power that victory has assured France which is directly targeted.’109 The French military viewed the international push for disarmament as a true threat to French security. In light of this, General Maxime Weygand, the vice-president of the Conseil Supérieure de la Guerre (Supreme War Council), advised his colleagues that the idea that ‘constantly must dominate and illuminate’ the French preparations was that of ‘the maintenance of our current military status.’110 According to Maurice Vaïsse, the plan that Tardieu finalised based on the various views transmitted by the Conseil Supérieure de la Défense Nationale, was above all the plan of army headquarters: ‘All that displeases the military has been eliminated from the plan, or diminished.’111 The idea of an organically international force, conceived as a response to the demands for both security and disarmament, was viewed as an unrealisable ideal in the current circumstances by the military and was thus reduced in importance in relation to the proposals concerning aviation.112 In addition, although certain types of equipment possessed by land and naval forces were placed under the Tardieu Plan at the disposal of the LON, this disposition, as indicated, was subject to conditions: application of Article 16 and a decision on common action by the LON. Further to this, as Vaïsse points out, the international army proposed by the plan was not to be in possession of ‘the most important materials, as some would have wanted.’113 An earlier proposal for the abolition of aerial bombardment was rejected in favour of the limitation of bombing aircraft (in regard to

108 Ibid., 4. 109 Note du secrétariat général du Conseil Supérieure de Defense Nationale, 1930, quoted

in Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 125. 110 Maxime Weygand, 1931, quoted in Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 131. 111 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 199. 112 Ibid., 140–1, 199. 113 Ibid., 199–200.

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the speed and range of which France was in an inferior position relative to Britain and Italy), and the placing of the heavier craft permitted to the contracting parties at the disposal of the LON. As we have seen, this latter requirement was subject to the same conditions as prescribed in relation to the disposal of land and naval materials as well as to the condition (as little likely to be realised as that of the organisation of an international force), which was the internationalisation of civil aviation.114 Vaïsse observes in relation to the thinking behind the plan the following: Wanted by the military, the Tardieu plan marvellously illustrates the motto of national defence: ‘Si vis pacem, para bellum.’ It appears to be in effect a diplomatic manoeuvre intended to give to France the first and last word at the conference. The skill of Tardieu consists in launching his plan during the preliminaries of the conference, in overtaking all the other delegations. The latter are thus lead to situate their propositions in relation to the French plan. In this way, the French delegation hopes to attain its second end, that is to say to fight on the terrain that it has chosen, and to brush aside all discussion of the reduction of armaments and of equality of rights. France has it both ways: if people reject the French plan, they can no longer accuse France of not cooperating, if people accept it, it is a system which will defer the reductions of armaments and the revision of treaties.115

Referring to the journalist Pertinax (André Géraud) who had on 6 February likened the LON to a syphilitic fop, and to the newspapers owned by the French perfumer and Fascist, François Coty, Jean Plot observed in the L’Oeuvre (a newspaper which favoured the Radical Party), that elements in the nationalist press were unable to comprehend the Tardieu Plan except as a ‘coup de théâtre’: the propositions contained in the French memorandum had been advanced with ‘the secret hope of seeing them rejected, of demonstrating the powerlessness of the League of Nations, and delivering to it, in a fashion, a definitive and mortal blow.’116

114 Ibid., 198, 200. See also ‘Initiative Seized by France: Comment in Paris,’ Times (b), 8 February 1932. 115 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 200. 116 Jean Plot, ‘Les propositions Française à Genève “se pourrait-il que la France fut sincère?”

se demand anxieusement nos superpatriotes,’ L’Oeuvre, 7 February 1932. See also Pertinax, ‘M. Tardieu saisit la conférence du project Français indiquant à quelle conditions le désarmement set possible,’ L’Echo de Paris, 6 February 1932, and Revue de la presse: Un coup de théâtre Genevois,’ Figaro (a), 7 February 1932.

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The newspaper formerly called Le Figaro but which had been renamed Figaro in the wake of its purchase by Coty in 1922 and which would continue to bear that name until the end of his proprietorship in 1933, referred to the French project as ‘the Tardieu bomb,’ insisting that the fact that it was but a ‘dream’ did not prevent it from being ‘realist’: it was realist, the newspaper asserted, insofar as it was ‘unrealisable, insofar as we know that it is and that the world will know why it is.’117 The newspaper claimed that the plan was cleverly calculated to expose as imposters those who called on France to disarm in the name of the general interest, while obstinately refusing because of their own particular interests to establish the conditions of disarmament. The French plan, described by Figaro as one part ‘simulacrum’ and one part an attempt at making a point by means of absurdity, confounded France’s critics, the masthead proclaimed, through overtaking them and demonstrating their powerlessness to achieve their end through leaving the field free to them.118 L’Oeuvre was somewhat dismissive of these interpretations, observing that while those who constituted an important faction within the majority in the legislature supporting the premiership of Pierre Laval were free to attribute to him ‘machiavellian intentions,’ it would be an insult to make of ‘our friend’ Paul-Boncour an accomplice in Laval’s supposed dupery at the same time.119 Paul-Boncour, president of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs until December 1931 and member of a special committee created by the government in order to elaborate the French plan, had ceaselessly sought to promote as a delegate to the LON the cause of ‘mutual assistance, determined in advance, coordinated in advance, a true international force, capable of maintaining the European order and opposing aggression.’120 In the context of the preparations of the Tardieu Plan, Paul-Boncour had expressed his support for an organically international force even while others dismissed it as utopian.121 L’Oeuvre noted that the proposal in the Tardieu Plan that the LON should have international forces

117 ‘La contre-offensive Française à Genève,’ Figaro (b), 7 February 1932. 118 Ibid. See also L’Oeuvre, 7 February 1932. 119 L’Oeuvre, 7 February 1932. 120 Paul-Boncour, Entre deux guerres: souvenirs de le III° République, vol. 2, Les lendemain

de la victoire 1919–1934, 264. See also Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 35, 38, 130, and L’Oeuvre, 7 February 1932. 121 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 141.

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at its disposal was entirely in conformity with the doctrine advanced by the Radical Party statesman Léon Bourgeois at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.122 Paul-Boncour’s advocacy of an international force at Geneva must be seen in the light of the instruction which he said was ‘invariably’ given to the French delegation by all French governments which succeeded each other between 1924 and 1934 based on the opinion of the Conseil Supérieure de la Défense Nationale and its Commission of Studies (of which PaulBoncour became vice-president in 1924): ‘to maintain the link between security and disarmament.’123 In a memorandum submitted to the Preparatory Commission on disarmament in 1926, Paul-Boncour observed that ‘countries [like France] threatened by aggression cannot desist…from tying together the questions of security and armaments, not only by making disarmament conditional on security but also in disarming to the extent that security guarantees are obtained.’124 At the same time, as Paul-Boncour pointed out, the connection between security and disarmament had been established within the framework of the LON from the very outset: the LON’s basic aims were that of organising collective security and implementing Article 8 of the covenant ‘whereby the Members of the League “recognise that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety.”’125 In 1922, the Temporary Mixed Commission for the Reduction of Armaments, which was set up in 1920, presented a report to the Third Assembly. This report was based on proposals by Cecil, notably ‘that no scheme for the reduction of armaments can ever really be successful unless it is general’ and that in ‘the present state of the world, the majority of Governments would be unable to accept the responsibility

122 L’Oeuvre, 7 February 1932. 123 Paul-Boncour, Entre deux guerres: souvenirs de le III° République, vol. 2, Les lendemain

de la victoire 1919–1934, 187. 124 Joseph Paul-Boncour, 1926, quoted in Talbut C. Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism: European Socialists and International Politics, 1914–1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 165. Talbut C. Imlay notes the following of Paul-Boncour’s 1926 memorandum: undated but May 1926 and emphasis in original. 125 Joseph Paul-Boncour, Application of the Principles of the Covenant: Report on Regional Pacts of Mutual Assistance. C.S.P. 10: Report No. 11 (Geneva: LON, 5 August 1937), 1. Emphasis added.

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for a serious reduction in armaments unless they received in exchange a satisfactory guarantee of the safety of their countries.’126 Based on this report, the assembly passed resolutions on 27 September 1922, recommending either a general treaty of assistance or partial treaties of assistance, as a result of which in 1923, the assembly was presented with a draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance. The assembly’s rejection of this draft treaty gave rise to the Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of Disputes which provided for general disarmament, albeit in association with compulsory arbitration and security guarantees. The protocol was presented to the Fifth Assembly by Herriot and MacDonald and was adopted on 2 October 1924. However, on 2 March of the following year, the Conservative government of Stanley Baldwin, in which Sir Austen Chamberlain was foreign secretary, made the following decision: (a) To accept the view of the Committee of Imperial Defence which is confirmed by reports so far received from the Dominions and India, that the Geneva Protocol is open to grave objection and cannot be accepted. (b) That a reply to the League in the form of a simple rejection of the Protocol, without any attempt to pave to some alternative plan in regard to the vital plan of national security, is to be deprecated as calculated to prolong the present state of insecurity and tension in Europe which it is the aim of His Majesty’s Government to allay.127 According to Paul-Boncour, despite the failure of both the Treaty of Mutual Assistance and the Geneva Protocol, the ‘movement of ideas’ prompted by the discussions of them and their ‘profound repercussion

126 LON, Report of the Temporary Mixed Commission of Armaments, 13. See also PaulBoncour, Application of the Principles of the Covenant, 1. 127 Cabinet 12 (25): Conclusions of a Meeting of the Cabinet held at the House of Commons, S.W.1, on Monday 2 March 1925, at 4 p.m., Appendix: Rough Draft Formula on Security, http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/small/cab-23-49-cc-12-2521.pdf. ‘His Majesty’s Government do not feel able to enter into a dual pact with France with or without Belgium. The question of a quadrilateral agreement between France, Germany, Great Britain, Belgium and, if possible, with the accord of Italy, for mutual security and for guaranteeing each other’s frontiers in the West of Europe, stands on a different footing and might become a great assurance to the peace of Europe and lead to a rapid reduction of armaments’ (ibid.). See also Paul-Boncour, Application of the Principles of the Covenant, 2, 4.

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on public opinion’ did as much to make the Locarno Treaties possible as did favourable political conditions.128 In 1926, the assembly considered the possibility of extending the Locarno Treaties to other regions and in the following year, it recommended that a Committee on Arbitration and Security be established, a recommendation that bore fruit on 30 November 1927, as a result of a decision by the Preparatory Commission on disarmament. One of the principal results of this commission’s work was a model treaty: a Collective Treaty of Mutual Assistance. Following the addition of certain amendments to its text, the Eighth Assembly recommended that the model treaty might usefully be studied by states, whether members of the LON or not, who were desirous of augmenting guarantees of security.129 Paul-Boncour considered that if the force was not organised on an international basis, then it was ‘necessary to support the effort to modernise the French army and to prepare country for all eventualities.’130 As indicated previously, as a partisan of the view that security must have priority, which obviously was the premise of the Tardieu Plan and which was no less embraced by Herriot as leader of the main opposition party, Paul-Boncour found himself at odds with a growing section of the party which he represented in the Chamber: the Socialist Party (the SFIO or Section française de l’Internationale ouvrière).131 Many members of the Socialist Party had arrived at the belief that disarmament ‘by itself was guarantee of security,’ a belief to which, PaulBoncour later wrote, Léon Blum seemed to lend the weight of his authority following the meeting of the assembly in September 1928 at which the French and the German delegations disputed the question of whether or not the time was right to convene a disarmament conference.132

128 Paul-Boncour, Application of the Principles of the Covenant, 2. 129 Ibid. The model treaty, that is, the Collective Treaty for Mutual Assistance, was revised

and recommended seven years later in the report of the Disarmament Conference’s Special Committee on Security on 25 June 1934. For the text of the model treaty and the assembly’s recommendation in respect to it, see LON, special supplement, OJ, no. 63 (1928), 8, 40–6. 130 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 38. 131 Ibid. 132 Paul-Boncour, Entre deux guerres: Souvenirs de l III° République, vol. 2, Les lendemain de la victoire 1919–1934, 263. Paul-Boncour noted that the ‘erroneous’ belief that disarmament was sufficient in itself and, more specifically, was a guarantee of security was entertained by ‘an important fraction of the party, which was tending to become the majority’ (ibid., 263–4).

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On 4 January 1931, writing in the Socialist Party’s organ Le Populaire, Blum attacked the formula of Securité d’abord. Blum complained that people ceaselessly demand, in order to feel “safe,” something else and something more. The organisation of peace will finish by resting on the collective preparation for war. A race to diplomatic “security” will come to superimpose itself on a race to arms….If the world should disarm only after having achieved the work of “security” thus understood, when therefore will it disarm?133

Blum had made clear his view of the Tardieu Plan in Le Populaire on 7 February 1932. In a vein similar to certain observers in the nationalist press, Blum dismissed the plan as a conjurer’s trick: an illusion of disarmament skilfully created by a government that had no intention of disarming at all. He stated that when news of the French memorandum first trickled out from Geneva, one did not dare to believe it…Here is France proposing to internationalise civil and military aviation. Here she is surrendering all her heavy artillery and all her capital ships to the League of Nations…Not only does she consent to disarmament she gives the example of it. Truly, it is almost too good to be true…But behind the grand spectacle of this presentation, what is the precise reality which hides itself?…What do we find behind the optical illusion?…Once in possession of the full text, neither doubt nor error was possible any longer; behind the big words, fine phrases, and publicity-seeking headlines there was nothing…or very little….The Tardieu plan involves neither the reduction nor the limitation of armaments; neither for the immediate present nor at some fixed date in the future. With the sole exception…of the military aircraft exceeding a certain tonnage, France would be free to arm herself as before….[And] even the cession of heavy aircraft to the League of Nations finds itself subordinated in the Tardieu plan to an ensemble of conditions that the authors of the plan knew in advance to be unobtainable.134

French socialists such as Blum were hardly alone in arguing that disarmament was in itself a form of security. As Walter Lippmann noted, succes-

133 Léon Blum, ‘Les problems de la paix: La sécurité par l’arbitrage,’ Le Populaire, 4 January 1931, 1. 134 Léon Blum, ‘Le Plan Tardieu: Ni reduction ni limitation de l’armaments,’ Le Populaire, 7 February 1932. Emphasis in the original. See also Times (b), 8 February 1932.

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sive post-war American administrations had argued repeatedly that limiting and reducing armaments was the ‘surest guarantee of political security’ when pressing European powers to disarm.135 Yet as Lippmann further noted, when it came to specific cases involving key American concerns, most especially the case of the balance of naval power in the Pacific, these same administrations had adopted an approach based on the premise that political security must precede disarmament: Securité d’abord. Thus, at the Washington Conference of 1921 and 1922, the United States ‘insisted upon the organization of political security as the prelude to the limitation and reduction of armaments’ in the region.136 This ‘duality’ in American foreign policy was in evidence during the first phase of the Disarmament Conference when the United States, alongside other English-speaking countries, argued that disarmament was a form of security in itself and that any further organisation of security as it was understood by France and the rest of the so-called ‘“security” school’ at the conference must follow and not precede disarmament.137 As this was the official position that the American and British delegations took to the conference, it was only to be expected that they gave the Tardieu Plan a somewhat cool reception.138 The American delegation had been strictly instructed to reject a security pact under whatever form and in Washington the Tardieu Plan was interpreted as a stalking horse for such a pact.139 Meanwhile, Simon gave voice to British feelings of hostility towards ‘any new engagement in Europe’ and British support for disarmament.140 In Britain, liberal opinion showed itself to be the most appreciative of a plan to give to the LON the kind of power that would render its authority indisputable.141 In a letter to the Times, Davies, Murray, Wickham 135 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 271. 136 Ibid., 272–2. Lippmann noted that the United States ‘had signed the Washington Naval

Treaty of 1922 only after the Anglo-Japanese Alliance had been abrogated, after the NinePower Treaty, promising the integrity of China and the Open Door, had been agreed to, and after a consultative pact for the region of the Pacific had been established’ (ibid., 227). 137 Ibid., 230–1, 272. See also ‘L’opinion de l’étranger sur le projet français de la réduction de la limitation des armaments,’ Figaro (c), 7 February 1932. 138 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 205. 139 Figaro (c), 7 February 1932. 140 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 205. 141 Le Figaro (c), 7 February 1932.

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Steed, H. V. Temperley and H. G. Wells among others, appealed to their compatriots to not judge the French proposals too hastily; they agreed with Tardieu that ‘security, arbitration, and sanctions must be considered no less that disarmament’ and that the LON must be made a ‘more effective instrument for maintaining pace and administering justice.’142 In an editorial entitled ‘A Discouraging Reception’ appearing on 8 February, the Times, like the Evening Standard and the Observer, objected that the French plan was not targeted at disarmament at all. Rather, the newspaper stated, the plan was aimed at transforming the LON into ‘an armed all-powerful super-State,’ adding that this ‘is exactly what its members when it was founded in 1919 decided that it was not to be.’143 Elsewhere in the same issue the newspaper opined that the time was ‘not yet ripe for the armed super-State dreamed of by Léon Bourgeois,’ noting that in quarters unfavourable to France the plan was being interpreted ‘not so much as a French offer of resources to the League as an attempt to win the resources of the League for France’ and in so doing preserve the Versailles status quo.144 The Times was categorical that the United States would never embrace the super-state scenario envisaged in the French plan; it suggested that one must be very wary of any scheme that might lead to disharmony between the Council of the LON and Washington. According to the Times, an even more important consideration from the British perspective was that to impose upon the British Empire, ‘a Commonwealth of Nations linked together by close ties of kinship, by a common history, common traditions, and a common allegiance to the British Crown, a central authority exercising powers over its members such as it is now proposed to give the Council of the League of Nations,’ would surely be to destroy it.145 The final objection raised by the Times and which obviously concerned Germany, was that there appeared to be no provision in the French memorandum for the creation of machinery for the revision of treaties. Nations,

142 G. N. Barnes, Charnwood, David Davies, Henry N. Gladstone, J. D. Jones, Gilbert Murray, George Paish, F. J. C. Pole, Wickham Steed, H. V. Temperley, H. G. Wells, letter to the editor, Times, 2 March 1932. See also Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 104. Pugh notes that Zimmern and William Horsfall Carter, the latter being secretary of the New Commonwealth Society and a lecturer at Oxford, were also sympathetic to the proposals of Tardieu. 143 Times (a), 8 February 1932. See also Figaro (c), 7 February 1932. 144 ‘Disarmament—Today’s Debate in Geneva—The French Plan Criticised—A “Super-

State,”’ Times (a), 8 February 1932. 145 Times (a), 8 February 1932.

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the Times declared, can hardly be expected to cooperate in the enforcement of international law where there is no avenue for modifying laws which are ‘felt to be unjust.’146 The Times was correct in predicting the mood of Washington in respect to the putative proposal for an armed super-state. According to reports, the attitude of the Congress was especially emphatic: it would never agree to the involvement of American forces in an international police force, firstly, because of the strong current of isolationist opinion in the United States and secondly, because there was no question of the United States surrendering the smallest portion of its constitutional power. Senator Borah, president of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, declared that the Tardieu Plan was an attempt by France to ‘maintain by force’ the Treaty of Versailles and the other treaties of peace.147 This critique was forcefully proclaimed in Germany: with a couple of exceptions, the German press was ‘absolutely’ united in dismissing the Tardieu Plan as a ‘new manoeuvre by France to perpetuate the inequalities created by the treaties of peace and to ensure her hegemony over Europe.’148 According to France’s German newspaper critics, France had simply reprised its cherished thesis that disarmament is conditioned by security whereas, the same critics maintained, Germany embraced the contrary thesis, that is, that disarmament creates security.149 Counted among the countries supporting the French thesis were the Baltic States, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, the countries of the Little Entente, Finland, Persia, Poland, Portugal and Spain. The French delegation did not delude itself that its proposals were likely to win support beyond the confines of these so-called security States.150 As a tactic, the presentation of the French plan was successful to the extent that the question of the organisation of security was now placed squarely before the conference; however, this did not entail that disarmament would occupy a lesser rung on the agenda.151

146 Ibid. 147 Figaro (c), 7 February 1932. 148 Ibid. 149 Ibid. 150 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 204, 207, and Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs,

230. 151 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 207, 209.

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How to Accommodate Security and Disarmament? On 24 February, the day after Henderson proposed that the conference establish four technical committees to address navies, armies, air forces and budgetary matters, Tardieu proposed the creation of a political commission on which, as with the General Commission, all the delegations would be represented. The proposed commission’s supporters, intended that the main focus of the deliberations of this fifth committee would be the question of security and to this end they sought to instal as its chair someone sympathetic to this cause. However, Hugh L. Gibson, a member of the American delegation, American ambassador to Belgium and the head of the American delegation at the Geneva naval conference of 1927, in registering his support for the commission’s establishment, proposed that Henderson, as the conference’s president, undertake the role, a proposal which was subsequently adopted. Thus, ‘the working organs of the conference were presumably under the control of nations desiring disarmament without political compensations.’152 The work of the conference proceeded slowly due in part to the evolving political situation in France and Germany and to the LON’s focus on the Sino-Japanese dispute which in January had extended itself to Shanghai. The fall of the Laval’s cabinet on 20 February caused Tardieu to abruptly depart the conference for Paris. When he returned on 24 February, it was as head of the French government. Between 3 and 11 March, the assembly was called together for an extraordinary session in order to discuss the events in Shanghai. During this period, the General Commission allowed its activities to be interrupted in order that the heads of the delegations could observe the discussions in the assembly. Meanwhile, the focus of the German government was fixed on Germany’s domestic affairs. As Vaïsse explains, ‘to the economic and social crisis—the year 1932 opens with six million unemployed—is added the rise to power of the Nazis….The 152 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 231–2, 301. Hugh L. Gibson proposed that the Bureau of the Political Commission ‘should consist of the same members as those forming the Bureau of the General Commission,’ with Henderson as president, Politis as vice-president, and Edvard Beneš as rapporteur. See LON, Records of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, D ser., vol. 5, Minutes of the Political Commission, 27 February–10 March 1932 (Geneva: LON, 1936), 1. See also Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 209. For Gibson, see Buel W. Patch, ‘The American Position at the Conference,’ in Buel W. Patch, ‘World Disarmament Conference of 1932,’ Editorial Research Reports 1932, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1932): 1–20. http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/ cqresrre1932010500.

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hardening of the politics of Brüning is such that French opinion cannot see the interest in making concessions to a man who seems to speak the same language as Hitler.’153 Vaïsse suggests that the slow proceedings were partly the result of a policy of temporisation: that the British and German delegations and the president of the conference wanted to prevent the outbreak of a confrontation between the sharply opposed viewpoints of France and Germany. Hope was vested in the possibility that the elections for the French Chamber of Deputies due in early May might result in the installation of a government more amenable to disarmament and less insistent on security, a point which may explain why the conference’s Easter recess extended from 19 March to 11 April.154 Before the conference adjourned, Tardieu had insisted that on resuming its work, the General Commission and the Political Commission give priority to questions of principle.155 Perhaps signalling that after several weeks of discussion the American delegation had come to recognise that the French had at least an arguable case, Gibson declared on 16 March that the conference ought to arrive at an understanding of ‘the great political questions, great questions of principle, and dispose of them.’ In view of this, Gibson proposed that after the Easter vacation, that either the General or the Political Commission ‘sit continuously until such time as sufficient progress has been made in respect to decisions on questions of principle to allow the special commissions fruitfully to pursue their labours.’156 Gibson’s proposal was unanimously adopted and hence on 11 April, the conference opened with a discussion of questions of principle in relation to Article 1 of the draft disarmament convention the text of which stated that ‘the High Contracting Parties agree to limit an, so far as possible, reduce their respective armaments as provided in the present convention.’157

153 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 208. 154 Ibid., 208–9, 213. Vaïsse records that Tardieu was alert to the fact that certain of the

other delegations were counting on the fall of his government and that he asked Henderson why it was that he wanted such a long recess for the conference, suggesting in that context that Henderson and others were awaiting the electoral triumph of the left in France. 155 Ibid., 209. 156 Hugh L. Gibson, 1932, quoted in Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 232.

See also Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 209–10. 157 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 233. Lippmann notes that the draft convention had been prepared by the Preparatory Commission over a period dating from May 1926 to December 1930.

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During the discussion and in an effort to accommodate both the security and disarmament schools, Gibson deviated from the position he had upheld in a speech to the conference on 9 February: that restrictions should be placed on the possession of especially aggressive weapons. Gibson now argued that such weapons, among which were counted tanks, heavy mobile artillery and poison gases, should be abolished. Gibson observed that the demand for security arose from fear on the part of a government and its people as their ability to successfully withstand invasion. Were not those nations which maintained the largest armaments the very nations which were most apprehensive about their security? The solution, he thought, was to remove the fear of aggression. Technical progress in armaments had made offensive power superior to defensive….There could be no hope of achievement by the Disarmament Conference until…peculiarly aggressive weapons were abolished and a feeling of security was restored by making the defence as superior to the offence as it had formerly been.158

Lippmann observed that the American proposal for so-called qualitative disarmament was intended partly as a means of moving the conference ‘in the direction of satisfying Germany as to equality’ and partly as a means of addressing the French demand for security although without deviating in any degree from the American position that no political compensation be given in exchange for disarmament.159 Germany, Great Britain and Italy strongly supported the proposal and it proved attractive to a good number of other delegations. However, France was strongly opposed: according to Tardieu, ‘humanising war in forbidding certain materials, is insufficient; the best method consists in organising peace, that is to say to come back to the Tardieu plan.’160 A compromise proposal was reached whereby the 158 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 233. 159 Ibid., 233–4. After noting that the American proposal for qualitative disarmament of

April 11 was designed to move the conference in the direction of satisfying the German demand in regard to equality, Lippmann pointed out the following: ‘Later, when the American plan regarding the reduction of military effectives was put forward, the German levels of armed forces were specifically cited by the American delegates as an example upon which computation might be based’ (ibid., 247). 160 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 223. According to Tardieu, Gibson’s proposal was ‘incoherent and absurd. It takes no account of the interdependence of armaments. It lets subsist some powerful aerial and naval armaments that the Anglo-Saxons possess. It foresees neither controls nor sanctions. The American proposal is even dangerous. It does not prevent recourse to arms since some categories of armaments remain legal’ (ibid., 222).

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General Conference, in the form of a resolution, expressed its approval of the principle of qualitative disarmament but allowed that this could take the form of either the prohibition to all states of certain classes of weapons or the internationalisation of certain classes of weapons. The conference further resolved that in order to apply the principle, the range of land, sea and air armaments should be ‘examined by the competent special Commissions with a view to selecting those weapons whose character is the most specifically offensive or those most efficacious against national defence or most threatening to civilians.’161 On 26 April, the same day that the Land, Naval and Air Committees commenced their work on qualitative disarmament, the General Commission decided to suspend any further examination of the items on its agenda pending the receipt of the reports of these committees.162 The decision was welcome from the point of view of Henderson as the discussion of qualitative disarmament had seen re-emerge such highly contentious issues as the demand for equality of rights and the Tardieu Plan.163 The reports of the Land, Naval and Air Committees, as well as that of a special committee on chemical and bacterial weapons which had been established on 10 May, were published in the first week of June. Henderson later reported that ‘it was clear’ from the reports of the technical committees ‘that agreement concerning the weapons to which the principle of qualitative disarmament should apply had not been reached’ and that as a result, the Bureau of the General Conference had ‘invited the delegations to prepare the ground for such agreement by means of private conversations.’ 164 A major part of the problem in this regard was that the powers sought to portray as particularly aggressive the powerful weapons which they either lacked or in which their rivals enjoyed an indisputable superiority, all the while maintaining that their own powerful weapons were for defensive

161 Resolution unanimously adopted by the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation

of Armaments, 22 April 1932, quoted in LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments: Preliminary Report on the Work of the Conference, Prepared by the President Mr. Arthur Henderson, Conf. D. 171(I) (Geneva: LON, July 1936), 16. See also Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 224–5. 162 LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments: Preliminary Report on the Work of the Conference, 16. 163 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 225. 164 LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments: Preliminary Report

on the Work of the Conference, 16.

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rather than offensive purposes.165 Madariaga well illustrated the mixture of suspicion and opportunism that coloured the disarmament negotiations in the following analogy which he offered in response to Litvinov’s proposal on 25 February for the complete suppression of armaments: ‘The animals met to disarm. The lion looking sideways at the eagle said, “Wings must be abolished.” The eagle looking at the bull declared: “Horns must be abolished.” The bull, looking at the tiger, declared: “Paws, and especially claws, must be abolished.” The bear in his turn said: “All arms must be abolished; all that is necessary is a universal embrace”.’166

A Change of Government in France The ballots for the Chamber of Deputies were held on 1 and 8 May and their results revealed a swing to the Left on the part of the French electorate. This swing came about despite the success of the National Socialists in the elections held on 24 April for the parliaments of the states of the Republic, a development that might be thought to have favoured the parties of the right and centre-right in France from which the Tardieu government, as with the Laval government which preceded it, drew its support in the Chamber. Explaining the results, Lippmann pointed out that France was now beginning to experience the impact of the depression more fully. However, he also observed that the ‘cold reception’ of the Tardieu Plan given in Geneva as well as the rejection of Tardieu’s plan for a system of tariff preferences for the Danubian states at the Four-Power Conference in London in April had seen Tardieu lose ‘prestige at home.’167 The defeat of the Tardieu government meant that Tardieu would not be able to avail himself of the opportunity to deliver two speeches concerning 165 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 240 and Martin Wight, Power Politics (London: Continuum, 2002), 271. 166 Salvador de Madariaga, 1932, quoted in Wight, Power Politics, 271. Wight notes that Madariaga ‘had the fable from [Winston] Churchill’ but adds that it goes back further (ibid.). 167 ‘The plan seems to have been worked out by M. Tardieu and Sir John Simon, and came to be known as the Tardieu plan. It contemplated a restoration, in so far as that was possible, of the economic solidarity of the old Hapsburg Empire….Both Germany and Italy flatly and promptly rejected the plan, and thus ended all prospect of any immediate large solution of the Central European problem. It had been shown that the political rivalries of the powers were far stronger than their desire to take measures to promote economic recovery.’ Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 29, 134–6. See Stephen Bethlen, ‘The Danube States and the Tardieu Plan,’ Political Science Quarterly 47, no. 3 (1932): 352–62.

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Germany which he had been threatening to deliver during the first phase of the disarmament conference but which in the end he had not delivered. That he had not done so was partly on the advice of British who feared their provocative effect and partly, one might presume, because he wanted to avoid a total break with Germany.168 The first of these speeches detailed the German violations of the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and maintained that rather than remaining a disarmed state, Germany had in fact been directing its efforts, however concealed, towards reestablishing a large army.169 In the second speech, it was a matter of attacking the German proposal for equality of armaments: such a policy, Tardieu maintained, would be ‘the most unjust bonus to the invisible armaments, the potential [armaments], to the force of numbers, to economic power, and to fraud.’170 According to Tardieu, the German proposal was disturbing for a France that had been ‘struck and saddened by certain manifestations of German thought,’ manifestations which had caused France to form the view that ‘the German people are far from this moral disarmament.’171 Tardieu’s successor at the helm of government was Herriot who had found himself on the eve of the Disarmament Conference leading a party that was divided between those who like Herriot insisted that in the pursuit of disarmament one must not neglect security and those such as Édouard Daladier and Pierre Cot who insisted ‘more on the necessity of disarmament.’172 In November 1931, in view of the looming Disarmament Conference and the ballots for the Chamber, the party congress declared ‘itself more clearly for disarmament.’173 Yet in the lead-up to the elections, Herriot gave no indication that he fundamentally differed from Tardieu on the question of the dependence of disarmament on security.174 In an interview on 11 January 1932, Herriot stated that he could not allow that the Germans, given their solemn adhesion to the Treaty of Versailles and their entry into other formal engagements, would seek to evade their obligations. Having stated this he declared that he did not believe that 168 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 210–1, 213, 247. 169 Ibid., 211–2. 170 André Tardieu, 1932, quoted in Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 212. 171 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 212. 172 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 162. 173 Ibid. 174 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 137.

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disarmament is a means of security. Explaining his point, Herriot observed that ‘the numerical equality of two military contingents’ does not entail that they ‘balance each other as 100,000 conscripts are not equivalent to 100,000 professional soldiers.’175 Herriot then alluded to the idea that the type of attack that France feared above all from Germany, as an unnamed military adviser to the French delegation in Geneva had explained to a reporter following the announcement of the Tardieu Plan, was ‘sudden aerial bombardment by converted commercial machines.’176 Herriot told his interviewer that ‘even without an army, with modern technology, a nation can still destroy its neighbour: commercial aviation transformed instantly into military aviation.’177 Herriot announced the membership of his cabinet on 3 June.178 Among those he chose as ministers in what was a centre-left coalition government was Paul-Boncour who became minister for war and who, it should be clear, shared with Herriot the view that one must always be mindful of security in pursuing disarmament.179 It was while in the role of minister for war that Paul-Boncour would bring to the Disarmament Conference a new plan for disarmament and the international organisation of security: the French Constructive Plan.

The LNU and the Question of an IPF Frank M. Russell in his Theories of International Relations (1937), having noted the close similarity between the French proposals for an international force and the proposal for an IPF as put forward by Davies, explained the French advocacy of such a force in terms of a French tendency to ‘seek logical solutions involving a symmetrical and complete plan of international organization.’ He contrasted this putative French tendency to the Anglo-Saxon preference for the ‘partial and pragmatic approach to political questions.’ However, as Russell acknowledged, the most important factor 175 ‘M. Edouard Herriot parle de la situation française des réparations et du désarmement,’ L’Oeuvre, 12 January 1932. 176 Times (b), 8 February 1932. 177 L’Oeuvre, 12 January 1932. 178 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 137. 179 Paul-Boncour, Entre deux guerres: souvenirs de le III° République, vol. 2, Les lendemain

de la victoire 1919–1934, 264. See also Bernstein, ‘Le milieu genevois dans la France de l’entre-deux-guerres,’ 330–1.

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behind the various French proposals for an international force was France’s geographical proximity to ‘defeated and dissatisfied powers.’180 Cecil offered a similar appraisal to that of Russell, noting that support for an IPF ‘would unquestionably appeal to the French love of something concrete and definite.’ That said, Cecil did not hesitate to acknowledge the seriousness of French security concerns.181 Michael Pugh notes that by the time of the commencement of the Disarmament Conference, Cecil had concluded that progress on disarmament demanded that Britain assist in strengthening French security, either through guarantees of mutual assistance or through the creation of an IPF.182 Murray agreed with this position and in May 1932, he sought to obtain support for an IPF at a meeting of the LNU General Council.183 At this and at subsequent meetings, LNU endorsement of an IPF was opposed by Austen Chamberlain who, along with other like-minded conservatives, refused to countenance ‘any such trend away from sovereign control of the means of defence.’ In their resistance to an IPF, conservative members of the LNU were backed by its pacifist members for whom the idea of a militarised League was an oxymoron. Thus was born, as Pugh describes it, an ‘unholy pacifistconservative alliance’ against collective security guarantees.184 According to Pugh, in light of the divisions in the LNU on the question of an IPF, one can understand Davies’s decision to create a new institution in order to prosecute the case for it. The urgent need for an IPF only impressed itself further upon Davies as the year 1932 progressed. In a letter addressed to Murray dated 23 November from which Pugh quotes, Davies stated that he felt that the Germans were ‘playing a deep game and that their only object’ at the disarmament conference ‘is simply to manoeuvre a better position for themselves out of the proceedings at Geneva, with no thought whatever of peace and justice.’ By contrast, Davies applauded the French interventions at the conference: the French had made it plain that 180 Russell, Theories of International Relations, 445n–6n. 181 Robert Cecil, 1932, quoted in Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 104. 182 Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 104. Waqar H. Zaidi states that Cecil, ‘although against

a strongly armed League on the basis that it would further deter American participation,’ nonetheless suggested at the Third Assembly that ‘making air forces the League’s “special weapon” would facilitate disarmament.’ Zaidi, ‘Proposals for the International Control of Aviation, 1920–45,’ 154. 183 Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 106. 184 Ibid.

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‘re-armament by Germany, whether prompted by a so-called disarmament treaty or not, is the dire alternative to effective provision for collective security from war.’185

The Einstein/Freud Correspondence There was another and very famous advocate of the equivalent of an IPF: Albert Einstein. In 1931, the ICIC, following a submission of its Permanent Committee of Letters and Arts, decided to ‘encourage an exchange of letters between leaders of thought, on the lines of those which have always taken place at the great epochs of European history’ and to choose ‘subjects that best serve the common interest of the League of Nations and the intellectual life of mankind’: the International Series of Open Letters or Correspondences.186 Formally, the first volume in the open letters series was A League of Minds or Pour une Société des Esprits (1933). However, the first volume to actually appear in the series was an exchange of letters between Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Although the title originally favoured for the Einstein/Freud correspondence was Law and Violence, by the time of its publication by the IIIC in March 1933, it had been given the following titles in English, French and German respectively: Why War?, Pourquoi la Guerre? and Warum Krieg? Why War? served as the title of extracts from the correspondence that were published in January 1933 in the Information Bulletin of the League of Nations’ Intellectual Co-operation Organisation which, as previously noted, was a publication appearing in English with a view to British and American audiences.187 One might view the occasion of the publication of the Einstein/Freud correspondence against the background of the moral disarmament campaign that had been underway since September 1931. In regard to this campaign, Jan Kolasa observes that it was no ‘accident’ that this exchange

185 David Davies, 1932, quoted in Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 110. 186 League of Nations, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1933, 34.

Emphasis in the original. 187 Albert Dickson, editor’s note, ‘Why War? (1933 [1932]) (Einstein and Freud)’ in Sigmund Freud, Civilization, Society and Religion: Group Psychology, Civilization and Its Discontents and Other Works, ed. Albert Dickson (Harmonsworth: Penguin Books, 1985), 343–4, and ‘Why War?—A Correspondence Between Professor Einstein and Professor Freud,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 8 (1933): 239–45. On the original title of the correspondence, see Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (London: Hodder and Staunton, 1996), 349.

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concerned the ‘intellectual foundations of war.’188 However, according to Ronald W. Clark in his biography of Einstein, when in the autumn of 1931 Leon Steinig, an official in the Social Questions and Trafficking in Opium Section of the LON Secretariat, travelled to Berlin in order to seek Einstein’s cooperation in a second volume of the Open Letters series, a decision on the subject matter of such a volume had yet to be reached.189 Clark adds that although various topics had been discussed in Geneva, the precise subject matter of the proposed exchange of letters was seen as somewhat unimportant from that vantage point: what Geneva really wanted was ‘a long original letter from Einstein which could be published under the League’s auspices.’190 On 29 October, having excited the interest of Einstein in the project, Steinig sent a letter to Bonnet, observing therein that Einstein had ‘a horror of platonic declarations which did not look forward to an immediately realisable end.’191 In his letter, Steinig described his meeting with Einstein as follows: After Mr. Einstein underlined his interest in education as a means of ensuring peace, we decided [M. Steinig went on] that he would accept in principle the idea of writing two letters to two different people on this question: one of these letters would probably be addressed to M. Langevin, and M. Einstein proposed here to deal with an exchange of views between representatives of French and German organisations on the means of influencing the content of history textbooks in the two countries, for instance. One could, M. Einstein considered, progressively correct the historical accuracy of such books by removing ‘tendentious errors’ on the one hand and, on the other, the errors which provoked and nourished the feelings of national hostility. Another letter, which would be produced in the form of a questionnaire, would be addressed to M. Freud of Vienna. M. Einstein will probably ask him to explain how an education inspired by the new principles of psychoanalysis would be able to contribute to guiding the ideas of children towards peace

188 Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 111. 189 Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, 346. 190 Ibid. 191 Leon Steinig, 1931, quoted ibid., 347. For the date of this letter, see Siegfried Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers: Science and Politics —Einstein’s Berlin Period, trans. Ann M. Hentschel (Berlin: Springer, 2004), 218.

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and in diminishing the aggressive impulses which are the foundation of all war.192

In the event, it was the idea of an exchange of letters between Einstein and Freud alone on which Steinig and Bonnet finally settled. Bonnet suggested in a note sent to Einstein that as Langevin was at that time in China as a member of the League’s mission of educational experts, and as he himself was about to depart for China, it was probably best not to proceed with the exchange with Langevin.193 Clark observes that in suggesting this Bonnet was being tactful. He acknowledges that the reason why the proposed exchange between Einstein and Langevin, the latter being a longstanding and close friend of the former, never came to fruition are unclear. Nonetheless, Clark implies a reason in pointing out that because the Einstein/Langevin project never came to fruition, ‘the problem of reconciling the French and German views of history given in the textbooks never had to be publicly argued.’194 As to what may have prompted the idea of an exchange with Freud, the psychoanalytical theories of whom little excited Einstein, in Clark’s view it was very likely an observation made by Jäckh at a dinner held by DufourFeronce at his house in Geneva. Einstein and some of his colleagues on the ICIC, which at that time was in session, were among those who attended the dinner.195 Jäckh observed the following of the occasion: [A]s we were going into dinner, I asked Professor Einstein: ‘Would you agree that it is no mere chance that your theory of relativity, and Professor Freud’s psychoanalyses, the League of Nations and its World Court, and other phenomena of our time, have developed together: that they are all an expression of the same revolutionary phase through which the contemporary world is passing?’

192 Steinig, 1931, quoted in Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, 347. 193 Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, 348. 194 Ibid. 195 Ibid., 47. Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden observe that it ‘seems that Einstein made a distinction between Freud the father of psychoanalysis and Freud the social philosopher.’ Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace (New York: Schocken Books, 1960), 185.

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Professor Einstein looked at me, said nothing for a moment, and then: ‘This synthetic vision is new to me. Let me think it over.’ During dinner I watched him, and I noticed that he was eating and drinking nothing, but was staring in front of him and meditating. After dinner, he came up to me and said, ‘You are quite right: I endorse your holism.’196

Einstein’s letter to Freud, the one which opened the exchange between them, was dated 30 July 1932. It was written while Einstein was staying at his summer house at Caputh near Potsdam, ‘under the eye of the barbarians,’ as one commentator observed in a piece commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Why War? 197 Another piece of commentary marking the same anniversary and which served as an introduction to the publication of the two letters for the first time in Italian, described Einstein’s approach to the question as ‘rationalist pacifism.’ According to an article appearing in L’Illustrazione Italiana, Einstein’s ‘simple solution’ to the problem of war was to establish a sovereign world power and invest it with the power and authority to impose law on force. The same article observed that in place of the simple opposition between law and force which Einstein depicted, Freud, in a penned in September 1932, established an ‘opposition between two diverse forms of violence, the one of the strong and the one that gives birth to the union of the weak.’ These two forms, the article continued, were in Freud’s view both ‘irreconcilable’ and ‘intimately linked’: they respectively gave expression to ‘the principle of destruction and the principle of life.’ Under this aspect, the article concluded, war appears as a reality that is ‘“physiologically founded”, rooted in man and in history.’198 As he later informed Einstein, Freud had told Steinig when he last met him in Vienna, that his reply would ‘not be very encouraging,’ and that he doubted whether Bonnet ‘would want to publish his pessimistic reply.’199 Steinig informed Einstein of Freud’s attitude on 12 September. Four days later, Einstein responded by stating that ‘even if Freud’s reply would be 196 Ernst Jäckh, 1931, quoted in Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, 347. 197 Denis de Rougement, ‘Pourquoi la Guerre: Un échange des lettres prophétiques entre

Einstein et Freud,’ Réalités: Femina-illustration, no. 147 (1958): 39–40. 198 ‘Einstein: C’è un mezzo per liberare gli uomini dalla maledizione della guerra?/Freud: Ciò che promuove il progresso della civiltà,’ L’Illustrazione Italiana 84, no. 5 (1958): 53–6, and 91–2, 53. 199 Steinig, 1932, quoted in Nathan and Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace, 191.

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neither cheerful nor optimistic, it would certainly be interesting and psychologically effective.’200 In the event, Freud offered a measure of encouragement in his letter. He insisted in concluding that the ‘psychical modifications that go along with the process of civilization are striking and unambiguous’ and involve a ‘progressive displacement of instinctual aims and a restriction of instinctive impulses.’201 Overwhelmingly, however, Freud’s prognosis in respect to the cause of peace was a depressing one. In relation to the indirect methods of preventing war through encouraging ‘the growth of emotional ties’ among peoples in the form of neighbourly love and a sense of identification, Freud stated that it brought to mind ‘an unpleasant picture…of mills that grind so slowly that people may starve before they get their flour.’202 His suggestion that what might prevent war was the prospect of a conflagration in which one or both sides risked ‘extermination’ due to the ‘perfection of the instruments of destruction,’ would have provided little comfort.203 Leaving aside Freud’s letter which Einstein appears to have read appreciatively, it is important to observe that to apply the label rationalist to Einstein in the context of this exchange is somewhat misleading.204 After all, Einstein stated in his letter that ‘man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction,’ a point with which Freud stated he wholly concurred in his reply.205 Einstein observed that in ‘normal times this passion [for war and destruction] exists in a latent state’ and that it ‘emerges only in unusual circumstances.’ However, he added, that it is ‘comparatively easy task to call it into play and raise it to the power of a collective psychosis,’ a point with which Freud also entirely agreed.206 It is noteworthy that Einstein did not think that the phenomenon of collective psychosis concerned only 200 Nathan and Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace, 191. 201 ‘Why War? (1933 [1932]) (Einstein and Freud),’ in Freud, Civilization, Society and

Religion, 361, and Information Bulletin 1, no. 8 (1933): 244. See also Kolasa, International Intellectual Co-operation, 112. 202 ‘Why War? (1933 [1932]) (Einstein and Freud),’ in Freud, Civilization, Society and Religion, 360. 203 Ibid. 204 Nathan and Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace, 204. 205 Information Bulletin 1, no. 8 (1933): 240. See also ‘Why War? (1933 [1932]) (Einstein

and Freud),’ in Freud, Civilization, Society and Religion, 360. 206 Information Bulletin 1, no. 8 (1933): 240. See also ‘Why War? (1933 [1932]) (Einstein and Freud),’ in Freud, Civilization, Society and Religion, 360.

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the ‘uncultured masses’; indeed, Einstein contended that it is the ‘so-called “Intelligentsia” that is most apt to yield to…disastrous collective suggestions, since the intellectual has no direct contact with life in the raw, but encounters it in its easiest synthetic form.’207 Although Einstein stated in his letter that he viewed the lust for hatred and destruction as the ‘crux of all the complex of factors’ under consideration, he also stated that he considered it necessary to establish an international legislative and judicial body as a means of dealing with the ‘superficial (i.e. administrative) aspect of the problem.’208 Here it is important to note that Einstein was insistent that any such body must be in a position to ‘enforce absolute submission to the execution of its verdicts.’209 In this regard, Einstein made the (Hobbesian) point that ‘law and might inevitably go hand in hand’: ‘juridical decisions approach more nearly the ideal of justice demanded by the community…in so far as the community has effective power to compel respect for its juridical ideal.’210 Einstein had insisted on the need for supranational authority equipped with executive force for some time. Writing with the Disarmament Conference in view, Einstein stated in an article appearing in the New York Times on 22 November 1931, that if the LON were to be more than a mere meeting place, it must be equipped with means of ‘enforcing its decisions.’211 In the absence of such means, he declared, one must judge less severely than is generally the case, France’s ‘refusal to disarm without security.’212 One can thus safely presume that Einstein was alluding to the need for a supranational authority when he stated in an interview with the editor of the French review Paix Mondiale on 17 November 1931, that although moral disarmament was an important goal to pursue, by itself it was insufficient to bring about material disarmament. Einstein stated that 207 ‘Why War? (1933 [1932]) (Einstein and Freud),’ in Freud, Civilization, Society and Religion, 347–8. 208 Ibid., 346. Siegfried Grundmann states that Einstein had been preoccupied with the idea of ‘creating a world government and unconditionally relinquishing some freedom of action or sovereignty’ as a response to the reality of international conflict since the time of the First World War. Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers, 219. 209 ‘Why War? (1933 [1932]) (Einstein and Freud),’ in Freud, Civilization, Society and Religion, 346. 210 Ibid. 211 Albert Einstein, ‘The Road to Peace,’ New York Times, 22 November 1931. 212 Ibid.

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material disarmament would only become possible when countries were given guarantees of security, adding that the need for such guarantees was well demonstrated by the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.213 Later, on 18 November 1932, Einstein would issue a statement endorsing Herriot’s proposal at the Disarmament Conference for an IPF. 214 The coming to power of the Nazis and what that foreboded for the international political scene, reinforced in Einstein’s mind the need for the international organisation of military force. On 1 July 1933, he distanced himself from ‘certain of the views of the radical pacifist movement,’ stating that ‘in the present situation we must support a supranational organisation of force rather than advocate the abolition of all forces.’215 Although he added that recent events had taught him a lesson in this respect, it should be clear that his declaration of support for the international organisation of force on 1 July 1933, was continuous with what he had earlier stated on the subject.216 In the spring of 1933, Einstein conferred with Davies in Glasgow, whereupon he discovered that the thinking of the New Commonwealth Society was very similar to his own. On 20 July, Einstein issued Davies with a statement which he intended that Davies should publish. Therein he affirmed that he could not have stated his own position ‘as well or as completely’ as Davies had in his books. What Einstein meant in this regard was made clear by the following declaration: ‘No disarmament without security. No security without a mandatory international court of arbitration and an international standing army.’217 It was thus fitting that Einstein agreed in August 1933 to become a ‘foundation member’ of the New Commonwealth Society.218 It was also fitting that in early 1934, the New Commonwealth published a small propaganda pamphlet featuring an edited version of Why War? 219 213 Nathan and Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace, 149–50. 214 Ibid., 205. Note that Einstein raised certain objections to other aspects of the Herriot

plan. 215 Einstein, 1933, quoted in Nathan and Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace, 225–6. Emphasis in the original. 216 Nathan and Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace, 226. 217 Einstein, 1933, quoted in Nathan and Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace, 226. 218 Ibid. 219 ‘Questins Concerning International Relations: “Conversations” and “Correspondence,”’ LON, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1934, 27. On the timing

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Krüss Replaces Einstein on the ICIC Siegfried Grundmann notes that Einstein’s contribution to the exchange of correspondence on the question of war was the ‘last touch of his political activism in Germany’: on 10 December 1932, Einstein would leave the country never to return.220 Einstein’s open letter to Freud would also be the last touch of his activities on behalf of the ICIC. Einstein’s term with the ICIC formally came to an end in September 1932, although Einstein himself had entertained the belief that his term had expired in the previous year. In any case, Einstein was firm in his determination not to return to Geneva and he conveyed this to Montenach in responding to an invitation to attend the ICIC’s annual plenary session in July 1932.221 As a result, it was Krüss who attended the July meeting, albeit in Einstein’s name.222 As we saw, Krüss had long coveted Einstein’s position on the ICIC. However, although Einstein had been willing to accept Krüss as his substitute, he was opposed to the idea that Krüss, whom he considered ‘silly and conceited,’ should be his replacement.223 Murray also voiced his concern in regard the prospective appointment of Krüss, informing Dufour-Feronce in a letter dated 21 June 1932, that Einstein’s replacement should be a ‘reputable scholar’ rather than a bureaucrat. Nonetheless, Murray acknowledged that it would be hard for him to resist the appointment of a person nominated by the German government.224 Dufour-Feronce, who had never considered Einstein an appropriate person to represent German science, conspired with Rocco (with whom Dufour-Feronce discussed Krüss’s candidacy at the CISSIR’s Milan

of the publication by the New Commonwealth of the pamphlet featuring an edited version of ‘Why War?’, see Jäckh to the IIIC, 6 March 1934, Rapprochement international: Généralités, AG 1-IICI-B-V-4, UA. See also ‘Why War? “open letters” between Einstein and Freud,’ New Commonwealth Pamphlets, no. 6 (London: New Commonwealth, 1934). 220 Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers, 218. 221 Ibid., 209–10. See also Nathan and Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace, 110–1. Einstein

had written to Dufour-Feronce following his attendance at the annual session of the ICIC in Geneva from 23 to 30 July 1930, of his disillusionment with the committee and of his decision not to return to Geneva. 222 ‘International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation: Fourteenth Plenary Session, Geneva, 12–23 July 1932,’ Information Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1932): 99–100. 223 Einstein, 1931, quoted in Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers, 207. 224 Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers, 212.

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conference and whose friendship Krüss had cultivated), to ensure that Krüss obtained the position.225 Whether largely as a result of their efforts or not, Krüss was appointed to the ICIC by the LON Council in September 1932.226 Grundmann points out that following the Nazi coup, Krüss quickly threw his support behind the new regime, thereby keeping his position as director-general of the Prussian State Library as well as his positions on the ICIC and its executive committee.227 Thereafter, Krüss set out to exploit his roles in Geneva in order to promote the image and protect the interests of the new regime. He assured the German Foreign Office, which had communicated to him its displeasure regarding the appearance of Warum Krieg?, a publication which was banned in Germany as was publicity about it, that he would seek to ensure that the IIIC did not publish ‘such kinds of things’ in the future, adding that in this endeavour he would be backed by his ‘Italian friend, the former minister of justice, Rocco.’228 In an account of a meeting of the ICIC’s executive committee which was held from 10 to 12 April in Paris, Krüss noted that he had spoken with many ‘persons of importance’ and described how he had defended the German government’s handling of the ‘Jewish issue.’ and that he had pointed out to his colleagues in Geneva that the issue must be ‘evaluated not just according 225 Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers, 199, 211–2. Subsequent to the CISSIR’s conference

in Milan, Dufour-Feronce wrote to Rocco in order to ask him if he would seek to influence his colleagues on the matter of Krüss’s appointment at the July meeting of the ICIC. On the rule of Dufour-Feronce and that of his Rocco’s role in Krüss’s appointment. See also Nathan and Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace, 236. Nathan and Norden note that on 3 October 1933, Einstein, along with Austen Chamberlain, the physicist and astronomer Sir James Jeans, the physicist Lord Rutherford and Beveridge, spoke at a mass meeting at the Royal Albert Hall. The meeting was organised by the Refugee Assistance Fund which incorporated a number of organisations involved in procuring assistance for scholars and academics fleeing Germany. Ronald W. Clark points out that Dufour-Feronce, who had become the ambassador to Belgrade in 1932 but had since been retired, wrote the following to Lloyd George’s Secretary concerning the Albert Hall event: ‘I am convinced that in time things will right themselves and meetings such as the Albert Hall meeting for Einstein will only tend to inflame the situation and not improve it….It is a pity that so great a scientist should lend his name for propaganda against the country of his birth. But although born in Bavaria, he was never really a German in sentiment.’ Dufour-Feronce, 1933, quoted in Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, 473. 226 ‘Au Conseil de la Société des Nations: Nomination de trois membres de la CCIC,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 20–21 (1932): 1102–4. 227 Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers, 213. 228 Hugo Andres Krüss, 1933, quoted in Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers, 217 and Clark,

Einstein: The Life and Times, 349.

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to racial aspects but also to economic aspects.’ In the same account Krüss also noted that he had cited the example of ‘the procedures of the large institute’ of which he was director in order to ‘illustrate how disciplined and moderately the national uprising has been happening in Germany.’ He then observed that Babcock and Kittredge would ‘report in New York to the Carnegie Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation on the basis of…[his]…descriptions,’ adding that ‘no explanation was necessary for the two Italians,’ namely, Pilotti and Rocco.229 Doubtless it was the ICIC’s guiding principle of political neutrality, which in the view of Einstein too often manifested as effective complicity with power or resulted in weak policy, that explains why it would appear that no objections were raised in response to Krüss’s discourse in Paris. At the same time, this principle did not prevent the British member of the ICIC’s executive committee and secretary of the British National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, namely, Sir Frank Heath, from remarking that ‘Germany was in fact set before the choice between a nationalistic regime and a Bolshevist one.’230 It is noteworthy that Heath had advised Dufour-Feronce in June 1932 that he would support Krüss’s nomination. However, according to Grundmann, Heath also advised Dufour-Feronce that he was concerned by Murray’s ‘reservations and about being blamed for acting like a narrow-minded philistine’ and that he thus wished to confer with Murray before deciding how to approach the matter. In a letter in response, Dufour-Feronce counselled Heath that it was ‘better not to discuss Krüss’s nomination with Murray’ precisely because of Murray’s views on the subject.231 In any case, it would appear that Krüss came away from the ICIC’s executive committee meeting in Paris in April 1933 feeling rather emboldened, impertinently stating in a letter to Murray in September of that year that he was confident that Murray’s ‘better judgment’ would ensure that Murray would continue ‘to separate the area of our Intellectual Cooperation from things currently the subject of political debate.’232

229 Krüss, 1933, quoted in Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers, 214. 230 Ibid. 231 Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers, 212. Emphasis in original. Heath’s letter was dated 24 June 1932, and that of Dufour-Feronce 27 June 1932. 232 Krüss, 1933, quoted in Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers, 216.

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The 1933 Plenary Session of the ICIC Shotwell had been unable to attend the ISC’s session in London in 1933, partly due to the editorial work he needed to complete on the survey of the teaching and research on international relations in the United States that he had initiated in the previous year. In a letter to Bonnet apologising for his absence from the London conference, Shotwell reported on the progress that the American National Committee on International Intellectual Cooperation had made in regard to moral disarmament. He then stated that he felt the cause now seemed ‘a very unreal thing in light of the Nazi conquest of Germany.’ Indeed, he told Bonnet that ‘in view of the crisis which confronts the world today’ he was convinced that if the ICIC were to ‘justify its existence’ it needed to move ‘to take hold of the fundamental problems of international adjustment in the social and political sciences.’ He informed Bonnet that he was going to recommend to Murray that the ICIC ‘take on an emergency program to further an understanding of where the crisis is leading us and that it adjourn its other activities for the present wherever they involve the expenditure of money.’ Shotwell added that although taking hold of fundamental problems he had mentioned might be considered the function of the ISC, he was ‘quite convinced’ that the ISC as ‘at present organized…cannot deal adequately with so serious a state of affairs, however valuable may be its aid in helping to get things going.’233 Shotwell presented a proposal along the lines indicated in his letter to Bonnet at the next plenary session of the ICIC which took place between the 17 and 22 July, 1933. He proposed that in light of the success of the ISC and the results it had achieved, that the ICIC establish an international commission of social and political sciences analogous to the ICIC’s Permanent Committee of Letters and Arts. The twin aims of such a commission, he advised, would be to ‘encourage the advancement of these sciences’ and to explore the ways in which their current condition might be modified so as to ensure that they conduced to the ‘renunciation of force.’ Shotwell reiterated his belief that this was a matter of great urgency, observing that the world had entered ‘new social phase’: there would be ‘new wars and new crises’ unless science was brought to bear on social and political problems.234 233 Shotwell to Bonnet, 13 May 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.i, UA. 234 ‘Propositions du Professor Shotwell pour une collaboration internationale en matière

de sciences sociales et politiques,’ Bulletin de la Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 32–33 (1933):

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In order to reinforce his case, Shotwell sent to members of the ICIC an excerpt from the draft of his introduction to the Study of International Relations in the United States which was due to be published in the following year. In that excerpt, Shotwell explained that by the expression new social phase he meant that in light of the scientific age in which people now lived, one could no longer assume continuity between the past and the future. Shotwell observed that whereas the pre-scientific age was characterised by ‘repetition’ and ‘routine,’ the current age was characterised by perpetual and accelerating change. The consequence of this ‘eternal change,’ he added, was social displacement and this called for ‘further instruments of adjustment.’ Developing such instruments was essential to the future of civilisation Shotwell stated, pointing to the threat posed to the entire social structure by the ‘ominous menace of increasing unemployment’ brought about by the economic depression. Human relations, Shotwell maintained, could no longer be left to the blind forces of ‘unintelligence, prejudice and tradition’ and it was the appreciation of this point, he added, that had given birth to the Soviet Five-Year Plan as well as to the ‘less rigid’ forms of economic planning adopted in a number of capitalist countries.235 An appreciation of this point was also reflected, Shotwell told the plenary session, in the ‘technique of conciliation’ adopted by the LON, a technique which, he stated, was based in the view that the disputes between nations are seldom ‘provoked by questions of fact’ but instead are grounded in mere opinion and sentiment. The modus operandi adopted by the LON’s conciliators, Shotwell maintained in an implicit endorsement of the vaunted

437–8. See also Bonnet to Shotwell, 3 February 1932, Conférence des Institutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales, 1 October 1931–31 March 1932, AG 1-IICIK-I-1.d, UA. Shotwell had been arguing the case that the ICIC should expand further into the field of the social and political sciences since 1931 and in this he had the support of Bonnet. In 1932, Shotwell, submitted a note to the ICIC suggesting that the ICO might consider engaging in an in-depth study of the social sciences in general. In particular, he urged that the social sciences, which had hitherto been organised on a national basis, be internationalised. He submitted that they should be organised with a view to the same ‘philosophical principle’ that lay at the base of the League of Nations: ‘the community of interests of all nations.’ Members of the ICIC leant their support to Shotwell’s suggestion during the discussion in response to his note of 21 July 1932, instructing the president of ICIC and the IIIC to investigate the matter. See IICI, L’Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle: 1925–1946, 316–8. 235 James T. Shotwell, ‘The Problem and the Instruments of Research in International Relations,’ in Ware, ed., The Study of International Relations in the United States: Survey for 1934, 11–2.

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method of the IPR, was that of separating from ‘the sentimental elements, the essential object of a conflict’: conciliators at the LON sought to remove disputes from the ‘domain of sentiment’ and locate them in the domain of the ‘facts,’ thereby encouraging parties to ‘pass from the domain of politics’ and into the domain of ‘arbitration.’236 Oprescu, the former secretary of the ICIC who substituted for the Titulescu at the 1933 plenary session of the ICIC, welcomed Shotwell’s proposal. He noted that while the ICO was ‘conscious’ of the relation between the intellectual domain and the social and economic domains, its efforts to throw that relation into relief had been ‘isolated.’ The work of the ICO, Oprescu added, should be directed towards understanding current events and studying them ‘objectively in order to see how what is happening in certain countries is integrated into the evolution of ideas, sentiments and political and economic conceptions.’ It was for this reason, Oprescu told his colleagues, that he strongly supported the proposal, although he thought that it would be a complex undertaking given that ‘differences in mentalities’ had become ‘aggravated’ in recent times.237 Krüss, who also expressed support for the proposal, stated that the real crisis facing the world was an intellectual crisis, arising from the fact that an older generation was being left behind by the younger generation. This, he observed, had created a situation in which the former were finding themselves ‘isolated in relation to the new.’ Josef Susta, a professor of general history at Charles University in Prague, responded to Krüss in claiming that the real problem was that a part of the new generation was being formed in ignorance of the pacifism of the LON, adding that this was why he considered Shotwell’s proposition of great importance.238 Somewhat cautious support for Shotwell’s proposal was offered by Rocco, who noted that that one reason why the ICIC had ‘hesitated’ to engage with social and political questions was in order to ‘avoid wounding susceptibilities.’239 It was thus noteworthy that Bonnet advised the committee that the proposal did not hold out ‘the least political danger’; Bonnet 236 ‘À la Commission Internationale de la Coopération Intellectuelle, l’étude objective des relations entre les peoples: 1) Propositions du Professeur Shotwell pour une collaboration internationale en matière de sciences sociales et politiques,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 32–33 (1933): 443–51, 443. 237 Ibid., 444. 238 Ibid., 446–7. 239 Ibid., 445.

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stated that there was no reason why an attempt by the ICIC to ‘enlarge the horizon’ of the social and political sciences, which he too contended was a matter of urgency given the evolution of international relations, could not be undertaken in a ‘disinterested’ manner.240 The ICIC’s plenary session also addressed the results of the London conference of the ISC. Bonnet pointed out in this regard that the conference had ‘obtained a success as complete as one could have hoped,’ noting how well it had complemented the experiment attempted the previous year in Milan. He praised the brilliance of the participants and the ‘high quality’ of the memoranda submitted to it and took care to point out that while ‘the most different theories’ confronted each other in London, the discussion had remained ‘completely objective.’ Bonnet then observed that the subject chosen for the next conference, which he described as collective security from the point of view of the sovereign of the state and in relation to the question of sanctions, had a high degree of currency and was illustrative of the incorporation of studies of a social and political nature into the field of the ICO.241 At this point, Rocco aired another note of caution, demanding to know exactly what was meant by collective security. He insisted that the conference would not achieve any useful result if there was not in advance considerable reflection on what was meant by this expression. Murray hastened to reassure him that the ISC intended to approach the subject from a social and philosophical rather than military perspective, adding that he did not think that any ‘political preoccupation’ would ‘enter into the study of this subject.’242 At this point, Shotwell stated that it was his understanding that the ISC had chosen the topic of collective security with the intention of examining the various implications for governments of all the peace pacts that they had signed in recent years, including the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Pact of Paris and the conventions on non-aggression signed in London on 3 July 1933 in the midst of the WEC, between the USSR and its neighbours. Shotwell added that he expected that the implications of these non-aggression pacts would be studied as much in relation to those

240 Ibid., 448–9. 241 ‘La Conférence à Londre sur La Sécurité Collective,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no.

32–33 (1933): 467–71, 468–9. 242 Ibid., 470.

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states whose security is ‘naturally assured by their situation,’ as to those whose security depends on the legal obligations entered into by other states. Reinforcing Murray’s point, Shotwell observed that the question of collective security could be studied quite independently of the ‘practical problems of security of a military order.’243 Bonnet also addressed himself to Rocco’s question albeit more forcefully than the others: he pointed out that the ISC did not want to confine itself to the economic domain and that, in any case, one could not expect an autonomous organisation established in order to examine problems in the field of international relations to desist from touching on issues of current political import. Nonetheless, Bonnet too sought to allay Rocco’s concerns, stating that he was convinced based on what he had thus far observed in relation to the comportment of the savants involved in the ISC, that the issue of collective security would be researched scientifically and that there would not be any ‘friction among the delegations’ at the conference.244

The Banff Conference The IPR’s Fifth Biennial Conference was held at the Banff Spring Hotel at Banff in Canada from 14 to 26 August 1933. At this conference, the policy pursued from the outset by the International Secretariat of the IPR, namely, that of extending IPR membership to institutions with ties to European colonial powers bore further fruit: a group representing the NetherlandsNetherland East Indies, which had been represented by observers at the IPR’s 1929 and 1931 conferences, and a group representing France, which 243 Ibid., 470. ‘A further step forward in the Soviet treaty system was accomplished by… [Maxim Litvinov]…during the sessions of the World Monetary and Economic Conference at London in the summer of 1933. The Soviet foreign commissar took advantage of this gathering of foreign statesmen to conclude conventions with Russia’s neighbours defining aggression, thus strengthening the non-aggression pacts existing among them, as well as clarifying the meaning of the Kellogg-Briand anti-war treaty so far as those states were concerned. [Litvinov]…made his proposal to the signatories of the Moscow protocol of 1929. An initial multilateral convention was signed on 3 July 1933, by the U.S.S.R. and Afghanistan, Estonia, Latvia, Persia, Poland, Rumania, and Turkey. Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Turkey, and Yugoslavia joined the USSR on the following day in a similar convention which was opened to the adherence of other states and to which Finland adhered on July 23. Lithuania concluded a separate but similar convention with Russia on July 5.’ Buel W. Patch, ‘Non-Aggression and Security Pacts,’ Editorial Research Reports 1934, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1934). http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1934080100. 244 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 32–33 (1933), 470–1.

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had been represented by an observer at the IPR’s 1929 conference, joined the RIIA, which had been admitted to membership of the IPR at the IPR’s second conference in 1927, in participating in the IPR’s Fifth Biennial Conference as full members. The Dutch unit of the IPR consisted of two committees: a committee based in Jakarta (Batavia) which was organised as part of the Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, and a committee based in the Netherlands, consisting of members nominated by the Royal Society of Sciences, the Institute of Ethnography and Geography in Leiden, the Institute of Chinese Studies in Leiden and the Colonial Institute in Amsterdam.245 The French group at the Banff conference, which like the Dutch group represented both ‘the mother country as well as the dependency,’ participated in the name of the Comité d’études des problèmes du Pacifique. This committee was formed in the latter part of 1931, the impetus behind its creation being the ‘grave events in the Far East.’ The chair of the Comité d’études des problèmes du Pacifique was Paul Painlevé, a mathematician who had earlier served as prime minister of France and minister of war and who had been since 1926 a member of the ICIC. By virtue of his membership of the ICIC and his nationality, Painlevé was the chair of the IIIC’s governing body. The vice-chairman of the Comité d’études was also an homme d’État: Albert Sarraut, a former governor-general of French Indochina and minister of the colonies from 1920 to 1924. Painlevé, Sarraut and Paul Pelliot, this last being a French Sinologist and Orientalist of considerable repute and a member of the IIIC, were the founders of the Comité d’études des problèmes du Pacifique.246 Bonnet, who had attended the second meeting of the committee and had found it ‘exceedingly interesting,’ placed an office at the Palais Royal at the disposal of its secretariat. In a letter to Shotwell, whose involvement in the IPR dated back to its formative stages and who had presented at the IPR’s 1927 conference a draft of what would emerge in the following year as the Pact of Paris, Bonnet stated that he hoped the Comité d’études des problèmes du Pacifique would ‘take a very active share in the work

245 Sixth Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations. IPR: Report on Activities 1932–1933, 2. Reports on Activities of the Institute of Pacific Relations: 1932–1933, AG 1-IICI-K-VI-2, UA. 246 Lasker and Holland, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1933, viii. and ‘Culture générale,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 42 (1934): 322–3.

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of the Honolulu Institute.’247 According to the preface to the record of its proceedings, although the formation of a French national council of the IPR was still underway at the time of the Banff conference, which, it should be noted, Shotwell attended as part of the American delegation, the representatives of the Comité d’études were recognised as members in full standing. One of these representatives was Roger Lévy, secretary-general of the Comité d’études and editor of the Pacific section of publication L’Europe Nouvell e. The other French participant at Banff was Étienne Dennery. Dennery, a professor of economics at the Institute des hautes études internationales in Paris, was the author of Foules d’Asie. Surpopulation japonaise, expansion chinoise, émigration indienne (1930). Published in English under the heading of Asia’s Teeming Millions: and its Problem for the West (1931), Foules d’Asie was based on demographic research Dennery had conducted in China, Japan and India. Dennery is also noteworthy for being among the expert advisors, a number of whom had IPR connections, to the Commission of Enquiry (or Lytton Commission), sent by the LON to the Far East in early 1932 in order to determine the causes of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria following the so-called Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931: the very grave events which lead to the creation of the Comité d’études des problèmes du Pacifique. Formally, the Comité d’études was a private body. However, Condliffe, an economist who served as research secretary at the International Secretariat of the IPR in Honolulu from 1927 to 1931 before moving to Geneva to work for the Financial Section of the LON Secretariat, later stated that he was ‘certain’ that the Comité d’études enjoyed the ‘direct support of the French Foreign Office on many occasions.’248 247 Institute of Pacific Relations, Institute of Pacific Relations: Honolulu Session June 30 to July 14, 1925: History, Organization, Proceedings, Discussions and Addresses (Honolulu: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1925), 19–21; J. B. Condliffe ed., Problems of the Pacific: Proceedings of the Second Conference of the IPR, Honolulu, Hawaii, July 15 to 29, 1927 (Chicago, Illinois; Chicago University Press, 1928), 172, and ‘Section 27: Draft Treaty of Permanent Peace between the United States of America and….,’ in Condliffe ed., Problems of the Pacific: Proceedings of the Second Conference, 503–12; and Bonnet to Shotwell, 3 February 1932, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.d, UA. 248 Appendix Two: Holland-Hooper Interviews, in Paul F. Hooper, ed., Remembering the Institute of Pacific Relations: The Memoirs of William L. Holland (Tokyo: Ryukei Shyosha, 1995), 223. On the status of the French national council of the IPR at the time of the conference in Banff and the full standing accorded the French representatives at Banff, see Lasker and Holland, eds, Problems of the Pacific, 1933, x. For the background of Roger Lévy and Étienne Dennery and for Shotwell’s participation in the Banff conference, see ‘Appendix 1:

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The Banff meeting saw Carter confirmed as the IPR’s secretarygeneral.249 Both J. Merle Davis, the IPR’s general secretary from 1926 to 1930, and Condliffe had been keen to see powers from outside the region involve themselves in the activities of the IPR and on Carter’s watch, the pursuit of this ambition was accelerated: Carter set himself the task of winning for the IPR ‘worldwide recognition and prestige.’250 This agenda was reflected in a remodelled Pacific Affairs, with Carter announcing in its November–December 1933 issue that the journal would be appearing henceforth as a quarterly rather than monthly, and that ‘in its new form,’ while continuing to ‘survey the varied interests of the Pacific area,’ would, ‘however, be not merely a regional journal, but one which presents affairs within the region in their relation to world affairs.’251 Carter’s ambition for the IPR was further reflected in the transfer of the operations of the International Secretariat of the IPR from Honolulu to New York City in the years dating from 1933 to 1936.252 That the IPR had already achieved considerable success in gaining recognition and garnering prestige as a regionally focussed organisation of worldwide significance, is evidenced by certain observations made by Ware in The Study of International Relations in the United States: Survey for 1934. Therein she described the IPR as an ‘unofficial international body’ which promoted the cooperative study of the relations between ‘the various countries located in, or with interests in the Pacific region,’ observing that it had emerged as ‘the one outstanding organisation’ concerned with the conduct of research in the Pacific area. The IPR’s success ‘in developing a technique

List of Conference Members, Observers, Staff, and Committees,’ in Lasker and Holland, eds, Problems of the Pacific, 1933, 454, 457. See also Étienne Dennery, Foules d’Asie. Surpopulation japonaise, expansion chinoise, émigration indienne (Paris: A. Colin, 1930); Étienne Dennery, Asia’s Teeming Millions: and the Problem for the West, trans. John Peile (London: Jonathan Cape, 1931); and Charles Robequain, review of Foules d’Asie: Surpopulation japonaise, expansion chinoise, émigration indienne, by Étienne Dennery, Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 30, no.1–2 (1930): 182–4. www.persee.fr/doc/befeo_0336-1519_1930_ num_30_1_3195. 249 Lasker and Holland, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1933, xi. 250 Tomoko Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific: The United States, Japan and the Institute

of Pacific Relations in War and Peace, 1919–1945 (London: Routledge, 2002), 27, 171–3, 285. 251 Edward C. Carter, ‘Institute Notes,’ Pacific Affairs 6, no. 8 (1933): 617. 252 Tomoko Akami observes that the move to New York exemplified the IPR’s greater

official, state and ‘Atlantic orientation.’ Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific, 173–6.

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of conference and research adapted to dealing with large scale international problems has been so great,’ Ware pointed out, that a ‘special discussion’ of its work had been included in her survey. It may be telling of the relative standing of the two associations at the time and not just the geopolitical preoccupations of the United States, that the IPR received overwhelmingly more attention in Ware’s 1934 survey than did the ISC.253 The IPR had sent a robust delegation to the 1933 session of the ISC, not least because the Banff conference would be addressing topics that closely paralleled those discussed by the ISC in London.254 In turn, the ISC sent a representative to Banff: Wolfers was listed among the LON observers in the conference proceedings by virtue of his membership of what was described therein as the International Studies Conference of the League of Nations.255 Although in the event he was not able to participate in the Banff conference, Bonnet had been invited to attend as an observer on behalf of the IIIC by Jerome D. Greene, then the chairman of the IPR’s governing body: the Pacific Council. The explanation for this invitation is noteworthy in that it reflects what was a key aspect of the IPR’s identity: the conception of it as a forum for international intellectual cooperation within the Pacific region. Greene told Bonnet in his letter of invitation that the IPR had been honoured by the participation of representatives of the secretariats of the LON and the ILO at previous conferences.256 (In the case of the Banff conference, the LON Secretariat was represented by Mary A. Craig McGeachy, a member of its Information Section and the ILO Secretariat by S. Mack Eastman and G. A. Johnston, Chief of Section and Chief of Intelligence and Liaison Division, respectively.)257 Greene added, however, that he felt that the LON was only ‘imperfectly’ represented if the part of that ‘branch of its activities which is to do with intellectual cooperation is not represented in Conferences which are, above all, the most striking

253 Ware, ed., The Study of International Relations in the United States: Survey for 1934, 228, 230. 254 Sixth Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations: The Institute of Pacific Relations, Report on Activities 1932–1933, 1, AG 1-IICI-K-VI-2, UA. 255 Lasker and Hollands, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1933, 458. 256 Jerome Greene to Bonnet, 10 May 1933, Institutions Internationales pour l’études

scientifique des international relations, AG 1-IICI-K-V-1.a, UA. 257 Lasker and Hollands, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1933, 457–9.

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manifestation of intellectual cooperation in the countries which border the Pacific.’258 The main item on the conference agenda at Banff was that of ‘Economic Conflict and Control’ in the Pacific and in regard to this the conference addressed a problem that had already been touched on in 1931 but which had become more pronounced as the depression deepened: the need for world or international economic planning.259 Henry R. Angus, a Canadian delegate to the IPR’s 1931 conference in Shanghai, noted that by 1933, in an attempt to ‘arrest the progress of the depression,’ there had been a sharp increase in the ‘sphere of action of governments’ in respect to ‘phases of economic life which had hitherto been left to private business.’260 As Angus further noted, some hoped that this development would not prove to be a temporary measure but would involve a permanent change and that as a result ‘haphazard growth would be superseded by planned development.’261 In a submission entitled Chinese Government Planning and Reconstruction Since 1927, Gideon Chen, Dean of the College of Public Affairs at Yenching University in Beijing (Peiping), having noted the importance of the recent collaboration between the LON and China, observed the following: ‘in Russia one carries out economic planning; in the USA everyone talks about it; but in China the tendency is to draw up plans. We have as much to learn from the American talking as from the Russian doing.’262 Chen then quoted from a paper presented by Lewis L. Lorwin, a staff member of the Insitute of Economics of the Brookings Institution, at the World Economic Social Congress. This congress was held at the Koloniaal Institute in Amsterdam from 23 to 28 August 1931 and was consecrated to the subject of the necessity of the planned adjustment of

258 Greene to Bonnet, 10 May 1933, Institutions Internationales pour l’études scientifique des international relations, AG 1-IICI-K-V-1.a, UA. 259 Henry F. Angus, The Problem of Peaceful Change in the Pacific Area: A Study of the Work of the Institute of Pacific Relations and Its Bearing on the Problem of Peaceful Change (London: Oxford University Press, 1937), 150. 260 Ibid. 261 Ibid. 262 Gideon Chen, ‘Chinese Government Economic Planning and Reconstruction,’ in Lasker and Hollands, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1933, 382. Chen’s paper consisted of parts 3–6, slightly abridged, of a paper presented under the title, Chinese Government Planning and Reconstruction Since 1927.

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productive capacity and standards of living on a worldwide basis. In his paper Lorwin, in common with other social progressives at the time, depicted the policy of economic planning as rational and forward-looking and the policy of laisser-faire as superstitious and fatalistic. Lorwin concluded his paper as follows: ‘Economic planning is thus merely a phase of a new mode of feeling life and of living. The laisser-faire of the nineteenth century was based upon a metaphysics of the providential guidance of natural law. The planning of the twentieth century rests its case on a philosophical faith in the power of man to promote orderly economic and social change through scientific research and constructive imagination.’263 Having quoted Lorwin thus, Chen affirmed that China (a six-person delegation from which had attended the World Economic Social Congress alongside numerous other delegations representing a range of national and international institutions and at which the problem of planning in China was discussed), in its modern guise had ‘certainly professed such a philosophical faith,’ adding that ‘with a national economic plan wisely drawn up and effectively carried out, the future economic development of China will be a blessing to its people and a happiness to the world.’264 At Banff, some expressed the hope that the sharp increase in the sphere of action of governments in response to the Depression ‘might be a permanent change rather than a temporary expedient, and that haphazard growth might be superseded by planned development’ and that in turn, planning might be extended to the international sphere, not least because 263 Lewis L. Lorwin, ‘The Problem of Economic Planning,’ in addendum to material contributed to the World Social Economic Congress, in Mary Lambertine Fleddérus, ed., World Social Economic Planning: The Necessity for Planned Adjustment of Productive Capacity and Standards of Living (The Hague: International Industrial Relations Institute, 1932), xl, and Chen, ‘Chinese Government Economic Planning and Reconstruction,’ 382. 264 Chen, ‘Chinese Government Economic Planning and Reconstruction,’ 382. See ‘List of Congress Members,’ and ‘List of Organizations, Institutions, Departments and Journals Included in the Membership of the Congress,’ in Fleddérus, ed., World Social Economic Planning, lvix, lxvi, lxxiv–v. Among the international institutions represented at the World Social Economic Congress were the American Council of the IPR, which was represented by Carter and his son, namely, Edward C. Carter jnr., and the ILO. Although the ISC was not represented, it was attended by three persons associated with its 1932 and 1933 conferences on state intervention in the private economic sphere: Bonn, Brinkmann and Richardson. See also ‘Program of the 1931 World Social Economic Congress,’ in Fleddérus, ed., World Social Economic Planning, xxvi, and J. B. Tayler, ‘The Principle of the People’s Livelihood: The Problem of Economic Planning as Seen in China,’ in addendum to material contributed to the World Social Economic Congress, Amsterdam, August 1931, in Fleddérus, ed., World Social Economic Planning, xlii–xlvi.

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‘the evils of national planning without regard to the legitimate interests of other nations’ had become ‘more and more obvious as the depression progressed.’265 On the positive side, some insisted that international or world planning, the need for which had been explained by Lorwin in a paper submitted to IPR’s 1931 conference, was ‘bound to produce peaceful changes in the economic relations of various nations’; some argued in this regard that it ‘seemed as if an approach had been found to peaceful change which, psychologically at least, avoided many of the obstacles which popular opinion had opposed to change in other guises.’266 Not all participants in the Banff conference were optimistic about the prospects for substantial changes in the economic relations between states. An American member and student of international law and peace machinery, pointed out at one round table that awareness of the economic differences among peoples in regard to standards of living, the availability of raw materials and access to markets, had greatly increased as a result of modern systems of communications. The same member maintained that this heightened awareness had tended to lead to ‘demands among the people of one area for movement, whether of population or of goods, and on the other, for obstruction to such movement,’ adding that such demands might ‘cease to be economic and become political demands by the respective states for change or preservation of the political status quo. Artificial barriers to freedom of movement are erected by the more favoured state, and these are interpreted as signs of political hostility by the other state.’267 The American member suggested that existing international organisations were too weak to negotiate a peaceful settlement of conflicts of this nature. Indeed, as the American member noted, Article 15 of the covenant allowed states to act on their own discretion in regard to such matters as the regulation of immigration and the importation of goods. Where ‘no common basis in law or in loyalty to a superior organisation exists,’ the American member continued, ‘diverse propagandas are developed’: each side will seek to exploit ‘every sort of economic, cultural, and political appeal’ in order to win adherents for its position both ‘among its own population

265 Angus, The Problem of Peaceful Change in the Pacific Area, 150. 266 Ibid. 267 An American member, 1933, quoted in W. L. Holland, ‘Economic Conflict and Control: The Wider Background,’ in Lasker and Hollands, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1933, 19–20.

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and among foreigners,’ thereby creating a situation from which ‘war may easily result.’268 According to Bruno Lasker and Holland, the Manchurian dispute had yielded proofs that convincingly demonstrated that the world’s existing diplomatic and juridical machinery was unable to successfully deal with the problems of the Pacific region: with the problems of a region ‘in which the accepted Western concepts of state sovereignty and national rights had slightly different connotations.’ The dangerous situation resulting from the failure to adapt Western peace machinery to the special conditions of the Far East in the context of the Manchurian dispute had been worsened, they claimed, by Japan’s notice of withdrawal from the LON: now three of the greatest powers in the Pacific region, namely, the United States, the Soviet Union and Japan, were beyond the reach of the covenant. It was with a view to filling in this gaping hole in the world’s peace machinery, that two members of the Japanese Council of the IPR, namely, Yokota Kisabur¯ o and Takaki Yasaka, respectively professor of international law and professor of constitutional law and diplomacy at the Imperial University in Tokyo, presented the conference at Banff with a draft of a treaty which they referred to as a Security Pact of the Pacific.269 Yokota and Takaki stressed the point that their intention in preparing the draft treaty was to give an indication of the general principles on which a future security pact for the Pacific should be based, rather than to provide a detailed set of prescriptions. They pointed out that they were well aware of the difficulties that the Pacific powers might confront in adopting such a pact. Nonetheless, Yokota and Takaki stated that they were ‘firmly convinced…of the absolute necessity of concluding such a treaty if we want to set up effective peace machinery in the Pacific at all.’270 Tomoko Akami points out that the draft treaty, was modelled on Shotwell’s 1927 draft of what became the Pact of Paris and states the following concerning the light in which it should be viewed:

268 Ibid., 20. 269 Lasker and Hollands, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1933, 12, and Yokota Kisbur¯ o and

Takaki Yasaka, ‘A Security Pact for the Pacific Area,’ ibid., 441. See also Yokota Kisbur¯o and Takaki Yasaka, Some Considerations on the Future Reconstruction of Peace Machinery in the Pacific (Toyko: Japanese Council of the Institute of Pacific Relations, 1933). See also Angus, Peaceful Change in the Pacific, 176. 270 Yokota and Takaki, ‘A Security Pact for the Pacific Area,’ ibid., 441.

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The draft treaty of 1933 can best be understood not as part of the government’s agenda but as yet another attempt by Japanese post-League internationalists to reconcile the Japanese case within the international treaty framework. They now needed to devise a mechanism outside the League of Nations. On this point, American foreign policy was instructive. In the 1920s, the United States was outside the League and promoted its own multilateral frameworks of cooperation through the Washington Treaties in 1922, the Pact of Paris in 1928 and the Stimson Doctrine in 1932….Japanese post-League internationalists began to see these American frameworks of the 1920s as models for Japan’s new international frameworks.271

As explained by one of its authors at a special round table of international law specialists, the draft treaty concerned three propositions which were as follows: 1. Existing peace machinery (especially in the Pacific) does not provide for constructive examination and revision of international conditions likely to disturb peace. A prerequisite of international justice is that there should be some means for the redress or alleviation of economic inequalities among different peoples of the world. 2. There is a lack of order and unity within certain nations. There does not exist in the Pacific area an international society of nations at similar stages of development. For such a society a prerequisite is that individual states should fulfil the conditions of a civilized society and adhere to their international obligations. This lack makes necessary a special regional organization. 3. There are special problems arising from vigorous and uncontrolled nationalism in the world. There is thus an urgent need for a revived internationalism and a re-establishment of some basis for international co-operation.272 Clearly, what was being promoted via this draft treaty was a Pacific equivalent of an equity tribunal with a view to enacting peaceful change: its proponents envisaged changes in the legal relationship of states and changes in their economic rights. Hence, the draft treaty proposed that in addition to establishing means for maintaining peaceful relations in the Pacific 271 Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific, 195. 272 Lasker and Hollands, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1933, 12–3.

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region, there should be a periodical meeting of Pacific powers with a view to modifying ‘peacefully the status quo’ and readjusting ‘existing economic inequalities and political injustices.’273 Indeed, Yokota and Takaki maintained that the security pact that they proposed was of secondary importance to the regular convocation of a conference of Pacific powers in that it was always ‘more desirable to remove the causes of disputes before they arise’ than attempt to settle dispute after they have already flared.274 Here it should be noted that while the propositions described above were certainly intended to have a general significance, Sino-Japanese relations were not far from the minds of their authors, as evidenced in particular by the references to the lack of unity within certain Pacific nations and to uncontrolled nationalism. The principal objection mounted at Banff against the draft treaty was that as ‘peace is a world problem’ any proposal that ‘tended to decentralize the peace machinery of the world’ and thereby further impaired the authority of the LON should be discouraged.275 Those advancing this line of argument pointed out that since the Great War ‘regional machinery had fallen into disrepute,’ citing as evidence that fact that in the context of the so-called South American dispute, that is, the border dispute between Bolivia and Paraguay over control of the Chaco Boreal, the Pan-American Union had stood aside in favour of the LON.276 At the same time, there were a number of non-Japanese participants in the Banff conference who saw utility in the idea that Pacific countries should meet on a regular basis to discuss such economic concerns as access to markets and raw materials. This view was articulated in a submission by Lorwin who was a member of the American delegation at Banff. In his paper he proposed a plan for world economic cooperation with a view to increasing ‘simultaneously standards of living standards throughout the world and to plan production in such a way as to give each country an opportunity to develop its potentialities as fully as possible.’277

273 Yokota and Takaki, ‘A Security Pact for the Pacific Area,’ 442, and Angus, Peaceful Change in the Pacific, 177. 274 Ibid. 275 Lasker and Hollands, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1933, 13. 276 Ibid. 277 Lewis L. Lorwin, ‘Economic Nationalism and World Co-operation,’ Pacific Affairs 6, no. 7 (1933): 362–72, 370.

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In relation to this, Lorwin mentioned three lines of development. The first of these concerned a procedure that had been discussed at the WEC in London: international agreements for the regulation of the production and distribution of world commodities, a procedure which Lorwin supported to the extent that it was based upon the desire to expand demand rather than, as was the case in London ‘based more upon the desire to curtail production.’ The second line of development Lorwin mentioned concerned the creation of a World Exchange Board which might have ‘a considerable element of barter in it’: an exchange board that would help ‘to serve as a clearing between countries of surplus products with a minimum dependence on gold and monetary movements.’278 The third line of development concerned developmental projects of the kind that had been proposed by the ILO: ‘public works carried out under international control and calculated to increase the real income of the countries where they are carried out, and indirectly the rest of the world.’279 In regard to the methods to be adopted in pursuing these lines of development, Lorwin insisted on the need for new machinery. Lorwin stated that were the WEC to fail, and he certainly seemed to expect that it would, it would not only be because of conflicting interests and ideas, it would also be because of the ‘inherent weaknesses’ of the conference method.280 Lorwin pointed out that this method was a post-war phenomenon that was developed in reaction to the problems thrown up by the pre-war practice of private diplomacy and in the spirit of the Wilsonian insistence in the first of his Fourteen Points on the following: ‘Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.’281 Lorwin conceded that the conference method had served as a useful means for overcoming the antagonisms generated by the war and for reducing and even dissolving international tensions and frictions through bringing people together. However, he added that

278 Ibid. 279 Ibid. 280 Ibid. 281 Ibid., and President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, 8 January 1918, http:// avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp.

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the conference method seems to have reached the limits of its usefulness. The problems which are now facing the world are no longer merely matters of goodwill but problems involving careful study and investigation. They require time and systematic application in view of continuously changing conditions. They call for clarification and for the preliminary elimination of preconceived ideas and prejudices. In view of all this, world cooperation now depends for its success as much upon the invention of new devices as upon the formulation of proper objectives. The method which suggests itself is that of continuous negotiation through research carried on cooperatively by all nations. This method calls for the organisation of permanent bodies and committees which would pursue specific programmes continuously and which would help the process of conversion within separate countries of those responsible for national policies.282

Lorwin proposed that the technical organs of the LON, in particular, its Financial and Economic Organisation, could be made the basis of larger and permanent bodies that would include representatives of both members and non-members of the LON. Through the creation of such bodies, Lorwin stated, greater cooperation between the United States and the LON in the technical fields would be made possible. These larger and permanent bodies, he added, would be charged with continuously studying the problems of world economy as they emerged in the course of changing world economic conditions. Summing up his plan for world cooperation, Lorwin stated that what he was proposing was to project on a world scale the general tendency in regard to the formulation and execution of policy that had been unfolding in national polities. In the paper he prepared for the World Social Economic Congress, Lorwin noted that at its most concrete, this tendency took two forms: ‘partial state socialist planning’ which, according to Lorwin, was the system of planning of the USSR, and ‘social progressive’ planning which, according to Lorwin, was the form of planning advocated in the United States. Lorwin noted that the latter form of planning harked back to the period of 1917–1918 which saw the organisation of the War Industries Board, the Capital Issues Board, the War Labor Board and other governmental boards, in order ‘to control output, direct investments, and to maintain industrial relations’ with a view to maximising production. In general, Lorwin observed, the tendency within national

282 Lorwin, ‘Economic Nationalism and World Co-operation,’ 370–1.

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polities was towards the ‘concentration of the process of formulating policies and carrying out decisions.’283 Lorwin then applied the general principles he had enumerated to the Far Eastern situation, arguing for the creation of a Pacific Development Council to promote cooperative economic development in the Pacific region. He suggested that the high level of friction then current in the region rendered such an enterprise especially desirable. In the spirit of the IPR’s dedication to functional cooperation with a basis in scientific research, Lorwin stated that [i]f those countries interested in the Far East could be made to engage directly and systematically in the investigation of possibilities of developing unutilized resources, of building up the wealth of the entire Far Eastern area and of putting people to work, of stimulating all industries…and of inaugurating a series of developmental projects on a large scale, we might see a diversion of interest from political entanglements and conflicts to economic matters, promising more of the good things in life to all concerned.284

Lorwin thus urged the IPR to form the ‘nucleus’ of a Pacific Development Council which in the future should become a semi-official body comprised of representatives of Pacific countries and countries with interests in the region and with special representation from the LON and from the ILO. He suggested that such a council should act in consultation with advisory committees of representatives of private business.285 In concluding, Lorwin noted that at the IPR’s conference in Shanghai in 1931, he had ‘indicated the possibility of a rapid conversion of all laisser-faire countries to economic control and planning’ and the possibility of international regulation of production and distribution. He observed that although 283 Ibid., 371, and Lorwin, ‘The Problem of Economic Planning,’ xxi, xxv, xxix–x. In addition to partial state-socialist planning and the social-progressive type of planning, Lorwin discussed two other types of planning: ‘absolute socialist planning’ and the ‘voluntary business type of planning.’ Lorwin noted that the former was the vision entertained by many socialists and that the latter had not gone far beyond ‘mere endorsement of the idea’ on the part of its advocates. Lorwin, ‘The Problem of Economic Planning,’ xxi, xxiv–v. See also Karl W. Kapp, ‘Economic Regulation and Economic Planning,’ American Economic Review 29, no. 4 (1939): 760–73, 761–2. 284 Lorwin, ‘Economic Nationalism and World Co-operation,’ 371–2. 285 Ibid., 372. The countries Lorwin nominated as suitable members of a Pacifc Develop-

ment Council were as follows: the United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, the USSR, Japan, China and Australia.

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proposals along these lines may have seemed ‘far-fetched and utopian’ a few years earlier, they were now ‘in the centre of world discussion.’286

286 Ibid. See also Angus, Peaceful Change in the Pacific, 178–9.

CHAPTER 3

The Hoover Plan, Reparations and the French Constructive Plan

A Meeting at Bessinges We saw that in mid-1935, Allen W. Dulles had observed that when the ISC had taken the decision two years earlier to address the subject of collective security at its 1934 and 1935 study meetings, it was on the eve of the WEC and at a time when the Disarmament Conference, in light of the British prime minister’s submission to it of a draft disarmament convention, was entering a phase of its deliberations which seemed to hold out the promise that definite results could be achieved. Dulles went on to concede that despite these seemingly propitious circumstances, the subject of collective security was perhaps an overambitious one. Further to this, he noted, that the changes that had taken place over the previous two years had brought with them discouraging elements: the failure of the conference system to bring about coordinated international measures aimed at reducing trade barriers and armaments. The system’s failure to overcome economic and political nationalism, Dulles stated, had given rise to disillusionment with the conference method as a means of dealing with international disputes. Against this background he opined, there was a growing conviction in various parts of the world and most especially in the United States, that ‘the old world forces of power politics, of military and political alliances…[were]… taking the place of the collective system’ and that peace would be preserved only so long as the balances of power resulting from such alliances remained ‘in adjustment.’ Dulles stated that © The Author(s) 2019 J. Pemberton, The Story of International Relations, Part Two, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21824-9_3

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these conditions made the study of collective security more complicated but also most timely; indeed, he might have added that it was the ultimate collapse of the Disarmament Conference and the fear that international unruliness would prevail in its wake, that did much to fuel the renewed interest in collective security. With all these points in view and before going on to discuss the Disarmament Conference’s collapse, key developments arising within the context of the disarmament negotiations and key developments external to the conference’s proceedings but which had a direct bearing on or which were closely related to those proceedings, will be examined in detail.1 Deeply anxious about conditions in Manchuria and desirous of advancing the work of the Disarmament Conference, the American secretary of state, Henry L. Stimson, decided to go to Geneva. Following a stop-over in Paris where he met with Tardieu, Stimson descended on Geneva on 16 April. Residing at a villa in Bessinges from the windows of which he could view the home of the Disarmament Conference on the opposite side of Lac Léman, Stimson held private talks with various foreign representatives.2 On 23 April, Stimson and the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, the latter having arrived in Geneva two days earlier, settled on the idea of inviting Chancellor Heinrich Brüning, who too was in Geneva, and Tardieu to join them in a discussion of how the disarmament deadlock might be broken. Concerned about the outcome of the forthcoming French elections, Tardieu had returned to Paris from Geneva on 22 April. As he was unable to come to Geneva on either of the nominated dates of 26 and 27 April, the discussion planned by Stimson and his British colleague was limited to three delegations: an American, a British and a German delegation headed by Stimson, MacDonald and Brüning respectively.3 1 ‘Addresses Delivered at the Inaugural Meeting,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 40. For the submission of the British draft disarmament convention, see Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 74. 2 Arthur Cecil Temperley, The Whispering Gallery of Europe (London: Collins, 1938), 199,

202. Stimson had told the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs on 6 January 1932, that a situation in which a relatively disarmed Germany found herself surrounded by more militarily powerful states would create ‘a condition of instability in Europe and in the world…in regard to which “energetic steps ought to be taken to try to carry out the original plan [of Allied disarmament] so far as it can be done.”’ Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 247. 3 Temperley, The Whispering Gallery of Europe, 200–3, and Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 227–8. Maurice Vaïsse notes that the others present at the meeting at Bessinges in April 26 were

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The discussion took place at Bessinges on 26 April and saw Stimson press Brüning to specify Germany’s demands. Having declared that Germany was not seeking, as the French maintained, ‘equality of armaments but only equality of status,’ the chancellor went on to propose certain modifications of Part V of the Treaty of Versailles. Among the proposed modifications were the following: that Germany be permitted to increase the number of effectives enlisted in the Reichswehr; reduce the period of enlistment of non-commissioned officers and privates from twelve to six consecutive years; and be granted the right to establish a short-term service militia army.4 Brüning took care to touch on the American plan for qualitative disarmament, stating that the Germans were prepared to ‘to renounce heavy offensive weapons if the other powers took the same decision,’ although adding that Germany should be allowed to obtain heavy weapons of a defensive nature.5 He also took care to touch on the Tardieu Plan, stating that Germany was willing to consider the internationalisation of some types of military forces, military aviation being cited as an example, and the placing of them at the disposal of the LON.6 Buoyed by what they saw as the measured nature of the German proposals, Stimson and MacDonald invited Tardieu to come to Geneva for a meeting on 29 April.7 Although he initially made plans to attend, Tardieu ultimately decided he could not. In a telegram sent on 27 April, Tardieu asked Paul-Boncour, in his capacity as vice-president of the French

the Americans Norman H. Davis and Hugh L. Gibson; Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry, the British secretary of state for air; and Bernhard von Bülow, the German foreign secretary. 4 Temperley, The Whispering Gallery of Europe, 203, and Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 228. Vaïsse points out that accounts of the meeting at Bessinges of April 26 differ in respect to the figures proposed in relation to the increase in the size of the Reichswehr and the reduction in the period of enlistment. He further notes that they differ in respect to the proposals concerning the size of and period of service in a militia. See also John W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Disarmament Deadlock (London: Routledge, 1934), 32, and Thomas R. Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference of 1932–34,’ Diplomacy & Statecraft 25, no. 4 (2004): 765–80, 767. 5 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 228. 6 Ibid. 7 Arthur Cecil Temperley stated the following of the German proposals issued at Bessinges: ‘No honest man could deny that they were extremely moderate’ and that they were a ‘humble interpretation of equality of rights.’ Temperley, Whispering Gallery, 203.

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delegation to the Disarmament Conference, to inform Stimson, MacDonald and Brüning that the laryngitis from which he was suffering had worsened and that his doctor had advised him against making the journey to Geneva.8 Few doubt that Tardieu, exhausted as he was by his campaign schedule, was genuinely ill. Nonetheless, observers acknowledge that his condition proved politically convenient: there were grounds for not wishing to make the journey irrespective of his illness.9 Vaïsse contends that the arrangement on which some hoped the Americans, British, French and Germans would reach an accord on 29 April was ambiguous, citing the fact that Brüning’s account of the outcome of the 26 April meeting diverged from that of Stimson and MacDonald.10 According to Brüning’s account, the Anglo-Saxons had agreed to his proposals concerning the modification of Germany’s military status. However, the American record of the meeting mentions no such accord and both Stimson and MacDonald later denied that they had accepted Brüning’s proposals.11 According to Vaïsse, it would appear that what Stimson and MacDonald did accept was that the military status of Germany would no longer be governed by Part V of the Treaty of Versailles, but by the new disarmament convention which would contain the same stipulations for Germany. Thus, Brüning would obtain some satisfaction: the acceptance of the principle of equality of rights. But German rearmament would be postponed.12

Even so, Tardieu’s mistrust of Brüning’s Germany meant that he was little inclined to make concessions. Reinforcing the French scepticism in regard to the negotiations at Bessinges was the fact that that there was no suggestion that new security guarantees would be forthcoming should

8 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 229–30. 9 Ibid., 230–1. 10 Ibid., 229, 234. See also David K. Varey, ‘Diplomacy and Disarmament: British Security in Europe and the Anglo-French Connection, 1932–1934’ (PhD diss., Royal Military College of Canada, 2006), 79. 11 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 228. Thomas R. Davies writes that although not making any specific commitments, ‘both Anglo-Saxon leaders agreed that…[Brüning’s]…proposals could form the basis of a settlement.’ Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 767. 12 Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 229.

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France cede ground.13 Jean Paul-Boncour, the first secretary of the French delegation and the nephew of Joseph Paul-Boncour, gave a hint of the awkwardness that Tardieu may have felt if he gone to the meeting in describing the effect of the delivery by his uncle of the news of Tardieu’s malady to Stimson and MacDonald on 27 April: ‘We might as well say a stone in the water where these two happy ducks were playing since yesterday while waiting to plunge the chief into it (a plunge little agreeable if we believe the S. R. [secrétaire rapporteur]).’14 Given Tardieu’s absence, there was little that Stimson and MacDonald could offer Brüning except the hope of future talks. The German Chancellor, out of favour with President Hindenburg and electorally menaced by the Hitlerites, found himself returning to Berlin unable to boast of what he had hoped would be a diplomatic triumph.15 On 30 May, the Brüning cabinet was forced to resign by Hindenburg, its successor being LieutenantColonel Franz von Papen’s so-called Cabinet of Barons, the appointment of that cabinet marking a return to power of the military and political elites of the pre-Weimar era and giving rise to more insistent demands that Germany be freed from the military restrictions imposed on it by the Treaty of Versailles.16 Lippmann presumed that it was during Stimson’s visit to Geneva that the Hoover administration began to recognise that the path to disarmament could only be cleared if there was a reduction in political tensions. He added that when the pointlessness of merely urging a reduction in armaments had been confirmed in the spring of 1932, ‘serious private conversations were

13 Ibid., 231–2, 234. See also Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 771. For reflections of the view that Tardieu’s failure to attend the proposed meeting of 29 April was a momentous opportunity wasted, see Wheeler-Bennett, The Disarmament Deadlock, 33–4, and Temperley, The Whispering Gallery of Europe, 203–4. 14 Jean Paul-Boncour, 1932, quoted in Vaïsse, Sécurité d’abord, 231. 15 David K. Varey notes the following: ‘Hindenburg, re-elected with support of the political

Left, blamed Brüning for his loss of support on the Right; furthermore he was annoyed by Brüning’s decision to ban Nazi storm troopers but not left-wing associations.’ Varey, ‘Diplomacy and Disarmament,’ 79. See also Temperley, The Whispering Gallery of Europe, 201, 294, and Wheeler-Bennett, The Disarmament Deadlock, 34. 16 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 248, and G. M. Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 1920 to 1939, 4th ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), 349.

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begun dealing with the actualities of Continental politics and of American relations to them.’17 The growing realisation on the part of the administration of Herbert Hoover that the question of disarmament was essentially a political question, however, did not prevent the administration from laying before the Disarmament Conference on 22 June a bold proposal for disarmament, both quantitative and qualitative, unaccompanied by any plan aimed at easing the political tensions between and the insecurities of states in Europe. Known as the Hoover Plan, this proposal was introduced without advance notification at a special meeting of the conference’s General Committee convened by Henderson at the request of Gibson as the leader of the American delegation on the afternoon of the previous day. The observation that the Hoover Plan was introduced without advance notification should not be taken to mean that all those assembled were unaware of the reason for the meeting.18 In the view of Lippmann, the reason why the administration in this instance adopted an approach at odds with standard diplomatic practice was because it wanted to ‘make an appeal over the heads of governments to public opinion’; as it turned out and as no doubt was expected, the Hoover Plan was received with greater enthusiasm by public opinion than by the representatives of that opinion in Geneva. It should be noted that the White House had decided on presenting the administration’s disarmament proposals to the American public on 22 June even before the request to convene the General Committee had been granted, at least, this is what Gibson told Henderson on the afternoon of 21 June.19 The details of the Hoover Plan were as follows: It called for a reduction of one-third in the strength of all land armies over and above the so-called police component. The police component, said President Hoover should be calculated from the army allowed to Germany under the Treaty of Versailles; that is to say, it should be 100,000 troops for 65,000,000 people, or one soldier for 650 inhabitants. The plan suggested, but did

17 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 236. 18 Ibid., 236–7. 19 Ibid., 237, and John W. Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ Bulletin of International News [hereafter BIN ] 9, no. 1 (1932): 3–15, 7. See also Varey, ‘Diplomacy and Disarmament,’ 64. The British Foreign Office considered that the origins of the Hoover Plan concerned domestic factors.

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not define, ‘necessary corrections for powers having colonial possessions’…. Mr. Hoover proposed also to abolish all tanks, all large mobile [machine] guns, all instruments of chemical warfare, and all bombing planes, to reduce by one-third the number and tonnage of battleships fixed in the treaties, to reduce the treaty tonnage of aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers by one-fourth, to reduce the treaty tonnage of submarines by one-third, and to prohibit more than 35,000 tons of submarines.20

Italy took the lead among the major powers in welcoming the plan, declaring that it approved of it in its entirety and unconditionally. The Soviet delegation also welcomed the Hoover proposals, noting that they were somewhat similar to those that had already been advanced by the USSR albeit without success. In this context, Litvinov declared that his government ‘was prepared to go any length in the direction of disarmament. It would agree to complete disarmament, partial disarmament, qualitative disarmament, quantitative disarmament, moral disarmament, or any other form which meant substantial disarmament.’21 The German delegation offered the view that the plan would give a renewed impetus to the conference and noted appreciatively that its proposals concerning reductions in the number of effectives went some way to addressing the vexed question of equality. In relation to this last point it should be pointed out that if the reductions recommended by Hoover Plan were implemented, it would have meant a severe reduction in the size of the French army and that of France’s allies and thereby a drastic shift in the balance of power in Europe. Such a shift that would have well suited the foreign policy aims of Italy, the USSR and Germany.22 It should also 20 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 237–8. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 349, and Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 7. 21 Journal of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, 1932, quoted in Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 238. See also Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 7. 22 Thomas R. Davies states the following: ‘Although committed to reducing its materiel in the same way as any other country, the US army was comparatively unaffected. The Hoover Plan envisaged a one-third reduction only to the “defence” component of armies, while the forces necessary for domestic policing were to be left alone. As a result, only countries with large “defence” components—such as France—had to make substantial reductions under the scheme.’ Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 775. Pierre Bernus observed the following at the time: Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union ‘multiply emulously military formations…because, for some motives which have no relation with the affirmation of peace, they are looking, under the guise of working for disarmament, to render themselves

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be pointed out that the French were well aware that ‘despite appearing to promote drastic reductions,’ the Hoover Plan ‘in fact envisaged only limited concessions by the United States itself.’23 Foreign Secretary Simon ‘was outwardly cordial to the plan but said it would require consideration.’24 In a statement on disarmament issued on 7 July by way of a response to it, he made it clear that the British government opposed the total abolition of tanks and bombing planes, the complete prohibition of aerial bombardment and, most particularly, the proposed reductions in naval fleets.25 Pierre Bernus, writing in Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, observed the following in relation to the British stance on the Hoover Plan: England, through the organ of Mr. Baldwin, praises to the skies the American system. She accepts that which does not bother her, in particular, terrestrial disarmament, but noting that taking a naval point of view the United States preoccupy themselves, above all, with consolidating their situation in that regard, she suggests combinations that would permit to her a sufficient number of battleships and cruisers. All this is very natural. But perhaps it would be fair-minded that the English understand finally that France, much more menaced on land than she is at sea, has some serious reasons for not accepting a plan of which the application would prepare the military superiority of Germany.26

proportionally stronger and to augment their means of pressure in view of overturning’ the current European order. Pierre Bernus, ‘La question du désarmement: mise au point,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), 9 July 1932. 23 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 237–8, 240. 24 Temperley, The Whispering Gallery of Europe, 211. 25 Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 772–3. Philip Noel-Baker declared that Sir John Simon ‘effectively “killed the Hoover Plan,”’ observing that Simon’s statement of 7 July was ‘a flat rejection of almost everything Hoover had proposed.’ Philip Noel-Baker, The First World Disarmament Conference, 1932–1934, and Why It Failed (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979), 106. Varey writes that the statement by Simon earned Britain ‘widespread opprobrium; but when the conference set out later that month to summarise its progress to date. Simon was obliged to make adjustments only on the matter of air armaments. The popularity of Hoover’s prohibition on aerial bombing, with even the French appearing to waver, had trumped earlier arrangements’. David K. Varey, ‘The Foreign Office, the World Disarmament Conference, and the French Connexion, 1932–1934,’ Diplomacy & Statecraft 24, no. 3 (2013): 383–403, 388. See also Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 239. 26 Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), 9 July 1932.

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Paul-Boncour, was similarly polite, expressing ‘interest and sympathy with the clear, simple and direct proposals of President Hoover.’27 However, he went on to point out that France retained its conviction that a reduction in armaments must be linked to the organisation of security, adding that a uniform reduction in armaments might constitute a fundamental injustice towards the smaller Powers. He also claimed that in land forces France had already proceeded to a more considerable reduction than that recommended by President Hoover, and asked what action did the United States consider taking in the event of a States using for aggression the means left to it for its national defence?28

In sum, France could not possibly accept the Hoover Plan. Temperley observed that Paul-Boncour ‘as a Frenchman, could hardly welcome a scheme for carrying out qualitative and quantitative reductions in their army and fleet, particularly as it committed the deadly sin of not mentioning “security” at all.’29 As discussed later, the Herriot government proved more flexible than its predecessor in regard to the question of disarmament, however, its room for manoeuvre was limited by virtue of the fact that Germany appeared bent on rearmament and the fact that neither United States nor Great Britain were willing to provide the security guarantees that France sought. These were not the only considerations. Thomas R. Davies notes that within France, [t]he rightist press from moderate right to staunch conservative to far right was deeply hostile to the reduction of French armaments, as can be seen in the pages of such journals as Le Temps, Le Figaro, L’Action Française, La Revue des Deux Mondes, Le Journal, Le Matin, L’Ami du Peuple and L’Echo de Paris. As for the political parties, the overwhelming majority promoted disarmament only if accompanied by further security guarantees and the Socialist and Communist Parties were alone in promoting unconditional arms limitation.30

27 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 239. 28 H. L., ‘The French “Constructive Plan”—II,’ BIN 9, no. 11 (1932): 3–8, 3. See also

Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 239. 29 Temperley, The Whispering Gallery of Europe, 211. 30 Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 770–1.

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The Hoover proposal for arms limitation raised a problem for the administration in Washington: if the administration had pressed for its adoption in its entirety, it would have inadvertently found itself in the position of being the champion of the forces of revision in Europe. As Lippmann observed, the United States would have been celebrated in those countries desirous of a revision of the Versailles order and in pacifist circles elsewhere, however, it would have been forced to align itself definitely against France and her allies, and it would have gravely disturbed the improved relations between France and Great Britain upon which depended the solution of the reparation question at Lausanne. It would have sacrificed all chance of agreement on a multitude of questions and would have made no advance whatever toward actual disarmament. The American government, which by this time was in close touch with the realities of European politics, chose to avoid a rupture of negotiations with France and to make whatever compromises were necessary in regard to its own plan.31

The Young Plan and the Future of Reparations The reparation question was addressed at a conference of Germany’s creditor nations held at Lausanne from 16 June to 9 July. The Young Plan, which superseded in 1930 the Dawes Plan as the scheme under which Germany made its reparation payments and which revised downwards the total German annuity from around 2,500,000,000 marks to an average of around 2,000,000,000 marks, divided these payments into two components: an unconditional component set at 612,000,000 marks and a conditional component that amounted to an average of around 1,400,000,000 marks. According to Hamilton Fish Armstrong, the editor of the monthly journal of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), namely, Foreign Affairs, the unconditional amount, which had to be paid in foreign currency and which was not subject to postponement, was made relatively small with a view to precluding any doubts about Germany’s capacity to pay it. In contrast with the unconditional amount, the conditional component could be paid in Reichsmarks rather than in a foreign currency and was subject to

31 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 240.

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postponement.32 The onset of the Depression overturned the assumption on which the Young Plan was based. The Young Plan, with its rising series of annuities, contemplated a steady expansion of world trade, not merely in volume but in value, in which the annuities payable by Germany would become a factor of diminishing importance. In fact, the opposite has been the case. Since the Young Plan came into effect, not only has the trade of the world shrunk in volume, but the very exceptional fall in gold prices that has occurred in the last two years has itself added to the real burden not only of the German annuities but of all payments fixed in gold.33

On 20 June 1931, in the midst of the deepening of the Depression, President Hoover proposed a one-year moratorium on reparation payments as well as all war debts. It was becoming apparent, certainly to the Germans themselves, that Germany could not continue to pay the annuities prescribed by the Young Plan on which Germany’s creditors relied in order to pay their war debts to the United States. Against this background, the United States was warned that ‘any attempt at payment would imperil the non-political loans, of which many large amounts subscribed in America were outstanding.’34 In proposing the debt moratorium, President Hoover stated that he did not approve in any remote sense of the cancellation of the debts owing to us. World confidence would not be enhanced by such action. None of our debtor nations has ever suggested it. But as the basis of settlement of these debts was capacity under normal conditions of the debtor to pay, we should be consistent with our own policies and principles if we take into account the abnormal situation now existing in the world.35

Although received positively by most countries and quickly approved by most, the French government hesitated. The proposal had aroused mixed 32 Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ‘France and the Hoover Plan,’ Foreign Affairs 10, no. 1 (1931): 23–33, 26–7. 33 ‘Reparation Negotiations,’ Advocate of Peace Through Justice 94, no. 1 (1932): 14–21,

19. 34 H. L., ‘The Problem of Inter-Governmental Debts,’ BIN 9, no. 12 (1932): 3–11, 3. On the relation between reparation payments and war debts, see Lippmann et al., The United States in World Affairs, 16n. 35 BIN 9, no. 12 (1932): 5.

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feelings in France. While most considered it important that France ‘join the demonstration of international solidarity,’ many were dismayed by the fact that Hoover’s proposal was issued in disregard of the Young Plan’s legal and procedural principles.36 Lippmann observed that the government of Laval, which naturally had the maintenance of the Versailles system at the forefront of its concerns, ‘regarded Mr. Hoover’s unceremonious handling of reparations principles as a threat to the sanctity of the whole treaty system,’ a view echoed in the official press which ‘berated President Hoover for his lack of regard for the letter of the law.’37 As Armstrong similarly explained, by reason of a very strong attachment which the French have for the execution of written agreements, and also because of the circumstances under which the Young Plan was negotiated and ratified, they were taken aback by the abrupt demand that the Plan be set aside, both as regards its provisions for German payments and as regards the machinery which it had authorized for meeting just such an emergency as the President said had arisen. It cannot be concealed that part of the French worry arose out of the fact that the precedent now seemed set for an American president, or anyone else in a position of particular power at a given moment, to precipitate the abrogation of a treaty which he considered an obstacle to relieving a dangerous situation, without recourse to legal procedure or even to negotiation; this policy of the ultimatum the French found most unpalatable, and not a few cries went up in the French press that a new dictatorship was in course of erection.38

On 6 July, the French delegation acceded to the moratorium, after having secured an agreement in principle that the inviolability of the unconditional payments provided for under the Young Plan would be upheld under the Hoover Plan.39

36 Armstrong, ‘France and the Hoover Plan,’ 26. 37 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 16. 38 Armstrong, ‘France and the Hoover Plan,’ 26. 39 Ibid., 29. ‘[I]t was decided that Germany should make these payments, but that France at the same time would loan an equal sum to the German Railway Company. France also asked that special arrangements be made regarding the completion of the Guaranty Fund required under the Young Plan, which stipulated that in case Germany asked for a moratorium France must make deposits to the value of 500,000,000 marks with the Bank for International Settlements to compensate the other creditors who would be affected by the suspension of conditional payments’ (ibid.).

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Commentators considered that the period dating roughly from the issuing of the debt moratorium proposal to the convening of Congress on 7 December, saw the United States more active in world affairs that it had been since the time when the Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. The moratorium reflected a conviction that the question of German reparations was a question that should be of concern to the United States. It also served as an acknowledgement by the Hoover Administration ‘that in fact, though not in law, the political debts arising out of the war were organically related,’ even though the official position was and remained that there was no relation between reparations and the war debts owed to the United States.40 That there was such a relation was specifically rejected in notes sent by the American government to France, Great Britain and other debtor nations in late December: the notes emphasised the point that the United States had not committed itself to revising war debts.41 Nonetheless, according to Lippmann, the government in Washington had arrived at the view by September that countering economic depression required international accords concerning debts as well as ‘armaments and political insecurity.’42 It was with a view to reaching such accords, particularly in relation to the debt issue, that on 21 September, Laval received an invitation to visit Washington as the guest of the government of the United States. It was with the same end in view that in early October the Italian foreign minister, namely, Dino Grandi, was invited to visit the American capital in November.43 The most important of these two visits was that of Laval. Issuing from this visit was a joint statement signed by Laval and Hoover which, after having noted that the purpose of the visit was not to arrive at binding agreements ‘but rather through the development of fact to enable each country to act more effectively in its own field,’ declared the following: So far as inter-governmental obligations are concerned, we recognise that, prior to the expiration of the Hoover years of postponement, some agreement regarding them may be necessary covering the period of business depression, as to the terms and conditions of which the two Governments make all 40 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 14. 41 Ibid., 14n, 17, 22. 42 Ibid., 14. 43 H. L., ‘The Report of the Young Plan Advisory Committee,’ BIN 8, no. 14 (1932):

3–11, 3. See also Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 14.

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reservations. The initiative in this matter should be taken at an early date by the European Powers principally concerned, within the framework of agreements existing prior to July 1, 1931.44

The final sentence of the joint statement had a twofold significance. First, it signalled Washington’s acceptance of the French position that the question of reparations should only be addressed under the provisions of the Young Plan, recalling here the French disquiet over the fact that the Hoover moratorium had ignored this particular framework. As Laval told the Chamber of Deputies on 26 November, the American and French governments had agreed ‘to substitute for the exceptional regime of the moratorium the normal regime of the Young Plan. France is from now on protected against initiatives similar to those of last June.’45 The Hoover administration, sensing the mood of the incoming Congress, was only too willing to accede to Laval’s request for a return to the normal regime as this regime precluded American involvement in the settling of the reparation question: the United States was not a signatory of the Young Plan.46 This point touches on the second signification of the last sentence of the joint statement of Hoover and Laval: it signified ‘a definite dissociation of the United States Government from whatever measures were to be taken to deal with the situation’ in view of the expiry of the Hoover moratorium on 1 July 1932. The question of reparations was a question for Germany and her creditors alone.47 Elected thirteen months earlier following a period of nine months during which it was not called by the Hoover administration, the Seventy-second Congress assembled on 7 December. Many of its members, a good number of which were new to Congress, wasted no time in giving voice to the sentiment of isolationism. Such a sentiment, to which many members were in any case naturally inclined, had been greatly fuelled by two factors: first, the economic situation in the United States had worsened since the introduction of the moratorium and second, the lowering of the standing of the LON and the Pact of Paris in American eyes in light of the ‘the dreary

44 BIN 8, no. 14 (1932), 3. 45 Pierre Laval, 1932, quoted in BIN 8, no. 14 (1932), 4n. See also Advocate of Peace

Through Justice 94, no. 1 (1932): 14. 46 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 16–7, 23. 47 BIN 8, no. 14 (1932), 3, and Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 16–7.

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humiliation which Japan was inflicting upon all the powers.’48 In regard to the latter factor, it should be noted here that in the last few months of 1931, the United States collaborated, however fitfully, with the LON in regard to the situation in Manchuria in view of its commitments under the pact. Representative Oliver H. Cross of Texas, gave expression to a feeling common among the public in declaring the following in the House of Representatives: ‘I am sick and tired of this nation muddling around in the affairs of the countries of Europe or any other country. Let Europe run her own affairs. Let us quit meddling with international agreements.’49 In a message sent to Congress on 7 December, President Hoover urged that the moratorium be promptly adopted, reiterating points he made when first proposing it: that although he did not approve of the cancellation of the debts owed to the United States, he considered that the moratorium was justified in light the exceptional circumstances in which the world found itself. After having observed that a law should be passed be before 15 December, the day that the biennial payments of debts to the United States fell due, Hoover stated the following: ‘It is clear that a number of Governments will be unable to meet further payments pending the recovery of economic life.’50 Further to this, Hoover proposed to Congress that the World War Foreign Debt Commission be re-established and given ‘the authority to examine such problems as may arise in connection with their debts during the present economic emergency.’51 Hoover’s recommendation in regard to a foreign debt commission met strong opposition from leading members of Congress, among them Senator Borah, and was convincingly defeated.52 By contrast, the War Debt Moratorium bill, majority support for which Hoover had made sure to secure before introducing it, was adopted by substantial margins in the House of Representatives on 18 December

48 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 9. Before 7 December 1931 when the Seventy-second Congress gathered, the administration of Herbert Hoover ‘for nine months had carried on without calling Congress to Washington.’ Although the president had engaged in consultations with congressional leaders, Congress ‘as a whole did not meet until the time had come when under the Constitution a session was compulsory’ (ibid., 1–2). 49 Oliver H. Cross, 1931, quoted in Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 9. 50 Herbert Hoover, 1932, quoted in BIN 9, no. 12 (1932), 6. 51 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 12. 52 BIN 9, no. 12 (1932), 6.

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and by the Senate on 22 December.53 However, the bill’s adoption only came after an amendment proposed by the House’s Ways and Means Committee on 17 December was appended to it. The amendment stated the following: it is hereby expressly declared to be against the policy of Congress that any indebtedness by foreign countries to the United States should be in any manner canceled or reduced and nothing in this joint resolution for ratification of the Hoover moratorium shall be construed as indicating a contrary policy or an implication to give favorable consideration at any time to a change in the policy hereby declared.54

In a statement of French policy issued on November 1 while embarked on a return journey to Europe, Laval declared that ‘he and Mr. Hoover had co-ordinated their ideas for a new arrangement for inter-Governmental debts,’ a declaration which seemed to suggest that Laval believed that President Hoover had indicated a willingness to address war debts at the same time as reparations.55 Lippmann suggested that Laval may have come to this conclusion due to the rushed nature of the talks in Washington and the fact that they were conducted via interpreters.56 However, it should be noted that other commentators reached a conclusion similar to that of to Laval on the basis of the passage from joint statement quoted above. For example, one British commentator observed that the American policy of non-cancellation of war debts, as articulated by Hoover when proposing the moratorium in June 1931, ‘though not changed, was considered to have suffered some softening of the rigidity of its position by the terms

53 ‘Chronology,’ BIN 8, no. 14 (1932): 12–28, 27 and Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 11. 54 Amendment to the War Debt Moratorium Bill, 1932, quoted in BIN 8, no. 14 (1932), 27. Herbert Hoover signed the War Debt Moratorium on 2 December, subsequently issuing the following statement: ‘our suggestion for a year’s suspension of inter-Governmental debts averted a catastrophe which would have caused the American people a loss many times the amount involved. The American people have contributed to maintain courage and hope in the German nation, and to give an opportunity to other European peoples to work out their problems’ (ibid., 28). See also Hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means on House Resolution 123, Parts 1 and 2, 15–17 December 1931, quoted in Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 2. 55 BIN 8, no. 14 (1932), 5, and Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 17. 56 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 17.

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of the joint statement issued on October 25th.’57 G. M. Gathorne-Hardy observed that it was ‘natural to construe’ the joint statement as ‘an admission that the relationship between War-debts and Reparation was now recognized in America.’58 While Laval may have believed he had been assured by Hoover that war debts would be considered in connection with the question of reparations, this was not the view from the American side as in its view a return to the Young Plan meant a return to the situation that existed prior to the moratorium: to a situation in which the question of intergovernmental debt remained separate from the question of reparations. When it became apparent that there were misapprehensions regarding the American government’s position, notably, soon after Congress had announced that it would oppose ‘a continuation of the policy implied in the President’s proposal of June and in the Hoover-Laval statement of October 25,’ Stimson sent a note to France and other European debtor countries. In his note, Stimson reiterated the American government’s position that there was no relation between war debts and reparations and a point made in the HooverLaval statement of October 1931, namely, that in regard to the question of reparations European powers should take the initiative as the Young Plan concerned these powers alone.59 Lippmann noted that the secretary of state also reminded the debtor nations that their initiation of a new reparation settlement was perhaps the only way by which the people of the United States might be impressed with the need for further action on their part with regard to the war debts. In other words, not until the European powers had made more earnest efforts to work out their own salvation would it be advisable for them to seek a re-examination of their debt agreements with the United States; and even then the proposals for re-examination should come separately from each debtor.60

57 BIN 9, no. 12 (1932), 5. Lippmann described the congressional amendment to the War Debt Moratorium Bill as an announcement of congressional ‘opposition to a continuation of the policy implied in the President’s proposal of June and in the Hoover-Laval statement of October 25’. Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 12. 58 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 274. 59 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 16–7, 22. 60 Ibid., 22.

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Thus, the strategy being pursued by the administration, and the only strategy it could pursue at that time in terms of international collaboration given Congress’s attitude, was that of postponing consideration of the war debt question until after the issue of reparations had been settled in the hope that Congress would prove more amenable in light of any such settlement. Such an approach was favoured by the fact that whereas the reparation payments fell due on 15 July, the war debt payments fell due six months later on 15 December.61

The German Note and the Bank of International Settlements With the end of the moratorium pending and its economic situation having deteriorated even further, the options facing Germany were that of resuming its payments, declaring a moratorium or defaulting. Germany chose the second of these three options. In a memorandum sent to the president of the BIS, a body which had been established under the Young Plan in order to facilitate reparation payments, Germany, in accordance with Article 119 of the Young Plan, applied for the convocation of a special advisory committee, the role of which as specified in the plan would be to consider Germany’s capacity to fulfil its obligations.62 The memorandum highlighted the fact that the Hoover moratorium had not seen an improvement in the world economic situation. It referred to the London Conference which had been convened on 20 July in order to discuss the German financial crisis, noting that the recommendations of this conference had lead to introduction of a number of measures: ‘the prolongation of the re-discount of credit accorded to the Reichsbank, the Basic Standstill Agreement and the Report of the Committee of Experts which met at Basle in August.’63 Having explained that these measures were of a 61 Ibid., 16. 62 Ibid., 15. ‘In accordance with Article 119, the B. I. S. is under an obligation to convene

a Special Advisory Committee whenever the German Government exercises its option of postponing the transfer of any part of the postponable annuity or “at any other time when the German Government declares to the creditor governments and to the BIS that it has come to the conclusion in good faith that Germany’s exchange and economic life may be seriously endangered by the transfer in part or in full of the postponable portion of the annuities.”’ Advocate of Peace Through Justice 94, no. 1 (1932), 14–5. 63 BIN 8, no. 14 (1932), 4. Gathorne-Hardy pointed out that the London Conference of July 1931 ‘broke down through the intransigence of France, who insisted upon unacceptable

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preliminary nature, the memorandum noted that the report of the International Bankers’ Committee (that is, the aforementioned Committee of Experts), at Basel had concluded ‘with an urgent appeal to the Governments concerned to “lose no time in taking the necessary measures for bringing about such conditions as will allow financial operations to bring to Germany, and thereby to the world, sorely needed assistance.”’64 In accordance with Article 119, the memorandum then declared that the German government had ‘come to the conclusion in good faith that Germany’s exchange and economic life may be seriously endangered by the transfer in part or in full of the postponable position of the annuities.’ It went on to point out that in the midst of an unparalleled economic crisis it had to be recognised that there had been a fundamental change in the economic circumstances of the world and in Germany more particularly since the time of the framing of the ‘New [Young] Plan.’65 The board of the BIS responded without delay on receiving the German memorandum, immediately endorsing the declaration contained therein. Article 127 of the Young Plan provided that the Special Advisory Committee ‘shall consist of seven ordinary members and four co-opted members’ and by 25 November, the ordinary members of the committee had been appointed by the governors of the central banks of the seven countries whose experts drafted the Young Plan: France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, Japan and the United States.66 The five ordinary members,

political as well as financial guarantees as the terms on which she was prepared to afford the assistance required.’ He added that on August 19, ‘following upon the publication of the report of the International Bankers’ Committee at Basle (the Layton-Wiggin Report), a Standstill Agreement was initialled by the representatives of the bankers, providing for a six months’ prolongation of all banking credits in Germany, expressed in terms of foreign currencies, which were thereby “frozen”.’ Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 271. 64 BIN 8, no. 14 (1932), 4. 65 German Note to the BIS, 1932, quoted in BIN 8, no. 14 (1932), 4–5, and Advocate of

Peace Through Justice 94, no. 1 (1932): 15–6. 66 BIN 8, no. 14 (1932), 5, and BIN 9, no. 12 (1932), 3. According to the provisions of the Young Plan, ‘after constituting themselves into a committee, the seven ordinary members “may, if they so desire, co-opt not more than four additional members,” who, “during the course of the proceedings and until the report is made, shall be equal in all other respects to the ordinary members.”’ The position of chairman of the committee was initially offered to Walter Stewart of the Chase Property Bank in keeping with ‘the long tradition of appointing an American to preside over committees inquiring into reparation problems.’ However, Stewart declined the position and so a second election was held. ‘Since neither the French, Belgian

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which the Young Plan specified must have ‘no connection with the central banks or any government departments in their respective countries,’ met in Basel on 7 December whereupon four additional members were co-opted.67 Although some of its meetings were reportedly ‘quite stormy,’ it produced a report on 23 December which bore the signature of all the committee’s members and which was immediately sent to the BIS and the governments which were parties to the Young Plan.68 In terms of Germany’s position with regard to its obligations under the plan, the report concluded the following: It is evident from the facts outlined in the preceding chapters that Germany would be justified in declaring—in accordance with her rights under the Young Plan—that in spite of the steps she has taken to maintain the stability of her currency, she will not be, able in the year beginning in July next to transfer the conditional part of the annuity.69

The report was remarkable because of the emphatic nature of its conclusion that Germany could not pay its conditional reparations. Although the question of the unconditional annuities fell outside its mandate, based on its wording, the report was seen as implying that these too could not be resumed in July.70 The report was also remarkable for straying beyond the problem of reparations and making recommendations in regard to what it demonstrated to be the related problem of war debts and in regard to the bearing of both these problems on the international economic and political situation. It was clear in suggesting that a revision of war debts should nor German delegates could very well hold the scales and so delicate a matter, in which each was materially interested, and since there was no question of electing the Japanese delegate, the choice finally lay’ between the British delegate, Sir Walter Layton, and the Italian delegate, Alberto Beneduce, president of the Consorzio de Credito. The latter was unanimously elected to the position. Advocate of Peace Through Justice 94, no. 1 (1932), 15, 17. For the BIS’s endorsement of the German declaration, see Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 17–8. 67 Advocate of Peace Through Justice 94, no. 1 (1932), 15. See also BIN 8, no. 14 (1932),

5. 68 Advocate of Peace Through Justice 94, no. 1 (1932), 17. 69 Report of the Special Advisory Committee Appointed by the Bank for International Settle-

ments, 1932, quoted in Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 18. 70 BIN 8, no. 14 (1932), 11, and Report of the Special Advisory Committee Appointed by the Bank for International Settlements, 1932, quoted in Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 138n.

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accompany the revision of reparations. The fact that the French member of the committee, namely, Charles Rist, supported the view that Germany could not pay her conditional annuities was viewed as highly significant in this regard.71 Urging the governments to face ‘economic realities’ the report went on to state that following considerations needed to be borne in mind: 1. that transfer from one country to another on a scale so large as to upset the balance of payments can only accentuate the present chaos. 2. the release of a debtor country from a burden of payments which it is unable to bear may merely have the effect of transferring that burden to a creditor country which, in its character as a debtor, it, in its turn, may be unable to bear. 3. the adjustment of all intergovernmental debts (reparations and other war debts) to the existing troubled situation of the world—and this adjustment should take place without delay if new disasters are to be avoided—is the only lasting step capable of re-establishing confidence, which is the very condition of economic stability and real peace. 4. although the German Government is energetically defending the stability of its currency, steps are necessary to secure that these measures shall have a permanent effect.72

The Lausanne Conference Opens A week after the report was signed and on the initiative of the British government, negotiations were underway for the convening of a conference at Lausanne on 18 January to examine the issues it raised. However, at the urging of the French government, the conference was postponed until 25 January.73 On 20 January, the conference was postponed indefinitely, an

71 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 19. 72 Report of the Special Advisory Committee Appointed by the Bank for International Settle-

ments, 1932, quoted in BIN 8, no. 14 (1932), 10–1. See also Advocate of Peace Through Justice 94, no. 1 (1932), 20, and Report of the Special Advisory Committee Appointed by the Bank for International Settlements, 1932, quoted in Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 19. 73 According to one account, the French government favoured a later date for the conference because ‘it took the position that many of the controversial points could be more easily settled by means of unofficial discussion and negotiation.’ Advocate of Peace Through Justice

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important reason for this being the fact that the French government felt unable to cede substantial ground in regard to reparations in the absence of any American concessions in regard to war debts. There was also the fact that Brüning, in responding to a British and French proposal that the moratorium on reparations be extended for another year, had declared that no more reparations would be paid, a declaration which stirred nationalist feelings in France.74 This declaration should be seen against the background of the announcement by Brüning on 9 January in response to the Basel report that the stance his government would adopt at the Lausanne Conference would be as follows: it is ‘as clear as day that Germany’s situation makes it impossible for her to continue political payments’ and that it is ‘equally manifest that every attempt to keep up a system of such political payments must lead to disaster not only on Germany but on the whole world.’75 This announcement, which apparently was mainly intended to appease German nationalists but which caused considerable rancour in France, lead to an official protest by France which interpreted it as an effective denunciation of the Young Plan. The German government responded to the French protest by issuing a statement which declared that Germany had not intended ‘to issue an ultimatum or a categorical refusal to pay reparations.’76 An announcement issuing from Geneva on 13 February on behalf of the governments of Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Japan, declared that the Lausanne Conference would be held in June: in the wake of the German and French elections.77 It further declared that the object of the conference was to ‘to agree to a lasting settlement of the questions raised in the report of the Basel experts and on measures necessary to solve the other economic and financial difficulties which are 94, no. 1 (1932), 20. See also Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 2. Lippmann observed that the main reason for the French insistence that the conference be postponed was the disarray of the French cabinet caused by the death of André Maginot, the minister of war, and the illness of Briand. 74 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 23. 75 Guido Enderis, ‘Reparations Ended, Bruening Declares, Paris Is Perturbed,’ New York

Times, January 10, 1932. See also ‘Reparations: Germany’s Case: British and French Views,’ Sydney Morning Herald, January 12, 1932, 11. 76 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 20–1. 77 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference,’ Fed-

eral Reserve Bulletin (August 1932): 497–504, 497, and Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 23.

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responsible for and may prolong the present world crisis.’78 This statement was interpreted by European newspapers as having a dual significance. First, it was interpreted to mean that the governments represented at Lausanne would endeavour to reach agreement on a final settlement of the reparation question, although it should be noted that certain observers in Paris were keen to point out that the French version of the announcement qualified the word settlement with the adjective durable which can mean something other than the adjective final. Second, the statement was also taken to mean that the governments would also be turning their attention to the whole system of intergovernmental debts.79 The Lausanne Conference took place from 16 June to 8 July and was attended by the inviting powers and thirteen other countries. Its opening was held in the hall of the hotel where the British delegation domiciled itself, namely, the Beau-Rivage Palace, with Prime Minister MacDonald, presiding.80 In his inaugural address, MacDonald warned that a failure to reach agreement would be catastrophic for the world: ‘there was no France, no Germany, no America, no Great Britain apart from the rest of the nations of the world. There is nothing smaller than a world, there is nothing less than a system, that is crumbling under our feet.’81 In a concession to the French thesis concerning the sanctity of treaties, MacDonald advised the conference that it must always keep in view the principle that ‘engagements solemnly entered into cannot be set aside by unilateral repudiation.’82 However, for MacDonald, whose address included a review of the Basel report, this principle ‘had its corollary, that, if default was to be avoided, engagements which had been proved incapable of fulfilment should be

78 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference,’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 497. 79 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 24, 132. See also BIN 9, no. 12 (1932),

10. 80 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference,’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 497. Eleven other counties were present in Lausanne dating from the time of the conference’s opening: Australia, Canada, Greece, India, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania Czechoslovakia, the Union of South Africa and Yugoslavia. Bulgaria and Hungary were subsequently represented. See also Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 4. 81 Ramsay MacDonald, 1932, quoted in Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 4. 82 Ibid.

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revised by agreement.’83 And in this regard MacDonald urged the conference to develop ‘bold proposals which by their very character will command the respect of the world.’84 On 16 June, the leaders of the Belgian, British, French, Italian, and Japanese delegations signed a declaration which stated the following: Deeply impressed with the increasing gravity of the economic and financial perils which overhang the world and with the urgency of the problems which the Lausanne Conference has met to consider; firmly convinced that these problems require a final and definite solution directed to the improvement of European conditions, and that this solution must be pursued henceforward without delay or interruption, with a view to its realization in the framework of a general settlement; noting that certain payments of reparations and war debts will fall due as from July 1, next. Are of the opinion, in order to permit the work of the conference to proceed undisturbed…the execution of the payments due to the powers participating in the conference…should be reserved during the period of the Conference.85

This declaration, which was issued the day after it was signed, included a statement to the effect that its signatories were prepared to act on the understanding expressed in it. The signatories invited the other creditor governments present at the conference to do the same.86 This move was greeted by Papen, the new German chancellor, as a sign of that sincere efforts would be made at the conference to reach a final settlement.87 In a speech that was not only noted for its moderation but also for its ‘faultless French,’ Papen openly acknowledged the legal status of the Young Plan and The Hague Agreement which enshrined it and made no suggestion, unlike his predecessor, that Germany would unilaterally repudiate it.88 83 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 4. 84 Ramsey MacDonald, 1932, quoted in Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs,

141–2. 85 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference,’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 497. See also Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 141–2. Payments of approximately 45 million dollars fell due between 1 and 15 July. 86 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference,’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 497, and Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 4. 87 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 142. 88 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 4, and Lippmann et al., United States in

World Affairs, 142.

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However, he also put forward the view that the interest of the conference lay in addressing the economic rather than legal dimensions of the reparations question.89 In this regard Papen reiterated previous statements by the German government: that Germany could not pay, that any attempt to revive the Young Plan would result in disaster and that as the ‘time of small remedies, half-measures and adjournments was over, a final settlement was the only thing now practicable.’90 The new French government was open to reaching a final settlement. On 4 June, the day the Herriot government was formed, the Papen government, in a ministerial declaration, announced that its intention was to gain ‘full equality of rights and political freedom’ for Germany.91 Importantly however, this declaration ‘did not include an unqualified re-affirmation’ of Brüning’s statement of 9 January.92 Three days later on 7 June, Herriot told the Chamber of Deputies that while his government would not allow, in the name of the ‘sovereignty of the law,’ rights to be ‘contested’ which were the outcome ‘not only of treaties but of contractual agreements protected by the honor of the signatories.’ Nonetheless, Herriot added that France was ‘ready to discuss any project, to take any initiative which will produce the compensation of greater world stability or loyal reconciliations in peace’ and he notably failed to repeat Tardieu’s promise to uphold the Young Plan.93 Herriot understood, as did many of his compatriots, that the political and economic realities of the day meant that the Young Plan was dead.94 Yet Herriot did not have an entirely freehand in this matter. John W. Wheeler-Bennett noted that in France

89 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 4. 90 Ibid., 5. Charles W. Chappius notes that the German foreign minister, Baron Konstantin

von Neurath told Simon in early June that ‘while he did not intend to bang his fist on the table or unilaterally denounce reparations, Germany could not pay.’ Charles W. Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord of Confidence, July 1932,’ German Studies Review 2, no. 2 (1979): 211–24, 212. 91 German Ministerial Declaration, 1932, quoted in Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 3. 92 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 3. 93 ‘Herriot’s Program Wins Big Majority,’ New York Times, June 8, 1932. See also Wheeler-

Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 3. 94 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 137–8, 151, and Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 3.

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the Right parties were campaigning against any relaxation of French claims, and already the press were attacking Mr. MacDonald for trying to engineer the Conference for the benefit of Great Britain. ‘Mr. MacDonald plans to wipe out reparations and then launch a vast plan for restoring European stability with France paying the cost by redistributing her gold’ declared Pertinax in the Echo de Paris. M. Herriot was constrained to hold fast to his policy of compensation.95

The Clean Slate Rejected Thus, Herriot had little choice but to reject the British policy of the ‘cleanslate’ by which was meant, as MacDonald later told the House of Commons in explaining why Britain’s preferred position was not adopted, ‘cancellation all round’ of reparations and intra-European war debts.96 Not only the French but also the United States was opposed to the clean slate. According to Charles W. Chappius, Stimson counselled the British ‘to join the French in forcing Germany to admit that some reparations payments were possible. That Germany could never pay again, was ridiculous, Stimson said, and a complete cancellation of reparations would throw the whole burden on the United States.’97 Where the French and the United States were entirely at odds was on the question of the relation between reparations and war debts. In view of this, one of the principal French aims at Lausanne was that of establishing a common front with Great Britain in dealing with the United States. France’s other principal aim, indeed, its most important aim at Laussanne, was that of forming a common front with Britain in regard to German schemes for far more politically explosive revisions of the Versailles system than the revisions it was seeking concerning reparations. French interest in Lausanne was thus less about haggling with Germany about payments, although there was much of that at Lausanne, than in preparing ‘on the one hand…the ground for dealing with the United States, and on the other for dealing with the larger ambitions of Germany’: German ambitions in regard to equality in armaments and, above all, the revision of frontiers. The maintenance of frontiers established under the Treaty of Versailles 95 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 6. 96 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 5, and 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series)

(12 July 1932), 1142. 97 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 212.

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was a matter on which the French were ‘adamant.’98 Herriot’s hesitations on the question of abandoning reparations can thus partly be understood as a means of pressuring MacDonald into making certain political commitments.99 Herriot, who spoke immediately after Papen, agreed that it was impossible for Germany to resume the payments at the present time, although he noted that the report of the BIS had acknowledged that Germany would at some point recover economically. Herriot observed that what was at stake in relation to the reparations problem was not only principle: what was also at stake were the economic balance sheets of the countries to which they were paid and in relation to this Herriot stressed the relation between reparations and war debts.100 ‘Europe,’ he declared, ‘cannot act alone.’101 In declaring this, Herriot was obviously calling for action on the part of the United States. Indeed, he would insist at the conference when putting forward the offer that reparations be cancelled until that time Germany returned to prosperity, that the United States should follow the French lead.102 Finally in this context and in light of the most important of the political commitments he sought from MacDonald, it should be noted that in his opening address Herriot stressed that ‘there can be no economic peace without political peace’: that is, economic stability was contingent upon political security.103 As noted, Herriot was constrained to insist on France’s right to compensation in exchange for renouncing reparations. This constraint initially gave rise to a standstill in the discussions between France and Britain, with Britain at first vigorously putting forward the German case for complete annulment.104 Both parties agreed on the importance of a final settlement in the sense of putting to an end, as Neville Chamberlain, then the chancellor of the exchequer, put it, ‘the uncertainty about the future created

98 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 138–9, 151–2. 99 Ibid., 139. 100 Ibid., 142, and Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 5. 101 Édouard Herriot, 1932, quoted in Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs,

142. 102 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 143. 103 Édouard Herriot, 1932, quoted in Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 5. 104 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 5, and Chappius, ‘Germany and the

Anglo-French Accord,’ 214.

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by a liability’ to make reparation payments.105 However, for France, which was alone in insisting at the beginning of the conference that reparations could not be annulled purely and simply, a final settlement had to include some form of final payment (une somme forfaitaire) as a matter of French face and with a view to subsequent bargaining with the United States.106 For Britain by contrast, a final settlement meant precisely a clean slate. In adopting this stance, Britain was supported by Italy. Expecting that no more payments would be forthcoming from Germany, Italy hoped to see its debts to Britain cancelled, a policy which Italy proposed in effect in a note submitted on 4 July.107 On 24 June, just before returning to Berlin for the weekend, Papen ceded some ground on the question of a final payment. In an interview with a reporter from Le Matin, he stated the following: ‘I am the first to acknowledge France’s right to compensation for the renunciation of reparations. France has a guarantee that Germany will endorse any agreement that I sign. In contrast to my predecessor I represent all the national forces of Germany.’108 For the same reason that this statement saw Papen praised in the French press, it saw him attacked in the nationalist press in Berlin. Papen was criticised on the ground that he had made a serious tactical error in acknowledging a French right of compensation. He was also criticised on the ground that he had appeared in the same interview to have leant support, contrary to German policy, to the formation of a united front against the United States.109 Having criticised Papen on these grounds, the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung declared that the chancellor ‘is wrong in saying that all Germany would endorse his signature. Germany would not follow him on this path.’110

105 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 5. 106 Ibid., 3, 7–8. The French delegation at Lausanne also argued that ‘America herself

might prefer that, when the question of the cancellation of war debts came up, her European debtors should be able to present some monetary credit upon which to base their argument and not arrive with entirely empty hands’ (ibid., 13). See also ‘Bulletin du jour: L’accord de Lausanne,’ Le Temps (a), July 10, 1932. 107 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 15, and Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 143. 108 Franz von Papen, 1932, quoted in Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 8. 109 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 8. 110 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 1932, quoted ibid., 8.

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Following the resumption of negotiations on 27 June, it quickly became evident that the German position had hardened. Papen now declined to use the word compensation, declaring in this regard that Germany would make no more ‘tribute payments.’ Having made this declaration, the German chancellor stated that Germany was willing to make a ‘contribution to a general pool’ for European reconstruction.111 The significance of this rhetorical shift was as follows: whereas the paying of tribute is ‘an act under compulsion,’ making a contribution is ‘one of volition.’112 With Herriot still insisting on a final payment and on the principle of reparations, the negotiations reached a standstill, the effect of which was to cause MacDonald to do all that he could to prevent the conference from collapsing. On 28 June, the British prime minister convened a Three-Power Conference: a conference of representatives of Britain, France and Germany. When this conference failed to break the deadlock, MacDonald convened on 30 June a Six-Power Conference which saw representatives of Belgium, Italy and Japan join the representatives of the three aforementioned powers at the Hôtel du Château for a day of negotiations stretching from 4 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.113 At the commencement of negotiations, Germany offered a ‘final “composition” payment’ provided that the term reparation was not used in association with this payment.114 The French rejected this at first but later relented, however, they then complicated matters by proposing that the agreement include a provision that made it conditional upon the revision of American war debts. The Germans refused to countenance such a provision, advancing the American argument that there was no connection between reparations and war debts. They also countered the French in maintaining ‘that it was impossible to have this threat hanging over them’ and that the French proposal ‘violated the principle of a final settlement.’115

111 Papen, 1932, quoted in Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 10. See also J. W. W-B. [John W. Wheeler Bennett] and S. A. H., ‘The Lausanne Conference II,’ BIN 9, no. 2 (1932): 3–17, 3. 112 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 10. 113 Ibid., 10, 12. 114 Ibid., 11. 115 Ibid., 11–2. See also Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 214.

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Although the British supported the French proposal (as did the Italians), they considered that the relation between reparations and war debts had been overemphasised. They were concerned that an insistence on this relation would not go down well in the United States and that as a result, American opinion would not view sympathetically the European requests for debt cancellation that were expected to be made should the Lausanne Conference result in the termination of reparations.116 The British thought it a better approach to settle the question of reparations at Lausanne before approaching the United States, and then only after the presidential elections, in order to request a revision of war debts based on the same principle that was being applied to Germany: capacity to pay.117 As MacDonald told the House of Commons on 12 July 1932, ‘the gist of American speeches and other expressions of American public opinion amounted to this: Let Europe decide the settlement which it believes practicable for itself, taking all the circumstances into account. Let it publish to the world what its views are, and we shall consider reasonably what is the part which America in equity can play.’118 Yet the Americans wanted to see more eventuate from the Lausanne Conference than a European settlement of the question of reparations. The Hoover administration sought to use war debts owed to the United States as a lever for extracting concessions in regard to the administration’s disarmament proposals. This became crystal clear on the evening of 20 June when Gibson, who had lunched the previous day with MacDonald in Geneva, conducted an interview with Herriot. Gibson and Herriot, both of whom were accompanied by an aide, met at the village inn of Morges, on Lac Léman, midway between Geneva and Lausanne. Mr. Gibson there laid down the position of the United States with regard to disarmament and war debts, pointing out America’s anxiety 116 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 12. 117 Ibid., and Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 212–3. See also ‘The

Result of the Lausanne Conference,’ World Affairs 95, no. 2 (1932): 75–7. It should be noted the president, the Congress and both political parties in the United States opposed the cancellation of European war debts. 118 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (12 July 1932), 1136. Neville Chamberlain told Herriot at Lausanne that when the reparations question was settled ‘everyone would say: “Thank God that chapter is over.” Europeans could then turn to the United States which would be too ashamed not to make a contribution.’ Neville Chamberlain, 1932, quoted in Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 214.

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to see something real accomplished at the Disarmament Conference, and saying that this should be done by means of reducing effectives. Mr. Herriot replied that any form of quantitative reduction was unacceptable to France, whereupon Mr. Gibson frankly told him that, if as a result of the Lausanne Conference an appeal was made to the United States to make a sacrifice in the reduction of debts, public opinion would be unalterably opposed to the granting of any such appeal if Europe continued to spend on armaments enough money to pay the services of those debts.119

In the days which followed 30 June, the parties edged towards an agreement, although there was considerable disagreement on the size of the final settlement. It should be noted here that by the time of the Hôtel du Château negotiations, the British had shifted on the question of a final settlement: they had discarded the policy of the clean slate, a development which meant the British government had to refuse, as the chancellor of the exchequer regretfully informed his French and Italian counterparts, the Italian proposal for the effective cancellation of French and Italian debts to the United Kingdom.120 This shift was due in part to shifts in the position of Germany: the German’s opening position was that Germany would ‘could pay nothing.’ However, the Germans subsequently conceded ‘that they could manage to squeeze out something, if only it was not a “tribute”’ or compensation, but was rather in the ‘nature of a “contribution,” and that they could perhaps squeeze out a little more if the “war-guilt” clause of the Treaty of Versailles were removed.’121 At the same time, it should be noted that irrespective of the German capacity to pay, the British had wanted to abandon ‘the whole system of political debts because of their effect on world trade.’122

119 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 6. Davies states that it is ‘possible to argue that the Hoover Plan was more an attempt to divert attention from America’s obdurate policy on war debts at the Lausanne Conference rather than a sincere attempt to bring the Disarmament Conference to a successful conclusion.’ Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 773. 120 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference [Letters of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the French and Italian Ministers of Finance Regarding French and Italian Debts to the United Kingdom],’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 504. See also Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 15. 121 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 13. 122 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 213.

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A Consultative Pact? Papen’s government had minimal support in the Reichstag and was under pressure from all political sides and thus Papen was greatly desirous of returning home with an impressive political prize. Thus, he quickly made it known at Lausanne that he wanted more than a final settlement of the reparations question. Papen sought a wide-ranging settlement with France that would involve the abrogation of Part VII and Part V of the Treaty of Versailles. Part VII of the treaty concerned reparations, the first article of which, namely, Article 231, contained the war-guilt clause, whereas Part V concerned disarmament. In addition to this, Papen sought at Lausanne French acceptance of a revision of the German–Polish border.123 In exchange for these concessions, which in the view of the French press were rather more important to the German delegation than the cancellation of German reparations to France, Papen proposed a ‘Franco-German customs union, general economic cooperation, and an entente with France.’124 Papen proposed a Franco-German entente, or what the Germans named a consultative pact, in recognition of the fact that equality in armaments could not be realised unless French security concerns were addressed; hence the proposed entente or pact was to ‘contain provisions that no question of interest to Germany, such as the [Polish] Corridor and Upper Silesia, could be settled without consultation.’125 The response of Herriot to these overtures was that while he was open to considering ‘political conditions if they were “acceptable”,’ revision of the Treaty of Versailles was out of the question in the context of the Lausanne talks.126 MacDonald had not wanted to see the Franco-German talks at Lausanne result in an understanding between the two countries that came at a cost to Britain, yet he nonetheless remained keen on the idea of 123 Henry de Korab, ‘L’accord est conclu à Lausanne: le chiffre du forfait est fixé à trois milliards de marks-or sans conditions politique,’ Le Matin (a), July 9, 1932, and Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 213. See also Isaac Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference: The German Case’ (PhD diss., City University of New York, 1971), 74, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 124 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 216. See also ‘A Lausanne et à Genève: l’attentat contre le paix,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, July 8, 1932, and Le Matin (a), 9 July 1932. 125 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 75. 126 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 216. See also Alteras, ‘The Geneva

Disarmament Conference,’ 75.

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Franco-German understanding ‘as part of a general settlement.’127 In relation to this, it should be noted that on 6 June, in the course of preparing for the Lausanne Conference and in light of the sharply opposed positions of France and Germany in respect to reparations, Simon had written to the German foreign minister, Baron Konstantin von Neurath, in order to raise the prospect of a political truce.128 As described by Simon, this truce would involve a ‘common agreement ’ at Lausanne that those in attendance would ‘refrain from actions likely to revive past quarrels or to bring existing agreements into the field of polemics’ and would, in light of the economic crisis, meet ‘periodically for direct interchange of views on matters of common importance.’129 The response of Neurath was that he was open to discussing such a truce, however, he insisted that Germany would not resile from its efforts to revise the Treaty of Versailles and proposed that the periodic meetings suggested by the British should be limited to the major European powers, although he allowed that the lesser powers could participate in them now and again.130 The question of political truce was also raised with the French government, although in this context MacDonald and Simon ‘spoke of a political truce for fifteen years, giving the impression that during that time Germany would forego raising revisionist demands,’ an impression that did little to enthuse the French as they did not believe the Germans would remain faithful to any such agreement even if they initialled it.131 Continuous with this early effort aimed at taking the political sting out of the talks at Lausanne and in light of the stalemate in relation to the question of a final payment albeit in respect to the amount involved and not the payment itself, the British delegation put forward on 5 July the text of an agreement to be initialled by the six inviting powers.132 It declared the following:

127 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 217. 128 Ibid., 213. 129 Sir J. Simon to Baron von Neurath, and Enclosure, June 9, 1932, doc. no. 128, in E. L. Woodward and Rohan Butler eds., Documents on British Foreign Policy [hereafter DBFP ] 1919–1939, 2nd ser., vol. 3 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1949), 161–2. 130 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 213. 131 Ibid., 213–4. 132 Ibid., 217.

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The Governments of Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan hereby agree not to raise any political question affecting interests which are common to any two or more of them and arising out of the treaties and instruments to which they are parties, without a preliminary friendly consultation, with a view to agree on the manner in which such question should be treated.133

An effect of such an agreement, MacDonald told Herriot in the course of a conversation held between the British and French delegations on the morning of 5 July, was that should the German government raise the matter of liberating itself from its obligations under the Treaty of Versailles, the British government would discuss the matter with the French government before responding.134 Seeking to kindle French interest in this British version of a consultative pact, MacDonald associated it with the continuation of close cooperation between the British and French delegations at the Disarmament Conference and the British and French governments in their preparations for the WEC. MacDonald further associated it with the commercial relations between Britain and France which, he observed, would ‘require definition in a commercial treaty’ at some point after the Ottawa Conference.135 Speaking to Papen, Neurath and another German delegate immediately after the British delegation’s conversation with the French delegation, MacDonald similarly offered more than the promise of consultation. He told the German delegation that [i]f an agreement [on a final sum] could be come to, they were prepared to put a statement into the Resolution to the effect that what had happened meant that there was a complete end to reparations, and that that carried with it the death of Article 231 and that article no longer operated…The statement would also contain…[a]…declaration that it is desired to reach at Geneva a settlement of the disarmament question beneficial and equitable for all the 133 Great Britain and France: Notes of a Conversation held on Tuesday, July 5, 1932, at 9 a.m.: Agreement of the Six Inviting Powers, Annex III to doc. no. 172, in Woodward and Butler, eds., DBFP 1919–1939, 2nd ser., vol. 3, 373. 134 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 218. 135 Great Britain and France: Notes of a Conversation held on Tuesday, July 5,

1932, at 9 a.m., doc. no. 172, in Woodward and Butler, eds., DBFP 1919–1939, 2nd ser., vol. 3, 368–9. Chappius observes the following: ‘The shadow of the forthcoming Ottawa Conference hung over Lausanne. No one knew what economic changes would result. The uncertainty, the British feared, might drive the French to an economic arrangement with Germany.’ Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 218.

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Powers there represented…. He wished to emphasise that the Conference would formally declare that the post-war Period was closed and that Europe was entering upon a period of cooperation and peace.136

On 5 July, in an interview with MacDonald, Papen raised his earlier offer of 2000 Reichsmarks as a final payment to 2600 Reichsmarks, albeit on condition that the war-guilt clause was abrogated and on condition that the principle of equality of armaments was recognised in the final declaration of Lausanne137 MacDonald then went to see Herriot who forcefully reiterated his refusal to discuss any political conditions touching on Article 231 or Part V of the Treaty Versailles at Lausanne, stating that he wished to declare at once…that he would accept no political conditions. Disarmament was one thing; responsibility for the war another; reparations was a third matter. He would not sell the rights of his country….[I]f what was now proposed was done about Disarmament, Germany would cry victory on three points—cancellation of Reparations, Disarmament, and War Guilt. He wanted a reconciliation with Germany, but he could not accept the German conditions which reeked of bad faith.138

This is not to say that the French delegation was utterly intransigent; it indicated that it was willing to consider the war-guilt clause, albeit only in the form of a ‘tacit deletion’ and not the ‘definite statement of abrogation’ that the German delegation desired.139 In regard to equality of armaments, the French premier, who understood that the armaments feature of the peace settlement would eventually have to be abandoned, told MacDonald his country was ‘willing to accept a formula which would indicate a satisfactory disarmament settlement.’ Herriot added that ‘in fact, he

136 Great Britain and Germany: Notes of a Conversation held on Tuesday, July 5, 1932, at 10.45 a.m., in Woodward and Butler, ed., DBFP 1919–1939, 2nd ser., vol. 3, 376. 137 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 75; Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 219; ‘Les Conférences internationales: À Lausanne,’ Le Temps (a), July 9, 1932; and Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 15. 138 Great Britain and France: Notes of a Conversation held on Tuesday, July 5, 1932, at 5:15 p.m., doc. no. 175, in Woodward and Butler, eds., DBFP 1919–1939, 2nd ser., vol. 3, 383, 385. See also Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 75; Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 219; and ‘L’article 231 et la responsibilité de l’Allemagne,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), July 9, 1932. 139 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 3.

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had already instructed the French delegation at Geneva to begin talks on qualitative disarmament’ and had also, referring to a visit to Geneva on 19 June, taken the step of withdrawing ‘the original French proposal for an international force.’140 However, Herriot insisted that precisely because the matter was being considered at Geneva, as far as the Lausanne negotiations were concerned it was ‘in a sense sub judice.’141 On 5 July, subsequent to his interview with MacDonald, Herriot formally rejected the proposed consultative pact. Key reasons given by Herriot for rejecting the pact were that its ‘reference to disarmament was equivocal’ and fell outside the mandate of the Lausanne conference; that it ‘endangered the League of Nations’; and that its ‘phrases about augmenting mutual confidence had no meaning.’142 It is interesting to note here that on 9 July, Le Temps noted that foreign journals were claiming that the six inviting powers had agreed on the text of a consultative pact. It observed that ‘in the authoritative milieux’ of the conference, elements had declared that ‘the conclusion of such a pact had been suggested by the British delegation’ but that the French delegation had rejected this proposition. The French government, the newspaper reported, had determined in effect that an accord of the kind suggested, ‘would restrain the field of action’ of the LON and that ‘the small powers not being signatories of the consultative pact, would be at risk of no longer having all the guarantees to which they have equally the right.’143 On the following the day, Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires reported that Papen, having realised that he had been defeated on the 140 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 76. See also Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 6, and Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 152. 141 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 3. Isaac Alteras notes that the British came to accept the French view, ‘arguing that the question of disarmament should be settled at Geneva.’ Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 75. Chappius writes that MacDonald told Herriot that the Germans ‘were not submitting new conditions ; they were simply commenting upon the consequences of a new financial regime,’ by which was meant presumably, that the end of reparations implied the abrogation of the war-guilt clause. However, he adds that MacDonald ‘of course, omitted the slight detail that the German formula included a reference to equality of rights which was what the French objected to.’ Chappius records that Papen was surprised at the French refusal to accede to abrogation of the war guilt clause as the German ‘proposal on war guilt was very close to the one drafted by a member of the French delegation.’ Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 219–20. 142 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 220. 143 ‘Les Conférences internationales: Un projet de pacte consultatif,’ Le Temps, July 9,

1932.

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question of political conditions, had proposed to Herriot a consultative pact between France, Great Britain, Italy, and Japan, according to which these five powers would consult with each other should a conflict break out between one of them and another country. In the view of this French newspaper, behind this proposition were two aims: to obtain the equality that Germany was demanding, recalling here that an important reason why the French had rejected the British version of a consultative pact was that it would provide Germany with a forum in which to seek revision of the Treaty of Versailles, and ‘to paralyse the action of France in the case of a conflict between Germany and another State, Poland for example.’ The same newspaper further reported that Herriot, although stating that he recognised the value of Papen’s proposition, had responded that in encroaching on the LON’s domain, such a pact would bring ‘discredit’ to that organisation and that Herriot had made Papen ‘understand that in any case he would not subscribe to it.’144

The Battle of the Preambles In regard to the so-called political conditions, the French press reported that Papen had originally sought to introduce into the agreement with Germany a paragraph declaring the innocence of Germany in regard to the war and affirming its right to rearm, matters which Herriot simply refused to discuss.145 These ‘“conditions” were soon transformed into “indications” and then into some simple “allusions”.’146 On the morning of 7 July, the so-called the ‘battle of the preamble’ commenced: ‘a veritable war of attrition’ which saw Papen attempt to introduce into the preamble to the agreement ‘allusions’ to his two political concerns only to meet with resistance from Herriot who had let it be known that the French delegation was not in any rush to depart Lausanne.147 In response to Papen’s efforts in regard to the preamble, Herriot, who would be applauded in the French press for what turned out to be his victory in this battle, declared 144 ‘L’accord est conclu à Lausanne,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (b), July 9, 1932. See also Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 218. 145 Le Matin (a), July 9, 1932; Le Temps (a) July 9, 1932; and Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), July 9, 1932. 146 Le Temps (a), July 9, 1932. 147 Ibid., and ‘L’accord est conclu à Lausanne sur un chiffre de 3 milliards et sans conditions

politique,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (c), July 9, 1932.

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in the course of an interview with Papen on the morning of 7 July, that he would not accept under any form whatever ‘any political clause, neither on disarmament nor on Article 231.’148 Despite the absolute refusal of Herriot to shift his position on the text of the Lausanne agreement, Papen was hoping that he would ultimately bend and in this regard he was counting on the support of MacDonald who, according to Henry de Korab in Le Matin, wanted to dress the agreement with observations of a ‘general and elevated’ nature, capable of ‘concealing some carefully camouflaged juridical baits.’149 It should be noted that there was much criticism of MacDonald’s role at the conference in sections of the French press: they accused MacDonald of ‘constantly encouraging the Germans to pursue methodically the destruction of the Treaty of Versailles’ and thereby of creating the ‘frightful conditions in which the most grave questions’ were being discussed at Lausanne, conditions that had all but provoked a rupture. In regard to Article 231 specifically, Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires opined that the attitude displayed by MacDonald at Lausanne was ‘very suspect.’150 In any case, during his interview with Papen and in order to state his position precisely, Herriot drafted then and there a ‘strong and clear’ preamble devoid of any allusion to Article 231 and to Gleichberechtigung but which spoke in general terms of ‘rapprochement and better understanding among peoples.’151 At this point, the German delegation appeared to conclude that Lausanne was not the appropriate context in which to obtain the political satisfaction they desired, with Papen telling journalists on quitting the French delegation’s lodgings at the Lausanne-Palace at midday on 7 July that the ‘little that time that still remains to negotiate does not permit the

148 ‘A la conférence de Lausanne: M. Herriot déclare à M. von Papen il n’accepte aucune clause politique,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), July 8, 1932. See also Le Temps (a), July 9, 1932, and Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), July 9, 1932. 149 Le Matin (a), July 9, 1932. 150 Pierre Bernus, ‘Les derniers marchandages à Lausanne: le rôle de M. MacDonald,’ Le

Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (b), July 8, 1932. See also ‘Revue de la Presse,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, July 9, 1932. According to an account appearing in Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, Saint-Brice (the pseudonym of the writer Louis de Saint Victor de Saint Blancard), understood that MacDonald had wanted to hasten a solution and it was his intervention that lead Papen to bargain in regard to political conditions. 151 Le Temps (a), July 9, 1932.

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arrival at an accord on political question.’152 However, at meetings later that day, Papen returned to his earlier position, declaring the following: ‘We have to devote ourselves here to bringing about the moral restoration of the world and we have no other means of achieving that than by acceding to the just demands of Germany.’153 Thus, the conference seemed blocked.154 In order to dissipate misunderstandings between the British and French delegations, or more specifically between Herriot and MacDonald, MacDonald directed Neville Chamberlain to invite Herriot and his colleague Louis Germain-Martin the French finance minister, to dinner on the evening of the 7 July. In the course of the meal, Herriot restated the French opposition to the inscription in the preamble of any allusions to political problems that did not form part of the Lausanne agenda, suggesting to Chamberlain that ‘in wanting to discharge of its responsibility in the world war, Chancellor Papen, pushed by an exasperated public opinion, was intending perhaps to say that the responsibility devolved on the allied powers.’155 For his part, Chamberlain, explained at length to his French colleagues that MacDonald still held to the idea that the Lausanne Agreement should be preceded by a declaration that had a ‘political sense,’ albeit, Chamberlain added, ‘not the one that the Germans wanted to give it: it was a matter of a declaration explaining, for public opinion, the import and the bearing of the Lausanne accords.’156 It was at this dinner that a new preamble was drafted it being presented at 11 p.m. to the German delegation by Chamberlain and Simon, this last having made a special trip from Geneva, where had attended that same day a meeting of the General Commission of the Disarmament Conference which had been convened to consider once more the Hoover Plan, in order to assist in the negotiations.157 152 Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), July 8, 1932, and ‘Déclaration du Chancelier von Papen,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, July 8, 1932. 153 ‘Les réunions d’hier,’ Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, July 8, 1932. 154 Le Temps (a), July 9, 1932. 155 Ibid. See also Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (b), July 9, 1932. 156 Le Temps (a), July 9, 1932. See also Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (b),

July 9, 1932. 157 Le Temps (a), July 9, 1932; Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (b), July 9, 1932; and ‘A Genève: La commission générale étudie les propositions Hoover,’ Le Temps, July 9, 1932.

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Upon its presentation, Papen sought to introduce modifications which, in a ‘veiled form,’ alluded to Germany’s political demands, with the two Britons in turn ‘discussing them syllable by syllable.’158 At 1:20 a.m., Chamberlain and Simon met with Herriot at the Palais-Lausanne where they were later joined by Germain-Martin and where they agreed on a final text. At 3 a.m., just after the departure of the British delegation, Herriot announced to journalists that the British and French delegations were in complete agreement on a text which excluded all mention of political conditions. It was a case rather, Herriot declared, of a simple declaration of a politically general nature. Following further talks on Friday at the BeauRivage and after long conversation by telephone with the members of his cabinet in Berlin, Papen adjourned the political questions he had raised, settling for an agreement on reparations alone, although this was not to the satisfaction of all members of the German delegation.159 Papen had never wanted to take responsibility for a rupture, not least because it would gravely upset the British public opinion which, MacDonald announced at a meeting of the heads of six principal delegations on the evening of 7 July, was disgusted with the Lausanne spectacle and had had enough of it.160 It should also be noted that there was much pressure on Papen at Lausanne decision that Germany would make a final payment of a sum that he had initially rejected and without accompanying political concessions was made against the background the imminent departure of the British for Ottawa and, indeed, in his Memoirs Papen would blame ‘the British threat to leave Lausanne for Ottawa Conference as the reason for his failure to achieve all of his political goals.’161 At 1:55 p.m., Herriot announced while coming out of the Beau-Rivage that an accord, one which he described as ‘perfectly satisfactory for France,’ had been reached,

158 Le Temps (a), July 9, 1932, and Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (b), July 9, 1932. 159 Le Temps (a), July 9, 1932; Le Matin (a), July 9, 1932; Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (b), June 8, 1932; Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (b), July 9, 1932; and Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (c), July 9, 1932. 160 Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (b), July 9, 1932: Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), July 8, 1932; and Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (b), July 8, 1932. 161 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 220–1.

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whereupon he embraced two young female reporters, one French and one German, whom he had observed amidst the jostling crowd of journalists.162 Under the agreement, reparations were terminated and Germany undertook, ‘of her own volition…to make an eventual contribution’ in the form of a bond issue to the amount of 3000 million Reichsmarks ‘but only after the termination of a three year moratorium.’ Following the expiry of the moratorium, the bonds, which were to be immediately delivered to the BIS, were to be issued ‘at the discretion’ of the bank in consultation with the president of the Reichsbank, but only if the negotiation of them could ‘be carried out without disturbing normal economic relations or endangering Germany’s credit.’163 There was no mention in the agreement of Germany’s contribution to a general European reconstruction pool and the agreement specified that the allocation of the proceeds of the bonds was to determined by the creditor powers. According to Wheeler-Bennett, these two features of the agreement aroused resentment in Germany.164

The Lausanne Accord Although the German delegation had abandoned their political pretensions for the time being, the preamble to the agreement (which notably declared that the agreement would ‘completely put an end to reparations’ but which nonetheless recognised the legal validity of the Hague agreements on which the Young Plan was based), could be seen as holding out the promise of further concessions to Germany at a later point.165 Indeed, the British had argued at the conference in the course of supporting French resistance to the war-guilt demand, that it was an issue to be dealt with in the future.166 The German delegation might also have taken comfort in the notion that 162 Le Matin (a), July 9, 1932, and ‘L’accord s’est fait sur un forfait de trois milliards de marks or, sans conditions politique,’ Le Temps, July 9, 1932. 163 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 3–4, 16. See also ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions:

Final Act of the Lausanne Conference [Agreement with Germany],’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 498–500. MacDonald told Parliament that one of the tests of any scheme devised at Lausanne was as follows: ‘whatever imposition was to be put on Germany, it must not be of a character to damage her credit and to keep the German community a festering financial and commercial sore in the middle of Europe.’ 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (12 July 1932), 1141. 164 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 6. 165 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference

[Agreement with Germany],’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 498–500. 166 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 143.

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the agreement entailed an implicit deletion of the war-guilt clause in that ‘it was only on war guilt that the claim to reparations was founded,’ although the very same point explains why the French could not renounce their legal claims under the Young Plan.167 In any case, Papen boldly told the German press that the annulment of reparations ‘constituted a formal abrogation of Part VIII of the Treaty together with the “war-guilt” clause’ and that the powers present at Lausanne recognised that ‘negotiations…would follow at Geneva along the lines of equality of rights in the armament question.’168 The powers assembled at Lausanne declared the following in regard to the significance of the agreement they had reached: The powers signatory of the present agreement have assembled at Lausanne to deal with one of the problems resulting from the war, with the firm intention of helping to create a new order, permitting the establishment and development of confidence between the nations in a mutual spirit of reconciliation, collaboration, and justice. The signatory powers do not claim that the task accomplished at Lausanne…can alone assure that peace which all nations desire, but they hope that an achievement of such significance and so arduously attained will be understood and appreciated by all pacific elements in Europe and the world and it will be followed by fresh achievements. These further successes will be more readily won if the nations will rally to this new effort in the cause of real peace, which can only be complete if it is applied both in the economic and in the political sphere, and rejects all possibility of resort to arms or to violence.169

The Lausanne Agreement comprised a Final Act annexed to which were five instruments. The so-called Agreement with Germany was the first of these five instruments and, along with the Final Act, was adopted without discussion at the final plenary session of the conference on the evening of 8 July in the hall of the Beau-Rivage Palace. The ceremony consecrated to the signing of the convention commenced at 10 a.m. on the following day in the same location outside of which, behind police cordons, crowds massed on the footpath.170 Before the signing, MacDonald announced 167 Ibid., 144. 168 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 77. 169 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference

[Agreement with Germany],’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 498. 170 For the instruments annexed to the Final Act of the Lausanne Agreement, see BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 4–6, and ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne

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that the moratorium on intra-European war debts would be prolonged up until that time that the Lausanne Agreement was ratified. The convention itself, under Article 1 of the Transitional Measures Relating to Germany, prolonged the moratorium on reparations up until the same point.171 Following the signing, MacDonald, delivered his closing address, declaring therein that our work has put a new page in history, not the end of a chapter, but the beginning of a new book….We have opened a new book. There are no more Reparations. Those great payments of sums which represented no transfer of goods have not been a punishment to one nation, but an affliction to all….Europe cannot exist alone. The agreements signed here must have a response elsewhere.172

In the context of the above declaration, the word elsewhere was used to refer to the United States whose position on war debts, which had been reiterated by the State Department on 7 July, had greatly added to the difficulties of the negotiations at Lausanne.173 Indeed, Germany’s European creditors signed the agreement with Germany in the knowledge that whether or not the agreements reached at Lausanne yielded positive results very much hinged on United States’ policy in respect to these debts.

The Gentlemen’s Agreement Here it should be noted that the creditor governments attached to the Lausanne Agreement a procès-verbal dated 2 July which declared the following:

Conference,’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 497. The other four instruments annexed to the Lausanne Agreement appeared under the following headings and were annexed in the following order: ‘Transitional Measures Relating to Germany’; ‘Resolution Relating to Non-German Reparations’; ‘Resolution Relating to Central and Eastern Europe’; and ‘Resolution Relating to the World Economic and Financial Conference.’ For an account of the signing ceremony at Lausanne, see ‘La séance de clôture: Les conventions de Lausanne sont signées,’ Le Temps, July 10, 1932. See also BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 6. The agreement’s signatories used the seal of the City of Lausanne which had been first used in 1525. 171 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 6. 172 MacDonald, 1932, quoted in BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 7. 173 Ibid., 7, and World Affairs 95, no. 2 (1932), 76.

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The Lausanne Agreement will not come into final effect until after ratification as provided for in the Agreement. So far as the Creditor Governments on whose behalf this Procès-verbal is initialled are concerned, ratification will not be effected until a satisfactory settlement has been reached between them and their own creditors. It will be open to them to explain the position to their respective Parliaments, but no specific reference to it will appear in the text of the agreement with Germany. Subsequently, if a satisfactory settlement about their own debts is reached, the aforesaid Creditor Governments will ratify and the agreement with Germany will come into full effect. But if no such settlement can be obtained, the agreement with Germany will not be ratified; a new situation will have arisen and the Governments interested will have to consult together as to what should be done. In that event, the legal position, as between all the Governments, would revert to that which existed before the Hoover moratorium. The German Government will be notified of this arrangement.174

As should be evident, what came to be known as the Gentlemen’s Agreement, which was initialled by Chamberlain and Herriot on behalf of their respective countries and by Antonio Mosconi and Jules Renkin on behalf of Italy and Belgium respectively, explicitly linked reparations to a revision of American war debts, a link which Papen had consistently refused to countenance throughout the conference.175 Such an agreement was necessary in order to meet the French refusal to abandon ‘all claim in law to her expectations under the Young Plan’ until that time that an accord could be reached with Washington.176 Papen was formally notified of the Gentlemen’s Agreement on the morning of 9 July, the same morning that the signing of the Lausanne Agreement was due to take place. One French newspaper reported that the parties to the agreement decided to notify Papen before the signing in order to ensure that there was no doubt in regard to the condition on which the 174 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference [Procès-verbal ],’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 503. 175 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 6. MacDonald stated in the House of Commons that the German chancellor had ‘stoutly declined throughout to admit to me that War Debts were any affair of his. He did not care about War Debts. He had nothing to do with them. He had nothing to do with them; he would not take them into account. If I said, “Now you really must give a sixpence,” he said, “No; I do not know what the sixpence is wanted for. I have no interest in it, and, on principle, I refuse absolutely to recognise that Reparations and War Debts should be mixed up together.”’ See also 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (12 July 1932), 1136. 176 Sir Charles Petrie, ‘Foreign Affairs,’ The English Review (August 1932): 190–8, 191.

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agreement with Germany rested.177 However, the fact was that Papen had been informed throughout of its existence and nature, with MacDonald telling Papen on 29 June that ‘it was a matter between gentlemen. Any agreement come to in Lausanne must depend on whether America would conclude arrangements with the European Creditors which would enable them to act.’178 It was against this background and in the course of discussing the second annex to the Lausanne Agreement, namely, what was called Transitional Measures Relating to Germany, that Papen asked MacDonald what procedure would be followed in the event, which Papen stated he recognised as being improbable, that the agreement with Germany should fail of ratification.179 Answering his own question, Papen declared that he imagined that it would be ‘essential…that the governments concerned should get together as soon as possible to consider the situation.’ However, he added that he wanted ‘an assurance’ that it was ‘the intention of the conference’ to follow such a procedure. MacDonald replied that although it would be ‘most inadvisable and very difficult to embody it in the annex,’ he was able to put on record on behalf of the inviting powers that without doubt another conference would be held: there was no question of an immediate return to the Young Plan should the Lausanne agreement fail of ratification.180 MacDonald’s assurance, as stated in a note by Papen addressed to Simon on the morning of 9 July, was taken by the German delegation as

177 Henry de Korab, ‘La signature des textes des accord de Lausanne aura lieu ce matin,’ Le Matin (b), July 9, 1932. See also ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference [Note to the Chancellor of the German Reich, 9 July 1932],’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 503. 178 Great Britain, France and Germany: Notes of a Conversation held on Wednesday, June 29, 1932, at 4 p.m., doc. no. 152, in Woodward and Butler, eds., DBFP 1919–1939, 2nd ser., vol. 3, 293. 179 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference

[Extract from the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Lausanne Conference, held on July 8],’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 503. See also 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (12 July 1932), 1138, and BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 8. 180 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference [Extract from the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Lausanne Conference, held on July 8],’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 503; 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (12 July 1932), 1138; and ‘La conférence de Lausanne: L’accord sur la reliquait forfaitaire des réparations,’ Le Temps (b), July 20, 1932.

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an authoritative explanation of the procedure to be followed in the event that the agreement ran afoul of the ratification process.181 The Gentlemen’s Agreement was not published until 14 July, however, rumours of such an agreement soon gained currency. Reports in such newspapers as Le Matin, Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, Le Petit Parisian and Le Temps on 9 and 10 July confirmed its existence.182 Henry de Korab, writing in Le Matin on 9 July, declared that the Gentlemen’s Agreement was the link which has been not only clearly established, but openly avowed, between Lausanne and the adjustment of the American debt. It is the express condition of the ratification of the agreement by the Parliaments, and, if there is no settlement of the American debt, the Lausanne Treaty will be considered null and void…It is thus that the Young Plan would become again in law…the only system of fixing the actual payments of Germany.183

The following day, Le Petit Parisien observed that the Gentlemen’s Agreement affirmed ‘for the first time, in a definitive and official fashion, the indissoluble relation that must exist between reparations and the other war debts.’184 The Lausanne accord elicited much praise in Great Britain, with MacDonald being applauded for all his exacting mediatory efforts.185 However, the enthusiasm which greeted the accord was somewhat dampened when news creeped through of the Gentlemen’s Agreement. Against the 181 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference [German Chancellor to Sir John Simon, 9 July 1932],’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 503. 182 Le Temps (b), July 10, 1932; Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (b), July 9, 1932; ‘La conclusion de l’accord de Lausanne,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, July 10, 1932; and Albert Julien, ‘A la conférence de Lausanne: l’accord est fait’ and Pierre Denoyer, ‘Aux États Unis,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, July 9, 1932. See also BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 8n, and ‘Gentlemen’s and other Agreements,’ Manchester Guardian, July 13, 1932. The Manchester Guardian editorialised in relation to the Gentlemen’s Agreement that ‘[s]tatesmen should have realised by now that secret diplomacy is not only pernicious; it is, in view of the relations between the French Government and the press, impracticable.’ See also 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (12 July 1932), 1158. 183 Henry de Korab, ‘La signature des textes des accord de Lausanne aura lieu ce matin,’ Le Matin (a), July 9, 1932. 184 ‘Le protocole de Lausanne a été signé solennellement hier,’ Le Petit Parisien, July 10, 1932. 185 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 221.

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background of the news of this agreement, Winston Churchill, speaking in the House Commons on 11 July and despite the fact that debate on the subject was not scheduled to take place until the following day, proceeded to cast doubt on the achievements of the Lausanne Conference. Churchill stated that information ‘tucked away in an insignificant column’ in the Times that he had come across that morning, ‘completely and fundamentally’ altered the impression that the Lausanne Agreement marked a new stage in European post-war history as conveyed by government sources and the British newspapers the day before. The column in question, he noted, referred to a ‘semi-secret’ agreement which entailed that the Lausanne accord was contingent upon a settlement of debts to the United States and that failing this there would be a reversion to the Young Plan. Churchill then declared that anyone who imagined that Germany would go back to that plan deserved ‘special medical attention,’ suggesting that the best one could say of Lausanne was that ‘Europe is saved subject to ratification.’186 On 12 July (the same day that the Morning Post and the Daily Herald, two British newspapers with very different political sympathies, found themselves at one in ‘condemning this secret understanding),’ MacDonald, who had been absent from the chamber the previous day, rose in Parliament to defend the Gentlemen’s Agreement. He defence of it, however, saw him characterise it in a way that was somewhat at odds with the way it was being characterised in sections of the French press.187 By way of refuting the charge of secret or semi-secret diplomacy, MacDonald explained to Parliament that he had in fact announced the ‘substance’ of the Gentlemen’s Agreement, although not under that name as the agreement had no actual name, at the final plenary meeting of the conference: he had announced the substance of the agreement in responding to a question posed by Papen concerning what procedure would be followed in the event that the agreement with Germany should fail of ratification.188 MacDonald stated that at the final plenary meeting, at which, he pointed out, the press was present, he had responded to Papen in declaring that 186 268, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (11 July 1932), 946. See also BIN 9, no. 2 (1932),

8. 187 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 9. 188 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (12 July 1932), 1138–9. See also ‘Foreign Banking

and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference [Extract from the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Lausanne Conference, held on July 8],’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 503.

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should the plan devised at Lausanne fail, ‘certainly’ another conference would be held before any action was taken. MacDonald’s declaration in response to Papen’s query was precisely that to which MacDonald was referring in stating that at the final plenary meeting of the Lausanne conference he had announced the substance of the Gentlemen’s Agreement. The prime minister told Pariament that the agreement was vital if a return to the Young Plan were to be avoided.189 Having explained the substance of the agreement from the British perspective and why the agreement was necessary, MacDonald indicated that his government considered the warguilt clause to be effectively null and void and proclaimed that even if certain relations remained delicate, a great stride towards European rapprochement had been made at Lausanne. He then declared the following: If Europe is going to solve its economic and financial problems it must also solve its political problems, and these political problems depend on the state of political mentality. We have still to dissipate the surviving atmosphere of war. Germany must be brought back into ordinary national relationship. Germany is going to be dealt with as a nation which is consulted, whose views are heard and accepted in the same way as another nation’s views are accepted when they are wise and rejected when they are unwise. I am glad to say that Lausanne brought us nearer to France, France nearer to Germany, and France and Germany nearer to us.190

This declaration was issued in response to a question raised by Churchill concerning the WEC and the willingness of the United States to participate in it. Churchill’s question explains why MacDonald appended to declaration the following expression of hope: that ‘those whose voices carry across the Atlantic with clearness will not use phrases that will make it difficult to bring about an understanding’ in regard to European relations.191 It should be noted here that MacDonald had earlier warned of the calamitous results that would likely occur should the Gentlemen’s Agreement be represented in Britain and the United States as a case of European powers combining ‘to present something of an ultimatum’ to the United States.192 It was with a view to avoiding such results, that MacDonald told Parlia189 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (12 July 1932), 1140. 190 Ibid., 1146. 191 Ibid. 192 Ibid., 1140–1.

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ment that he wanted to make it ‘absolutely clear that all that Lausanne did was straighten out the internal difficulties of Europe,’ which, he added, ‘in all conscience were many and difficult, and agree to proposals which the nations there represented believe are both essential and possible.’193 MacDonald acknowledged that his government had gone to Lausanne insisting on an all round cancellation of reparations, however, he pointed out that this was among those things that were simply not possible to achieve.194 In the United States, those who were campaigning for the annulment of European war debts viewed the Gentlemen’s Agreement with ‘some distaste’ as it only added to the difficulties they faced in persuading their compatriots of the rightness of their cause.195 Even before the agreement was announced, the rumours circulating about it were enough to strengthen the resolve of Congress to not see war debts revised. On 9 July, a resolution was introduced by Senator Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee which made the point that only Congress had the authority to revise debt agreements and that it was ‘the will of Congress’ that such revision should not be made. A further resolution introduced by the same senator, requested that the president disclose whether or not any negotiations regarding war debts had been undertaken.196 Against this background and in light of rumours about the agreement appearing in the press, Hoover made public on 14 July a letter he had sent to Borah which, although having as its point of reference agreements recently concluded at Lausanne, was aimed specifically at the Gentlemen’s Agreement. It read as follows: Our people are, of course, gratified at the settlement of the strictly European problem of reparations or any other political or economic questions that have impeded European recovery. Such action, together with the real progress in disarmament, will contribute greatly to world stability. I wish to make it adequately clear, however, that the United States has not been consulted regarding any agreements reported by the press to have been concluded recently at Lausanne, and that of course it is not a party to, nor in any way committed to, any such agreement.

193 Ibid., 1146. See also Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 221. 194 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (12 July 1932), 1142. 195 Petrie, ‘Foreign Affairs,’ 192. 196 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 10.

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While I do not assume it to be the purpose of any of these agreements to effect combined action of our debtors, if it shall be so interpreted, then I do not propose that the American people shall be pressed into any line of action or that our policy shall in any way be influenced by such a combination, whether open or implied.197

With reference to the last paragraph quoted above, it should be noted that the publication of Hoover’s letter to Borah served to remind America’s European debtors of the administration’s disapproval of their forming a united front against the United States: the administration’s view was that in regard to debt revision, each debtor should be dealt with separately by the United States as the capacity to pay of each individual debtor varied. For example, France was in a much better position to repay its debt than was Great Britain, thus the French case for revision was weaker than the British case. This point helps explain why France was anxious for an agreement that linked its case with that of Britain. However, the problem with such an agreement from the perspective of the British national interest, according to Churchill in his speech of 11 July, was that it would likely entail that the British case for debt revision would be heard less sympathetically: Churchill feared that the presentation of ‘a joint attitude’ to the United States, where, he observed, ‘good will’ towards England had grown considerably in recent years and at the very same time as ‘a very bitter quarrel…[had]…been in progress…on financial matters’ between France and the United States, would ‘greatly prejudice…[Britain’s]…lawful claims upon…[its]…debtors.’198

French and German Reactions The efforts of the French delegation at Lausanne were much applauded in France, which is not to say there was a lack of criticism of those efforts.199 Le Temps declared that France had displayed at Lausanne a generous ‘spirit 197 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 146. See also BIN 9, no. 12 (1932), 5, and ‘Anglo-French Consultative Pact: Revives the Entente Cordiale—Gentlemen’s Agreement Bars Separate Debt Settlement,’ Barron’s 12, no. 29 (1932): 4. 198 268, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (11 July 1932), 947–8; BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 10; and Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 147, 151. On 11 July in the House of Commons, Neville Chamberlain sought to demonstrate that the Gentlemen’s Agreement was not intended to create a united front. 199 Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), July 9, 1932.

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of solidarity’ but also a ‘firm care for the respect of contracts,’ points which were underlined by Herriot in his closing address at Lausanne; it noted appreciatively that the preamble made ‘no direct or indirect allusion’ to any political conditions.200 In an article appearing on the front page of Le Matin on 9 July, Korab declared that the final text of the preamble showed that the French had thwarted attempts to incorporate all allusions to political conditions into it. Elsewhere in the same edition, Korab affirmed that that one would ‘truly need much good or bad will’ to discover in the text, that is, in the statement that the signatory powers had assembled in Lausanne with the ‘firm intention of helping to create a new order’ or in the statement that they did not believe that putting an end to reparations alone could ‘assure that peace which all the nations desire,’ allusions to Article 231 or to equality of rights in respect to armaments.201 Yet the outcome of the Lausanne Conference had also raised serious concerns in France and not only among those who thought France should accede, to a greater or lesser extent, to Germany’s political demands: those whom Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires disparaged as ‘germanophiles,’ ‘socialists’ and ‘internationalists.’ Some feared that the main result of the Lausanne Conference was the establishment of the very precedent that Herriot had so relentlessly tried to prevent from being established.202 Writing in the Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires on 10 July, Bernus predicted that the Lausanne conference heralded the beginning of a new and dangerous chapter in European politics and warned the French people against being lulled into complacency by Herriot’s proclamation at the conference of the birth of a ‘new spirit, the spirit of Lausanne.’203 Saint-Brice observed in the same newspaper that even though political conditions had been eliminated from the accord, they had been spoken of far too frequently at Lausanne for one to be entitled to think that this question had been definitely settled.204 In relation to this, Bernus stated the following: 200 Le Temps (a), July 10, 1932, and Le Temps (b), July 10, 1932. 201 Le Matin (a), July 9, 1932; Le Matin (b), July 9, 1932; and ‘Foreign Banking and

Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference,’ Federal Reserve Bulletin, 498. 202 Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), July 9, 1932. 203 Pierre Bernus, ‘La conclusion de l’accord de Lausanne: un fin qui est une préface,’

Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), July 10, 1932. See also ‘Le discours de M. Herriot,’ Le Matin, July 9, 1932. 204 ‘Ce que dit la press: en France,’ Le Matin, July 9, 1932.

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The liquidation of reparations which…will one day give to Germany an economically and financially privileged situation would have presented an advantage if it was able to be considered as a conclusion. This would be the case if all the concessions given to the Reich had for effect moral disarmament. But it is not thus. Herr von Papen has not waited an instant in order to announce that Germany was going to straight away relaunch her campaign in view of getting proclaimed the innocence of Wilhelm II and of all the German leaders and obtaining Gleichberechtigung militaire. The government of Berlin, which, while the Conference of Geneva is sitting, proceeds tranquilly to its rearmament, under the approving regard of the pacifists, sees in the results of Lausanne the promise of greater facilities for the systematic destruction, piece by piece, of the Treaty of Versailles. The spirit of Lausanne, that Herriot invoked in his evangelical harangue yesterday, it appears to us would have to blow in the same direction as the spirit of Locarno of which M. Briand spoke with no less enthusiasm. M. Stresemann, of sainted memory, is no longer here, but he is replaced by some other heroes of peace who call themselves von Papen, von Schleicher and Hitler… There is cause to think that M. von Papen has been encouraged in his exposé by M. MacDonald. People vouch in Berlin that the British Prime Minister, in the course of conversations which preceded the accord of Lausanne, has promised the Chancellor support in his next campaign against Article 231 and for Gleichberechtigung. One can be certain in any case, that he has not discouraged him. The Conference of Lausanne has put an end to reparations, but it has inaugurated a new period of offensive against the Treaty of Versailles. M. Herriot would be mistaken to believe that he can rest on his laurels.205

Although seen as triumph for Germany elsewhere, in a country where many considered that the reparations regime had ceased to exist with Brüning’s announcement of 9 January and expected that ‘no more payments of

205 Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), July 10, 1932. On 9 July, Bernus had quoted approvingly the following statement appearing in an article by Ludwig Bauer which had been published in the Européan in the morning of the same day: ‘It is necessary that we know what is preferable, disarmament or peace. The pacifists á la Mussolini and á la Hitler prefer disarmament. And with them all those who—wrongly—believe themselves to be secure: they are ready to pay the highest price, at the expense of the security of others and through the revision of foreign property.’ Bernus stated in relation to this observation that it furnished Herriot and Paul-Boncour with a useful theme on which to meditate ‘in waiting for Germany to demand at Geneva this Gleichberechtigung that they could not obtain at Lausanne.’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (a), July 9, 1932.

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any kind were to be made,’ the Lausanne accord could not but fail to greatly disappoint.206 This disappointment would have been gravely exacerbated by the fact that Papen, who was greeted with a volley of tomatoes and rotten eggs on his return to Germany, departed the conference without having had his political demands met and it should be noted that in the week prior to the conclusion of the accord, the Berlin newspapers had been ‘trying hard to convince the public that thanks to the support of Italy and the benevolence of Mr. MacDonald the demands presented at Lausanne by von Papen would be taken into consideration by France.’207 In a further effort to appease German sensitivities, Papen sent an explanatory message to the German people in the form of a radio broadcast which was transmitted at 7 p.m. on 8 July on all German radio stations. In his message, Papen stated that at this ‘historic hour’ it was necessary to renounce his political demands. He told his audience that the German delegation had held the view at Lausannce that making the conference a success was crucial for the future of the German people and for the future of Western culture. Papen stressed that reparations had been finally and completely abolished and that Germany’s economic and financial sovereignty had been restored. As a result of Lausanne, he proclaimed, ‘a new era between the nations’ had opened.208 Having explained the broad outlines and import of the Lausanne accord, Papen then solemnly declared the following: From now, I demand again in the name of Germany, in front of the entire world, to be treated on the basis of a right to equality by other nations. This problem and in particular the question of the responsibility of Germany for the origins of the war and the one of the sovereignty of Germany in what concerns rearmament, have been discussed at depth with foreign statesmen and even if today, not all nations are disposed to recognise our right, the questions touching on the honour of the German people have nonetheless been raised in front of the forum of the entire world. The new epoch which commences today for the German people, the economic liberty which has just been reestablished and the independence of Germany from other countries, permits the German government to reconquer political liberty. Thanks to the economic liquidation of the war, obtained today, we can engage ourselves in 206 BIN 9, no. 11, 11. See also Petrie, ‘Foreign Affairs’, 190, and Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 220. 207 ‘A Berlin avant l’accord,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (e), July 9, 1932. See also Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 220. 208 Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (e), July 9, 1932.

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a way that will assure a peace with honour. Though there is no mention of these problems in the agreement, they have been further advanced in the way of their solution and they will be brought up again in the future.209

The German chanellor’s message did not have the palliative effect intended with all but one nationalist newspaper, namely, the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, reacting with hostility to the news of the Lausanne accord. The Tageszeitung and Börsen Zeitung considered it inexplicable that the Papen government had agreed to make a final payment even though political questions remained unsettled. Meanwhile, the 9 July edition of the Völkischer Beobachter, the organ of the National Socialist Party, displayed a headline that dripped with contempt: ‘The Versailles Spirit Triumphed.’210 The same organ propagandised that at Lausanne, Herriot had demanded that Papen stamp out the national socialist movement and insisted that if Papen had stayed firm the British would have obliged the French to cede.211 Goebbels further heightened the fury which greeted the accord in certain quarters; he told a public meeting that the National Socialists questioned the right of the cabinet to sign the Lausanne Agreement and declared that the National Socialists did not feel bound by the convention. Goebbels stated that ‘the government of Herr von Papen does not speak in the name of the national population. What the national socialists have built over twelve years is destroyed in two by the weakness of the bourgeois parties. Be it that they go away.’212 In light of this, it is not surprising that the French press, despite their enthusiasm for the Lausanne Agreement, feared what it meant for the future of Papen’s government: they were certain in the knowledge that the hitlerians were going to ‘exploit the result of Lausanne…in their electoral propaganda.’213 Neither Papen nor Neurath, according to Chappius, had raised objections when MacDonald on 3 July broached the issue of the so-called 209 ‘Un discours radio-diffusé du Chancelier von Papen,’ Le Matin, July 9, 1932. 210 The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung declared that the agreement paved ‘the way for the

world’s economic reconstruction.’ BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 12. It should be noted that this newspaper represented ‘the great industrialists of Western Germany who…[were]…anxious to get their works started again.’ Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 14n. 211 ‘L’impression à Berlin,’ Le Temps, July 10, 1932. 212 Ibid. 213 Ibid.

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Gentlemen’s Agreement once more; indeed, they welcomed such an agreement to the extent that it meant, as stated by Neurath on 2 July, that the German delegation, to its great relief, ‘would be not asked to recognize in any document the relationship between war debts and reparations.’214 At the same time, Chappius notes that the Germans were unhappy to see the agreement published: it took away from the German government’s achievement at Lausanne.215 Amidst the ‘storm of criticism’ which greeted the agreement’s publication, criticism which above all concerned the idea that the agreement involved a common front against the United States, the German government announced ‘semi-officially that she had nothing to do with the “gentlemen’s agreement”.’216

The Accord of Confidence The Gentlemen’s Agreement was not the only political understanding arising out of the Lausanne Conference. On 13 July, Simon asked the leave of the House of Commons to announce an outcome of the Lausanne Conference that was then in the process of ‘taking shape’ and which he thought would be ‘received with general satisfaction.’217 The outcome which was the subject of Simon’s announcement was what became known as the Anglo-French Accord of Confidence but which had as its formal title the following: Declaration Issued by His Mayesty’s Government in the United Kingdom and the French Government Regard Future European Cooperation. This accord, which was published in Paris also on 13 July, originated in the French rejection of the consultative pact. In the wake of its rejection, Herriot ‘asked Simon if the British were still willing to give the assurances that MacDonald had mentioned,’ that is, ‘the question arose as to the Anglo-French understanding which had been suggested as a part of the pact.’ MacDonald’s response was that the British would be willing to do so if the two countries could ‘agree on the form of the announcement which, MacDonald emphasized, should not give the impression of an

214 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 215. 215 Ibid. 216 Barron’s 12, no. 29 (1932), 4. 217 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (13 July 1932), 1374.

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alliance against Europe.’218 Subsequently, Simon sent the text of a declaration to Herriot which he insisted should be ‘published in identical terms in London and Paris.’219 Before reading the text of the accord in Parliament, Simon told members that he wanted to make it ‘quite clear’ that it was ‘no part’ of the Lausanne Agreement. Nor was it, he added, connected in any way with the Gentlemen’s Agreement. Explaining the nature of the accord, Simon declared the following: the Anglo-French accord ‘is not a supplementary agreement. Indeed, it is not a substantive agreement at all, but it is an invitation to adopt candid and open relations and discussions to which we hope all the leading European Powers will respond.’220 The text of the Anglo-French accord concerning methods of European cooperation was as follows: In the declaration which forms part of the final Act of the Lausanne Conference the signatory Powers express the hope that the task there accomplished will be followed by fresh achievements. They affirm that further success will be more readily won if nations will rally to a new effort in the cause of peace, which can only be complete if it is applied both in the economic and political sphere. In the same document the signatory Powers declare their intention to make every effort to resolve the problems which exist at the present moment or may arise subsequently in the spirit which has inspired the Lausanne Agreement. In that spirit His Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom and the French Government decided themselves to give the lead in making an immediate and mutual contribution to that end on the following lines: As the House will see there follow four paragraphs. The first, second and third carry out what I have described, and the fourth is a special matter. 1. In accordance with the spirit of the Covenant of the League of Nations they intend to exchange views with one another with complete candour concerning, and to keep each other mutually informed of, any questions 218 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 221–2. For the informal and formal titles of the Anglo-French understanding announced on 13 July, see Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 148. 219 Ibid., 222. 220 268, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (12 July 1932), 1374. See also BIN 9, no. 2 (1932),

13–4.

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coming to their notice similar in origin to that now so happily settled at Lausanne which may affect the European regime. It is their hope that other Governments will join them in adopting this procedure. 2. They intend to work together and with other delegations at Geneva to find a solution of the disarmament question which will be beneficial and equitable for all the Powers concerned. 3. They will co-operate with each other and other interested Governments in the careful and practical preparation of the World Economic Conference. 4. Pending the negotiation at a later date of a new commercial treaty between their two countries they will avoid any action of the nature of discrimination by the one country against the interests of the other.221

The foreign secretary was keen to stress that aside from paragraph four of the accord which dealt with commercial relations between Britain and France, the accord was in no way ‘special or exclusive’; rather, he stated, as evidenced by the wording of the other three paragraphs, the accord was intended as an invitation to other European countries to join with the British and French governments in the promotion of ‘political appeasement’ in Europe. Two such means appeasement, Simon stated drawing on the first and second paragraphs of the accord, were frank but amicable discussions on all points of difference and a resolution of the disarmament question in a way which was beneficial and equitable for all, beneficial and equitable being two words to which Simon asked the House of Commons to pay particular attention.222 Leaving aside the question as to the significance that Simon might have wished his parliamentary colleagues to attach to the words beneficial and equitable; it is important to note that Herriot only ‘agreed to the proposal after assurances that the word “equitable” did not mean recognition of 221 ‘Foreign Banking and Business Conditions: Final Act of the Lausanne Conference [Dec-

laration issued by His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom and the French Government on 13 July 1932, as to the methods for promoting future European cooperation, which other European Governments are invited to adopt],’ Federal Reserve Bulletin (August 1932), 504. 222 268, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (13 July 1932), 1375–6. See also BIN 9, no. 12 (1932), 4–5. Alteras notes that the British interpreted the word equitable to mean ‘“fair play” and in no way did it recognize any political claim.’ Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 77.

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equality of rights.’223 Nonetheless, it is evident that the first two paragraphs of the accord concerned political difficulties arising out of the Treaty of Versailles and, on the face of it, left open the possibility of certain revisions of it.224 A third means of appeasement, Simon told Parliament, in this instance drawing on the third paragraph of the accord, was cooperation in preparations for the ‘all important’ WEC. In regard to such cooperation, Simon declared that ‘we hope to have the advantage also of American assistance’; the desire for American assistance in preparations for the WEC being another reason why the British government did not want the relation between war debts and reparations stressed too much at Lausanne.225 The announcement of the Anglo-French accord was welcomed wholeheartedly by Her Majesty’s Opposition as it was in France, albeit for somewhat different reasons. Although the text was indeed published in identical terms in Paris, there, in contrast to London, its Anglo-French dimension was emphasised.226 The French press welcomed it as a ‘“healthy revival of the Entente Cordiale” and also, in some cases, as covering the question of debts to America,’ although on these same grounds it was regarded suspiciously in Germany and the United States.227 Doubtless already apprised of the contents of the accord by the French Foreign Office, Le Temps declared on 10 July that in its opinion, the great result of the Lausanne conference was that ‘the intense collaboration of France and Great Britain…[had]…been established on a healthy basis.’ The newspaper paid homage to MacDonald, commending the British prime minister for the loyal fashion in which he had pursued the cause of Franco-British collaboration, noting that a key result of this collaboration was the creation of a ‘unité de front’ in relation to the question of war debts.228 To the extent

223 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 222. 224 Ibid., 211. Chappius notes that Britain and France ‘also reached an understanding, not

included in the text of the announcement, to consult each other prior to responding to any German initiative for revision of the Treaty of Versailles’ (ibid.). 225 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (13 July 1932), 1376, and Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The Lausanne Conference,’ 12. 226 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 223. 227 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 14, and BIN 9, no. 12 (1932), 5. 228 Le Temps (a), July 10, 1932. See also Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires (c), July 9, 1932. In the course of a debate concerning the Lausanne Conference, Lloyd George observed that the existence of a document additional to the Lausanne Treaty by which he meant the Gentlemen’s Agreement, had been revealed ‘on Sunday [10 July 1932] to the

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that it viewed the Accord of Confidence in this spirit, the French press were following the lead of Herriot who, speaking before the Foreign Affairs and Finance Committee of the Chamber of Deputies on 13 July, described the accord as a revival ‘of the “Entente Cordiale” and as the opening of a new era in Franco-British relations, and…[was] reported to have said that in the future no problem affecting the interests of the two countries would be treated separately.’ More specifically, Herriot was reported to have stated that as a result of the accord it was now an established fact that the two countries would adopt a ‘concerted attitude’ in regard to the settlement of war debts and that this would ‘facilitate success in the negotiations with Washington.’229 Before it was finalised, Simon had informed Herriot that the British government was going to send the text of the accord to the Belgian, German and Italian governments: ‘in order to inform them of the procedure which has been resolved upon by Britain and France, and in order to invite them to adhere to the procedure hereafter.’230 In line with this approach and before announcing the accord in the House of Commons, Simon met with Belgian, German and Italian diplomats whereupon he reiterated his government’s invitation. In speaking to these diplomats he stressed the point that there was ‘no intention either of forming, on the one hand, an AngloFrench bloc directed against Germany or, on the other, of creating a united European front against America.’231 At the urging of Simon, Herriot offered a more cautious appraisal of the significance of the accord on 14 July, the same day, it should be recalled, of the publication of Hoover’s letter to Borah. In a communication to Simon, Herriot stated that he did not regard the accord as a ‘contribution towards an Anglo-French Pact, but purely as a plan of European procedure.’232 Nonetheless, Herriot’s claim concerning a concerted attitude in relation to war debts and, above all, his claim about the revival of the entente cordiale gave a ‘significant indication’ of the way in which French foreign policy French newspapers, first of all the “Temps,” which is very much in touch, as everyone knows, with the French Foreign Office, the “Matin” and the “Journal”.’ 268 Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (12 July 1932), 1158. 229 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 14, and BIN 9, no. 12 (1932), 5. 230 Sir J. Simon to Lord Tyrrell (Paris), 11 July 1932, doc. no. 189, in Woodward and

Butler, eds., DBFP 1919–1939, 2nd ser., vol. 3, 437–8. 231 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 14. 232 Ibid., 14–5. See also BIN 9, no. 12 (1932), 4–5 and Barron’s 12, no. 29 (1932), 4.

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would have liked the accord to have been viewed.233 In relation to this, one might note Chappius’s observation that even though the French well understood that it was not an exclusive arrangement, they saw the ‘AngloFrench accord…[as]…the “axis” of a general confidence agreement.’234 Indeed, Lippmann observed that in the paragraph which stated that Britain and France intended to ‘exchange views…with complete candour’ on any issues ‘similar in origin’ to those settled at Lausanne, this paragraph being the ‘heart’ of the accord, Herriot ‘hoped he had found the essential guaranty of security that France had been seeking since the end of the war,’ that is, a ‘promise by Great Britain that France would not be left in isolation to defend the…territorial constitution of Europe’ that was established at Versailles.235 Herriot knew that with such a key feature of the Versailles settlement as reparations abandoned and with the question of equality of armaments already opened up, a question on which Herriot knew France would have to modify its stance, it would not be long before Germany would begin to seriously agitate for territorial revision. Against the background of the Accord of Confidence, the French government felt able to agree to a significant revision of the Versailles settlement without feeling that they were ‘throwing everything in the melting pot.’236 In regard to the invitation extended by Simon to the Belgian, Italian, and German governments, the first two of these governments gave their assent within days, albeit with certain qualifications. The Belgian government declared that it accepted the British understanding that the accord concerned European affairs alone and the Italian government, having noted the differing interpretations of the accord, made it clear that it would not participate in a bloc against Germany or exploit the accord for the purpose of a revision of war debts.237 As to the German government, it should be noted that the immediate German response to the Anglo-French accord upon its publication was one of disquiet. On 15 July, the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung maintained that the accord ‘explained the French refusal to make any concession to Germany’ and on the following day the Frankfurter Zeitung ‘interpreted 233 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 15. 234 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 222. 235 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 149. 236 Ibid., 152. 237 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 15, and Barron’s 12, no. 29 (1932), 4.

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the accord as a restoration of the entente cordiale and as a substitute for von Papen’s proposed consultative pact.’238 In an interview with Herriot, the German ambassador at Paris expressed his government’s surprise that the French prime minister had declined Papen’s offer of a consultative pact only to enter into a similar arrangement with Britain. Herriot’s response to the ambassador was to insist that the accord was a means of prompting Britain to re-engage with continental affairs. Meanwhile Simon stressed for the benefit of the German government that Britain desired German adherence to a pact that was intended to serve as a framework within which issues of common European concern could be raised.239 On 19 July, Neurath, who had a few days earlier told the British government of his country’s ‘astonishment’ and ‘annoyance that there had not even been a hint of the pact at Lausanne’ and who had warned on 18 July that the revelation of the accord had ‘led to a discussion which appeared most dangerous for the future of Europe,’ sought clarification of the accord’s aims in line with a recommendation of the German Ambassador at Paris.240 Neurath informed Simon that the purposes of the accord needed to be clearly specified and sought assurances that it would not serve as a vehicle for the formation of a united front either against the United States or the Soviet Union. In addition, Germany sought an assurance that adherence to the accord would not constrain Germany from airing its political grievances or putting forward for discussion the political issues it had raised at Lausanne.241 The Anglo-French accord was coldly received by certain members of the LON Council who responded with ‘stony silence’ to Simon’s efforts to overcome the doubts and suspicions of the LON’s lesser powers through reassuring the council that the accord was not confined to Belgium, Germany, Italy and its two initiators: Simon stressed before the council that it was open to all European powers and it was against this background that Poland adhered to it on 18 July.242 In the end, seventeen states in total

238 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 221. 239 Ibid., 223. 240 BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 15. 241 Ibid. and Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 223–4. 242 ‘Anglo-French Consultative Pact: Revives the Entente Cordiale—Gentlemen’s Agree-

ment Bars Separate Debt Settlement,’ 4, and BIN 9, no. 2 (1932), 15.

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adhered to the accord, Germany being among them.243 On 23 July and to the relief of the British government, Germany quietly announced that it would adhere to the accord on the ground of not wanting to isolate itself after having received the clarifications it had sought. It is notable in this regard that Neurath had been unofficially advised by Simon that one of the ends sought under the accord was revision of the Treaty of Versailles.244

The German Memorandum of 29 August A little over a month later, Germany insisted on the abolition of the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, an insistence that greatly concerned France as there was yet to be established a sound system of security in Europe whatever might be made of the Anglo-French accord.245 In a memorandum issued on 29 August, Germany proposed ‘direct conversations…privately and confidentially’ between France and Germany concerning armaments.246 Lippmann recounted that in a memorandum in response, France insisted that any change in German armaments was a matter of concern to the League of Nations, since this came within the jurisdiction of the Council of the League; that the problems involved were being worked out through the Geneva Disarmament Conference, and, finally, that all the powers signatory to the Treaty of Versailles were interested. The French reply also suggested that restricted negotiations might do injury to the rights of the United States, arguing that the benefits of the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles were assured through the treaty of peace signed between the United States and Germany. In short, the French were determined to keep the United States an active participant in the negotiations.247

Not wanting to deeply entangle the United States in the dispute between France and Germany, President Hoover was quick to underline the fact that while the United States concerned to see a reduction in stages of armaments it was not an adherent of the Treaty of Versailles and its military clauses 243 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 114. 244 Chappius, ‘Germany and the Anglo-French Accord,’ 224. 245 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 248. 246 Ibid., 248–9. 247 Ibid., 249.

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and that the state of German armaments was a European concern. At the same time, Hoover affirmed that the United States was also concerned to see Germany continue to participate in the disarmament process.248 It should be recalled here that in the context of the first phase of the Disarmament Conference, the Hoover administration reached the understanding, although at what point exactly is not entirely clear, that it was futile to urge significant disarmament without any regard to a system of security had firmed.249 Stimson gave voice to this understanding in a speech given at the Council on Foreign Relations on 8 August in which he reaffirmed the American stance on Manchuria (namely, that the American government would not recognise ‘any situation, treaty, or agreement which might be brought about by means contrary to the covenant and obligations of the Pact of Paris’), and, more broadly, explained American policy in regard to the question of security as recently discussed in Geneva.250 The key points made by Stimson in his speech were that the Pact of Paris had ‘abolished, as between its signatories, the practice of neutrality’ as this was understood prior to the signing of the Pact and ‘by implication, [had] imposed on them a legal duty of consulting in the event of violation of the Pact.’251 Lippmann claimed that through the conduit of Stimson’s speech, the Hoover administration was seeking to demonstrate that although outside the League system, the United States could integrate ‘its own policy with the collective peace machinery of the rest of the world’ and noted that while the speech caused ‘much perturbation’ in Japan it was generally welcomed in Europe.252 The British government was concerned by the German memorandum of 29 August in light of which Simon sending a stern note to the German government pointing out ‘how unfortunate it was that this grave political issue had been raised by Germany at a moment when all efforts should be directed toward restoring commercial prosperity by better cooperation

248 Ibid. 249 Ibid., 244. 250 Henry L. Stimson, ‘The Pact of Paris: Three Years of Development,’ special supplement,

Foreign Affairs 11, no. 1 (1932): 1–9, 7–9, and Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 223, 244. 251 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 76. See also Stimson, ‘The Pact of Paris: Three Years of Development,’ 8–9. 252 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 223–4.

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between the governments.’253 Simon’s note reflected the fact that the British government did not appreciate the German methods. Even so, it was willing to make significant concessions to Germany in respect to the question of the revision of the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and in this it had the support of Italy. Although angered by the repeated German demands for concessions and concerned not to infuriate the French public, the French government feared that unless it made some moves in the direction of disarmament France would find itself isolated.254 Paul-Boncour observed in a note issued on 4 October that ‘if we do not put forward a plan for progressive and controlled disarmament, international public opinion will hold us responsible for the failure of the Conference…[and the resultant] German rearmament would drives us fatally to catastrophe.’255

The Background to the French Constructive Plan Thus, on 14 November, the French government laid before the Disarmament Conference a plan for the organisation of peace that it hoped might satisfy the German demand for equality through permitting certain revisions of the Treaty of Versailles and providing for weighty reductions in the size of European armies. The fundamental principles underpinning the French ‘Constructive Plan’ (le plan constructif français ) had been addressed in public statements issued by Herriot in Geneva on 22 July and in Paris in the Chamber of Deputies on 28 October, and by Paul-Boncour in Geneva on 4 November.256 In opening his speech at the Disarmament Conference on 22 July, Herriot declared that France would not want at any price to delay or place obstacles in the way of an agreement, the reaching of which, he noted, was ‘infinitely difficult’ because it was a matter of ‘descending from the plane of ideology to the one of reality.’257 Elaborating on this last point, Herriot observed that one cannot, ‘without some sacrifice, inscribe into the real a

253 Ibid., 250. 254 Ibid., 250–1. 255 Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 775. 256 BIN 9, no. 11 (1932), 3, and ‘Bulletin du jour: Le plan d’organisation de la paix,’ Le

Temps, November 16, 1932. 257 ‘Discours de M. Édouard Herriot,’ Le Temps, July 24, 1932.

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part of the ideal,’ adding that one had had cause to wonder at certain times whether the ‘verb to disarm was not, in all languages, an irregular verb which did not have the first person and which only conjugated itself in the future.’258 Having stated this, Herriot called attention to the ‘noble idea’ that informed the whole of the Hoover Plan: ‘arms must be reserved…for the national defence and that the duty is to diminish the forces of aggression in order to “augment the comparative forces” of protection.’259 Having expressed support for Hoover’s proposals concerning military spending, arms manufacture, chemical, bacteriological, and incendiary warfare, aerial bombardment and the limitation of military credits, Herriot then turned to the problem of effectives, submitting three observations to the American people and to ‘even the conscience of President Hoover.’260 First, Herriot stated that ‘in calculating effectives account should be taken of not only of the visible forces but also of the real forces, not only the organisations avowed, but also the clandestine organisations.’261 Here, Herriot was alluding to the fact that, according to information in possession of the French government, Germany had been rearming in violation of Part V of the Treaty of Versailles and had been doing so for many years, the evidence of which the French delegation at the Disarmament Conference warned on a number of occasions it was willing to produce.262 It should be noted that on 16 April 1922, the Treaty of Rapollo was concluded by the delegations of the USSR and Germany in the midst of the International Economic Conference at Genoa which was which had been initiated by Lloyd George with a view to re-integrating these two states into the world economic system and reaching an agreement, at least among European states, to adhere to some of the resolutions of the experts who had assisted at the Brussels Financial Conference of 1920. Although the Genoa conference, which like the Brussels conference before it was held under the auspices of the LON, largely failed in its goals in that France refused to revise the reparations system and the USSR refused to pay back the borrowings of the Tsarist state of which the USSR was the successor state, it was a first in the post-war period in that Germany and the USSR 258 Ibid. 259 Ibid. 260 Ibid. 261 BIN 9, no. 11 (1932), 3. 262 Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 770.

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participated in it as the equals of other states.263 Nonetheless, the two states remained in other respects international ‘outcasts,’ hence the significance of the aforementioned treaty between them, a treaty which ‘provided for the mutual renunciation of reparations, expansion of trade relations and the immediate resumption of diplomatic relations.’264 The conclusion of the Treaty of Rapallo made other powers nervous in that they feared that it signalled that ‘the two “outcasts’” of the international system’ had arrived at a covert understanding.265 For this reason, the treaty ‘cost Germany the confidence of the West’; at the same time, however, it laid ‘the foundation for years of collaboration between the Reichswehr and the Red Army which enabled Germany to slip the shackles imposed on her freedom of action in defence matters’ by the Treaty of Versailles which, among other prohibitions, forbade Germany from augmenting what remained of her land and sea defence forces with air power.266 Beginning in the summer of 1925 and following the delivery of 50 Fokker Type D XIII aircraft which had been ordered from the Dutch company Fokker by Captain Helmuth Wilberg, the ‘official rapporteur to the camouflaged aviation department of the ministry of defence,’ with the support of the German government, German fighter pilots undertook training at a flying school established in Lipezk in Russia largely for the purpose of Russo-German military collaboration.267 The aircraft fighters flew in at high altitudes all the types of military equipment to be used on them, including new types of bombs. The airmen themselves came and left incognito, with around 120 of them successfully completing their training, sans official uniforms, as fighter pilots between 1925 and 1933. Hanfried Schliephake observes that the ‘most difficult and at the time most intriguing job with which the Reich Defence Ministry had been faced was undoubtedly

263 Mathias Schulz, ‘The League of Nations, the Great Powers and the International Economic System from Reconstruction to the Great Depression 1919–1933,’ The League of Nations 1920–1946, 40, and Hanfried Schliephake, The Birth of the Luftwaffe (London: Ian Allan, 1971), 13. 264 Schulz, ‘The League of Nations, the Great Powers and the International Economic System,’ 40. 265 Ibid. 266 Schliephake, The Birth of the Luftwaffe, 14. 267 Ibid., 14.

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how to keep the whole organisation secret’: how to keep concealed what he refers to as the secret Luftwaffe.268 In regard to the other points that Herriot made concerning the problem of effectives in the context of the Hoover Plan, they were as follows: 2. It would be the most grave inconvenience to calculate the military index in function of the demographic index. To act thus, would be to accord an unjust premium to quantity and to favour what I would call the imperialism of the mass. The large nations would obtain some such effectives that they would hold at their mercy the smaller nations…. In a general sense, there are not small and large nations. There are only nations. 3. The proposition of President Hoover has not foreseen the possibility of coalitions between these peoples, of whom each would have limited their effectives. It is true to say that this danger already exists. But we think precisely that the object of our efforts is to protect all nations by a statute which, at the same time as it obliges them to disarm, guarantees them security.269

On 28 October, in the course of a debate on disarmament, Herriot outlined for the benefit of the Chamber of Deputies the ‘conditions on which France would agree, at a date to be decided upon, to reduce the period of service of all her lands forces—other than the colonial army.’270 Not all of these conditions were mentioned in Paul-Boncour’s submission on the Constructive Plan of 4 November, a fact which seems to bear out the view entertained in numerous circles at the time that the French cabinet had yet to agree on all the details of its new plan. Perhaps closer to the mark however, was the view that the French government wanted to assess the impact on foreign audiences of particular aspects of their plan before presenting it in its totality. Nonetheless, all the conditions outlined by Herriot in the Chamber on 28 October were considered to be essential elements of the French plan. These conditions were specified in the form of the following six proposals:

268 Ibid., 18–9. 269 Le Temps, July 24, 1932. See also BIN 9, no. 11 (1932), 3. 270 BIN 9, no. 11 (1932), 3.

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1. Any military formation contrary to such an organisation [that is, a shortservice national army], such as the Reichswehr, must be dissolved, and the domestic police must regulated. 2. International control must be organised and must be endowed with the right of obligatory investigation. 3. To supplement the Treaty of Locarno a regional mutual assistance pact must be concluded in such a manner that every European nation may take part in it, and in order that this collective force should be sufficient to repress aggression it must comprise a first échelon of specialised, immediately available and heavily armed national contingents. 4. The U. S. A. must grant those guarantees of security which they themselves have been considering. 5. The members of the League of Nations must undertake to carry out their obligations under Article 16 of the Covenant. 6. Arbitration must be compulsory for all members of the League.271

Of considerable interest in foreign countries, was the first of the above proposals as this involved the lifting of the prohibition on conscription in Germany. Indeed, Herriot stated plainly in the Chamber of Deputies that the dissolution of the Reichswehr ‘would suppose the re-establishment of a limited system of conscription,’ adding that the ‘idea had been supported by Marshal Ferdinand Foch during the drafting of the Peace Treaty.’272 Observers inferred from the proposal on military formations, a proposal which marked a shift in attitude on the part of the French government, that France was more apprehensive about a professional army than they were about a short-service conscript army ‘trained and equipped only for the purpose of defence.’ Beyond this, observers considered that the proposal also stemmed from the apprehension as to whether or not the ‘the new system of fortifications on the Eastern Front…[would]…prove to be as effective a guarantee against attack as they were intended to be’: the expectation was that there would be a shortage of recruits in the years dating from 1935 to 1939 because of the reduced birth-rate of the war years,

271 Ibid. 272 Ibid., 4.

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an expectation that gave rise to the concern that it might be ‘difficult, if not impossible, to man… [the fortifications] …properly.’273 By way of explaining the government’s proposal in regard to military formations as well as the other elements of the French plan, Herriot pointed out that the German claim for equality of status, as set out in the German Note of August 29th , meant the rearming of that country…[He] urged that, now that there was no longer any Allied control in Berlin, it was especially necessary to organise some form of international control of arms, to include the right of investigation. As things were, however, the instinct of self-preservation would at first prompt them to re-arm themselves; but what would be the consequence of this? Quite apart from the question of loyalty to existing treaties, what were the alternatives? Either they must rely on force, or they must organise a new international system. Suppose, he continued, the Conference broke down. Germany and the world in general would soon learn of this, and the situation would resolve itself into a competition in armaments between the two principal countries in the drama—France and Germany. ‘The question,’ exclaimed M. Herriot, ‘is to know what would then be the risks (chances ) of Germany, with her great population, her heavy industry, — how heavy, and, in this case, how dangerous — “schwer” — in the full sense of the word.’ Contemplation of what a race in armaments between the two countries would mean had led him to the conviction that the greatest danger of all would be one day to leave France isolated in the face of a free Germany. The only solution was the reduction of the armies of Europe to a uniform type, purely defensive in character.274

In relation to the proposal concerning international control of armaments, it should be noted that this was not intended to apply to either Great Britain or the United States. In the case of the United States, the constitutional obstacles to international control were almost insurmountable. In the case of Great Britain, it was understood that the British public simply would not tolerate interference in the country’s military affairs by an international body. Indeed, the French government in developing its plan had made it plain that it would not be asking Britain to ‘adopt conscription or to maintain a powerful expeditionary force, aggressive in character, to

273 Ibid., and BIN 9, no. 11, 3–4. 274 BIN 9, no. 11, 3–4.

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act as the strong arm of the League’ and thus, the question of international control was not relevant to the British case.275 Proposal number three was elaborated on by Paul-Boncour in his submission of 4 November and is discussed in relation to that submission below. Proposal number four was a reference to statements made by Stimson in respect to the significance of the Pact of Paris, most especially his statement of 8 August in which he indicated that the practice of neutrality as it had previously been understood had been abolished in light of the pact: with the conclusion of the Pact of Paris war had become a common concern and it followed from this that the pact implied a duty to consult in cases of its alleged violation. From the French perspective, this statement indicated not only that the American government was ready to consult with other governments in cases of alleged aggression, but that it ‘would go so far towards determining the aggressor as to intimate it will not insist upon neutral rights of trade if other governments decide to treat another country as an aggressor.’276 The French hoped that the abolition of neutral rights of trade would render it less costly or inconvenient for Britain to carry out its obligations under the Locarno Treaty and Article 16 of the covenant, especially where those obligations involved the imposition of a blockade.277 While Herriot’s sixth proposal, which concerned arbitration, was not controversial from the British perspective as Britain had ratified the General Act of the Pacific Settlement of Disputes and thus had accepted the principle of compulsory arbitation, his fifth proposal most defintely was: his fifth proposal concerned Article 16, an article that had never enjoyed ‘whole-hearted support’ in Britain.278 As recently as the London Naval Conference in early 1930, the British government had made it clear that its approach to Article 16 was a qualified one. At that conference, the British government quoted the interpretation of Article 16 adopted by Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Poland at the

275 H. L., ‘The French “Constructive Plan” for Disarmament,’ BIN 9, no. 10: 3–11, 4–5. 276 Ibid., 5. 277 Ibid. 278 Ibid., 6. The General Act for the Pacific Settlement of Disputes was open for signature in 1928. It was ratified by Great Britain in 1930, albeit with reservations.

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Locarno Conference as representative of the British position.279 This interpretation read as follows: The obligations resulting from the said Article on the members of the League must be understood to mean that each State member is bound to co-operate loyally and effectively in support of the Covenant and in resistance to any act of aggression to an extent which is compatible with its military situation and takes its geographical position into account.280

Paul-Boncour’s Speech of 4 November In the first part of his speech of 4 November which commenced at 11 a.m., Paul-Boncour outlined the principles underlying the Constructive Plan. Against this background, he put forward a proposal for three different security pacts, the pacts in question being under the plan the prerequisites of any programme of disarmament. In the second part of his speech, PaulBoncour outlined the type of army that was to be permitted under the plan to the main continental powers and addressed the question of the scope for qualitative disarmament.281 Having stated that it was not precise to call the plan on which he was about to elaborate a French plan as in the course of developing it the French delegation had been in contact with a large number of other delegations, Paul-Boncour observed that there were two types of difficulties that had to be surmounted by the conference. The second of these two types of difficulties concerned the specific object of the conference: the limitation and general reduction of armaments. The first of the two types of difficulties he mentioned, by contrast, was of a general nature: it concerned the idea that the LON, ‘universal in its principle and in its end,’ must, in order to act effectively in whichever domain of its activities, ‘measure and vary its solutions according to the different needs of the regions of the world.’ Well more true, Paul-Boncour insisted, was ‘this necessity of diversity and variety…[in]…the domain of mutual assistance,’ the guarantee of such assistance being, he noted, ‘at the base’ of the covenant’s disarmament

279 Ibid. 280 Ibid. 281 Ibid., and ‘Devant le bureau de la conférence du désarmement: M. Paul-Boncour expose le plan français,’ Le Temps, November 5, 1932.

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provisions and of the covenant as a whole.282 It was in order to avoid solutions of a too rigid kind, Paul-Boncour informed his audience after having recalled the ‘successive circles of hell of the great Italian poet,’ that the French government had conceived of an ensemble of pacts forming concentric circles, the largest of which would comprehend all the nations represented… [at the Disarmament Conference]…. They would confine themselves to giving full juridical meaning, in transposing into public international law, that great moral affirmation to which two men of State of two great countries have given their name: the Briand-Kellogg Pact [Pact of Paris]. It would be a matter, in this first very general circle, simply of indicating…that since all civilised nations have outlawed war, the one who makes…[war]…cannot continue to benefit from the advantages of juridical recognition which usually is accorded belligerents. As war is outside the law, it is logical that the one who makes it is deprived of the economic co-operation without which…with the character of modern wars, the adventures of force cannot have any future.283

Largely alluding to formal statements made by Stimson concerning the implications of the Pact of Paris, Paul-Boncour noted that the first of the pacts discussed by the Constructive Plan would require no more of its participants than that which had already been proposed in relation to the application of the Kellogg-Briand Pact: consultation should there be or should there threaten to be a violation of the pact, a refusal to engage in financial or economic relations with an aggressor and a refusal to recognise ‘a de facto situation brought about by the violation of an international undertaking.’284 Paul-Boncour acknowledged that the prescriptions specified under what he described as a ‘general consultative pact’ were limited in scope, however, he thought that their acceptance by a large number of nations and, in particular, by the great powers, would have important repercussions in terms of the effectiveness of the other two pacts proposed under the plan. PaulBoncour explained that the second circle or pact would comprehend the signatories of the covenant and those treaties which were a consequence of that agreement such as the accords of Locarno. Here again, Paul-Boncour pointed out that he was not calling for anything that was juridically new. Nonetheless, he observed that an atmosphere very different to the one that 282 Le Temps, November 5, 1932. 283 Ibid. 284 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 347, and Le Temps, 5 November 1932.

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currently existed would be created, in particular in relation to the application of sanctions under Article 16, if the contracting nations knew in advance by virtue of the general character of the proposed consultative pact, that they would not ‘run the risk of encountering on the high seas a great nation which held itself aloof from…[the pact’s]…prescriptions.’285 Paul-Boncour then came to the third of the three pacts proposed under the French plan: a pact of mutual assistance that would be concluded among a certain number of nations, which, due to their situation and proximity in relation to continental powers, felt themselves particularly exposed to certain risks and which wanted to address those risks without delay. Although acknowledging the desirability of a mutual assistance pact of a general nature, the third pact proposed by Paul-Boncour was to be confined to continental European powers. One of the main provisions of the third proposed pact was as follows: [I]n liaison with an agreement for military reductions, it would be understood that the only permanent forces retained by the States participating in this pact would be very reduced forces uniquely placed at the service of the League of Nations, not in order to pursue a chimera of power, or hold in check a whole nation in revolt against the pact or some sanctions of arbitrage, but in order to…prevent in a manner immediate the adventures of force, in order to ward off from the League of Nations what would be for it… a peril of death, if it so happened that its procedures were put into operation when a country had already felt profoundly the morsures [bites] of force in its territory. This strict, close pact…would have for its chief object to limit only the permanent forces conserved in the countries with the reduced forces…[with these forces being] destined solely to form a first and immediate échelon in the service of the League of Nations. But what of other forces?…It is well certain that the extremely reduced specialised forces…would not be sufficient for these countries in order to defend their territorial integrity if the League of Nations, unfortunately, did not succeed in imposing its procedure. One is thus obliged, in continuing with the plan of armaments reductions, to look for, apart from these specialised forces, the form of army which responds best to the circumstances, to the historical epoch that we traverse, an intermediary epoch where we cannot say that conflicts are sufficiently appeased or regulated, that the League of Nations is strong enough in order to bring about total disarmament and where, however,

285 Le Temps, November 5, 1932.

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we feel the necessity of adopting some forms of armies which allowed for reductions that are equitable, reciprocal, equal and capable of assuring equality in security.286

At this point, Paul-Boncour turned to the question of the type of army that would be allowed the states of continental Europe under the Constructive Plan, beginning by noting that the diverse forms of armies retained by European countries rendered it impossible to undertake the solid reductions proposed under the Hoover Plan. Paul-Boncour further observed that there was a great difficulty in reducing, in a manner that was equitable and equal, effectives, materials and expenditure: the post-war world was distinguished by the fact that the forces of a nation no longer resided in its armies properly so-called, but extended from regular forces, to semi-autonomous political organisations, and to semi-military organisations. Given that forces were relative, Paul-Boncour continued, if one wanted to apply the Hoover formula to them, then one must for the sake of consistency ensure that the reductions imposed were also relative. In determining this relativity, he added, one was obliged to consider ‘all the elements of fact, all the real elements in presence.’287 Indeed, according to Paul-Boncour, the American proposition had thrown much light on this very point through discriminating between police forces, overseas forces and the forces for which its proposed reductions were most especially targeted: the forces that may be used for either defence or aggression, this last category raising precisely the question of relativity. Paul-Boncour then stated that his government fully accepted the discriminatory aspect of the American proposal and that it believed that it is impossible to arrive at methodical, equitable and commonsensical measures for reducing armaments if one does not take into account this essential discrimination: police forces, overseas forces and forces constituting what is called sometimes forces of defence, sometimes forces of aggression, according to the use that is made of them.288

As to the question of what uniform type of army should be aimed at within the framework of the pact of mutual assistance, Paul-Boncour noted 286 Ibid. 287 Ibid. 288 Ibid.

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that the Hoover Plan had shown the ‘almost insurmountable obstacles’ which resulted from the ‘diversity’ of national forces, a diversity which rendered ‘all comparisons and all calculations almost impossible.’ Thus, he continued, the French government had ‘looked for a type of army that would permit an equitable comparison and the realisation of equality of military status,’ adding that in looking for such an army the same government had been inspired by the American proposal that the general objective should be that of augmenting the forces of defence and reducing the forces of aggression.289 This was an objective which Paul-Boncour counterposed to the objective of reducing ‘indifferently and uniformly the ensemble of armaments’ which, he stated, would only produce results that were ‘fictive and unjust.’290 At this point, Paul-Boncour recalled the efforts on all sides aimed at qualitative disarmament, noting that the conference had already virtually reached an accord on the interdiction of chemical, bacteriological, and incendiary warfare and aerial bombardment. He declared ‘expressly that France accepts these interdictions subject to the reservations that measures of internationalisation be taken, at least in the case of those apparatuses that exceed the characteristics fixed for military aviation, and that a general regulation of civil aviation should be imposed precisely in order that such aviation cannot do, at a time of conflict, what one has forbidden military aviation to do.’291 Paul-Boncour then offered the view that in the matter of aviation it appeared to his government entirely possible to create an ‘organically international aerial force, which by its mobility…[and]…by the undoubted superiority that it would give to a State victim of aggression where put in its service, would fit within the framework of the idea of international assistance through the offices of the League of Nations, which can be organised in a manner more rigorous, more complete, more organically international, in what concerns aviation.’292 In regard to heavy artillery and tanks, he observed that ‘the discrimination between the offensive and defensive was more difficult to determine’

289 Ibid. See also ‘Conférence du désarmement: L’exposé par M. Paul-Boncour du plan français,’ Le Temps, November 6, 1932. 290 Le Temps, November 6, 1932. 291 Ibid. and Le Temps, November 5, 1932. 292 Le Temps, November 5, 1932.

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than it was when dealing with aerial warfare and certainly when dealing with chemical and bacteriological warfare. Paul-Boncour stated that under their plan, the French would be making precise proposals inspired by the principle that had already been virtually recognised by the conference: all arms ‘powerful enough to menace the permanent defensive organisations placed by a country at its frontiers’ must be forbidden. Under the French plan, he added, arms of this nature would be denied to ‘the ensemble of national forces…which would be left to countries in order to defend their territory in cases where the League of Nations proved powerless to do so.’293 Such arms would be confined solely to the LON which ‘would be able to dispose of them, whether they constituted the armament of the much reduced permanent contingents held by each nation at the disposal of the League to ward off first strikes, or whether they were “stocked” under the control of the League, to be put by it, where necessary, at the disposal of the State the victim of aggression.’294 In response to those who would ask why not simply destroy the arms in question, Paul-Boncour issued the following responses: that it would be illogical to deprive the League of Nations of its means of action precisely when people were preoccupied, through the creation of a more precise pact, with strengthening it in order that the signatories of the pact, and more particularly those exposed to conflicts, or who believe that they are, receive the effective collective assistance which is necessary for them. Even more illogical still, if one considers that one of the most interesting efforts lead by the League of Nations consists in organising provision financial assistance for the State victim of aggression.295

The French plan, Paul-Boncour stated, would also make mention of the necessity of proceeding to a progressive unification of war materials. Finally, in regard to the type of army to be possessed by members of the mutual assistance pact, he pointed out that the French plan foresaw a new form of military organisation, it being understood that the plan concerned only the land armies of the continental powers of Europe.296 Explaining his point concerning land armies, he stated that whether it is a matter of 293 BIN 9, no. 10, 9, and Le Temps, November 6, 1932. 294 BIN 9, no. 10, 9, and Le Temps, November 5, 1932. 295 Le Temps, November 6, 1932. 296 Le Temps, November 5, 1932.

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a metropolitan army or a colonial army, if an army is stationed overseas, it cannot constitute a real threat to other countries, or rather, it is a naval question more than a terrestrial question.297 And even with superiority at sea, Paul-Boncour observed, the chances of success when it came to landing in another country would be ‘very problematic or greatly reduced under modern conditions of warfare.’298 Paul-Boncour noted that this was not the situation confronting continental European powers in respect to each other: these powers are not separated by seas but only by frontiers that have been easily and often penetrated by their neighbours in the course of history and this meant that the question of the type of army possessed by them was of decisive importance.299 It is ‘incontestable,’ he insisted, that professional armies, because they maintain not only permanent effectives but permanent effectives who are highly trained, highly organised, and immediately cohesive due to the fact of their length of service, are a much more effective and rapid instrument of aggression than other types.300 It is no less incontestable, he continued, that ‘a short-service army, involving the mobilisation of the nation itself, which would not be done except in the case of great trials affecting its vital interests, would be quite incapable, without long preparation, of undertaking any large scale operations threatening another country.’301 Perhaps thinking of the case of Manchuria, Paul-Boncour observed that the possibility of ‘sudden [brusque] aggression… can hold in check the efforts of the League,’ noting in relation to this that the ‘delays involved in mobilisation of a nation with…[a short-service]…army…would give the League of Nations the time necessary to put its procedure into operation, and would thus constitute an unquestionable guarantee of peace.’302 Paul-Boncour informed the conference that France was ‘profoundly convinced’ that were the powers of continental Europe, or at least its principal powers, to unify their armed forces on the basis of the model he put forward, it ‘would constitute a liberation’ in a certain number of European countries: ‘some anxieties’ would be suppressed and this in turn would 297 Le Temps, November 6, 1932. 298 Ibid. 299 Ibid. 300 Ibid. 301 BIN 9, no. 10, 10. See also Le Temps, November 6, 1932. 302 Le Temps, November 6, 1932, and BIN 9, no. 10, 10.

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make possible ‘some important reductions in the matter of effectives…since in conscript armies the effectives diminish necessarily with a reduction in the duration of service, in material and expenditures.’303 France, he stressed, had already implemented certain reductions after the war and then after Locarno and was now ready to make some ‘new sacrifices,’ albeit on the following conditions: The change should apply to all the countries adhering to the pact; that in the armies thus reduced to a uniform type account should be taken of the amount of pre-military training done and the periods served in semi-military organisations, ‘political formations’ and so on; and finally, that the short-service armies of countries with a large population should be limited in numbers through limitation of the facilities for recruitment.304

Towards the end of his speech, Paul-Boncour declared that the profound and reciprocal reductions in armaments that the conference had discussed would take place only if each nation had certainty that the rest of the world would abide by their commitments in this respect. The key to this certainty, he added, addressing above all the prospective members of the proposed mutual assistance pact, was effective international control in the matter of effectives, in the matter of materials and in the matter of expenditure. PaulBoncour said little more on this subject, having noted that Bourquin, his Belgian colleague, had produced a report precisely on the question of the organisation of control, a discussion of which was scheduled to take place on the afternoon of the day that Paul-Boncour delivered his speech.305

The French Intervention of 14 November In terminating his speech, Paul-Boncour noted that the propositions he had outlined would be submitted in writing to the conference for its consideration and, indeed, the text of a French plan of security and disarmament was submitted to the conference on 14 November.306 Accompanying this text was a memorandum outlining the principles on which the plan was based, 303 Le Temps, November 6, 1932. 304 Ibid., and BIN 9, no. 10, 10. 305 Le Temps, November 6, 1932. 306 Ibid., and ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16,

1932.

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that is, the principles that had earlier been articulated by Herriot in Paris and Geneva and by Paul-Boncour on 4 November. The memorandum in question summarised these principles as follows: The proposals constitute a system which, combined with previous proposals, and notably that of President Hoover, should allow the Conference to bring its work rapidly to a successful conclusion.307 [T]he ‘reduction of national armaments to the minimum compatible with national security and with the execution of international obligations imposed by a common action’ cannot be hoped for if one does not take into account, as foreseen by Article 8 of the covenant, the geographical situation and the special conditions of each State, and even of each continent. [T]he possibility of the reduction of armaments is closely linked…to conditions of security…. At each stage of the debate has reappeared this notion of security, conceived not to the profit of one or some, but in the interest of all. Thus, the problem posed is as much political as technical: in the matter of disarmament and in the matter of security, progress must be parallel. [T]he task which imposes itself on the conference consists in reinforcing defence in reducing the forces of aggression. [I]t is a matter much less of determining whether such or such material favours aggression than determining the form of military organisation which, in a given region and in given political conditions, will render more difficult a policy of aggression. This determination made, it would be fitting to progressively assimilate the different armies of the region envisaged to this type.308 The problem of equality of status must be faced and solved by the Conference, and the French plan will provide an equitable solution by the progressive equalisation of military status and by an equal participation in both the duties and the advantages of the organisation of collective action, to the exclusion of rearmament.

307 BIN 9, no. 11, 3, 5. See also ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932. 308 ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932.

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The Plan will not be workable or realisable unless the Powers which do not participate in the European system undertake to give full effect to the guarantees resulting from the Pacts by which they are already bound, e.g., the Kellogg Treaty or the League Covenant.309

The propositions introduced by this memorandum, which described them in introducing them as an ‘ensemble solidaire,’ were presented in the form of five chapters.310 Chapter 1 set forth four propositions: first, all wars undertaken in violation of the Pact of Paris concern all the powers and will be considered as a breach of the obligations assumed towards each of them; second, in case of such a breach or the threat of such a breach, the powers will consult each other as promptly as possible with a view to making an appeal to public opinion and reaching an understanding on what measures to take; third, all violations of the Pact of Paris will bring in their train the prohibition of all direct and indirect relations, of an order economic and financial, with the aggressor and the powers will undertake to take the measures necessary in order to give immediate effect to this prohibition; and fourth, the powers will declare their decision to not recognise any fait accompli arising from a violation of an international obligation.311 Chapter 2 declared that the putting into effect of the principles inscribed in Chapter 1 would permit full efficacy to be given to the engagements set forth in the covenant as well as to those treaties which have been concluded in conformity with the principles enshrined in that instrument: the General Convention to Strengthen the Means of Preventing War and the Convention for Financial Assistance. Notably, and doubtless with Britain in its sights, the chapter added that France considered the effective and loyal application of Article 16 to be an essential element of the plan that it had conceived.312 Chapter 3 was the most significant of the five chapters as it concerned the organisation destined for Europe, stating in relation to this organisation

309 BIN 9, no. 11, 5. Emphasis added. See also ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932. 310 ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932. 311 Ibid., and BIN 9, no. 11, 5–6. 312 ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932, and BIN 9, no. 11, 6.

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that it must comprise some ‘dispositions politiques ’ and some ‘dispositions militaires.’313 The former dispositions can be summed up as follows: 1. The right to assistance in case of an attack or invasion by a foreign forces, excluding from the definition of aggression in this context certain cases such as ‘legitimate defence’ (that is, the repulsion of forces which have ‘violently penetrated the territory of the State which defends itself’), and action undertaken in execution of Article 16 of the Covenant.314 2. The aim of assistance is to make the aggression cease and to create a de facto situation which would permit a just settlement of the consequences of the aggression. 3. The granting of assistance will be decided by the council on the simple establishment of the fact of attack or invasion.315 4. The signatories to the European accord will adhere to the General Act for the Pacific Settlement of Disputes. In cases where they refuse to settle conflicts in accordance with this act or to carry out an award, either arbitral or judicial, or to act upon…the establishment by the Council of the League of Nations of a violation of an international engagement, …[the]…other party will then submit the matter to the Council which will decide on the measures to take. The contracting powers will lend their support to the execution of this decision.316 5. The decisions of the council in such cases as just described will be by a majority vote. 6. The contracting parties will be bound to lend their aid to the execution of the decision, and with a view to making it possible for them to do this without any delay, they will accept, in the organisation of their military forces, the specialisation of the elements of those forces

313 ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932. Emphasis in the original. See also BIN 9, no. 11, 6. 314 ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932. See also BIN 9, no. 11, 6. 315 ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932, and BIN 9, no. 11, 6. 316 BIN 9, no. 11, 6. See also ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932.

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in the manner then set out in the Plan, under the heading of ‘military arrangements’ or dispositions.317 In regard to military dispositions, the memorandum declared that the objects should be that of reducing the offensive character of national forces and of specialising certain elements for urgent operations by collective action. The plan then specified that the land forces destined for the defence of the States of continental Europe will be assimilated to a general uniform type: the one of a short-service national army with limited effectives, not lending itself to a sudden offensive…. The effectives and their duration of instruction will be fixed in assuring their defensive character…that is, in a way that assures the national security of each State, taking into account its geographical situation and special conditions. In particular, the numerical limitations of the short-service effectives will be adapted to the variations in the resources of recruitment of the different signatory Powers; the same will apply to the duration of instruction in which should be counted…the time spent on pre-military training or on training received, for example, in political formations….The national armies of the contracting powers will be forbidden, at the minimum, all heavy mobile armaments, in particular, those that would permit attacks on permanent fortifications.318

And that: Each of the contracting powers will maintain permanently at the disposal of the League of Nations…a reduced number of specialized units composed of troops undertaking a more or less long-term service, and equipped with the powerful armaments forbidden to national armies. In order to be able to furnish rapid assistance, if called upon to do so by the League of Nations, …the specialised contingents will be held in constant readiness to intervene and will be of an analogous type. The Convention will determine to this effect the contribution of each signatory State.319

317 ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932. See also BIN 9, no. 11, 6–7. According to the French plan, in order to facilitate ‘the eventual proof or establishment of an aggression there should be set up, in each State, a commission of verification composed of diplomatic agents and naval, military and air attachés accredited to the Government of the State, the members of which would be nominated by the League Council.’ BIN 9, no. 1, 6. 318 ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932. Emphasis in the original. 319 Ibid., Emphasis in the original. See also BIN 9, no. 11, 7.

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In respect to the role of the specialised contingents, the plan also stated the following: Apart from the heavy material allowed to these [specialized] contingents, mobile land material (heavy guns, tanks, etc.) shall be stocked in each of the contracting States under international control. These stocks will be put…at the disposition of parties benefitting from a collective intervention. All contracting parties who find themselves in a situation of legitimate defence…can freely make use of the contingent maintained by them, as well as the stocks of material constituted on their territory.320

The section on military arrangements then specified the two following provisions: first, that the contracting powers will realise in stages the ‘unification of war materials ’ both in regard to those at the disposal of the national army and those at the disposal of the specialised contingents, ‘their fabrication being controlled and organised internationally,’ and second, that the same powers will submit to ‘regular and permanent control of their armaments obligations,’ control that would involve an investigation at least once per year.321 Chapter 4 dealt with overseas and naval forces, proposing among other things that overseas forces be ‘strictly calculated and specialized for the particular missions that devolve upon them,’ their limitations being fixed by the general disarmament convention, and, in relation to naval forces, that a regional, that is, Mediterranean, equivalent of the Pacific-focussed Washington naval agreement of 1922 be reached with a view to facilitating a reduction in battleships.322 The fifth and final chapter addressed air forces. It noted the conference resolution of 23 July which followed in the wake of the suggestions by President Hoover issued on the previous day: a resolution forbidding all aerial bombardment under the condition of special guarantees of security concerning non-military aviation.323 Chapter 5 proposed that alongside the provisions concerning air armaments to be included in the general 320 BIN 9, no. 11, 7. 321 ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932.

Emphasis in the original. 322 Ibid. See also BIN 9, no. 11, 8. 323 BIN 9, no. 11, 8, and ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps,

November 16, 1932.

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convention, there should be an agreement among ‘all the air Powers of Europe,’ continental or not, to establish a ‘European Union of Transport,’ which would ‘confer on an international organisation the direction and control of public transport by air and will ensure the application of a regular system of guarantees against the use of civil aviation for military purposes.’324 Finally in regard to air power, the memorandum stated that so important were the commitments to be made in the domain of aviation and so grave would be their violation, that it would seem essential to give to the LON, in Europe at least, a swift and powerful means of enforcing them through establishing an aerial equivalent of the proposed specialised land forces. Chapter 5 then observed that certain delegations at the conference, the French delegation among them, had gone even further: they had proposed the creation of an ‘organically international aerial force to be constituted and maintained on permanent basis’ by the LON.325 The French delegation, the memorandum noted, had envisaged that an international aerial force would be equipped with machinery of aerial bombardment and would be recruited directly from among volunteers of all nations in a proportion to be determined.326 Echoing the speech of PaulBoncour of 4 November, the memorandum reiterated in its concluding paragraph a key point made in its introduction: that all the parts of the plan sont solidaires by which was meant all its parts formed a single whole. The memorandum then stated that at an examination of the French plan for security and disarmament would make it plain that in accordance with its declared wish, the French government had based its doctrine entirely on the Pact of Paris and the Covenant of the LON.327

Analyses of and Reactions to the Plan Davies observes that the Constructive Plan involved a significant departure from one of the principal features of Tardieu Plan of February 1932: ‘that no French disarmament was possible without additional security guarantees

324 BIN 9, no. 11, 8. 325 ‘Le plan français de la sécurité et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932.

Emphasis in the original. 326 Ibid. 327 Ibid. See also BIN 9, no. 11, 8.

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from Britain and America.’328 As he notes, within the framework of the Constructive Plan, the mutual assistance pact was confined to continental European states. Britain and the United States were asked to agree to no more than consultation in the event of a violation of the Pact of Paris.329 As we have seen, that the Pact of Paris implied an obligation to consult had been spelt out by Stimson, it being a consequence, as the former secretary of state had explained, of the pact’s abolition among its signatories of the understanding of neutrality that existed prior to the pact. However, Chapter 1 of the Constructive Plan issued propositions that went beyond the mere legal obligation to consult such as by insisting that all violations of the Pact of Paris would bring in their train the prohibition of all direct and indirect relations of an order economic and financial with the aggressor. As Lippmann noted, the authors of the plan had not ‘forgotten’ the United States or Great Britain both of whom were asked, along with all the other powers represented at the conference, to agree to take measures to implement Pact of Paris.330 Lippmann observed that the authors of the French Plan had endeavoured to analyze the principles of Secretary Stimson’s speech of August 8 and to codify what they considered to be possible deductions from that speech…. [The ideas contained in Chapter 1 of the plan]…embodied the maximum French hopes as to the eventual American contribution to its program for security…. [However, many of its]…provisions went substantially beyond the intended meaning of Secretary Stimson’s speeches. Furthermore, they endeavoured to formulate rigidly ideas which were still undergoing development and to spell out implications which in the American view could only be worked out by a process of trial and error. The administration in Washington felt that any attempt to codify the Stimson doctrine [on the obligation to consult] in a treaty which the Senate would have to pass upon as a precise formula would fail. The American attitude was empirical and cautious. The French, on the other hand, felt that formulae were of little value unless they were embodied in a treaty with all possible future contingencies adequately covered. Such a treaty was hardly conceivable to the Americans, and even England, it appeared, was reluctant to add to her burden of responsibility under the Covenant and the Locarno treaties.331 328 Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 774–5. 329 Ibid., 775. 330 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 252. 331 Ibid., 252–3.

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In drafting the French plan and in its public pronouncements on it, the French government had made it clear, as noted above, that Great Britain was not expected to maintain a powerful expeditionary force to serve as a coercive instrument of the League.332 Nonetheless, Chapter 2 of the plan called on signatories of the covenant to effectively and loyally apply Article 16 and this was interpreted by some observers as a call to Britain to at least define its position in relation to that article.333 As the same observers noted, such a call presented a difficulty for Britain given the lack of enthusiasm in that country for this article and, more generally, what one commentator described as the ‘stubborn prejudice of the “Anglo-Saxon” mind’ against, to use Simon’s words, ‘defined engagements for undefined circumstances.’334 It should be clear that the Constructive Plan marked a significant dilution of the French opposition to disarmament and the German demand for equality. As we saw, it proposed that the national armies of continental European states should be assimilated to a uniform general type in the form of a national short-service army with limited effectives, that is, in the form of a national militia.335 As we also saw, the militias in question were to be denied what were deemed offensive armaments: under the French government’s proposed pact, such armaments would be ceded in part by a given state-party to the international contingent located within its territory and in part stocked within the same territory under international control. As Davies concedes, this aspect of the plan meant that France would retain ‘far greater military resources within French territory compared to Germany’; nonetheless, Davies maintains in allowing to the countries of continental Europe only a militia, the plan ‘paid more than lip service to Germany equality.’336 That the plan made significant concessions in respect to disarmament is evidenced by the fact that the proposal concerning a national militia was the subject of strong criticism within the context of the Conseil Supérieur

332 BIN 9, no. 10, 5. 333 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 252 and BIN 9, no. 10, 5. 334 Horsfall Carter, ‘Naming the Aggressor,’ 142. 335 Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 774–5. 336 Ibid., 775–6. See also Le Temps, November 5, 1932, and ‘Le plan français de la sécurité

et de désarmement,’ Le Temps, November 16, 1932.

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de la Guerre on the ground that it would leave France ‘defenceless.’337 In an interview published in Le Petit Parisien on 20 November, PaulBoncour sought to ‘allay public disquiet’ on this score: he defended the Constructive Plan ‘against charges that if it were adopted the army would be unable to them guarantee them full security.’338 In the same interview, Paul-Boncour observed that the policy he pursued as much as in Geneva as in Paris, took inspiration from the two same imperatives: firstly, that ‘the international situation demands that some real efforts be made in the matter of disarmament in view of the organisation of peace’ and secondly, while awaiting that end, France wanted to guarantee its security, that is, to guarantee the inviolability of its frontiers.339 In the interview in Le Petit Parisien, Paul-Boncour reiterated, as he had so often done before, the long-standing French position: that security and disarmament are linked. He declared that the plan he had deposited at Geneva was ‘based entirely on this essential idea’ and that he hoped that the plan was successful because he was certain that it showed ‘more clearly than ever’ that France was determined to pursue peace and had no ‘aggressive intent’ as all ‘enlightened minds’ knew well ‘despite the propaganda against…[the country] abroad.’340 Addressing the internal criticism of the plan, Paul-Boncour called ‘attention to steps which he was taking to strengthen the army’s powers of defence.’341 He noted that ‘people say if the entire plan was adopted at Geneva our army perhaps could not guarantee sufficient security,’ insisting ‘to the contrary’ that under the Constructive Plan security would be better guaranteed.342 Paul-Boncour did not elaborate precisely on how security would be better guaranteed, however, his implication seemed to be that a ‘reduction in the armies of Europe to a uniform type, purely defensive in character’ was the only solution to the security risk that France would likely face in forthcoming years due to an expected shortage in recruits.343

337 Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 776. 338 BIN 9, no. 11, 4. 339 Léon Faraut, ‘Le armée de demain: Importante déclarations de M. Paul-Boncour,’ Le Petit Parisien, November 20, 1932. 340 Ibid. 341 BIN 9, no. 11, 4. 342 Le Petit Parisien, November 20, 1932. 343 BIN 9, no. 11, 4.

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Paul-Boncour told the Le Petit Parisien that the public anxiety in relation to French security was ‘the result of causes independent’ of what was happening in Geneva: the worries that the public conceived for itself were ‘largely the result of a lowering of…[the French]…birth-rate during the war years.’344 In relation to this, he stated that he was not alone in asking himself if the defensive powers of the current military organisation was sufficient, adding that since he paid heed to rue Saint-Dominique (that is, to the War Ministry), he had conducted ‘conversations with general officers of all grades’ and that in light of this and the numerous reports’ he had read, his mind was made up: it was necessary to fortify the nation’s powers of defence.345 As to the specifics of his plan of fortification, Paul-Boncour declared the following: I am preparing…a meeting of the Supreme War Council. I am certain that, without increasing our effectives through an extension of the duration of active military service, without increasing military expenditure,…we must obtain a security cover which…will assure the inviolability of our frontiers. A short-service army…can, through a proper utilisation of automatic arms, the power of which, little known before the war, has shown itself to be immense, can guarantee the most effective territorial defence….This [military] reorganisation is indispensable, even outside of the adoption or the rejection of the plan submitted to the deliberations at Geneva. It is urgent. In association with the High Command, I am examining the modalities of this reorganisation….I believe in the defence of the country by the totality of the mobilised national army. This system implies the training of those called up and a very solid training of the reserves….The army that is necessary for us…must have a clearly defensive character…and give to the world the impression that France wants only to live in security and that she has not any aggressive notion.346

As noted, there were figures in the upper echelons of the French military establishment worried about what the Constructive Plan would mean for French security. Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz notes that at a meeting of the Conseil Supérieure de la Défense Nationale on 28 October, Weygand:

344 Le Petit Parisien, November 20, 1932. 345 Ibid. 346 Ibid. Paul-Boncour ‘gave a hint that the methods employed would include a more intensive training both of recruits and reserves, and the provision of new automatic rifles and machine guns.’ BIN 9, no. 11, 5.

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made an impassioned plea against the plan…on the grounds that the 1928 balance of power was rapidly shifting in favor of Germany. He described the militia system as a total advantage to such militaristic nations as Italy and Germany. He portrayed the international forces a patent disguise for a renascent Reichswehr and ridiculed the effectiveness of international control of the use and manufacture of armaments.347

Although he had little support at the meeting, Weygand had supporters in the conservative press.348 For example, under the heading of ‘Le plan destructif,’ an editorial writer in Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires posed the following question: ‘Why has Mr. Herriot, who recognises the existence of the German peril, accepted the Boncour plan which is the least appropriate to give security to our country?’349 Tardieu was no less dismissive. In a letter dated 15 November which appeared on the front page of L’Echo de Paris the following day, he noted that Pertinax (André Géraud), had declared in relation to the Constructive Plan: ‘We have before us a plan comparable to the Tardieu plan of February 5.’350 Rejecting this comparison, Tardieu told the newspaper’s readers that there were three important differences between his plan and the plan deposited at Geneva by Paul-Boncour, summarising those differences as follows: first, under the plan of 5 February, the military inequality of Germany was maintained both in law and in fact as a ‘necessary precaution and without condition against the aggressor of 1914’ as was agreed by all the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles; second, the plan of 5 February did not attack the general principles underpinning the organisation of the French military and did not pose the question of a militia; and third, the plan of 5 February did not entail the proposition that France would accede 347 Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz, Maxime Weygand and Civil Military Relations in Modern France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 69. 348 Ibid. Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz points out that he was supported only by Marshal Philippe Pétain and Jean Fabry, vice-president of the Commission d’études of the Conseil Supérieure de la Défense Nationale. He adds that ‘the effect of the Marshal’s opposition was, however, blunted by deliberately conciliatory language; Fabry did not reject the Plan outright, but merely offered a number of “observations”’ (ibid.). 349 ‘Le plan destructif,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, November 3, 1932. See also Bankwitz, Maxime Weygand and Civil Military Relations in Modern France, 64. 350 ‘Le plan français d’organisation de la paix: Une lettre de M. André Tardieu,’ L’Echo de Paris, November 16, 1932.

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to a revision of the Treaty of Versailles.351 Tardieu stated in relation to this last point that the proposition that France would agree to a revision of the Versailles reaty was ‘without precedent’ on France’s part, adding that the modifications relative to the reparations that France had accepted only addressed figures that were not inscribed in that treaty. By way of a parting shot, Tardieu concluded his letter in stating that it was completely ‘natural’ that a plan issued by a coalition government would be ‘fundamentally different’ from the one that he had supported ‘in accordance with all of…[his]…predecessors.’352 Outside of France, the omens for the Constructive Plan, which, it should be recalled, was conceived as an integral whole, were not good. In addition to the great difficulties of implementing a security system for continental Europe along the lines the plan envisaged, it was very unlikely that the Americans would accede to a treaty codifying the Stimson doctrine of the obligation to consult under the Pact of Paris, let alone the inferences that the French government had drawn from it. Equally, the British were unlikely to agree to further their commitments beyond those entailed by the covenant, recalling here the British hesitations in regard to Article 16, and the Locarno accords. To the extent that it found favour with certain Anglo-Saxon audiences, it was because the plan served as a public recognition that, ‘in principle,’ Germany could not be remain fettered by the military provisions of Versailles indefinitely.353 Leaving aside this reaction, many Anglo-Saxon observers were of the view that the plan was ‘characterised by a certain vagueness,’ although it should be added that according to a commentator writing in the RIIA’s Bulletin of International News, this was ‘generally supposed to be intentional.’354 Illustrating this point, the same commentator observed that nothing is said as to the period of training of the short-service conscript armies, though it is generally understood that something like 8 or 9 months is intended. This is long enough to constitute an army very different from a militia such as that of Switzerland, where the men called up do 60 days’ training in the infantry and in subsequent years 13 days only. There is a certain 351 Ibid. 352 Ibid. 353 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 253. 354 BIN 9, no. 10, 11. See also Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference

of 1932–34,’ 776.

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obscurity also as regards the conditions under which the period of service in France would be reduced. The second condition suggests, however, that the period of service in Germany would not, in fact, be the same as in France, owing to pre-military training and training in semi-military organisations and political formations already done by many young men in Germany. The third condition is vague. Taken literally it would mean that no country should have more conscripts then the smallest country bound by the pact, but it can hardly be doubted that the French Government merely had in mind the excess of the German population over that of France. It is equally difficult to state exactly what is involved in the application of principles such as ‘progressive unification of war material by necessary stages’ while the exclusion of colonial armies from reduction and control and the provision that the specialised permanent forces (or professional armies) should retain so-called aggressive arms for the benefit of the League, would seem to imply that both these armies and their weapons will remain under national control, nothing being said as to the means whereby it can be made certain that they will be at the immediate disposal of the League when required.355

Germany was absent from Geneva during the period when the Constructive Plan was aired, the country having notified the conference on 16 September of its intention to withdraw on the grounds that it remained in a state of subjection as long as its demand for equality of rights was not recognised. Yet even if Germany had been present at the conference, it is most unlikely that the Constructive Plan would have satisfied it: the German government was not interested in ‘disarmament at all but in rearmament’ as would become starkly apparent in the following year.356 In relation to the German reception of the plan, it is worth noting that its critics within Germany were very wary of the French proposal that the council ‘should have the power to decide how to deal with an aggressor by a simple majority,’ a proposal described in the Bulletin of International News as ‘exceedingly significant.’357 German critics in particular were concerned that France ‘would generally be able to influence sufficient members of the

355 BIN 9, no. 10, 11. These points concerning the vagueness and obscurity of the French plan were made in relation to Paul-Boncour’s speech of 4 November. However, they were applied no less to the French submission of 14 November. 356 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 349. See also Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 777. 357 BIN 9, no. 11, 5.

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Council to ensure a majority in favour of her views, or that of her cortège habituel.’358 Following its submission, the conference scheduled a discussion of the plan to take place in the following year, the expectation being that France would present it as ‘the essential condition of any substantial concession to Germany.’359 Meanwhile, against the background of the airing of the plan, private conversations were held among representatives of France, Germany, Britain, Italy and the United States with a view to organising, at the suggestion of MacDonald, five power talks concerning the fundamental problems confronting the Disarmament Conference and Germany’s possible return to it.360 In the event, such talks took place in Geneva from 2 to 11 December 1932, the timing of which took advantage of the presence in Geneva of German delegates to the assembly’s third special session that year concerning the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.361 Among the leading members of the delegations present at these conversations were the Britons MacDonald, who chaired the meeting, and Simon; Germany’s Neurath and Baron Ernst von Weiszaecker; Italy’s Augusto Rosso and Baron Pompeo Aloisi; and the Americans Norman H. Davis, who at the Peace Conference had served as Wilson’s financial adviser, and Dulles.362 On 11 December, the five delegations issued the following declaration: The governments of the United Kingdom, France, and Italy have declared that one of the principles that should guide the Conference on Disarmament should be the grant to Germany, and to the other powers disarmed by treaty, of equality of rights in a system which would promise security for all nations, and that the principle should find itself embodied in the convention containing the conclusions of the Disarmament Conference. This declaration implies that the respective limitation of armaments of all states should be included in the proposed Disarmament Convention of such equality of rights will be discussed by the Conference.363 358 Ibid., 7n. 359 Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 253. 360 Ibid., 254. 361 Ibid., 254–5. 362 Ibid., 255. 363 Five-Power Declaration, 1932, in ibid.

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As Gathorne-Hardy observed, the so-called Five Power Declaration, which echoed the formula arrived at by the Herriot cabinet (a formula invoked by French delegates during the five power negotiations), yoked together ‘the slogans of Germany and France…in a single phrase, which each was prepared to accept subject to its own interpretation.’ However, as Gathorne-Hardy also observed, although Germany was thus persuaded to rejoin the conference for the time being, no rhetorical sleight-of-hand ‘could touch the substance of the problem.’364

364 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 349. The French delegates declared the following: ‘France agrees that the principle of equality of rights be accorded to Germany and other states disarmed by treaty within a general system which shall provide for the security of France and of all other states.’ The German position was as follows: Firstly, ‘(1) that German armaments should be limited for the same period by the same treaty that limited the armaments of other nations, thus abolishing the legal form of Part V of the Versailles Treaty; and (2) that the principle of equality of status should be given immediate practical effect on the qualitative side with respect to war material, replacements, and military organization. This was more than the French or the British were pre-pared to concede, since it meant in effect that Germany would begin to rearm.’ Lippmann et al., United States in World Affairs, 255–6.

CHAPTER 4

The MacDonald Plan

The Conference Resumes The Disarmament Conference resumed on 2 February. Between that date and 16 February, its General Commission discussed first, the proposed French security pact and second, a British memorandum which had been presented by Anthony Eden, the British under-secretary for foreign affairs, on 30 January, proposing that the Bureau of the Disarmament Conference (which assisted the president in the general direction of the work of the conference), draft a convention based on a synthesis of the proposals already submitted by various delegations which had found or were most likely to find acceptance.1 1 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 74; M. Alice Matthews, ‘Of

International Events,’ American Journal of International Law 27, no. 3 (1933): 530–42, 530; and Aage Trommer, ‘MacDonald in Geneva in March 1933,’ Scandinavian Journal of History 1, no. 1–4 (1976): 293–312, 297. See also Draft Proposals by the United Kingdom Delegation to the General Commission of the Disarmament Conference, in E. L. Woodward and Rohan Butler, eds., Documents on British Foreign Policy [hereafter DBFP ] 1919–1939, 2nd ser., vol. 4 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1950), 492–4. The Disarmament Conference’s thirty-sixth meeting (public) on 30 January 1933, addressed a programme of work proposed by the British delegation with a view to embodying in a convention the proposals already made by various delegations. ‘The chairman observed that the United Kingdom delegation had submitted a series of proposals regarding disarmament document (Conf. D. I54). Those proposals touched upon nearly all the problems which the Conference had taken up. Some of them, however, more particularly concerned the Bureau, which would take a decision regarding them and would subsequently announce the procedure to be followed in examining

© The Author(s) 2019 J. Pemberton, The Story of International Relations, Part Two, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21824-9_4

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A sense of gloom pervaded the conference during opening month in light of Hitler’s installation as German chancellor. Then, at almost the same time as the assembly was casting its vote on the Lytton report, that is, what was formally entitled Appeal of the Chinese Government: Report of the Commission of Enquiry and which was published on 1 October 1932, Japanese forces had begun their advance on the province of Jehol. The assembly’s adoption of the report which, although not naming Japan the aggressor, concluded that the military actions of Japanese troops in Manchuria during the night of 18 September 1931 could not be viewed as measures of legitimate self-defence, caused the Japanese delegation to walk out, simultaneously giving notice of Japan’s intention to quit the LON. Accordingly, on 27 March, Count Yasuya Uchida, Japan’s foreign minister, notified the secretary-general of Japan’s ‘decision to withdraw [from the LON] because of “irreconcilable” differences over Manchuria,’ a decision that did not, however, preclude Japanese delegates from continuing to participate in the Disarmament Conference for the time being.2 On 2 February, addressing the plan earlier submitted by Paul-Boncour, René Massigli, a French delegate, stated that France had sought to give expression to the conference’s concern for both disarmament and security which he described as being inextricably linked. Massigli urged the following:

them. It was understood that the United Kingdom proposals would be discussed after the examination of the French Plan.’ The British programme of work was further addressed at the thirty-eighth meeting (public), 9 February 1933. In the course of expounding on it, Eden insisted that the draft programme showed that the British government took ‘very seriously…the attitude of those delegations which would emphasise the connection between disarmament and security.’ LON, Records of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, C ser., Minutes of the Bureau of the Conference, vol. 1, 21 September 1932–27 June 1933 (Geneva: LON, 1935), 142, 149. 2 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 350–351 and Matthews, ‘Chronicle of International Events,’ 53. On 7 March 1933, the president of the conference circulated a communication he had received from the Japanese delegation which read in part as follows: ‘The Imperial Government of Japan as an inevitable consequence of the incompatibility existing between their own point of view and that of the majority of the League of Nations respecting the Sino-Japanese affair, regret to have been obliged to withdraw their representatives from the League Assembly. As their determination, however, remains unshaken to contribute towards the establishment of permanent universal peace, they hereby declare their intention to continue their participation in the General Disarmament Conference.’ Communication from the Japanese delegation, Geneva, 7 March 1933, in DBFB, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 514–5. See also League of Nations, Appeal by the Chinese Government: Report of the Commission of Enquiry (Geneva: League of Nations, 1932) C.663. M. 320. 1932. VII.

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that reduction of armaments must be adopted to the special conditions of each state according to the terms of Article 8 of the Covenant, that the means of defense should be strengthened by a reduction in the forces of aggression which consisted of both material and effectives, and that reduction of armaments should come about by stages. Such reduction was incompatible with rearmament. In addition, the French delegate stressed the importance of control and supervision of armaments in general, as well as other measures involving control of international air transport and the limitation of expenditures on armaments. Clearly, Massigli reiterated once again his country’s concern with security…especially in view of the internal developments in Germany and the fear of German rearmament.3

In response to Massigli, Rudolf Nadolny, Germany’s principal delegate at the conference, noted that the Locarno Treaty, the Pact of Paris, and the No Force (Five-Power) Declaration of 11 December 1932, provided for sufficient security such that disarmament could be undertaken by European states sooner rather than later and that, in any case, disarmament would conduce to security. Nadolny also touched on the German demand for equality, observing that the ‘realization of this right which…[Germany]…has been awaiting for over ten years should not be any longer deferred.’4 A noted manifestation of the triumph of the Hitlerian movement over Weimar Germany was the closer collaboration between Germany and Italy, such that it was rumoured that Germany and Italy ‘were bent on sabotage of the Conference if it could be done in such a way that the blame would rest upon the French.’5 Nadolny certainly would have taken some comfort in Aloisi’s effective dismissal of the French plan for a continental security pact in stating that a European security system required the participation of Great Britain.6 He would have taken no less comfort in Eden’s response to Massigli: that in seeking to construct a new security system one should ‘not forget the old security arrangements, such as the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Treaty of Locarno and the Pact of Paris’ and that the United Kingdom would not be adding to any of the commitments it had already

3 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 160–1. 4 Minutes of the General Commission, 3 February 1933, quoted in Alteras, ‘The Geneva

Disarmament Conference,’ 161. 5 Gwilym Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ The Welsh Outlook 20, no. 4 (1933): 106–8, 106. 6 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 162.

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made to Europe, a response that neatly complemented the stance adopted by Germany and by Italy.7 Eden’s intervention caused Gibson, to declare that he could not participate in the discussion of a security pact as it solely concerned the states of continental Europe.8

German Obstructionism On 17 February, the General Commission turned its attention to the French proposal for the standardisation of the armed forces of continental armies. In this context, Pierre Cot, who had been appointed minister for air in the previous month, informed the General Commission that there were two principal forms of armed force in Europe: [T]he professional army and the short term service army with troops on active duty. In examining in detail the characteristics of both types of armies, the French Minister tried to show that a highly trained professional army, such as the Reichswehr. was more suitable for offensive operations since it could be rapidly mobilized and secretly transported to the front for purposes of conquest. On the other hand a short term army was designed for defensive operations since it was a popular army, slow to mobilize because it required the calling up of reservists and their fusion with the regular effectives, a process that could take weeks. In his view only such an army was suitable for defense purposes. Alluding to the present situation in Germany, Cot declared that the worst possible system would be one in which standing armies and militias could exist side by side, where ‘para military’ associations would have developed a militarist spirit. The French Minister believed that by proposing to Germany a reversal to what had been done to her at Versailles, he was ‘inaugurating a system that would be common to all, facilitating the movement towards equality, not only in rights but also of status.’9

Cot’s reference to Versailles concerned the fact that the 1919 treaty of that name provided that the Reichswehr take the form of a long-service professional army consisting of 100,000 effectives and that Germany be denied recourse to a system of conscription. The latter provision, had long been a cause of complaint on the part of Germany not least because nearly 7 Minutes of the General Commission, 3 February 1933, quoted ibid. 8 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 163. 9 Ibid., 164. For a further account of Cot’s speech, see also ‘Disarmament: Terms of Military Service; French Offer,’ Times, February 18, 1933.

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all the other countries of continental Europe operated a system of conscription.10 The French government’s proposal, which envisaged a short-service period consisting of eight to nine months, limits on the number of effectives and a period of transition from the existing service model three to four years, if Germany had agreed to it, would have gone some distance towards according Germany the equality in armaments that it so desired and for this it was applauded.11 The Times of London commended the French offer in regard to effectives, describing Cot’s speech as ‘conciliatory and constructive,’ adding that it ‘infused some new life into the conference.’12 On 18 February, Nadolny, wary of German isolation on the issue, sought to forestall a decision on effectives by insisting that the General Commission should at this point address the question of war material and that the question of effectives be handed over to the Committee of Effectives from which, he hoped, it would not re-emerge.13 Yet Nadolny’s intervention could not but help make it apparent to all that Germany now wanted to keep its professional army, albeit ‘side by side with her “paramilitary associations” which by virtue of their military training had actually formed a second army with a shorter term of service’ and that Germany’s ambition in terms of the organisation of its army lay with a Reichswehr playing ‘the role of a cadre army providing the leadership for the eventual mass army.’14 The delegations of Great Britain and the United States sided with the French argument that the question of the service system of continental armies and the numbers of effectives comprising them be addressed before the question of war material and so-called offensive weapons, as did most of the General Commission when the matter came to a vote. Indeed, Germany found itself to be the sole supporter of the resolution that it put forward.15

10 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 352, and Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 165, 188. 11 Alteras notes the following: ‘The standardization of the types of armies as proposed by France would also bring about a measure of qualitative disarmament. If professional armies were modified to a type of militia, this modification would inevitably have led to the disappearance of offensive weapons.’ Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 164–5. 12 Times, February 18, 1933. 13 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 166. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., 168–9. Alteras observes that the German isolation on the matter of addressing ‘abolition of war material and offensive armaments before the nature of the armies had been

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Tensions also flared between France and Germany within the context of the Air Committee, which first met on 20 February, following a submission by Cot in which, in an echo of the Tardieu Plan, proposed the international control of civil aviation under the auspices of the LON. Cot insisted that the creation of such a system must precede any steps to abolish military aircraft, a similar proposal having already been submitted by the British delegation.16 The German delegation, however, threatened to quit the committee if the French ‘insisted on discussing the internationalisation of civil aviation before agreeing to the complete abolition of military and naval aircraft, of which Germany…[had]…none,’ a threat which could only have reinforced British Foreign Office suspicions that the Germans were intent on arming in the air.17 Madariaga, who chaired the committee, brokered an apparent compromise in the form of an agreement that the Air Committee would proceed ‘on the hypothesis that total abolition was a possibility’ following which he tactfully adjourned the meeting.18 The Air Committee would not meet again.19 The obstructionist behaviour of the German delegation in the context of the Air Committee, served to provide, from the British perspective,

decided upon’ caused Nadolny to encourage his government to adopt a different approach (ibid.). 16 Ibid., 171–2. On February 20, ‘the British delegate, Lord Londonderry, proposed that a system of controlling civil aviation must be devised before the abolition of military and naval air force could be carried out for civil aircraft could easily be transformed into military aircraft’ (ibid., 171). 17 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 107. For foreign office suspicions that Germany intended

to arm in the air, see Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 172. 18 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 107. At the thirty-second meeting (private) of the Bureau of the Conference on 13 December 1932, Madariaga observed that ‘he had presided over the meetings of the Air Commission, whose work was in suspense, and which had been converted into a new Committee composed, not of technical experts, but of politicians. This new Committee had not yet met. He was therefore speaking in his capacity as Rapporteur for air questions—a position which, he thought, perhaps imposed on him the duty of offering his services as intermediary between the countries concerned in the conversations which would inevitably have to be held on certain questions of paramount importance. He added that he did not feel under any obligation to convene the new Committee on air questions, of which he was not the Chairman and did not desire to be the Chairman.’ LON, Records of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, C ser., Minutes of the Bureau of the Conference, vol. 1, 113. 19 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 171.

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further ‘justification of our worst suspicions of their intentions of arming in the air.’20 On the afternoon of 7 March, following the moving of a resolution by Politis concerning the proposed mutual assistance pact, the expected ‘“head-on” clash’ between France and the two Fascist powers took place.21 The Reverend Gwilym Davies, a co-founder with David Davies of the Welsh division of the LNU explained the afternoon’s events as follows: Capt. Antony [sic] Eden, so well-liked in Geneva, reiterated in his friendly way that the United Kingdom had gone to the limit at Locarno to promote security in Europe. It would do no more. The Italian delegate had already made it abundantly clear that without England Italy would do nothing. A vote was taken on the resolution for a Pact of Mutual Assistance—14 for and 5 against. In the minority were Germany and Italy. The heart of the French plan stopped beating. The plan itself was dead.22

The French security plan did not exactly die on 7 March as noted below.23 However, what was evident to most observers by that date was that the conference had reached a ‘virtual deadlock on political issues’ in light of Germany rearmament and the understandable French fear for their

20 Allen Leeper, 1933, quoted in Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 172. 21 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 106. 22 Ibid. See also Matthews, ‘Chronicle of International Events,’ 530. The other three powers in the minority were Austria, Hungary and the Netherlands. 23 Richard M. Boeckel, ‘Effective Automatic, and Continuous Supervision,’ in Richard M. Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933,’ Editorial Research Reports 1933, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1933): 249–67. http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/ cqresrre1933100900. Upon his death, the New York Times recorded that Richard M. Boeckel had been the Washington correspondent of the former New York Tribune in 1920. In relation to this, it noted the following: ‘During his coverage of the Senate fight over the League of Nations, he said he realized that he and his colleagues were, inadequately informed about the post-World War I questions then facing the nation. He believed that more background material made available to the editors would facilitate a quick grasp of the essentials. To accomplish this, Mr. Boeckel and two other Washington correspondents…founded the former Editorial Research Reports Service in 1923.’ ‘Richard M. Boeckel, Editor in Capital,’ New York Times, November 17, 1975.

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security.24 Disquieting rumours continued to plague the conference prominent among these being the rumour that Italy wanted the conference wound up and planned to have it replaced with a ‘directorate’ composed of the four greatest European powers, namely, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Indeed, Mussolini had raised the prospect of such a directorate in a speech delivered at Turin in the previous October.25

The Origins of the MacDonald Plan There was one glimmer of hope that the conference might not be doomed after all: the British Foreign Office announced on the afternoon of 3 March that ‘[d]eeply impressed with the necessity of giving all possible assistance to enable the Conference to reach early decisions, the cabinet have requested the prime minister and the foreign secretary, as the heads of the United Kingdom delegation, to go out to Geneva as soon as can conveniently be arranged, and they intend to do so.’26 The background to this development concerned an understanding arrived at by Eden shortly before the opening of the conference: that the conference would fail unless Britain seized the initiative and proposed the following: [A] convention which would specify the armaments allotted to each country for it was useless to continue any longer discussing principles and referring technical problems from one committee to another when it should have been apparent that political rather than technical difficulties were obstructing progress. For German intentions to rearm led to French fears of security.27

Accordingly, it was Eden, along with Andrew Cadogan, the British delegation’s principal advisor, who was responsible for the British proposal that the Bureau of the conference draft a convention based on a synthesis of elements of the various projects submitted to it.28 On 22 and 24 24 Boeckel, ‘Principles in Agreement and Chief Points at Issue,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933’. See also Trommer, ‘MacDonald in Geneva in March 1933,’ 297. 25 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 107; Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 66; and Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 72. 26 Sir J. Simon to His Majesty’s Representatives at Berlin, Paris, Rome, Washington, DC: Foreign Office, 3 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 499. See also ‘Disarmament: Progress of Conference: Fears of Breakdown,’ Sydney Morning Herald, March 6, 1933. 27 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 172–3. 28 Ibid., 173.

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February, Eden wrote to Baldwin and Simon respectively, suggesting that the only hope of rescuing the conference lay with the British delegation offering to it a detailed draft convention.29 Eden communicated to Simon the following: There seems to me to be only one course left to us which might save the Conference and would at least, whatever the consequences of failure, mark plainly to the world that we have done our utmost to achieve success. When, as I fear is inevitable in the course of the next ten days, it becomes clear that the Conference can make no more progress, if we were in a position to lay before the Conference a complete convention, it is just possible that it would be accepted. Anyway, in this trend of thought Cadogan and I and [Sir William] Malkin are going to try and do some work upon such a convention this weekend. There is a good deal of material and we think we could draw up something presentable and something which will mean more to disarmament than the French Plan.30

In Geneva on the weekend of 25 and 26 February, Eden and Cadogan, assisted by General Arthur Temperley and Malkin, military and legal advisers respectively, drafted a convention ‘with serious disarmament’ which Eden hoped ‘might bind Germany.’31 On 2 March, Eden and Cadogan departed for London in order to present the convention to MacDonald and Simon with a view to having MacDonald present the plan in person in Geneva.32 By 3 March, the British cabinet had before it a full report of the present position at the Disarmament Conference prepared by Eden. Deeply apprehensive about the prospect of the breakdown of the conference and the consequent ‘dangerous and unregulated armaments race that will ensue from the intention of Germany to rearm,’ cabinet endorsed the draft convention, advising MacDonald and Simon that they could ‘make use of the plan “as they saw fit”.’33 29 Ibid. and Trommer, ‘MacDonald in Geneva in March 1933,’ 299n. 30 Anthony Eden to John Simon, 24 February 1933, quoted in Anthony Eden, The Eden

Memoirs: Facing the Dictators (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), 36. 31 Ibid., 38. See also Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 173 and Trommer, ‘MacDonald in Geneva in March 1933,’ 299. 32 Trommer, ‘MacDonald in Geneva in March 1933,’ 299, and Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 173. 33 Sydney Morning Herald, March 6, 1933, and Trommer, ‘MacDonald in Geneva in March 1933,’ 299. See also Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 173.

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MacDonald and Simon Visit Paris The two men departed for Geneva on 9 March, visiting Paris en route for discussions with the French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, and his foreign minister Paul-Boncour. These discussions, which took place on the morning of 10 March, addressed firstly, the subject of the WEC and MacDonald’s proposed visit to Washington in connection with that conference and, secondly, the general situation in Geneva. In relation to the latter subject, MacDonald stated that what disturbed him was not so much what chance there was, with the existing political and military background, that the Disarmament Conference could do something to satisfy either the French or us (or, indeed, anyone else). Had the French thought over that question apart from the committee work? The setting of the stage disturbed him. Did they think they could get anything fairly satisfactory out of Geneva now; did they know how to get it, or, failing that, how to save the situation without bringing the conference to an end damaging to the League of Nations?34

In response, Paul-Boncour stated that the French had proposed a plan which would bring about most satisfactory results, but this had been met by constant opposition from Germany and Italy and thus any agreement would provide for ‘much less than had been hoped for,’ this last point being immediately assented to by MacDonald. Simon then asked Paul-Boncour if he could give some indication of the nature of the more restricted agreement he now envisaged, to which Daladier responded that the situation had become much graver in the last few days and that [g]reat anxiety and nervousness had resulted, especially in the north and north-east of France, as well as in Parliament. Since yesterday they had been faced by a definite violation of agreements, since Germany had added, as auxiliary policy, the very numerous storm detachments of the Nazis and Stahlhelm, who carried weapons. Thus yesterday, barracks at Kehl, near Strasbourg, were suddenly occupied by important Hitlerite forces, and Germany had announced that she intended doing the same everywhere else. They also knew that the German Air Minister, Captain Göring, was organising a real military air force, without taking any account of the treaty clauses forbid-

34 Record of a Meeting in Paris Between British and French Ministers, March 10, 1933, 10:30 a.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 502.

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ding this…. They were running the risk of finding themselves faced by a sudden increase in the German forces and armaments, in violation even of the Locarno Agreements. The task for the French Government was thus rendered very difficult. He said that in no spirit of discouragement; for they remained profoundly attached to peace; they must, however, consider this new development.35

Daladier told the Britons that in terms of permanent effectives, Germany now had superiority over France. He acknowledged that France had a certain measure of superiority in terms of war material, but asked how, given the changed circumstances since Hitler came to power, France could be made to feel secure enough such that she would be prepared to ‘renounce their slight superiority?’36 Paul-Boncour suggested that if Great Britain were to intervene in relation to Italy through bringing pressure to bear on Mussolini to choose between Germany, on the one hand, and France, Great Britain, and America, on the other, this would have a great effect: he was convinced that Mussolini would not hesitate to choose to side with the latter three powers. MacDonald, however, responded that such a move ‘might precipitate our dangers,’ by which he seemed to mean that it might have the opposite of its intended effect: it might serve to drive Mussolini further into Hitler’s camp. MacDonald stated that he preferred not to discuss the move suggested by Paul-Boncour at present, adding that he was ‘much concerned by the situation, but they must not lose their heads.’37 MacDonald asked Paul-Boncour, who had only recently left Geneva, what was the current view of the conference bureau on the immediate future of the conference. Paul-Boncour responded that there were no definite views, as the French plan was still under discussion, adding, however, that the ‘hostility of Germany and Italy towards the pact of mutual assistance…had now created a feeling that it was not possible to reach a conclu-

35 Ibid., 502–3. 36 Ibid., 503. 37 Ibid., 504. Aage Trommer notes in relation to these discussions the following: ‘It seems to stand out clearly that MacDonald would not in any way obligate himself to the French. He did not react positively to their complaints about Germany. He would not call Mussolini to order, since this would presumably be the same as throwing Italy into the arms of Germany. He did not join the French in praising Western solidarity.’ Trommer, ‘MacDonald in Geneva in March 1933,’ 298. See also Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 175–6.

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sion on that basis’ and that ‘[o]pinion in Geneva was now asking by what means the conference could be saved.’38 MacDonald then stated that the only thing that could be done would be to proceed that evening to Geneva and then consult separately with the chief delegates of the more important delegations, such as he noted, Aloisi, in order to ascertain their views of how to best to bring the conference ‘to an end,’ adding in relation to this that it was not his intention to call a ‘conference within a conference,’ that is, a ‘four, five or six-Power conference.’39 It should be pointed out that on 8 March Simon saw Dino Grandi, the Italian ambassador in London, whereupon the latter, who had just returned from Rome, informed the former of Mussolini’s concerns about AngloFrench cooperation and the fact that the Duce had cited this as justification for closer collaboration between the Fascist and Nazi governments. Grandi told Simon he had done his best to allay Mussolini’s suspicions and had warned Mussolini that there were signs that opinion in Britain was less sympathetic to Germany than it had been. Grandi indicated to Simon that in his view, Italo-German collaboration would not in the end be beneficial for Italy as it ‘would involve the acceptance of the “Anschluss,” which had hitherto not been regarded as favourable to Italian interests,’ although he also indicated that Mussolini ‘had no qualms about the new orientation of Italian policy.’40 In relation to the latter point, it is also worth pointing out that a telegram sent to the British government on 15 March reported that according to the French ambassador in Berlin, Mussolini no longer objected to the Anschluss, although in a telegram sent on 16 March, the British ambassador at Rome declared that the Italian government had in no way changed their attitude of opposition to it.41 Simon told Grandi at their meeting that he

38 Record of a Meeting in Paris between British and French Ministers, 10 March 1933,

10:30 a.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 504–5. 39 Ibid., 505. 40 Sir J. Simon to Sir R. Graham (Rome), 8 March 1933, in E. L. Woodward and Rohan

Butler, eds., in Documents on British Foreign Policy [hereafter DBFP ] 1919–1939, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 1933 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1950), 57–8. 41 The telegram sent to the British government on 15 March concerning Mussolini’s apparent change of view in respect to the Anschluss also ‘reported that the French ambassador in Berlin believed the “Anschluss” to be imminent.’ Sir H. Rumbold (Berlin) to Sir J. Simon (Geneva), 16 March 1933, 2:30 p.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 59n. See also Sir R. Graham

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thought he was correct in his interpretation of British opinion, adding that it would be a matter of regret if Anglo-American ‘feeling found itself running counter to Italy’s attitude.’42 Simon then stated that Britain’s cordial relations with France should not be seen as indicating a ‘special association’ or as justification for ‘any suspicion of coldness towards Italy.’43 To the contrary, Simon stated, it was the desire of the British government to see relations between Britain and Italy flourish and to this end he urged the Italian government to do its utmost to cooperate with Britain in the course of the British prime minister’s forthcoming visit to Geneva. Simon told Grandi that he and MacDonald were not going to Geneva with ‘any cut-and-dried’ plan, however, he added that they ‘were convinced that the peaceful progress of Europe depended on the close co-operation between all the leading States,’ and that they ‘were going to do…[their]…utmost to promote it.’44 In the course of the meeting with the French ministers in Paris and in relation to the question of bringing the conference to an end, MacDonald proposed adjournment or some similar procedure, advising that at this stage ‘to attempt a great plan was out of the question.’45 This advice would seem to suggest that MacDonald had grown doubtful of the utility of the draft convention, the existence of which the Britons made no mention to their French counterparts during their meeting with them in Paris.46 Daladier repeated the point that the strength of German forces under the Hitler government was now considerably greater than that of French army a part of which, he observed, was located in French colonies. Asked by MacDonald if the French ministers wished to raise any other point, Daladier stated that the only way of ‘stopping the race to ruin now in progress was the manifestation of Franco-British solidarity.’47 MacDonald, who did not appear to wish to discuss in this context the German violations or demonstrations of

(Rome) to Sir R. Vansittart (received 16 March, 5:30 p.m.), 16 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 60. 42 Sir J. Simon to Sir R. Graham (Rome), 8 March 1933, in DBFP, 57. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Record of a Meeting in Paris Between British and French Ministers, 10 March 1933,

10:30 a.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 505. 46 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 175. 47 Ibid.

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Franco-British solidarity, urged Daladier to personally represent his country in Geneva. MacDonald expressed the view that if other countries were represented by their prime minister whereas Germany remained represented by a delegate who had no authority at all, ‘this would have a great effect on public opinion’: it would prove to the world that ‘if Germany had any grievances it was her own fault that she did not bring them to Geneva to discuss them.’48 Having advised Daladier that it was important to ‘avoid arousing too great expectations’ as to the outcome of their visit to Geneva, MacDonald pointed out that he had decided to go there himself in order to make it abundantly clear that should the conference fail, ‘His Majesty’s Government did all they could up to the very end to make it successful.’49

Conversations in Geneva: 11 March MacDonald and Simon arrived in Geneva the following day and immediately began to confer with the leaders of the more important delegations who presented themselves at their hotel.50 Among these chief delegates was Bourquin, a respected member of the Bureau of the Disarmament Conference and its rapporteur on the question of the supervisory role of the mooted Permanent Disarmament Commission.51 On the morning of 11 March, MacDonald, Simon and Eden were told by Bourquin that it seemed to him that the only hope of disarmament lay in the ‘progressive abolition of the Reichswehr and the standardisation of continental armies, and the progressive reduction of material on the French side’ and that these ‘objectives must be realised by approximately similar stages.’52 Bourquin stated that naval questions would have to be put aside as no progress could 48 Ibid., 505–6. 49 Ibid. 50 Trommer, ‘MacDonald in Geneva in March 1933,’ 298–9, and Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 175. 51 LON, Records of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, C ser.,

Minutes of the Bureau of the Conference, vol. 1, 13–8. A member of the Bureau of the Conference, the Belgian delegate Maurice Bourquin, was appointed rapporteur on the question of supervision at its sixteenth meeting (public) with the strong support of Madariaga, the Swiss member, namely, Giuseppe Motta and Paul-Boncour. 52 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, Mr. Eden, and M. Bourquin, 11 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 511. Note that in an explanatory note concerning the conversation between MacDonald, Simon, Eden and Bourquin of 11 March 1933, Bourquin is mistakenly identified as a French delegate.

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be made in that area in light of current conditions in the Far East. In regard to the air, Bourquin stated that he did not think that the ‘suppression of military aviation possible in present conditions, as the internationalisation of civil aviation and the creation of an international policy force could not be achieved.’53 On being questioned by MacDonald as to whether they should aim at an adjournment of the conference on the basis of a provisional agreement or whether that would see the withdrawal of Germany, Bourquin responded that in his view a ‘pure and simple’ adjournment would mean failure but that if an agreement on principles could be reached, then ‘the Permanent Disarmament Commission, or a sub-committee could deal with the details.’54 The three Britons then met with Aloisi, whereupon MacDonald told the Italian that he ‘would like to see the Conference wound up by Easter, but that he thought that a mere adjournment would be a confession of failure.’55 At a minimum, MacDonald stated, what was required was a declaration in favour of German equality being realised in stages and the establishment of a Permanent Disarmament Commission. In response, Aloisi noted that Italy’s hands were untied in the matter and that it was not bound by any agreements, however, he added the German and Italian interests were similar in certain respects. In stating this Aloisi was alluding to the shared interest of Germany and Italy in a revision of the post-war international order, although he was quick to insist that Italy ‘would press her demands with the framework of the League of Nations and had no thought of any policy of violence.’56 Aloisi observed that what was key at present was a lowering of the political temperature, adding that to this end the conference might ‘suspend its consideration of vital questions’ and instead focus on minor questions.57 In the meantime, he added, the vital questions could be addressed through direct conversations between the chanceries, in the hope that an agreement could be reached before they were once again taken up by the conference.58

53 Ibid. 54 Ibid., 512. 55 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, Mr. Eden,

and Baron Aloisi, 11 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 512. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid., 512.

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In regard to the American view, Hugh R. Wilson, the American minister to Switzerland, told the British delegates that anything was to be preferred to a collapse of the conference as this would see Germany denounce Part V of the Treaty of Versailles. Wilson stated that the only way to keep the conference afloat was to reach an agreement which would free Germany from the strictures of Versailles after a certain number of years.59 The conversation, with Wilson taking the lead, then went as follows: A few months ago, the Germans professed willingness to accept such a solution, if the period had been something like three to five years, but he [Wilson] had never found a Frenchman who considered such a solution acceptable even for a moment. Mr. MacDonald wondered whether such a solution would any longer be acceptable even to Germany. The question now was whether we could get a declaration which the French would sign which would go far enough to keep Germany in the Conference. Mr. Wilson said that we had been talking disarmament for some seven years, and we had never been able to extract from the French in plain figures what measure of disarmament they would be prepared to agree to if their security demands were accepted. Until there was some definite offer from the French side, the United States Government at any rate could not consider how far it might be prepared to go in questions like security. Mr. MacDonald thought we must stick to the principle of equality for Germany, but it would have to be reached gradually, and there would have to be a certain lapse of time for Europe to get used to the idea of an armed Germany.60

In his conversation with Nadolny, MacDonald asked the German delegate his view of the state of the conference, to which he believed that the conference was being stymied by French security demands, in particular, the French demand for a pact of mutual assistance and the standardisation of continental armies. Continuing in this vein, Nadolny expressed incomprehension in relation to the French demands for further security, observing that ‘the obligation not to resort to force, which, with the Pact of Paris, the Covenant and the Treaties of Locarno, should give France full

59 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, Mr. Eden, and Mr. Hugh Wilson, 11 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 513. For Hugh R. Wison, see Patch, ‘The Position of the United States at the Conference,’ in Patch, ‘World Disarmament Conference of 1932’. 60 Ibid., 513–4.

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satisfaction.’61 In regard to the demand for the standardisation of armies, he observed that his government felt that such a policy was targeted at them. Nadolny noted that the ‘small but loyal and efficient army allowed them by the Treaty of Versailles…was the only really stable element in the country,’ adding that ‘if they had to transform this into a short-term service force, they would have to introduce into it undesirable elements, and thereby lessen its efficiency as an instrument for the preservation of [internal] order.’62 Nadolny complained to MacDonald that the French kept issuing fresh demands and that in doing so they were seeking to obscure the key issue which was real disarmament.63 On being asked by MacDonald how far Germany could meet French demands in order to reach an agreement, Nadolny stated that as he was not a member of the government he could not speak in its name, however, he added that he could say that it was his government’s view that a restricted agreement or adjournment would amount to failure and that the only acceptable outcome was disarmament on a basis of equality: ‘security for all States alike.’64 Towards the end of the conversation MacDonald ‘begged’ Nadolny to see whether Neurath, being a member of the government and therefore better able to speak in its name, could come to Geneva if only for one or two days.65 In this context, MacDonald observed that Nadolny himself would understand that ‘certain events in Germany,’ an expression which, MacDonald stated, did not refer to the change in regime, had had ‘an effect on the mentality of other countries,’ their ‘uneasiness’ in relation to these events ‘inevitably…[placing]…an obstacle in the way of securing a full measure of disarmament.’66 When Politis came to see Simon on the morning of the 11 March, Simon told Politis that the British delegates had been sounding out the opinions of a number of delegations whereupon he invited Politis to convey his point of view. Politis was eager to prevent the conference from collapsing.

61 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, Mr. Eden, and Herr Nadolny, 11 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 515–6. 62 Ibid., 516. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid., 516–7.

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He stated that preventing this outcome would require sacrifices all round, ‘difficult though this would be for French public opinion.’67 Simon was struck by this last observation as up until then, Politis had adopted the official French line that Germany must first make clear what it was prepared to do in respect to security before France would make concessions in respect to disarmament. Politis said nothing of this in his meeting with Simon, which Eden interpreted as a reflection of a shift in the French position: the French were increasingly realising they had to offer more given the ‘alarming consequences of standing pat.’68 Politis urged the United Kingdom to break the deadlock through telling the conference what it considered a ‘just compromise’ between the German and French positions.69 Simon responded that the compromise the United Kingdom would propose could be considered valuable from two angles. On the one hand, should such a compromise succeed and should Germany sign an agreement as a result, then she would ‘not be free to do what she liked for some years to come.’70 On the other hand, even if Germany should refuse to accept a compromise, its formulation would still be valuable as world opinion would be inclined to side with those who offered concessions, thereby preventing ‘the exploitation of public opinion in Germany’s favour.’71 Simon then ‘warned…[Politis]…that there had been for a long time a section of British public opinion which felt that efforts to meet Germany’s claim for equality had been too long delayed, and, although it was no doubt true that recent events in Germany had caused this section of public opinion to look askance at Germany’s proceedings, it was still very necessary to do all that we could to consolidate world opinion in favour of those who were really trying to get a positive result.’72 Nadolny’s view of the state of the conference was not shared by MacDonald who considered the German refusal to accede to any of the French security demands in conjunction with German rearmament as the real obstacles to progress. In a conversation with Gibson, he noted that ‘re-

67 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Sir J. Simon and M. Politis, 11 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 517. 68 Ibid., 518. 69 Ibid., 517. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid., 517–8. 72 Ibid., 518.

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sponsible people in Germany were indulging in irresponsible talk of an alarming nature.’73 He pointed to a speech at Essen on 11 March in which Hermann Göring, as the new air minister, had derided the Treaty of Versailles and the Disarmament Conference and had announced that ‘the time had come to restore Germany to her place in the air’ and that ‘[a]ll attempts at Geneva to destroy the German Air Force just as it had begun to recover would shattered against her resistance.’74

Conversations in Geneva: 13 March Göring’s speech was the topic of conversation between MacDonald, Simon and Edvard Beneš on 13 March, which commenced with Beneš agreeing with MacDonald that Germany had already begun to rearm. He added that he had obtained information from Berlin that the German government ‘had been, and still were, “trying it on” and waiting to know the reactions in Paris and more particularly in London.’75 MacDonald’s response to this was to warn that London ‘could not pull chestnuts out of the fire for others.’76 Beneš observed that Germany had not hitherto rearmed in ‘so obvious a manner,’ to which Simon responded that there were two distinct issues: first, ‘the decree by which storm detachments were being included in the police’ and second, Göring’s speech about military aviation.77 Beneš stated that ‘his information was that non-commissioned officers…were being trained as pilots,’ adding that ‘[h]is countrymen considered this the most dangerous of present developments.’ Prague, he then observed, was ‘only 60 kilometres from the frontier.’78 MacDonald responded that London was in a similar position ‘with an advantage of perhaps ten minutes.’79 Later in the conservation, Beneš told MacDonald that he thought it should be made clear to all countries that Germany had commenced rearmament ‘before the Disarmament Conference had come to a close,’ adding

73 Hugh L. Gibson, 1933, quoted in Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 177. 74 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon and M. Beneš, 13 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 520n. 75 Ibid., 520. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid.

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that he nonetheless favoured ‘proceeding by every possible constitutional method.’80 MacDonald fully agreed with position, stating that it would be counterproductive to rush into alliances and made Germany ‘feel that she was being threatened.’81 Reinforcing this last point he observed that it was the attitude adopted by the French when Tardieu was premier one year earlier that had ‘blocked things’: Tardieu ‘had discontinued the negotiations under way which included Brüning.’82 At this point Beneš, who had declared that he wanted to see the conference concluded ‘very rapidly as he feared developments in Germany,’ pointed out that in a memorandum he had given to Herriot immediately after Herriot had formed his government, he had urged him ‘to agree to concede equality to Germany.’83 On 13 March, MacDonald and Simon met with Paul-Boncour whereupon they told the French delegate that the general feeling was that something needed to be done to prevent the conference failing. The two Britons suggested in this regard that what was needed was some kind of proposal that ‘would not ask France too much and would not drive Germany away from Geneva.’84 Paul-Boncour responded that in light of the German and Italian opposition to the French demands for the organisation of security and the standardisation of armies, France could only consider reductions that were much more modest than it had been willing to consider had those demands been accepted. Even so, he added, France could not give an estimate of what reductions it might be able to make until France had certainty as to what level of German armaments had actually been reached. In this regard, Paul-Bonour noted that for some time, but ‘with increasing intensity during the past few weeks,’ Germany had been ‘increasing her forces by the incorporation of irregular bodies.’ Paul-Boncour then declared that the conference could only reach a satisfactory conclusion if France obtained guarantees against German rearmament. On being asked by Simon whether Germany signing a convention would serve as such a guarantee, Paul-Boncour responded that Germany had signed the Treaty of Versailles but was now in the process of dishonouring its signature. He

80 Ibid. 81 Ibid., 521 Emphasis in the original. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. 84 Record of a Conversation at Geneva Between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and M. Paul-Boncour, 13 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 522.

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added that any such convention ‘would have to contain effective provisions for supervision with some kind of safeguarding clause,’ a point with which MacDonald agreed, and reiterated his deep scepticism about the worth of a German signature.85 Simon stated that Paul-Boncour’s scepticism was justified in that a German signature would not provide a complete guarantee. However, he also stated the following: [T]he immediate question was whether the Conference was to adjourn and disappear or whether there was anything that could be done to produce a favourable result…. [W]as not the real choice between drifting towards the break-up of the Conference, together with a declaration by Germany that she considered herself justified in rearming, and the production of a situation in which either Germany would be inducted to sign a convention, or her refusal to do so, would convince public opinion that Germany was in the wrong?86

MacDonald also weighed in on this score, advising Paul-Boncour that should the conference breakup Germany would claim to be morally free from its obligations. He observed in this regard that Germany would be able to ‘make out a good case’ and would obtain ‘a considerable measure of sympathy,’ adding the warning that Germany would proceed to rearm as rapidly as possible and that the result would be another European war.87 Paul-Boncour agreed with the Britons on the question of proposing a convention and that it was important, should such a convention fail, that Germany ‘could be shown to be responsible for the failure’; at the same time, he ‘protested against the idea that any one country, by the infraction of treaties, could blackmail the others into making all the sacrifices’ and emphasised that the state of mind in France was that it was Germany’s intention to rearm.88

The Prospect of a Four-Power Conference On the following day, Aloisi informed MacDonald and Simon that Berlin had cabled to Nadolny that morning that in light of the serious difficul85 Ibid., 522–3. 86 Ibid., 523. 87 Ibid., 524. 88 Ibid., 523–4.

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ties faced by the Disarmament Conference, the German government was willing to allow that certain of the political problems besetting the conference might be considered outside that conference, albeit without being removed altogether from its purview.89 This cable was sent in light of a meeting between MacDonald, Simon and Aloisi on 12 March, the central thrust of which Aloisi undertook to convey to Nadolny. At this meeting, MacDonald proposed to Aloisi as an alternative to the suggestion made by the latter on the previous day, that ‘some Power…make itself responsible for a proposal that all that had been agreed to up to date in the conference should be embodied in a document, which would include a settlement of other points as well.’90 MacDonald observed that if such a proposal were made, ‘it might be that the President of the Conference might suggest that this presented such important considerations that the Conference itself might adjourn to enable Governments to reflect upon it and exchange views.’91 This, he added, ‘would pave the way for the procedure which Baron Aloisi had contemplated of direct exchange of views between Governments.’92 The direct exchange to which MacDonald referred concerned only the great power members of the LON. However, MacDonald knew he had to tread carefully in this regard: he was mindful of the inclination of the lesser powers to resent great power discussions within the framework of the conference, as exemplified by the distaste with which most of the lesser powers viewed the nine-day ‘conclave in a hotel of “the big Five”’ which produced

89 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and Baron Aloisi, 14 March 1933, 5 p.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 526. 90 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and Baron Aloisi, 12 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 518. 91 Ibid. Toynbee observed that when in Geneva, MacDonald ‘seems to have let it be known that he would welcome an invitation from Signor Mussolini to travel on to Rome before returning to London In making this overture, Mr. MacDonald may have looked forward to expediting a solution of the disarmament problem by discussing à deus with the Duce. If this idea were in the British Prime Minister’s mind, it did not come to fruition; and we may conjecture that it was not agreeable to the Duce—concerned though he was over the disarmament problem—to deal with it in exactly this way. On the other hand, he evidently appreciated the friendliness of Mr. MacDonald’s gesture, and he promptly took the opportunity of broaching his own project.’ See also Arnold Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs 1933 (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1934), 210. 92 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and Baron Aloisi, 12 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 518.

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the declaration on equality.93 It was because of lesser power sensitivities, that MacDonald emphasised that great power consultations should take place during a period of adjournment and on their own initiative. Should these powers be able to reach an agreement on political problems, MacDonald stated in concluding the conversation, then when the conference recommenced there would be ‘a better prospect that…a satisfactory result could be achieved.’94 In the course of the first of two conversations between MacDonald, Simon and Aloisi on 14 March, Aloisi told the Britons that the cable from Berlin had ‘confirmed his view that failure was certain if…political questions continued to be handled by the Conference’; he commended to the Britons the view expressed in Mussolini’s speech at Turin, namely, that these questions were ‘fundamental and not a two but a four Power matter.’95 MacDonald and Simon agreed with this understanding of Mussolini’s speech, asking Aloisi at the same time what were ‘the political problems for examination outside the Conference.’ In his response, Aloisi mentioned equality, the Disarmament Conference itself, security and political questions, at which point Simon asked a question to which he already knew the answer: whether political questions ‘meant revising the boundaries set by the [peace] treaties.’96 Simon knew the answer to this question as a result of a communication which reached him on 8 March from the British ambassador in Rome, namely, Sir Ronald Graham. Therein Graham recorded that the French ambassador in Rome, Henry de Jouvenel, had told him of a conversation that he had had with Mussolini on 2 March, during which the Duce had indicated that he was ‘less interested in a limited Franco-Italian negotiation than in a wider negotiation between the Great Powers for a general settlement of European problems.’97 Mussolini gave some indication of 93 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 106. See also Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and Baron Aloisi, 12 March 1933, DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 519. 94 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and Baron Aloisi, 12 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 518. 95 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and Baron Aloisi, 14 March 1933, 5 p.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 527. 96 Ibid., 528. 97 Sir R, Graham (Rome) to Sir J. Simon (received 8 March), 4 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd

ser., vol. 5, 56.

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the form such a settlement might take in declaring early in the conversation with Jouvenel that the Polish Corridor was ‘one of the most pressing and dangerous questions to be got out of the way.’ Mussolini suggested that ‘the town of Danzig and a strip of coastline not deeper than 10 or 15 kilometres should be surrendered to Germany so as to permit free communication with East Prussia.’98 Asked by Jouvenel whether when he ‘spoke of revision of treaties, he had anything definite in mind for Hungary,’ Mussolini replied ‘that he thought the purely Magyar portions of Hungary, taken away from her, ought to be given back.’99 It should be noted that this conversation was referred to by Grandi in his meeting with Simon on 8 March and it should also be noted that, according to Trommer, in the context of this meeting Grandi took ‘note of one of Simon’s remarks that the British government had to oppose revisionist plans which involved the use of force.’100 Avoiding answering Simon’s question directly, Aloisi stated that he had ‘rather in mind the method of approaching such revision,’ adding that he had explained his idea to Paul-Boncour and had told him it was not directed against France. Stating that he believed Paul-Boncour was ‘impressed by… [the]… possibilities’ held out by his idea, Aloisi told the Britons that he had mentioned to the Frenchman that if France wanted to get the minimum, let the four Governments meet, and that if wanted something of real significance he would have to concede equality. He had said it was now the Great Powers who were confronted by danger in Europe, and therefore France must not insist on bringing the small Powers into all these questions. M. Paul-Boncour had not dissented. If the big questions were treated between the Chanceries by the diplomatic method it would, in fact, be the four Powers who took the decisions.101

Earlier in the conversation, Aloisi had suggested that in view of the mooted four-power exchange, MacDonald should leave the conference in order to meet with Mussolini. Aloisi stated that it was his understanding that Graham had already ‘broached the possibility’ of a meeting with Mus98 Ibid. 99 Ibid., 56–7. 100 Trommer, ‘MacDonald in Geneva,’ 301. 101 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and Baron

Aloisi, 14 March 1933, 5 p.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 528.

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solini and that his belief was that the Duce would only be available after 18 March. MacDonald replied that he would be ‘delighted to have an opportunity of a talk with Signor Mussolini and expected to find a great similarity in their ideas; both wished to bring the parties together not to separate them.’102 In the course of the conversation both MacDonald and Simon raised the question of how to bring the French within the scope of the discussions; they called attention to Paul-Boncour’s ‘aversion before they left London’ to four-power conversations and wondered in this connection whether Daladier ‘would be strong enough now to agree to them.’103 MacDonald pointed out that inevitably there would be an outcry in the French press in response to his calling upon Mussolini, telling Aloisi that the reason why Paul-Boncour was not present at the conversation then taking place at the Beau-Rivage was because ‘experience had taught him to hesitate as anything said to M. Paul-Boncour appeared in the newspapers,’ a point with which Aloisi concurred.104 MacDonald observed that the first step to take was that of getting Daladier to Geneva and telling him ‘frankly’ about the meeting that he intended to have with Mussolini. France, he added, had to be persuaded that the purpose of the meeting was peace in Europe.105 Towards the end of the conversation, Eden arrived with a telegram from Rome indicating Mussolini’s wish to receive the British ministers in Italy, preferably in Rome. Against this background, Simon stated in the course of a second conversation with the Italian minister on 14 March which took place shortly after the first, that he and MacDonald felt that they could not go to Rome without making a positive contribution to the work in Geneva: British public opinion would not understand why they had left the conference for Rome and critics might accuse them of seeking respite ‘from the difficulties of Geneva.’ At this point, Simon, raised the prospect of MacDonald delivering a speech at the conference on Thursday, that is, on 16 March. He suggested that in the speech which the prime minister would summarise those areas on which their had been agreement at the conference, outline a series of possible compromises in relation to contested 102 Ibid., 527–9. See also Sir R. Graham (Rome) to Sir R. Vansittart (received 29 March), 21 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 80. 103 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and Baron

Aloisi, 14 March 1933, 5 p.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 528–9. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid., 528.

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areas in respect to land, air and naval armaments, refer to the need to closely examine the political problems giving rise to the present troubles and possibly also refer to his forthcoming visit to Rome.106 Simon suggested to Aloisi that if MacDonald spoke on Thursday, then arrangements might be made for MacDonald and himself to travel to Rome on Friday evening. In response to Aloisi’s question ‘as to the prospect of further speeches and arguments,’ Simon outlined a tentative plan whereby arrangements would be made for MacDonald to speak in the morning of 16 March. Simon noted that as ‘[a]ny document could only be distributed after the speech,’ the conference might be willing to adjourn discussion of it in order that delegates might study the British proposals. Simon observed that the period of adjournment might be a matter of days or even weeks. Aloisi’s response was that given Germany’s attitude the matter of adjournment had to be handled carefully: if the conference appeared to have been brought to an indefinite end, then Germany would cite this as a basis for accelerating its rearmament programme.107

Daladier in Geneva On 14 March at 7:30 p.m., following the conclusion of their meeting with Aloisi, MacDonald and Simon met again with Paul-Boncour, whereupon MacDonald, having acknowledged that the French government was not entirely happy with the British attitude, sought to impress upon the Frenchman that the sole British aim was to establish conditions of peace. Having stated that there can be ‘no security without peace,’ MacDonald declared that it was essential to improve relations between France, Germany, Italy and Great Britain.108 MacDonald informed Paul-Boncour of the planned visit to Rome, stating that Mussolini wished to discuss the general political situation and how relations might be improved and that he hoped to be able to have a con-

106 Ibid., 530, and Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and Baron Aloisi, 14 March 1933, 7 p.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 530–1. 107 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and Baron Aloisi, 14 March 1933, 7 p.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 531–2. 108 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and M. Paul-Boncour, 14 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 532–3. See also Trommer, ‘MacDonald in Geneva in March 1933,’ 307.

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ference with Paul-Boncour and Daladier before he left for Italy.109 Having been informed that MacDonald wished to explain to him and Paul-Boncour what the British prime minister intended to submit to the General Commission, the nature of which MacDonald had given a hint to Paul-Boncour on 13 March, Daladier finally agreed to come to Geneva. At 10:30 a.m. on 16 March, he and Paul-Boncour met with Eden, MacDonald and Simon, just under twenty-four hours after Simon had confirmed in response to a query by Paul-Boncour, that the rumours that MacDonald was to address the General Commission on 16 March were indeed true.110 At the meeting of the morning of 16 March, MacDonald explained that an important reason for his visit to Rome was the desire to establish what was the position as between Italy and Germany. He told the French ministers that he was convinced that Italy was as opposed to German rearmament as Britain and France. Following an indication by Daladier that he doubted that this was the actual Italian position, MacDonald stated that he was, in any case, ‘determined to do what might be possible to establish cooperation’ between France, Italy and Great Britain.111 By way of explaining his intentions in regard to disarmament, MacDonald read an aide-mémoire to Daladier which commenced by stating that the British government felt that

109 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and M. Paul-Boncour, 14 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 533–4. 110 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and M. Paul-Boncour, 13 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 525; Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Sir J. Simon and M. Paul-Boncour, 15 March 1933, 11:30 a.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 535; and Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, Mr. Eden, M. Daladier, and M. Paul-Boncour, 16 March 1933 (morning), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 539. On 14 March, MacDonald sent a message to the British ambassador at Paris, informing him that he had hinted to Paul-Boncour that the British delegation intended to ‘bring forward a draft convention in Conference.’ He added that he would like to give the French delegation a ‘clearer idea’ of what he intended and ‘even perhaps a summary of contents of convention.’ Could Daladier and ‘if possible M. Cot,’ he asked, ‘leave Paris tonight?’ Mr. Patteson (Geneva) to Lord Tyrrell (Paris), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 526. See also Lord Tyrrell (Paris) to Sir R. Vansittart (received 15 March), and Lord Tyrrell (Paris) to Sir J. Simon, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 534–5. 111 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, Mr. Eden, M. Daladier, and M. Paul-Boncour, 16 March 1933 (morning), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 539–40.

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the practical choice at Geneva is between—(a) Failing to reach any agreement at all, with the result that Germany will claim to be free to rearm to any extent she likes. She will, in that case, assert that she has not got equality of rights from the conference and is morally justified in putting it into force without any convention. (b) Reaching, or at any rate offering to reach, an agreement covering the whole ground. It may be that Germany will refuse to sign it, but if the draft convention is produced and Germany refuses it, she will thereby mobilise world opinion against her…Our effort is not to be understood as seeking to impose on others, and especially on your friends in France, a cutand-dried solution. It is designed to bring the Conference face to face with the reality that we cannot go on as we are and, at the same time, to restrain Germany.112

Addressing the aide-mémoire, a copy of which MacDonald gave to him, Daladier stated that it ‘contained only very general principles and gave no indication of the British disarmament plan,’ adding that he nonetheless appreciated the effort that MacDonald was making.113 He then offered the observation that could not fully assent to the view that Germany was at present disarmed in light of its rearmament efforts of recent years in violation of the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, a subject on which, Daladier stated, the French had compiled a complete dossier. Daladier added that he feared that French public opinion would ‘resist making any sacrifices for a Germany that had not honoured her signature.’114 Although he acknowledged that a German signature was desirable in itself, he insisted that it would have to be guaranteed, which was why, he pointed out, France ‘attached the greatest importance to the organisation of international supervision.’115 As MacDonald told Daladier, the British plan provided for such supervision. However, it should be noted that the aide-mémoire indicated that the British government set greater store by a German signature on a 112 Ibid., 539, and Aide-mémoire for M. Daladier, annex to doc. no. 310, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 539 and 542. See also, Sir R. Lindsay (Washington) to Sir R. Vansittart (received 16 March, 9:30 a.m.), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 538. A copy of the aide-mémoire was handed to the American under-secretary of state on the evening of 15 March. 113 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, Mr. Eden, M. Daladier, and M. Paul-Boncour, 16 March 1933 (morning), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 540. 114 Ibid. 115 Ibid.

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disarmament convention than did its French equivalent: the British government thought the signing of such a convention would in itself have a restraining effect as it would be undertaken ‘under the limelight of the world’ and by a Germany ‘physically incapable of acting in immediate defiance of her signature.’116 On this basis, the aide-mémoire argued, the signature of Germany would serve for ‘all peace-loving nations as a security for the next five years, in the course of which we must work together for political appeasement.’117 Another point of contention concerned the British argument, as put forward in the aide-mémoire and echoed at the meeting of the morning of 16 March by Simon, that once the Reichswehr was abolished and German ‘man-power organised on short-term conscription,’ then big guns might ‘in the same proportion be reduced’ as such guns ‘were intended for resisting a highly organised invasion by a highly organised force.’118 In response to this line of argument, Daladier, having noted that recent German violations involved war material and that during the process of transition there would be a critical period in which Germany was in possession of both professional and a conscript army, observed that France’s small margin of superiority over Germany in respect to military strength was conditional on its possession of heavy material. Should France lose this superiority, he pointed out, it would expose itself to grave danger.119 MacDonald responded by arguing that if only a set of very moderate proposals regarding material were put forward, ‘no one would believe in our sincerity’ and the conference would come to an end; the latter development, he added, would be used by Germany as a pretext for expanding its armaments.120 At this point, Daladier stated that in all frankness [h]e had no fear of German attack for the next three years. During that time France could resist invasion, relying on her own strength, and she would

116 AIde-mémoire for M. Daladier, annex to doc. no. 310, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 543. 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid., 543–4, and Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, Mr. Eden, M. Daladier, and M. Paul-Boncour, 16 March 1933 (morning), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 541. 119 Record of a Conversation at Geneva between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, Mr. Eden, M. Daladier, and M. Paul-Boncour, 16 March 1933 (morning), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 540–1. 120 Ibid., 541.

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ask for no assistance from others. If, however, he [Daladier] were to enter into…[the British government’s]…ideas in regard to heavy material, the German preponderance in the matter of population would at once begin to tell. If Germany were to attempt to rearm now, France would do the same and would maintain her advantage and Germany knew that and knew that it was useless to make the attempt. If, however, France were to give up her advantage, the element of greater population in Germany would come into play.121

MacDonald acknowledged that this was a great dilemma, stressing the point that when the British plan was circulated it should not be seen as Britain’s last word on the matter. Simon then pointed out that the aidemémoire had been written in haste, noting in connection with this that it made no mention of the topic of security. He stressed that Daladier must not think that the British plan had neglected this all-important topic. The British government, Simon continued, had drafted their proposal on security with a view to bringing the United States ‘into consultation as well as providing for continental guarantees if these could be elaborated.’122 After having expressed his thanks for Simon’s observations on the question of security and after having touched on certain concerns in relation to Italy, Daladier stated that in general he approved of the Rome visit and that he sincerely hoped it would bear fruitful results. At this point, Simon suggested to Daladier that it would be ‘very helpful on the eve of their journey to Italy if some words could be said showing that France was viewing their effort with a proper understanding of its purpose, while no doubt, of course, reserving their detailed examination of the plan to a later occasion.’123 Daladier seemingly willingly agreed to this suggestion as he did to Simon’s further suggestion that Daladier might conclude his remarks in response to MacDonald’s speech ‘on the note “bon voyage”.’124

The Presentation of the MacDonald Plan On the afternoon of 16 March, MacDonald offered for the General Committee’s consideration a draft plan for disarmament, the first such to be submitted ‘in full treaty form by any power’ and which consisted of five parts 121 Ibid. 122 Ibid., 541–2. 123 Ibid., 542. 124 Ibid.

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and ninety-six articles, much of the contents of which had been contained within the aforementioned British memorandum.125 Before distributing the draft convention, MacDonald gave what one report described as a ‘stirring’ speech, during which he ‘pleaded, whispered, shouted, threatened, and banged the rostrum,’ emphasising ‘the importance of bringing the conference to a definite conclusion’ and that ‘an adjournment pure and simple would be the most heart-breaking confession of failure.’126 MacDonald pointed out that only the other day, a man whom he had always considered ‘a great servant of international peace,’ had uttered ‘very serious words: “Either Germany is given justice and freedom, or Europe will risk destruction.”’127 MacDonald noted that these words were of ‘special weight and significance’ for every delegation, but added that in depicting itself as a ‘pure receiver’ at the conference, Germany was ‘putting itself in a false position’ as there must be contributions to the disarmament on both sides. MacDonald stated that the armed nations must be prepared to make sacrifices while the ‘disarmed must be prepared to make their contribution in helping to establish confidence, goodwill, security, and mutual understanding.’128 Recalling the Five-Power Conference of December 1932, MacDonald stated that as its chair, he could say that the effect of the declaration issuing from this was first security, no resort to force, on account of superior potential position given by a declaration of equality, and, secondly, the reaching of equality by stages…[T]he declaration which had been devised in order to give tranquility and security to the minds of the nations of Europe and which had been made for its psychological effect, was inextricably tied up with and made part of the declaration that all the delegations were in favour of equality.129

125 Boeckel, ‘Principles in Agreement and Chief Points at Issue,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933.’ See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affair, 351; and Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 74. 126 ‘Mr. MacDonald’s Speech: A Stirring Appeal,’ Sydney Morning Herald, 18 March 1933. The final quotation is from Appendix 4: Speech by Mr. MacDonald introducing the Draft Convention submitted by the United Kingdom Delegates to the General Commission of the Disarmament Conference, 16 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 560. 127 Appendix 4: Speech by Mr. MacDonald, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 559. 128 Ibid. 129 Ibid., 560.

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The implication of the Five-Power Declaration, according to MacDonald, was that significant advances towards equality could only be made amidst conditions in which ‘confidence and trustfulness’ prevailed. MacDonald acknowledged that the British plan would not satisfy any delegation at first sight, that there were errors in it and that some delegations might find the ‘risks suggested for them were too great.’130 However, he urged that it be examined in a cooperative spirit, adding that at the appropriate time the opportunity would be given to the delegations to propose alternatives. The draft, he stated, specified ‘final conditions but assumed a transition period,’ this period having, he explained, five characteristics. These were as follows: First of all, the period was fixed; it was not indefinite; the draft suggested five years. The second characteristic was that reductions in armaments were prosed in order to prove the delegation’s bona fides to the world. The present Conference was not a rearmament conference. The third characteristic was a proposal for international control, in order to ensure that the convention signed solemnly by all the delegations at Geneva would be carried out and not shirked in any way. The fourth characteristic was the setting up of bodies like the Permanent Disarmament Commission to study further reductions and to try and get solutions for unsolved difficulties. The fifth was the affording of opportunity for political work for the purpose of restoring confidence, so that the fears with which the Conference had had to contend would be removed before its next meeting, fixed for a few years hence.131

Although there were major lacunae in the plan in that ‘no mention was made of such vital questions as the private manufacture and traffic in arms, or of budgetary limitation or of the definition of the aggressor,’ the MacDonald Plan was seen as an advance upon previous plans to the extent that it included, as MacDonald noted in his speech, precise figures in regard to effectives and aircraft, albeit as a basis for discussion.132 Part II addressed the question of effectives, proposing these be limited in line with the numbers for each state suggested in an attached table. This table (which, as a first step, only indicated figures for fifteen continental 130 Ibid., 562. 131 Ibid. 132 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 107. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 351, and Appendix 4: Speech by Mr. MacDonald, DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 562.

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European countries), combined the French suggestion for standardised armies, ‘with a period of service fixed at a maximum of eight months, with Mr. Hoover’s distinction between a “police” and a “defence” force’ and proposed the following figures ‘based on the principle of “average daily effectives”’ for France and Germany: 200,000 home forces and 200,000 overseas forces for France and 200,000 home forces and nil overseas forces for Germany.133 War material was addressed in Part II as well in the form of a proposal for qualitative limitations in respect to land guns and tanks.134 Part II also dealt with naval forces, its clauses in that regard being based upon maintenance of the status quo under the Washington and London naval treaties until their expiration at end of 1936. All questions of qualitative disarmament — size of ships and guns, and abolition of certain types of vessels — are postponed until the naval conference which is to meet in 1935. France and Italy, not having adhered to the London naval treaty of 1930, are asked to accept building programs for cruisers, destroyers, and submarines which are in harmony with that treaty up to the time of its expiration. The smaller naval powers, which are not parties to the Washington and London treaties, would be asked to undertake no new construction, except for replacement, and to build no cruisers above the 6-inch gun type. The naval clauses accord Germany equality in principle, but defer the practical application of that prin-

133 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 74–5, and Boeckel, ‘Proposed Limitations for Land Forces,’ in ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933.’ The figures for the other thirteen powers were as follows: Belgium 60,000 and 15,000; Bulgaria 60,000 and nil; Czechoslovakia 100,000 and nil; Greece 60,000 and nil; Hungary 60,000 and nil; Italy 200,000 and 50,00; Netherlands 25,000 and 50,000; Poland 200,000 and nil; Portugal 50,000 and 10,000; Romania 150,000 and nil; Yugoslavia 100,000 and nil; the Soviet Union 500,000 and nil; and Spain 120,000 and 50,000. For the period of service in the the standardised army proposed under the MacDonald Plan, see Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 179. See also Appendix 4: Speech by Mr. MacDonald, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 563. 134 Charteris noted the time that ‘land guns were to be limited to 4.5 in. calibre, but existing guns up to 6 in. might be retained. Tanks were to be limited to 16 tons maximum and all prohibited material was to destroyed.’ Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 75. See also Boeckel, ‘Reduction of Land and Naval Armaments,’ in ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933.’ One-third of these materials were to be destroyed within one year and two-thirds within three years of the coming into force of the convention.

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ciple until the end of 1936. At the naval conference of 1935 she will be able to negotiate with the other powers on a footing of equality.135

Part III of the draft plan concerned the limitations of air armaments and was the most widely criticised aspect of the plan on the grounds that the British government ‘had not declared for a bold policy with the air menace.’136 Part III recommended that military and naval of aircraft should be abolished, proposing in relation to this that the question of abolition be revisited at a new disarmament conference.137 MacDonald explained in his speech that abolition had to be made contingent on the development of effective supervision in order to prevent abuse, specifically, the exploitation of civil aircraft for military purposes, but also made it clear that his government was concerned that international control might serve to retard civil aviation: ‘the commercial and industrial interests of the various countries in the manufacture or in the use of civil aircraft must not be penalised.’138 In regard to measures that could be immediately undertaken, the plan recommended ‘the complete abolition of bombing from the air (except for police purposes in certain outlying regions),’ and a reduction in the number of fighter planes for each country to certain specified limits within the duration of the convention.139 The maximum limit recommended by the British plan for the number of airplanes in the land, sea and air forces of the major air powers, that is, for France, Italy, Japan, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, was 500, with lower numbers being recommended for the other powers, although it should be noted

135 Boeckel, ‘Reduction of Land and Naval Armaments,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933’. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 351. 136 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 107, and Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933,’ 249–67. 137 Boeckel, ‘Limitation of Air Armaments; Prohibition of Bombing,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933’; Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 75; and Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 351. 138 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 75; Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 351; Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933,’ 249– 67; and Appendix 4: Speech by Mr. MacDonald, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 564. 139 British Draft Convention (the MacDonald Plan), 1933, quoted in Boeckel, ‘Limitation of Air Armaments; Prohibition of Bombing,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933’. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 351.

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that the meaningfulness of the totals suggested under the British plan was a matter of doubt.140 Part IV of the British plan entailed the prohibition of chemical, incendiary and bacterial warfare and the preparation for such warfare, a prohibition that was to apply universally irrespective of whether a state was a party to the convention or not. Part IV provided that all governments ‘abolish their chemical warfare services and…abandon the training of officers and men in the use of chemical weapons,’ although tear gas ‘would be permitted for police purposes and there would be no interference with the development of and training in the use of gas masks and other protective devices.’141 Part V of the plan concerns the supervision of arms reductions and provided for the creation of a Permanent Disarmament Commission to which governments would appoint one member each, its tasks being the preparation of future disarmament conferences, including a second disarmament conference to prepare and conclude a new convention before the expiration of the convention submitted by MacDonald; scrutiny of the implementation of the convention; the investigation of claims concerning breaches of its provisions and the reporting to state-parties of the results of such investigations.142 The question of security was addressed in Part I of the plan wherein it was declared that any violation of the Pact of Paris was of a matter of common concern for all the parties to that treaty in that it would involve a ‘breach of obligations assumed towards each one of them.’143 Part I, which was to be accepted by all parties to the Pact of Paris, went on to provide that in the event of a violation or threatened violation of that pact, the parties would consult with each other if this were requested ‘by any five of them, including one at least of the Great Powers’ and that any decision 140 Boeckel stated that the figures recommended under the British plan were ‘largely meaningless, for the reason that each country may keep at least 25 per cent of the specified number in “immediate reserve”—and presumably others in second reserve, to be assembled in case of need.’ Boeckel, ‘Limitation of Air Armaments; Prohibition of Bombing,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933’. For the complete list of the recommended totals see ibid., 10. See also Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 75. 141 Boeckel, ‘Prohibition of Chemical, Incendiary, and Bacterial Warfare,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933’. 142 Ibid. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 51; Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 180; and Appendix 4: Speech by Mr. MacDonald, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 564. 143 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 75.

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reached by the parties at conference would only be valid if it were endorsed by all the great powers and by a majority of the other governments.144

Reactions to the Plan For France, the way security was dealt with in the convention was ‘wholly unsatisfactory.’145 There was no mention of guarantees and no mention of a continental security system as proposed by Paul-Boncour, the plan’s ‘vague hope’ in regard to security seemingly ‘resting on the U. S. A. enlarging the Kellogg Pact.’146 That the plan did not ‘provide penalties against an aggressor nation’ was one of the chief criticisms of the plan aired in the lobbies of the French Chamber of Deputies where it was the principal topic of discussion, a criticism repeated in Parisian newspapers across the board.147 The same lobbies also heard the plan criticised for taking ‘no account of the Fascist militia in Italy and the Nazi organisations in Germany’ both of which the French viewed as military formations.148 Another major cause of concern was the fact that the plan allowed Germany a short-service army of 200,000 average daily effectives. As the maximum accorded Germany under the Treaty of Versailles was 100,000, if the plan had been adopted, the Reichswehr would have doubled in size. In light of this and the fact that France was required under the plan to reduce the size of its home army to the same level as that proposed for Germany, military equality would have obtained between the two countries in respect to the strength of their home armies.149 An additional source of complaint was that the section addressing war material ‘in principle…accepted Germany’s right to parity with other countries.’150 Certainly, the plan gave nothing to Germany in respect to the air and naval domains, a point not lost on the Berlin press which received the plan ‘coolly,’ objecting that 144 Ibid, 75–6. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs 1920– 1939, 351. 145 Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933,’ 249–67. 146 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 107. See also Davies, ‘France and the World Disarma-

ment Conference,’ 76, and Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 351. 147 Sydney Morning Herald, March 18, 1933. 148 Ibid. 149 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 74–5, and Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 776. 150 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 180–1.

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there ‘no signs of German arms equality in it.’151 However, its effect was to reduce the French air force to 500 despite the fact that Germany was in possession of a large fleet of commercial aircraft which would easily be exploited for military purposes.152 As Isaac Alteras points out, despite what MacDonald stated concerning the principles underpinning the Five-Power Declaration in his speech to the conference and his insistence therein that what he proposing was an arms reduction convention, ‘it was a Convention providing for the rearmament of Germany’ (a Germany which the British prime minister knew was already rearming), ‘and the disarmament of France.’153 Adding insult to injury from the French perspective, it offered what were at best highly nebulous security guarantees. As a contemporary observer pointed out, leaving aside certain details, the draft convention effectively replaced those provisions in the Treaties of Versailles, St. Germain, Neuilly and Trianon which imposed limits on the arms and armed forces respectively of Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary.154 Indeed, the draft convention’s last article, that is, Article 96, specified that the disarmament provisions of the Peace Treaties would be replaced by the convention.155 That it was in fact a rearmament convention was a point made by Pertinax (the pseudonym of the journalist André Géraud), in a column appearing in L’Echo de Paris which, like most of the other newspapers of the same political persuasion, viewed the plan with hostility, in contrast with many of the more politically moderate Paris newspapers which, despite regarding the security dimension of the plan as deficient, were at least willing to credit MacDonald with having good intentions.156 Pertinax observed that the British plan would ‘demolish’ the French army and gravely disturb the balance of military power in Europe. If the experi-

151 For the plan’s reception in Berlin, see Sydney Morning Herald, March 18, 1933 and Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 107. 152 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 181. 153 Ibid., 180–1. 154 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 75. 155 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 181. 156 Pertinax, ‘Désarmament et Sécurité: Le Plan de M. Macdonald,’ L’Echo de Paris, February 17, 1933. See also Sydney Morning Herald, March 18, 1933.

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ment turned out badly, he warned, those whose armies had been reduced in size could not count on any assistance.157 In Geneva, however, there were ‘congratulations all round’ in response to MacDonald’s intervention with many delegates genuinely believing that the prospect for the conference was ‘brighter than it had been for many months.’158 Gibson welcomed the proposals, declaring that he ‘hoped [it] would be the basis of a durable convention’ as did Nadolny who proclaimed that MacDonald ‘had taken the only way to relieve the conference of its difficulties.’159 Although his private attitude was considerably darker, Daladier told the conference from the platform that he would study the draft convention ‘with great interest,’ adding that he was entirely sympathetic with MacDonald’s proposals and that France ‘favoured progress, simultaneous, and effectively controlled disarmament.’160

Concerns About Revision On the morning of 17 March, MacDonald and Simon met with the Polish foreign minister Józef Beck. After stating that he sympathised with MacDonald’s desire to reinvigorate the conference, Beck declared that the Polish government was greatly concerned by suggestions that appeasement in Europe might involve modifications to the Peace Treaties. In the course of the conversation Beck conceded that the treaties were not ‘wholly untouchable,’ but added that they were nonetheless ‘contracts, and the consent of the parties was necessary for their modification.’161 MacDonald told Beck that one could ‘either agree to certain changes…or…allow Germany to tear up’ the whole draft convention, to which Beck responded by saying that he ‘realised the situation and that the treaties were not sacrosanct’ but that Poland regarded the methods by which any changes were made as a matter of ‘the very highest importance.’162

157 L’Echo de Paris, February 17, 1933. 158 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 107. 159 Sydney Morning Herald, March 18, 1933. 160 Ibid. 161 Note of a Conversation between M. Beck, the Prime Minister and Sir John Simon, at the Hôtel Beau Rivage, on 17 March 1933, enclosure in doc. no. 42, DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 61. 162 Ibid., 61–2.

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On the morning of the same day, Simon and MacDonald had held a meeting with Beneš, the General Commission’s rapporteur, at the outset of which Beneš opined that now that the conference’s proceedings were ‘on the move,’ progress would largely depend on the outcome of the Rome meeting. Beneš then took the opportunity to speak about Italian policy which he claimed, based on Italian and other sources, was one of exploiting the current situation in Yugoslavia in order to assist in the break-up of that country. The Italians, he warned, planned to take Dalmatia for themselves, and allot Croatia to Austria and Hungary. Following this, Beneš insisted, Rome would aim at treaty revision in respect to the Corridor. Jouvenel’s talks in Rome, Beneš stated, demonstrated that Italy ‘wished a free hand from France’ in relation to the above policies, and that ‘then Italy’ would be ready to settle her relations with France.’163 Beneš voiced his country’s strong opposition to Italy’s ambitions and described as entirely unfounded the Italian insinuations, which were raised in this context by Simon, that the recent pact concluded between the members of Little Entente was accompanied by secret military clauses. The pact to which Beneš referred concerned the conversion on 16 February of the political understanding between Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia ‘into a formal agreement for the conduct of a common foreign policy through regular meetings between their foreign ministers who would together serve as the Permanent Council of the Little Entente and which would be assisted by a secretariat a part of which would be based in Geneva.’164 This formal agreement had been reached in view of the possibility of a revisionist alliance between Germany, Italy and Hungary. At the same meeting, Beneš dismissed as false the accusation that his country was ‘controlled by France.’165

163 Note of a Conversation between the Prime Minister, Sir John Simon, and Dr. Beneš at the Hôtel Beau Rivage, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., on Friday 17 March 1933, enclosure in doc. no. 43, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 63–4. 164 Ibid., 64–65, and Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 69. The formation of this pact was announced on 19 December 1932. 165 Note of a Conversation between the Prime Minister, Sir John Simon, and Dr. Beneš at the Hôtel Beau Rivage, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., on Friday 17 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 65.

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The Rome Meeting and Its Aftermath On the evening of 17 March, MacDonald and Simon travelled to Rome, arriving at Ostia at 1:30 p.m. on the following day where they were met by Mussolini and Graham, the latter handing to MacDonald a document which had been given that morning to Graham and to the French and German ambassadors and which the two British ministers briefly examined en route to Rome. What MacDonald and Simon did not know was that the German government had been consulted on the pact some days prior to their journey.166 On 14 March, the Italian ambassador at Berlin, Vittorio Cerruti, newly returned from Rome, met with Neurath, conveying to him Mussolini’s view that the Disarmament Conference would fail and Italian support for German equality in armaments. The ambassador also registered Mussolini’s support for treaty revision, mentioning in that context the Polish Corridor.167 Cerutti told Neurath that Mussolini believed that Germany could achieve her goals of equality in armaments and territorial revision by participating in a scheme Mussolini had devised, involving the four principal European powers: France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy. Should Germany agree to this scheme, Neurath was informed, ‘then and only then, would it be possible for Mussolini to approach Britain and Germany.’168 The draft pact, which was presented to Neurath for consideration by the German government, was entitled Political Agreement of Understanding and Co-operation between the Four Western Powers and consisted of six articles, the first three of which read as follows: Article 1: The four Western Powers, France, Germany, Great Britain and Italy, undertake to establish between themselves an effective policy of collaboration with a view to the maintenance of peace in accordance with the spirit of the Kellogg Pact and the ‘No Force Pact,’ and undertake to follow, in the European sphere, such a line of action as will induce third parties, if necessary, to adopt such a policy of peace.

166 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 208, and Record of Conversations at the British Embassy, Paris, 21 March 1933, at 11:30 a.m. and 3:10 p.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 87. 167 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 208. 168 Ibid. Emphasis in the original.

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Article 2: The four Powers reaffirm, in accordance with the articles of the Covenant of the League of Nations, the principle of the revision of the treaties of peace in circumstances capable of producing a conflict between nations; but they declare that such a principle of revision can only be applied within the framework of the League of Nations and through mutual recognition of the common nature of the interests involved. Article 3: France, Great Britain and Italy declare that, should the Disarmament Conference only produce partial results, the equality of rights which has been granted to Germany must have a practical application, and Germany undertakes to achieve such equality of rights gradually as a result of successive agreements to be arrived at by the four Powers through the normal diplomatic channels. The four Powers undertake to arrive at similar agreements in regard to ‘equality’ for Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.169

Germany was wholly in agreement with Article 1 as it suggested that the four leading powers of Europe could freely apply the very method that Beck had insisted they should not apply: they could impose their chosen policy of peace on the lesser European powers. Article 2, however, was problematic from the German perspective because although it acknowledged the principle of treaty revision, it suggested that any such revision be undertaken in accordance with the rules of the Covenant, thereby inviting the involvement of the various members of the LON in the process of revision. In respect to Article 3, the German government objected to the notion that equality of rights should be achieved gradually: ‘by stages, to be determined by successive agreements between the Four Powers. This procedure meant that full equality might not come within the period of the first disarmament Convention (five years), while Germany had been insisting upon complete equality in armaments with other powers within such a period.’170

169 Political Agreement of Understanding and Co-operation between the Four Western Powers, enclosure B (1) in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 67. The so-called No Force Pact mentioned in Article 1 of the draft of the Political Agreement of Understanding and Co-operation submitted to Neurath concerned the pact envisaged in the Five-Power Declaration of 11 December 1932. 170 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 210–1. In conversation with Simon and Aloisi on 12 March, MacDonald observed that Herr Nadolny ‘had made it clear that the position of his Government was that a very near approach to equality of rights must be secured.’ Record of a Conversation at Geneva Between Mr. MacDonald, Sir J. Simon, and Baron Aloisi, 12 March 1933,’ in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 4, 518–9.

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Despite these reservations, the German government accepted the draft pact ‘in principle with the expectation that modifications would be introduced’ and after having been assured by Mussolini that the intended thrust of the pact, as indicated in Article 1, was that European policy would be shaped by the four powers: by a Directorate comprising the leading European Powers in which Germany would participate on a basis of equality and which would see the LON relegated to a lesser role.171 In relation to this last point, it should be noted that for Mussolini, the utility of a great power forum was as follows: in such a forum France ‘would be separated from her anti-revisionist allies, and confronted by two definitely revisionist Powers, and would be dependent for support in her opposition on Great Britain alone,’ this last being less than favourable towards Poland and clearly desirous of French concessions in relation to German equality.172 At 6 p.m. on 18 March, MacDonald and Simon held talks with Mussolini at the Palazzo Venezia, holding further talks with the Italian leader on the afternoon of the following day at the British Embassy. During these talks, MacDonald told Mussolini he had read his draft pact with great interest and stated that he felt that it was only through the ‘co-operation between the four Western Powers could any permanent understanding be reached.’173 MacDonald maintained that in his view France would probably prove to be the difficulty, an observation which prompted Simon to explain that he

171 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 212. 172 With the advent of the Nazis in particular, Italy became ‘convinced…that the main-

tenance of peace depended on the revision of the Peace Treaties. Her advocacy of revision was genuinely founded, at this time, on a desire for peace especially between France and Germany, a contest between whom would raise awkward problems of alliance. With this motive, the scope of the contemplated revision was narrowed; as involving an immediate risk of war, neither the grievances of Hungary, Austria, nor Bulgaria were really vital. The revision in Signor Mussolini’s mind was primarily revision in the interests of Germany, and this in a particular direction, since the last thing that the Duce wanted was to concede South Tyrol, or to bring Germany in contact with the Brenner Pass by an Anschluss with Austria. It is important to grasp this point, for it meant in practice that the real threat of the proposed policy was in the direction farthest removed from Italy, and therefore affected on nation only Poland, in relation to the Corridor and to Polish Silesia.’ Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 366–7. 173 Note of a Conversation held at the Palace Venezia at 6 p.m. on 18 March 1933, enclosure 4 in doc. no. 44, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 70.

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had redrafted Article 2, introducing into it certain phrases concerning the sanctity of treaties.174 The thinking here was that qualified in this fashion, the article would be more acceptable to the French and reconcilable with the covenant. Simon pointed out to Mussolini, that the covenant imposed two obligations in respect to treaties: first, to respect them and second, ‘to recognise that treaties were not of a perpetual character,’ obligations which, Simon observed, were not ‘irreconcilable.’175 Pursuing this line of argument, MacDonald remarked that Mussolini had summed up the issue very well in declaring that ‘treaties are holy but not eternal,’ adding that the article as amended would bring this point out.176 MacDonald stated that the French would inevitably ask such questions as whether or not the pact involved ‘discussion of the Corridor, the future of Hungary and the position of Yugoslavia.’177 Mussolini, having noted that he had discussed political questions ‘extremely frankly’ with Jouvenel who, according to Mussolini, had appeared enthusiastic about the agreement but had urged the insertion of a phrase in its second article concerning ‘binding force or sanctity of treaties, stated that the Corridor ‘was one of the great mistakes made at Versailles, for it cut Germany in two halves.’178 In relation to Hungary, Mussolini stated he was ‘in favour of rectification of frontiers wherever a racial preponderance of Magyars existed.’179 In respect to Article 3, Simon suggested it was in need of modifications, one reason for this being that it seemed to suggest that the Disarmament Conference would fail, a suggestion that could hardly be reconciled with the introduction by MacDonald of a new convention on which much hope was now pinned.180

174 Note of a Conversation held at the British Embassy, Rome, at 2:30 p.m. on 19 March 1933, enclosure 5 in doc. no. 44, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 76. 175 Note of a Conversation held at the Palace Venezia at 6 p.m. on 18 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 73. 176 Note of a Conversation held at the British Embassy, Rome, at 2:30 p.m. on 19 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 76–7. 177 Note of a Conversation held at the Palace Venezia at 6 p.m. on 18 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 72. 178 Ibid., 72–3. 179 Ibid., 73. 180 Note of a Conversation held at the British Embassy, Rome, at 2:30 p.m. on 19 March 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 77.

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Towards the end of their talks with Mussolini, MacDonald warned that the French might object to the agreement on the grounds that it conflicted with the LON. Explaining his point, he stated that the French looked at it somewhat in this way. Germany was against them, Italy was not friendly, Great Britain was always concerned with bringing other nations together and was not a wholehearted supporter. There was therefore a chance that France would consider herself isolated; whereas in the League of Nations she was not isolated.181

MacDonald concluded the talks in outlining the procedure that would be followed: firstly, Simon would redraft the text of the agreement in light of the British ministers’ conversations with Mussolini and, secondly, the British ministers would go to Paris to discuss the prospective agreement with their French counterparts. They would have to begin the discussion, MacDonald advised, ‘with a warning against leakage,’ by which he meant leakage to the French press.182 On 21 March, MacDonald and Simon met with their French counterparts at the British Embassy in Paris, whereupon MacDonald raised a question of procedure at Geneva: he noted that Simon had spoken to Henderson that morning and that Henderson, ‘on his own initiative,’ had suggested that in light of the need to study the Italian plan ‘it might be possibly be preferable not to start the debate on the British plan on Thursday and even to postpone it, if there were general agreement on the point, until immediately after Easter.’183 Daladier responded that this was reasonable proposition. Paul-Boncour added that there was a precedent for such a postponement as a month’s delay had followed the tabling of the French disarmament plan. Simon then stated that he wished to make it clear that Henderson had commenced his conversation by noting that ‘his officers were considering this adjournment’ and that he would be ‘only be willing to adjourn the conference if he were convinced that really rapid results’ could be obtained from the present four-power conversations.184

181 Ibid., 79. 182 Ibid., 76, 79. 183 Record of Conversations at the British Embassy, Paris, 21 March 1933, at 11:30 a.m.

and 3:10 p.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 86. 184 Ibid., 86–7.

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In respect to the nature of those conversations, MacDonald stated that he thought Mussolini was not in favour of German rearmament and that he had emphasised that his plan was aimed at preventing ‘the creation of blocs in Europe.’185 MacDonald maintained that the conversations in Rome had been devoted to examining the six articles of the plan and that during them the question of either Yugoslavia or the Little Entente had not been raised, adding in relation to the latter point that he and Simon had made it very clear to Mussolini that there were other interested parties.186 The British ministers also pointed to certain suggestions they had made in terms of modifications to the agreement and invited the French to contribute such amendments as they saw fit.187 In response, Paul-Boncour stated that while obviously great interest was attached to the proposal for a meeting between all the four powers, he nonetheless wondered ‘how could the idea of the formation of a four Power agreement be justified before the rest of Europe’ and whether such an agreement might not be seen as ‘contrary to spirit of the League of Nations.’188 In respect to Article 2 of the agreement, Daladier noted that Article 19 of the covenant already provided for the revision of treaties and asked whether Mussolini’s text was an attempt to ‘modify or destroy’ that article, adding that ‘it was difficult to dispose of the property of others without consulting them.’189 As it stood, Daladier insisted, Article 2 ‘would arouse great anxiety among those concerned and might aggravate the relations between the two blocs.’190 In response to Daladier, Simon stated that he the British ministers had suggested ‘words to ensure that revision, if it ever took place, should be “within the framework of the League of Nations”.’191 MacDonald observed that he had ‘rather contemplated some ad hoc consultation,’ such that, for example, they should see Beneš or Beck and try to ‘bring them 185 Ibid., 87. 186 Ibid., 88. 187 Ibid., 89. 188 Ibid., 91. 189 Ibid., 89. Article 19 of the Covenant of the LON stated the following: ‘The Assembly may from time to time advise the reconsideration by Members of the League of treaties which have become inapplicable and the consideration of international conditions whose continuance might endanger the peace of the world.’ 190 Ibid., 92. 191 Ibid., 89.

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into agreement and then use the machinery provided.’192 He begged the French ministers to understand that they ‘had not yet thought it all over’ and that any ‘views expressed were only in complete confidence.’193 Daladier insisted that the question for France was one of ‘loyalty’: France had treaties with Czechoslovakia and Poland and it would ‘be disloyal for France to commit herself without prior consultation.’194 With respect to Article 3, both Daladier and Paul-Boncour noted that in giving Germany the right to rearm irrespective of the outcome of the Disarmament Conference, the proposed text prejudiced that very outcome.195 What interest, Paul-Boncour asked, would Germany have in the successful conclusion of the Disarmament Conference if it were to obtain a right to rearm either way. Indeed, as Daladier pointed out, the proposed text awarded Germany victory in respect to both revision and rearmament without any guarantees of peace.196 Daladier stated this last in response to Simon’s observation that there were two looming dangers: first, that Germany might announce that it would rearm without agreement and that Germany, and possibly also its allies, would insist on revision of frontiers without seeking the agreement of other concerned parties. What needed to be considered, he continued, was whether there were ‘any means of providing against these dangers more especially by [an] agreement limiting the methods employed and which would have the signature not only of Germany, but also of Italy.’197 The different angles from which the British and French ministers viewed the impending dangers described by Simon was further reflected in the following exchange: The Prime Minister said that we should be in a bad position if we gave way to an explicit German threat; prudence dictated that we should forestall such demands. How could we anticipate this situation? He would like to see what they could to overcome a very difficult position, keep the world at peace, 192 Ibid. 193 Ibid. 194 Ibid., 95–6. The treaties to which Daladier was referring in the meeting of British and French ministers of 21 March in Paris were the Franco-Czechoslovak and Franco-Polish treaties of mutual guarantee signed at Locarno on 16 October 1925. 195 Ibid., 92. 196 Ibid., 92–3. 197 Ibid., 91.

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guide Europe and safeguard their moral credit. But there was not much time. M. Daladier questioned whether they could safeguard their credit by agreeing to German rearmament and revision of treaties. The Prime Minister said that rearmament must be avoided if possible. Readjustment to take the sting out of a German and, perhaps, a German and Italian initiative was another thing. M. Paul-Boncour said these problems could not be avoided. The question was whether both should be raised at once and simultaneously with the creation of closer contacts of the four Powers. The Prime Minister said the attraction for him was that, if the four Powers agreed, then the whole question would not be left for two of them to deal with alone.198

Following the conclusion of the discussions, a press communiqué was drawn up which reflected the French view that while an affirmation of cooperation between the four powers was valuable in that it could in itself ‘cause a détente,’ defining the objectives of such cooperation should be avoided as it would only ‘disturb that effect’: a reference to disarmament would compromise the LON and a reference to treaty revision in the context of announcing collaboration between the four powers would greatly agitate other nations.199 Hence, the communiqué simply noted in the first two of its three paragraphs that there had been an exchange of views between the British and French ministers on the nature of the former’s conversations with Mussolini, that the French ministers had thanked their British colleagues for the information they had provided, that the French ministers would closely study the proposals put before them and that the French and British ministers would communicate further with each other and without delay. Importantly, the third paragraph of the communiqué underlined the authority of the LON, declaring that the French ministers ‘affirmed their desire to see established in the interest of peace, within the framework and in the spirit of the League of Nations, a loyal co-operation between the four European Powers who are permanent members of the Council of the League.’200 The reaction of the French press to the news of the Rome visit was immediate and fiery. On 22 March, the Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires declared that the propositions put by Mussolini to MacDonald, which it had described on the previous day as dangerous and even menac198 Ibid., 96. 199 Ibid., 93. 200 Ibid., 98.

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ing, entailed that the lesser powers of Europe ‘should submit themselves to the good will’ of a great power ‘“directory” or rather the majority of this “directory,”’ this majority being according to the publication clearly hostile to France.201 Having observed that ‘[n]aturally, the plan foresees equality of rights for Germany, as well as the other disarmed powers, and the revision of treaties,’ the newspaper went on to maintain that such arrangements ‘could be a consequence of general pacification, but could never realise this pacification’: they would only serve to ‘excite the appetite of imperial powers.’202 Noting that already the ‘Petite Entente’ and Poland were manifesting their anxiety, the newspaper expressed the hope that Daladier, whom it understood to be hostile to the project, would not choose a path that at end of the day could only lead to war.203 In Geneva, the delegates at the Disarmament Conference heard rumours that the Duce ‘had prevailed on Mr. MacDonald to become the Mussolini messenger for the Rome pact to the French Government and to persuade France to join in le club de la paix’; fearing all this to be true, they asked themselves ‘what was to become of the British Disarmament Convention and of the Disarmament Conference? The little countries saw themselves put back a whole century and the League of Nations superseded by a Supreme Council.’204 Against this background, Simon, in a communication sent to Cadogan on 22 March at 6:30 p.m., instructed Cadogan to make it very clear at the meeting of General Commission on the following day when endorsing the proposed adjournment, that the British delegation intended to proceed with the draft convention it had proposed: that support for adjournment did not indicate ‘any hesitation’ on Britain’s part in relation to the convention.205 Simon advised Cadogan that it was not possible to give to the General Commission any more information on the discussions in Rome and Paris beyond that which was conveyed in the communiqués issuing from those discussions. All that Simon could say was that the aim of those discus201 ‘Le projet de directoire de M. Mussolini: M. MacDonald s’entretient avec M. Daladier,’ Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, March 22, 1933. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 367. See also Matthews, ‘Chronicle of International Events,’ 534. 202 Le Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires, March 22, 1933. 203 Ibid. 204 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 107. 205 Sir J. Simon to Mr. Patteson (Geneva), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 98.

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sions was to ‘promote co-operation and good relations between neighbours in Europe and consequently the effort, if it succeeds. should promote a better atmosphere for the further discussions of disarmament proposals.’206 Later that evening, Simon communicated to Mr. (E. H.) Carr in Geneva that the government would prefer to carry on with the debate on the draft convention rather than appear to be the sole author of a proposal to adjourn the conference on the mere ground that others wanted more time as this would be ‘misinterpreted as indicating loss of faith in the Prime Minister’s proposals.’207 Simon added, however, that it would be ‘quite another thing’ if one of the other delegations asked for a postponement ‘on this ground or if the events of the last few days and the prospect of further conference between certain Powers afford part of the justification,’ and he urged the British delegation to find out if there were other delegations who desired postponement and who would be ‘prepared to take the initiative in saying so.’208 In the same communication, Simon asked Carr to show Simon’s telegram to Henderson and tell him the message sent to him on the previous afternoon had been authorised by the meeting of British and French ministers. Simon added that it was now evident that the French were ‘now hesitating’ on the question of postponement ‘owing to the anxieties felt by some of the smaller Powers.’209

MacDonald’s Speech to Parliament On the afternoon of 23 March, MacDonald delivered a speech in Parliament intended, as Simon had communicated to the British delegation in Geneva the evening before, to show ‘how serious is the effort which is being made to improve the atmosphere in Europe.’210 In his speech, which Mussolini hailed ‘as magnificent and most courageous,’ MacDonald began by noting that he and Simon had been sent to Geneva by the government at a time when the Disarmament Conference appeared to be in serious

206 Ibid., 99. 207 Ibid. 208 Ibid. 209 Ibid. 210 Ibid.

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danger of imminent collapse.211 In order to avert its collapse, MacDonald stated, the British had taken to Geneva a plan that covered the whole field of security and disarmament, the introduction of which, he claimed, had ‘heartened’ the conference to pursue its work. The plan he observed, had two essential features: first, ‘it contained for the first time figures regarding various arms,’ and second, it sought to give practical effect to the pledge of 11 December 1932, to give equality, under conditions, to Germany.212 Responding to a query issued by Churchill, MacDonald stated that ‘[e]vents have happened since then which make’ the fulfilment of that pledge ‘more desirable and more necessary than ever.’213 MacDonald then told the House of Commons that in Geneva he was conscious of something outside the absolute business of the Disarmament Conference. I felt day after day whilst there as though I was looking upon a stage with something moving immediately behind the footlights, but as if there was something else there of a different character — an ominous background full of shadows and uncertainties. Europe is not settled. Europe is very unsettled. Europe is in a very nervous condition…. This background…must be dealt with and it has given us a great deal of thought for a long time.214

The need to deal with this background, MacDonald stated, was ‘foreseen’ in the context of ‘certain political conversations and approaches’ in Lausanne. Indeed, MacDonald noted that the possibility that actions taken in the past may ripen into events that disturb the peace of the world was anticipated when the constitution of the LON was being drafted: Article 19 provided that the LON Assembly should advise reconsideration of international conditions which endanger the peace of the world.215 At this point, MacDonald noted that it had come to his attention in Geneva that Mussolini ‘would welcome a meeting as he wished to inform

211 Ibid. For Mussolini’s description of MacDonald’s the speech in Parliament on 23 March, see in Sir R. Graham (Rome) to Sir R. Vansittart (received 25 March), DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 104. 212 276, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series), (23 March 1933), 511–4. 213 Ibid., 514. 214 Ibid., 514–5. 215 Ibid., 516.

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me of some views he held regard the establishment of peace.’216 On arrival in Rome, MacDonald continued, he and Simon learnt of Mussolini’s plan for collaboration among the four Western Powers in the spirit of the Kellogg Pact and the Five-Power Declaration on non-use of force in return for Germany obtaining a declaration of the willingness of these powers to grant her equality of status. MacDonald then noted that Mussolini put forward the view that Article 19 ‘was not mean to become dormant’ and that the Covenant, while insisting on respect for treaty obligations, also contemplated their revision.217 MacDonald then repeated an expression that he had commended Mussolini for using while in Rome, stating ‘[a]s a very distinguished politician has said. “Every treaty is holy, but no treaty is eternal”,’ adding that the proposed collaboration was to be carried out within the framework of the LON and that ten years was suggested as the first period for the proposed agreement.218 MacDonald pointed out that Mussolini had indicated that if a plan for cooperation between the Western powers were adopted ‘as an immediate contribution to Europe’s difficulties and dangers,’ the friendship thus engendered would have further beneficial consequences.219 To this end, MacDonald stated, the British government wished to add further details to the plan, such that it ‘may not merely have as its general purpose peace and its big and only detail, revision of treaties.’220 He added that while certain suggestions as they stood were unacceptable from a British perspective, conversation revealed the problem to be largely one ‘verbal differences’ and that ‘by a slight redraft’ British opinion and that of Mussolini could be made to coincide.221 In relation to the question of treaty revision, MacDonald told Parliament that statements made in foreign newspapers and elsewhere that in the context of the Rome visit the British ministers had offered ‘Tanganyika as some sort of sop to Herr Hitler’ were entirely untrue, adding that ‘Tanganyika was never even mentioned, and that is why…[he]…wanted to say that the conversation [in Rome] was of

216 Ibid. 217 Ibid. 218 Ibid., 517. 219 Ibid. 220 Ibid. 221 Ibid., 517–8.

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the most general kind on those points which…[he had]…mentioned as having been contained in Signor Mussolini’s paper.’222 MacDonald noted that as indicated in the newspapers, some of the smaller states were beginning to fear consequences in light of the reports they had read concerning the Rome conversations. In relation to this, MacDonald stated that he wanted to assure these states that there was ‘no foundation whatever for their fears.’223 Certainly, he continued, the motive behind the plan was to ‘remove the causes of war in Europe’ and, to this end, the plan emphasised the responsibility of the LON to take up the obligation imposed upon it by Article 19.224 That said, MacDonald stated that the plan ‘must not exclude smaller States from playing their proper part in the consideration when it is undertaken’ and that they had ‘a right to be consulted wherever their special interests are concerned,’ although he tellingly suggested that the smaller powers had a greater interest than the larger ones in reducing ‘the causes of irritation and feelings of injury from the nations of Europe.’225 In concluding his speech, MacDonald warned that the great and immediate danger Europe faced was that of a unilateral challenge to the Peace Treaties, the consequence of this being a renewal of enmities and the possibility that the four powers might be driven apart. He then paid ‘a hearty tribute to the humanity of the intentions’ behind the Italian project, urging cooperation among the four powers in a ‘form and in a spirit which may well draw to it the sympathy and the aid of our powerful friend beyond the Atlantic.’226 The Parisian newspaper Le Temps published MacDonald’s speech in full on its front page on 25 March, editorialising that MacDonald had made it clear in Parliament that the concern of its authors was above all to open the way to treaty revision irrespective of what MacDonald said about adding details to it. Le Temps stated that if the Italian plan, for which, according to the newspaper, MacDonald personally did not attempt to hide his sympathies, went ahead it would amount to the ruination of the LON. It would, Le Temps continued, have the ‘direct and immediate effect of suppressing 222 Ibid., 518. 223 Ibid. 224 Ibid., 518–9. 225 Ibid., 519. 226 Ibid., 519–20.

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the equality of rights of all peoples which lies at the base of the Geneva institution,’ thereby ‘reducing to servitude’ the smaller states.227 As the newspaper noted, on the very day that MacDonald spoke in Parliament, the General Commission of the Disarmament Conference decided unanimously not to suspend its works until the eve of the Easter vacation. Le Temps editorialised that the political dimension of this decision was clear: it came at a time when Mussolini had launched his project for a directory consisting of the greatest European powers and when MacDonald was seeking to adjourn the conference in order to pursue negotiations between London, Paris, Rome and Berlin on the basis of the Italian project. The decision taken in Geneva, Le Temps advised its readers, was the first reply of the smaller powers to the attempt to establish a European directory, these powers being ‘resolved to defend themselves on the terrain of the League of Nations.’228

Churchill’s Response Le Temps also published on its front page on 25 March what it described as a personal attack on MacDonald by Churchill, the latter having spoken at length in Parliament on 23 March and whose words in that context the newspaper applauded for their good sense.229 Churchill, after having twice asked MacDonald to clarify exactly what he meant by the word equality when used in reference to Germany, cautioned that it would be absurd and imprudent to press disarmament on France at a time when there was a veritable unleashing of hatred in Germany. Referring to the MacDonald Plan, Churchill stated that France would not agree at such a time to a plan that he evidently joined France in viewing as effectively a plan for the rearmament of Germany. Churchill told the House of Commons the following: Taking a layman’s view of these facts and figures, I cannot say that they are injurious to our defensive interests, but I doubt very much indeed the wisdom of pressing this plan upon France at the present time. I do not think it is at all likely that the French will agree. They must be greatly concerned at 227 ‘Bulletin du jour: de M. Hitler à M. MacDonald,’ Le Temps (a), March 25, 1933. 228 Ibid. 229 ‘Intervention de M. Churchill,’ Le Temps, March 25, 1933, and Le Temps (a), March 25, 1933.

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what is taking place in Germany, as well as at the attitude of some others of their neighbours. I daresay that during this anxious month—we seem to have passed through a, very anxious month—there are a good many people who have said to themselves, as I have been saying for several years: ‘Thank God for the French army.’ When we read about Germany, when we watch with surprise and distress the tumultuous insurgence of ferocity and war spirit, the pitiless ill-treatment of minorities, the denial of the normal protections of civilised society to large numbers of individuals solely on the ground of race—when we see that occurring in one of the most gifted, learned, scientific and formidable nations in the world, one cannot help feeling glad that the fierce passions that are raging in Germany have not found, as yet, any other outlet but upon themselves. It seems to me that, at a moment like this, to ask France to halve her army while Germany doubles hers—that is the scale of figures—to ask France to halve her air force while the German air force remains whatever it is— I am aware that there is no military air force permitted to remain—such a proposal, it seems to me, is likely to be considered by the French Government at present, at any rate, as somewhat unseasonable. The figures that are given in the plan of the strength of armies and aeroplanes secure to France only as many aeroplanes as would be possessed by Italy, leaving any air power possessed by Germany entirely out of consideration.230

Having addressed the MacDonald Plan, Churchill then turned to the proposed four-power pact, stating that he had ‘always been attracted’ to the idea of a pact between the four great powers—‘no doubt, technically within the the League of Nations’—with a view to keeping the peace and rectifying ‘some of the evils arising from treaties made in vile passion of war.’231 Having stated this, Churchill declared that political conditions had soured to such an extent that the prospects of success in realising such a pact were limited. He expressed doubt about the prime minister’s wisdom in launching a campaign for treaty revision at the very same time as he was attempting to drive forward his plan for disarmament. MacDonald, he stated, was ‘assailing’ powers involved in the Disarmament Conference ‘with doubts as to their military strength and anxieties about their security at the same time’ at the same time as he was ‘going to ask them to undertake

230 276, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (23 March 1933), 542–3. 231 Ibid., 549.

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the appallingly dangerous and difficult duty of endeavouring to get some revision of the peace treaties.’232

The Conclusion of the Four-Power Pact Le Temps view of Mussolini’s plan was typical of the French press. Indeed Graham, in a telegram to Sir Robert Vansittart, the permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office, on 24 March, stated that all the French newspaper extracts he had read that morning were unfavourable to it. He added that he understood that only two members of the French government were in favour.233 The fact that the plan had been endorsed by Hitler in a speech to the Reichstag on 23 March as a basis for negotiation, provided no more was made of the ‘distinction between the victors and the vanquished,’ could only have served to reinforce the French scepticism about it.234 MacDonald’s and Hitler’s interventions of 23 March deeply disturbed the members of Little Entente and Poland who were described by Graham as ‘hysterical on the subject’ and as doing all they could to prevent French adhesion to the proposed pact.235 Churchill was correct in his observation in the House of Commons on 23 March that the Disarmament Conference had reached a stage ‘when it will absolutely conflict with treaty revision.’236 On 24 March, Vansittart informed Simon in a telegram sent to Geneva that MacDonald was anxious to address as soon as possible the next step in relation to Mussolini’s plan and that London considered it essential to this end that there must be ‘agreement between the four Powers to support the British Draft Convention and to recommend it to the Conference.’237 Vansittart thus urged Simon to see if the German, French and Italian delegates would declare that they accepted the British draft convention ‘as an earnest of their intention 232 Ibid., 549–50. 233 Sir R. Graham (Rome) to Sir R. Vansittart (received 25 March), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol.

5, 104. 234 Le Temps (a), March 25, 1933. See also Sir R. Graham (Rome) to Sir R. Vansittart (received 25 March), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 104. 235 Sir R. Graham (Rome) to Sir R. Vansittart (received 25 March), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 104. See also Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 216. 236 276, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (23 March 1933), 550. 237 Sir R. Vanisttart to Mr. Patteson (Geneva) 24 March 1933, 3:00 p.m., in DBFP, 2nd

ser., vol. 5, 103.

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to make co-operation between the four Powers an immediate reality.’238 The response from Geneva was emphatically negative on this score: the best that could be achieved in Geneva at that point was an expression of general approval sufficient to allow Henderson to declare that the British draft had been universally accepted, in the words of a motion moved by Beneš, as a basis of discussion. Vansittart was advised in a telegram sent by Simon that it would be ‘courting disaster’ to ask the French to present their acceptance of the British draft as a pledge in respect to four-power cooperation. Simon told Vansittart that an effort to connect four-Power co-operation with a bastard reading of British draft would only result in driving the French under pressure of Poland and their other allies to express dissatisfaction with British proposal. In other words promotion of a four-Power pact in the atmosphere of Geneva does not provide inducement for the French to support British plan but exactly the opposite. You can have no idea of the strength of suspicion here that outcome of Rome visit is a plot to dish League of Nations.239

On 25 March, the Permanent Council of the Little Entente issued a communiqué declaring that they would find it difficult to accept that the cause of good relations between countries is served by agreements having as their object to dispose of the rights of third parties. …Agreements of this nature belong to the past, in any case, to times when the League of Nations did not exist. The States of the Little Entente regret in addition that, in the negotiations of the last few days, the idea of revisionist policy has been underlined. Placing themselves on the terrain of the general interest of peace and holding account of the unanimous and profound feelings of their countries, they consider it their duty to call attention to the fact that a revisionist policy, leading to some energetic reactions, is not of a nature to calm the spirits of nations and to reinforce feelings of confidence which can alone permit mutual collaboration.240

238 Ibid., 104, and Mr. Patteson (Geneva) to Sir R. Vansittart (received 25 March, 3:45 p.m.), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 105. 239 Mr. Patteson (Geneva) to Sir R. Vansittart (received 25 March, 3:45 p.m.), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 105. See also 278, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (26 May 1933), 1440. 240 Extract from the Journal de Genève of 26 March 1933: Communiqué officiel du Sécretariat Générale du Conseil de la Petite Entente, enclosure in doc. no. 54, DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 109.

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On the evening of 27 March, the debate on the British draft convention concluded in a unanimous vote approving the draft as a ‘basis of discussion,’ at which point the delegates decided to adjourn until 25 April in order to take advantage of the Easter holiday.241 Ambassador Davis told the conference that the British proposal represented ‘a real measure of disarmament,’ that the American government accepted it ‘whole-heartedly as a definite and excellent step toward the ultimate objective,’ and that they were ‘therefore are prepared to give our full support to the adoption of this plan.’242 The Italian delegation praised the proposed convention effusively whereas the French showed a degree of caution, committing themselves nonetheless ‘to give their loyal co-operation in the Committee stage.’243 The German delegation expressed its approval on the basis of the understanding that proposed convention, as MacDonald had declared when introducing it, was intended for ‘a provisional period’: that it was, as MacDonald had interpreted it, ‘a Five Years Plan to hold the position until a better political atmosphere could be assured.’244 The so-called Rome pact did not go unremarked amidst this mood of general approbation. Madariaga, after having expressed his regret concerning the ‘serious omissions in what was otherwise an excellent basic text,’ observed in relation to this mooted pact, that territorial revision ‘could only be effected when peace was guaranteed.’245 Against the background of the grave concerns expressed by members of the Little Entente and Poland and objections raised by Daladier, who, despite the internal criticisms of the pact nonetheless did not want to be cast ‘in the villain’s role as the sole Western Power standing in the way of a possible European détente,’ Mussolini’s plan was modified and amended to the point that it was no longer viewed as dangerous by its critics.246

241 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 108, and Boeckel, ‘Principles of Agreement and Chief Points at Issue,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933’. See also Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 183. 242 Norman H. Davis, 1933, quoted in Boeckel, ‘Principles of Agreement and Chief Points at Issue,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933’. 243 Davies, ‘On the Geneva Front,’ 108. 244 Ibid., 107–8. 245 Ibid., 108. 246 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 220. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short

History of International Affairs, 367–8.

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The resultant Four-Power Pact which was initialled on 7 June and signed on 15 July in Rome. Among other things its six articles provided for the following: as specified under Article 1, a policy of cooperation between the contracting parties ‘within the framework of the League of Nations’; as specified under Article 2, an examination ‘between themselves and without prejudice to decisions which can only be taken by the regular organs of the League of Nations, [of] all proposals relating to methods and procedure calculated to give due effect’ to Articles 10, 16 and 19 of the covenant; and, as specified under Article 3, a commitment by the parties to ‘make every effort to ensure the success of the Disarmament Conference’ and the reservation of a right ‘to re-examine…between themselves’ any questions ‘of particular concern to them’ left in suspense at the termination of the conference.247 As the final text did not mention treaty revision or equality of rights, the agreement was of no concrete value to Germany, yet it signed it nonetheless. As Alteras notes, the Four-Power Pact provided a ‘morale boost for Germany in her present diplomatic isolation’: the pact involved the recognition of Germany as one of four Western powers in possession of special responsibilities in respect to European affairs.248

247 Agreement of Understanding and Co-operation, enclosure in doc. no. 204, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 327–30. 248 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 222.

CHAPTER 5

The Fate of the Disarmament Conference

Renewed German Obstructionism By the time the Disarmament Conference resumed on 25 April, the attitude of the ‘Liberal powers’ in regard to German demands for treaty revision and armament rights began to harden in view of the National Socialist government’s ‘anti-Jewish drive,’ its attacks on pacifists, and the bellicosity of German ‘spokesmen of the second order.’1 The general problem of a National Socialist Germany was a subject of talks between Roosevelt and MacDonald when the latter, accompanied by Vansittart and Sir Frederick Leith-Ross, visited Washington between 21 and 26 April principally in order to discuss arrangements for the WEC.2 The internal aggression of the National Socialists had its external manifestation in the form of German obstructionism at the Disarmament Conference in the context of discussions of the MacDonald Plan.3 On the afternoon of 28 April, the General Commission discussed Part 2 of the draft convention which concerned effectives and which encompassed the French proposal for the standardisation of continental armies in the form 1 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 69, 71. See also Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 183. 2 Sir R. Vansttart (S. S. “Berengaria”) to Sir John Simon (received 17 April, 9:30 a.m.), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 792. 3 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 69, and Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 183.

© The Author(s) 2019 J. Pemberton, The Story of International Relations, Part Two, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21824-9_5

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of short-service armies, a proposal which, as we saw, entailed the abolition of professional armies, the Reichswehr included.4 Nadolny told the commission that his government ‘viewed such a proposal with very great reserve and had serious doubts with regard to it,’ adding that every state ‘should be free to develop in its own way and that no army system which did not meet its special requirements or the social economic conditions of the country should be forced upon it.’5 Nadolny stated that on this basis and on the ground that the French proposal applied to the European continent only rather than universally, the German delegation wished to introduce an amendment which would see substituted for Chapter II of Part 2, Section 1 as it stood, ‘a single article referring the whole question of standardisation of armies to the Permanent Disarmament Commission.’6 Having made it clear that Germany intended to retain the Reichswehr, Nadolny introduced two other amendments concerning Part 2, Section 1.7 The first of these amendments concerned the definition of effectives under Article 9 (a) of the draft convention and which, if it had been accepted, would have had the effect of drastically reducing the number of effectives allotted to France under the plan. The second concerned Article 12 and its definition of military training. Nadolny proposed an alternative definition to that contained in the article with a view to excluding ‘from consideration the German semi-military organizations and German police forces in computing the German effectives.’8 4 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 183 and Mr. Patteson (Geneva) to Sir J. Simon (received 29 April), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 174. 5 Minutes of the General Commission, 1933, quoted in Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 184. 6 Mr. Patteson (Geneva) to Sir J. Simon (received 29 April), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 175. Alteras notes that if the proposal to refer the matter of the standardisation of armies to the Permanent Disarmament Commission had been accepted by the General Commission, it ‘would have meant that provision for standardisation could not be decided upon in this first Convention but would have to be delayed for a second Disarmament Conference to be held five years later. In the meantime Germany would be free to keep her professional army side by side with the Storm Troopers and the Stahlhelm, numbering in the hundreds of thousands.’ Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 184. 7 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 352, and Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 76. 8 Alteras further points out that Germany also sought to have France ‘reduce the number of overseas forces stationed near the home country.’ He adds that ‘here too Germany had nothing to lose since she had no overseas forces.’ Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 184–5.

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Nadolny’s proposed amendments caused Massigli to rise ‘to his feet’ and declare that they ‘tended to destroy the foundations of the British draft’ through seemingly contemplating a ‘doubling of the Reichswehr while retaining its present character’; he added that ‘they left little hope of a conclusion of a Convention.’9 Eden then felt obliged to intervene, expressing his ‘perturbation at the scope and character’ of the German amendments, while also stating that he believed that Germany seriously desired disarmament.10 Following a long reply in German by Nadolny and an appeal by Davis ‘for a greater spirit of accommodation on all sides,’ Henderson adjourned the meeting until 1 May with a view to facilitating private exchanges between Eden and Nadolny.11 These exchanges did not prove fruitful: Nadolny refused to compromise on the question of the Reichswehr and the definition of military training. In relation to the latter question, he flatly rejected a majority decision by the Committee of Effectives on 1 May, to count among the German effectives around 38,000 members of the Schutzpolizei.12 Eden left Geneva on 4 May for consultations in London in light of the German intransigence. On the following day, the German ambassador called upon Eden, explaining to him that the German government faced certain difficulties in relation to the Reichswehr. Alluding to the National Socialists’ inclination to favour the British proposal for a short-service militia as such a militia would be easer for the German government to control, the ambassador stated that he could tell the British under-secretary of state ‘confidentially that whereas some of the older Conservative members of the Government held to the Reichswehr strongly, this was not the view of the National Socialists to the same extent.’13 9 Mr. Patteson (Geneva) to Sir J. Simon (received 29 April), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 175. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. See also Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 186. 12 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 187–8. 13 Sir J. Simon to Sir H. Rumbold (Berlin), 5 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 195–6. Alteras notes that while the Nazis were disposed towards the idea of a ‘short term militia composed mainly of S.A. and Stahlhelm to be dominated by the Nazis, the Nationalists,’ with whom the Nazis were in coalition, ‘on the other hand, wanted to retain the Reichswehr side by side with a militia armed with light tanks, airplanes and heavy artillery.’ Hitler, he adds, ‘was interested in introducing conscription so as to bring the masses indoctrinated with Nazism into the Reichswehr, thus neutralizing any possible opposition to his rule from the officer corps.’ The Nationalists’ calculation was that ‘only a Reichswehr without Nazi influence would be able to retain the Nationalists’ political individuality and independence, thereby

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The ambassador observed that the German government might be able ‘to do something about the Reichswehr,’ although he added that no immediate undertaking could be given in this regard because, in particular, ‘the Reichswehr was indispensable to the preservation of law and order in the present state of Germany.’14 After advising the ambassador that the conference could not delay discussion on the question for more than two or three weeks, Eden pointed out that the German government in proposing its amendment to the section on effectives had sought ‘to strike out one of the essential pillars in the structure of our Draft Convention.’15 Eden then drew the ambassador’s attention to a speech by Bourquin on 3 May in which the latter appealed to the German delegate not to pursue at this stage a proposal that would ‘fundamentally alter’ the convention, thereby upsetting the balance it struck between its proposals concerning effectives and those concerning war material.16 Eden warned the ambassador that he would find upon investigation that the Belgian delegate’s speech ‘was representative of the views of the Conference as a whole.’17 On 6 May, at a meeting in Washington with Hjalmar Schacht, president of the Reichsbank (a position he had occupied under the Weimar Republic), and a special representative of the German government, President Roosevelt expressed in plain terms his administration’s aversion to the German stance. He advised Schacht, who, like many other foreign dignitaries, was present in Washington for talks concerning the WEC, that the United States ‘would insist that Germany remain in status quo in armament and that we would support every possible effort to have the offensive armament of every other nation brought down to the German level.’ The president intimated in the strongest terms that the United States ‘regarded Germany as “the only possible obstacle” to a disarmament treaty,’ telling

avoiding political destruction by the Nazis in the future.’ Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 188–9. On this point, see also Sir H. Rumbold (Berlin) to Sir J. Simon (received 9 May, 4:45 p.m.), 9 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 208. 14 Sir J. Simon to Sir H. Rumbold (Berlin), 5 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 196. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. and Mr. Patteson (Geneva) to Sir J. Simon (received 4 May), 3 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 1933, 191. 17 Sir J. Simon to Sir H. Rumbold (Berlin), 5 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 196.

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Schacht that he hoped he would promptly relay this position to the German chancellor.18 Eden returned to Geneva on 8 May under instructions from cabinet to oppose any postponement of a decision on effectives.19 That same day, the Bureau of the Conference met in order to discuss procedure in respect to the German amendments. In the context of this meeting, Eden, as instructed, resolutely opposed a German attempt to have the discussion of effectives set to one side in favour of a discussion of war material, enjoying in this regard not only the support of Massigli but also of the Italian delegate.20 On the evening of the following day, Eden had a further conversation with Nadolny, during which the former stated that he understood that the question of the Reichswehr raised certain difficulties for Germany. Eden observed in a telegram to Simon that having stated this, he would hardly have been surprised if Nadolny had ‘suggested some mitigation of our scheme in this respect.’21 In the event, Eden found himself ‘astounded’ as Nadolny ‘took this occasion to demand immediate realisation of 100 per cent of the German claim to equality’ in regard to the rest of the convention.22 The German demands, Eden told Simon, are so preposterous that they would, if known, produce an explosion of feeling that might be very dangerous or they many only…[represent]…German delegates’ crude and clumsy notions of negotiations. On the other hand I cannot simply throw my hand in without explaining publicly why it is useless to continue the game. Only person who I have taken into my confidence is the United States delegate. I impressed upon him confidential nature of communication and begged him to telephone Davis in London…United States delegate fully shared my view of hopelessness of German delegate’s attitude. He observed if the Conference must be broken by Germany it was essential

18 United States Department of State, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931– 1941 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1943), 10. 19 Mr. Patteson (Geneva) to Sir J. Simon (received 10 May, 9:30 a.m.), 10 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 211. 20 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 187–8. 21 Mr. Patteson (Geneva) to Sir J. Simon (received 10 May, 9:30 a.m.), in DBFP, 2nd ser.,

vol. 5, 210. 22 Ibid.

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that the world should know at the right time that it was Germany who had broken it.23

On 11 May, Eden informed the heads of the American, French and Italian delegations that his private talks with Nadolny had reached a dead end and that it seemed to him pointless to persist with them as long as Germany adopted an uncompromising stance.24 Adding to the tensions was a speech by Neurath in Berlin on 11 May, in which he stated for that for the sake of its security, Germany could no longer dispense with the weapons and armaments possessed by other countries in the name of their security. Further adding to the tensions was an article appearing in the Leipzieger Illustrirte Zeitung on the same day in which Neurath stated that Germany ‘could not accept any agreement for limitation of arms which did not give practical effect to the equality of rights accorded Germany by the agreement of December 11.’25 Neurath’s contention that the agreement of 11 December entailed ‘practical equality in armaments’ was at a considerable distance from MacDonald’s understanding that the agreement accorded Germany, not practical equality, but rather ‘equality in principle through disarmament and adequate security guarantees.’26 Neurath stated in his press article that the German ‘demand for equality by means of general disarmament has been wrecked by the attitude of the highly armed Powers, and that even the English plan would compel Germany to a measure of rearmament.’27 Neurath insisted that given the lack of will to carry out a genuine decrease in armaments, Germany was compelled to establish a military and naval air force, acquire guns of a higher calibre than it cur23 Ibid., 211. E. L. Woodward and Rohan Butler note in relation to the communication sent by Eden to Simon concerning his meeting with Nadolny on the evening of 10 May the following: ‘The text is uncertain. A later copy of the telegram has the word “represent”.’ DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 211. 24 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 193. 25 Sir H. Rumbold (Berlin) to Sir J. Simon (received 12 May), 11 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd

ser., vol. 5, 226, and Sir J. Simon to Mr. Patteson (Geneva), 12 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 236. Alteras notes that the article appearing in the Leipzieger Illustrirte Zeitung by the German foreign minister on 11 May made clear ‘Germany’s intention to rearm in all military spheres regardless of the outcome at Geneva.’ Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 193. 26 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 193. 27 Sir H. Rumbold (Berlin) to Sir J. Simon (received 12 May), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5,

226.

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rently possessed and take similar steps in regard to effectives.28 Neurath then declared that Germany’s standpoint is morally and legally beyond criticism. What is right for others is right for Germany. Such weapons and armaments as the others hold to be necessary for their security can no longer be dispensed with for Germany’s, security. The right to live and the freedom of the German nation cannot be determined by a different measure from that used for other nations.29

In a telephone conversation with Vansittart on 11 May, Eden reported that Neurath’s article had been ‘circulated in translation all over Geneva today.’30 He told Vansittart that he considered the article a ‘notification from an authoritative quarter of an intention to disregard the Draft Convention which has been taken as a basis of discussion by all the delegations, including the Germans, and that the Germans intended to help themselves, notably in regard to aviation and guns,’ adding that he was doubtful whether he should continue conversations with Nadolny in light of it.31 On the same day, in a debate in the House of Lords on the Far East and disarmament, Douglas Hogg, the 1st Baron of Hailsham and secretary of state for war, speaking in his individual capacity and not as a member of the government, expressed the following view: if Germany were to walk out of the conference ‘the juridical result would be that Germany would remain bound by the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, and that any attempt on her part to rearm in contravention of that Treaty would be a breach of the Treaty of Versailles and would bring into operation the sanctions which that Treaty provides.’32 In Paris on the following day, Paul-Boncour echoed this view, telling the press that if the Disarmament 28 Ibid., 227 and Sir J. Simon to Mr. Patteson (Geneva), 12 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 236. 29 Rudolf Nadolny, 1933, quoted in Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 193. 30 Minute by Sir R. Vansittart, 11 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 228. 31 Ibid. See also Sir J. Simon to Mr. Patteson (Geneva), 2 May 1933, 236n, and Gathorne-

Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 352. 32 87, Parl. Deb., Lords (5th series) (11 May 1933), 897–8. As Alteras notes, Douglas Hogg, in speaking the House of Lords on 11 May, did not indicate what sanctions he thought should be applied to Germany should it attempt to rearm ‘since the Treaty [of Versailles] did not provide for such a possibility in case of its infraction. The provision for armed sanctions such as the re-occupation of the Rhineland was to be found in the sections dealing with

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Conference did not produce a convention for armaments reduction due to ‘the intransigence of Germany…the Treaty of Versailles would continue to be applied.’33 On the morning of 12 May, the British cabinet reached the following conclusions: that Germany was ‘clearly manoeuvring for position’; that it was ‘vital that she not be allowed to manoeuvre herself off the defensive’; that discussion in Geneva should be confined to those things ‘on which public opinion is united against Germany’ and that discussion of ‘details about guns, tanks, aeroplanes, etc.,’ on which public opinion would be ‘muddled and divided,’ should be avoided. Accordingly, Simon instructed the British delegation in Geneva to concentrate on effectives and to persuade the French to support this approach.34 He also told them that if the question of material was raised, they should ‘refuse to formulate or discuss any detailed figures, until Germany agreed to the principle that equality must be reached by stages,’ adding that Germany’s attitude as exemplified in Neurath’s speech made this vital.35 Neurath described for benefit of the German cabinet on 12 May the situation in Geneva as follows: At the Disarmament Conference in Geneva the attempts was being made to blame us for the failure of the negotiations on the grounds that we were unwilling to give up the Reichswehr. We were facing a solid front which was unwilling to make any concessions, and were running the risk of being outvoted in Geneva in the next few days. Even Italy was no longer going along. The situation could only be met by a public declaration by the Government delivered before the Reichstag.36

With regard to the latter point, it should be noted that in a telegram sent on Saturday, 13 May, Graham informed Simon that at a football match between England and Italy that afternoon, Mussolini had told him that he reparations. Nonetheless, [Lord] Halisham’s warning was just another expression of British disenchantment with German tactics.’ Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 194. 33 Sir J. Simon to Mr. Patteson (Geneva) (12 May 1933), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 236. 34 Ibid. 35 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 194. 36 Minutes of the Conference of Ministers on 12 May 1933, 4:50 p.m., Documents on

German Foreign Policy 1918–1945, series C, 1933–1937, The Third Reich: First Phase, vol. 1, 30 January–14 October 1933 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1959), 410.

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‘deplored the German attitude at Geneva’ which he feared could ‘wreck the Four-Power Pact’ and that he ‘disliked Neurath’s speech’ which, Mussolini opined, was inspired by the fact that Neurath was soon to leave office and wanted to ‘show himself “plus Royal que le Roi.”’37

Roosevelt’s Telegram Mussolini applauded the ‘severe language,’ as he called it, that Hogg had used in the Lords, observing that it had caused a great stir in France and Germany and that it was ‘probably the only method of bringing Germany to reason.’38 He added that he had sent a ‘strong private and personal message’ to Hitler pleading with him to seize the opportunity of his forthcoming speech to the Reichstag on 17 May ‘to use moderate and conciliatory language’ and not to ‘pour oil upon the troubled waters.’39 The speech to which Mussolini referred concerned a decision by the German government on 12 May to summon the Reichstag (which, having meekly endorsed the Enabling Bill of 23 March, had ‘adjourned sine die only to meet again only if and when it suited the convenience of the Fuhrer’), in order to hear a statement by the chancellor about Geneva.40 In a telegram to Simon, Sir Horace Rumbold, British ambassador to Berlin, observed that this was a ‘clever tactical move on the part of the Hitlerites to strengthen their position’ as it was being ‘seriously affected’ by developments in Geneva. The Centre and the Social Democrats, he noted, would have ‘no choice but associate themselves with official government disarmament policy.’41 At the same time, he added, the rest of the world was supposed to be ‘impressed by [the] united front in Germany and induced to believe that a parliamentary Government still exists.’42 Promoted in advance in the 37 Sir R. Graham (Rome) to Sir J. Simon (received 14 May, 10:00 a.m.), 13 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 238. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 71–2. Emphasis in original. See also Sir H. Rumbold (Berlin) to Sir J. Simon (received 13 May, 4:20 p.m.), 13 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 237, and Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 195. 41 Sir H. Rumbold (Berlin) to Sir J. Simon (received 13 May, 4:20 p.m.), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 237. 42 Ibid.

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German press as a crucial foreign policy statement, the speech was anxiously awaited in Geneva where certain conference members allowed themselves to hope that its language would indeed be moderate and conciliatory.43 Others, however, expected that Hitler would declare that Germany was no longer bound by the Treaty of Versailles in view of the failure of other powers to disarm.44 The latter expectation was reinforced on 14 May, the day on which Papen delivered a speech at a Stahlhelm meeting in Münster in which he ‘accused…[Hogg]…of hypocrisy.’45 In his speech, Papen eulogised war and exhorted ‘German mothers to be prolific’ so that there should be ‘more soldiers to die on the field of battle for Germany.’46 He stated that although Germany was isolated…other countries would soon learn that a great people could only be robbed for a short period of their vital rights. The word ‘pacifism’ had been expunged from the German vocabulary; the spirit of the national revolution was the spirit of men who remained soldiers, body and soul. At the end of his life, Herr Hitler would be able to say that he had restored the idea of the German soldier to the focus of thought of the whole German nation.47

On 16 May, the Times of London editorialised that Papen’s speech had ‘sent a challenging note around the civilised world, which had begun to hope that no nation deliberately now looked forward to war,’ adding that ‘[o]pinion in this country has been turned solidly against Germany by the excesses of the Nazis.’48 Davis was a close confidant of Roosevelt and had been appointed by the president in March 1933 as head of the American delegation in Geneva with the status of ambassador-at-large. According to Alteras, Davis urged the president to publicly warn Hitler not to undertake any actions that might further disturb political conditions in Europe. On 16

43 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 196. 44 Boeckel, ‘Disarmament or Rearmament; Roosevelt Vs. Hitler,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disar-

mament Conference, 1933.’ 45 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 197, and Colonel Heywood to Lord Tyrrell, 16 May 1933, enclosure 1, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 260n. 46 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 352, and Alteras, ‘The Geneva

Disarmament Conference,’ 197. 47 Colonel Heywood to Lord Tyrrell, 16 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 260n–1n. 48 ‘A Challenge to Peace,’ Times. May 16, 1933, 15.

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May, Roosevelt sent identical telegrams to the heads of state of every state represented at the Disarmament Conference or taking part in preparations for the WEC. In these telegrams, Roosevelt, after insisting that the WEC ‘must establish order in place of the present chaos,’ urged that the Disarmament Conference should have as its ultimate objective the elimination of all aggressive weapons.49 Roosevelt stated that his government did not believe that the ‘program for immediate reduction of aggressive weapons’ then under discussion at Geneva went far enough: it was ‘but a first step towards our ultimate goal.’ Nonetheless, he added that his government welcomed the measures currently proposed and would ‘exert its influence toward the attainment of further successive stages of disarmament.’50 To this end, Roosevelt continued, the present discussion should agree to the ‘first definite steps’ as outlined in the MacDonald Plan; upon the time and procedure for the taking of following steps; and that while ‘the first and following steps are being taken, no nation should increase its existing armaments over and above the limitations of treaty obligations.’51 Roosevelt stated that concurrent with this action, all the nations of the world, in order to assure the peace of the world during that time that disarmament is being undertaken, ‘should enter into a solemn and definite pact of non-aggression;…should solemnly reaffirm the obligations that they have assumed to limit and reduce their armaments, and, provided these obligations are faithfully executed by all signatory Powers, individually agree that they will send no armed force of whatever nature across their frontiers.’52 Roosevelt then issued his warning, stating that ‘if any strong

49 Telegram from the President of the United States to His Majesty the King, 16 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 240. For Davis’s role in prompting Roosevelt to issue a warning to Hitler, see Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 197. For Davis’s relations with Roosevelt, see Robert A. Divine, ‘Franklin D. Roosevelt and Collective Security,’ Mississippi Valley Historical Review 48, no. 1 (1933): 42–59, 49. See also ‘Davis Proposes a Recess,’ New York Times, May 28, 1933, and ‘Norman H. Davis of Red Cross Dead,’ New York Times, July 2, 1944. 50 Telegram from the President of the United States to His Majesty the King, 16 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 241. 51 Ibid. Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 197. See also A. Camille Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 303. 52 Ibid., 242. See also Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 303, and ‘À la Conférence permanente des Hautes Études internationales: Conférence générale d’étude sur la sécurité collective (Londres 3-8 juin),’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 53–54 (1935): 217–97, 233.

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nation refuses to join with genuine sincerity in these concerted efforts for political and economic peace, the one at Geneva and the other at London,….the civilised world, seeking both forms of peace, will know where the responsibility for failure lies.’53 Colonel Thomas George Gordon Heywood, a British military attaché, reported to William Tyrrell. (1st Baron Tyrrell) the British ambassador ´¯ to France, that General Auguste-Edouard Moyrand, deputy head of the general staff at the French Ministry of War, had told him on the morning of 16 May that he thought that the ‘remarkable change in feeling’ that had come about in England and America, as demonstrated by speeches by prominent British statesmen, by words issued by Roosevelt and by the warning pronounced by Hogg, was bound to have a ‘considerable effect’ on Hitler.54 Heywood informed Tyrrell that Moyrand had stated that although German leaders and many Germans seemed to have gone mad as shown by the entirely medieval views expressed by von Papen and von Neurath in their recent speeches, which were frankly amazing in the 20th century, they were not altogether bereft of reasoning powers, and he thought it quite probable that Hitler would not go so far as to defy world opinion, and especially the united opinion of France, Great Britain and America by openly rearming.55

In his discussion with Heywood, Moyrand addressed the question of military sanctions against Germany. In this regard, it should be noted that against the background of Papen’s speech of 14 May, there had been some ‘talk of the desirability of a preventative war’ in French newspapers.56 Moyrand told Heywood that he did not think that France would take unilateral action in response to any German violations of the Treaty of Versailles: the treaty was an international instrument and hence breaches of it were a matter of international concern. In addition, Moyrand observed, the logistical difficulties involved in applying military sanctions to Germany and the serious risk, given ‘the present mental state of Germany,’ that these 53 Telegram from the President of the United States to His Majesty the King, 16 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 242. 54 Colonel Heywood to Lord Tyrrell, 16 May 1933, enclosure 2, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol.

5, 260. 55 Ibid., 260–1. 56 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 196–7.

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might lead to war, meant that he could not see France undertaking operations alone.57 Indeed, he pointed out that the general staff had received no instructions to consider the application of military sanctions in relation to the present situation.58 Moyrand told Heywood that he thought financial and economic sanctions would be enough to bring Germany to its senses and that military sanctions would only be applied as a last resort. He added that in his view, ‘if France, Great Britain and the United States of America were of the same mind, and spoke firmly to Germany, no such measures would be necessary.’59 A somewhat less sanguine view of the impact of Roosevelt’s message was expressed by Alexis Léger, the secretary-general of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In fact, Léger told Tyrrell that he was disappointed by it. He feared that the president’s message would ‘encourage Hitler to adopt an ostensibly conciliatory line in his declaration…and thus perhaps obscure the issue which is in reality that Germany not only intends to rearm, come what may, but is actively engaged in doing so.’60 At the same time, Léger stated that he was not taking the message ‘too tragically’: he well understood that Roosevelt could not be as explicit in a message to the world as he could be in ‘diplomatic confidential conversations’ and that though Roosevelt’s own attitude had ‘not changed,’ the president was ‘anticipating more difficulty with the Senate than he expected.’61 Léger’s disappointment was further mitigated in light of the fact that the United States secretary of state had told the French ambassador at Washington that if ‘in the face of [the] warning contained in [Roosevelt’s] message Germany showed that she persisted in the intention to rearm the world would not only know where responsibility lay but on which side [the] United States was ranged.’62 Léger also told Tyrrell that a member of Roosevelt’s inner-circle had called the French ambassador’s attention to two passages in the president’s message: the passage concerning the undertaking to be given by all

57 Ibid., 261. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Lord Tyrrell (Paris) to Sir J. Simon (received 18 May, 9:30 a.m.), 17 May 1933, in DBFP,

2nd ser., vol. 5, 246. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid.

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states not to increase their existing armaments over and above the limitations of treaty obligations for the period contemplated in the disarmament convention and the one concerning the agreement of signatories not to send armed forces across their frontier provided that the obligations of the convention are faithfully executed. The French ambassador was told that with these passages, the president was intending to ‘show that America’s benevolence could be counted on if France…were driven to take her own measures in the event of continued German rearmament in defiance of treaty engagements.’63 According to Tyrrell, that the French government and press appeared unexpectedly calm in the face of the prospect of Germany persisting with rearmament, could be ascribed to two factors: first, the ‘revulsion of American and particularly of British public opinion’ and second, the fact that on this occasion France could ‘count on her points of view being shared when the time…[came]…to consider what measures the future developments may necessitate.’64

Hitler’s ‘Peace Speech’ Léger’s prediction that Hitler would seize the occasion of Roosevelt’s peace message (which, in a speech to the Reichstag on 17 May, after having extolled the virtues of the ‘Mussolini Pact,’ Hitler stated merited the ‘warm thanks’ of the German government), to adopt an ostensibly conciliatory line was accurate.65 A contemporary observer noted that in regard to the Treaty of Versailles, the Chancellor, of course, did his usual stuff. The war guilt lie, the iniquity of reparations, the division of the powers into victors and vanquished were all trotted out. But the expected climax was skilfully avoided. For repudiation of the Treaty, May 17th was clearly not “der Tag”. And he switched over to professions of love and peace which rang queerly enough in the mouth of a colleague of Herr von Papen’s. Without a word of acknowledgment to his dearest enemy, Ludendorff, with whom he 63 Ibid., 246–7. 64 Lord Tyrrell (Paris) to Sir J. Simon (received 18 May, 9. 00 a.m.), 17 May 1933, in

DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 1, 247. See also Lord Tyrrell (Paris) to Sir J. Simon (received 18 May, 9:30 a.m., ibid., 246; Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 71; and Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 197. 65 Summary of Speech by Herr Hitler in the Reichstag on 17 May 1933, enclosure in no. 153, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 257.

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broke in 1925, he ‘lifted’ that old gambler’s favourite thesis (which on the stump the Chancellor himself has always repudiated) that renewed war could not fail to end in Germany’s destruction. Pacific at heart, then, the German people would gladly co-operate in the achievement of international peace, but only as equals. The Disarmament Conference, which had adjourned to allow the German delegate to consult his principles, drew breath once more.66

The passages in the speech which related to disarmament were vague and ambiguous, causing Rumbold to observe that he was not ‘clear whether they indicate an advance on the German position at Geneva before the latest adjournment.’67 In fact, the passages on disarmament indicated that there had been barely any advance on Germany’s stated position. Hitler declared that the German government viewed the ‘English plan’ as a ‘possible basis for the solution’ of the disarmament question, but that they would only accept the abolition of the ‘army system imposed on them against their wish by the outer world’ as required by the plan, if two demands were met.68 The transformation of the Reichswehr would only proceed in proportion as other states actually disarmed and, what was more important, Germany according to Hitler, must be accorded at least ‘qualitative equality’—she must possess an air force, tanks, and heavy guns. Furthermore, while Hitler accepted the principle of a transitional period of five years, he nonetheless inferred that by the end of this period Germany would achieve practical equality in armaments with other states, meaning that if by the end of the agreed period other countries had not destroyed their heavy, tanks and airplanes, Germany would be free to build them…. The conditions…[Hitler]…specified for its acceptance negated the spirit of the [British] plan. For the British Plan was a program designed for disarmament and not immediate and complete German rearmament. Furthermore, it called for disarmament by ‘stages’ and not of complete and total disarmament at once as Hitler demanded.69

66 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 71–2. 67 Sir H. Rumbold (Berlin) to Sir J. Simon (received 24 May), 17 May 1933, in DBFP,

2nd ser., vol. 5, 251. 68 Summary of Speech by Herr Hitler in the Reichstag on 17 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 256. 69 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 200.

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As further evidence that the stated German position had barely shifted, it should be noted that in his speech of 17 May, Hitler echoed Nadolny’s insistence at Geneva that France’s ‘coloured overseas forces’ be counted as domestic forces.70 He also echoed Nadolny in insisting that it would be unfair to include in the figures for Germany the members of the S.A., the S.S. and the Stahlhelm, the aim of which, he declared, was that of coping with communism. He stated in relation to these organisations: ‘If an attempt is made in Geneva today to count in these exclusively political organisations as military forces, then with equal justice the fire brigades, gymnastic associations, &c., could be counted in.’71 Hitler’s so-called Peace Speech was largely viewed in a positive light by the Times of London. The newspaper noted that in this instance Hitler had avoided the ‘turgid rhetoric’ that had won him so many votes among the German people. ‘Behind Herr Hitler demagogue and showman,’ the Times opined, ‘the world caught a first glimpse yesterday of Herr Hitler the statesman,’ an opinion echoed by the New York Times.72 The Times went on to state that certain statements made in the course of the speech were open to criticism, citing the fact that the German chancellor had not been able to ‘resist some jibes at the expense of the League of Nations’ and observing that his claim that Germany had carried out its obligations under the Treaty of Versailles was hardly ‘the whole story.’ Nonetheless, the. Times declared that Hitler’s statement that ‘international agreements can only have real value if they are made between nations of equal rights’ was not really open to challenge. In order to bring calm to the European situation, the newspaper continued, the ‘imposed’ Treaty of Versailles must be ‘converted, with a minimum of alterations, into an agreed peace.’73 If the Times was somewhat optimistic that Hitler’s speech of 17 May would lead to an improvement in the atmosphere in Geneva, others were more cautious.74 Alteras notes that ‘official opinion in Britain…adopted a “wait and see” attitude’: however seductive was the pacific tone of the 70 Summary of Speech by Herr Hitler in the Reichstag on 17 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 256. 71 Ibid., 255. 72 ‘Herr Hitler’s Speech,’ Times, May 18, 1933. See also, Frederick T. Birchall, ‘Hitler

Backs President: Declares Berlin Ready to Support Proposal to End the Crisis,’ New York Times, May 18, 1933. 73 Times, 18 May 18, 1933. 74 Ibid.

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speech, solid evidence of the sincerity of his vaunted desire to cooperate with the rest of the world in the interests of peace was still required.75 Allen Leeper, the Foreign Office’s politically influential expert on disarmament, was one of those unconvinced by Hitler’s soothing words. He observed that although the chancellor had demonstrated that ‘he can roar as gently as any bucking dove…the French know very well that whatever Herr Hitler says, he is actually rearming Germany.’76

Norman H. Davis’s Intervention On 19 May, it seemed as if the major impasse at the Disarmament Conference had been overcome as at a meeting of the General Commission, the German amendments in respect to the draft convention’s section on effectives were provisionally withdrawn. The conference was thus free to move on to a discussion of the convention’s articles concerning land, naval and air armaments, although here too difficulties arose due to the German delegate’s interventions.77 On 22 May, Davis, made a declaration in Geneva concerning the ‘future co-operation of the United States in protection of the new non-aggression commitment,’ by which was meant the security provisions of the British plan.78 Echoing the Stimson declaration on behalf of the Hoover administration of 8 August 1932 which had been endorsed by Roosevelt during his election campaign in that same year, Davis made the following declaration on behalf of the president: Recognising that any threat of a breach, or a breach, of the Pact of Paris is a matter of concern to the signatories, the United States Government declares that in the event of a breach, or a threat of one it will be prepared to confer with a view to interceding for peace in the event of consultations with other Powers for this purpose being arranged, pursuant to the appropriate Article of the Disarmament Convention. In the event of a decision determining the 75 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 202. 76 Allen Leeper, 1933, quoted in Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 202.

Varey notes that Allen Leeper ‘made many incisive analyses about disarmament policies from abroad and carefully sculpted British prescriptions for achieving success within the outline of departmental objectives….Leeper’s high regard for Vansittart, their close working relationship and, importantly, their like-minded treatment of disarmament played a vital role in the projection of Leeper’s ideas beyond the department.’ Varey, Diplomacy and Disarmament, 6. 77 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 202–4. 78 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 76.

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aggressor following such consultation, and in the event of the United States Government agreeing with this in its independent judgment, it will undertake to refrain from any action and to withhold its protection from its citizens who might engage in activities which tend to defeat the collective effort which the States in collective consultation may think it necessary to decide upon against the aggressor.79

In explaining the import of Davis’s intervention, Simon told Parliament on 26 May that a new situation had evolved as a result of it. He stated that the British had hoped that the signatories of the convention would all be prepared to agree that in the event of a breach or threat of a breach ‘then a Conference between the High Contracting Parties should take place,’ adding that this would be ‘the meaning of the Consultative Pact in its fullest sense.’80 However, he continued, the United States had ‘made it plain’ they were ‘not prepared to agree beforehand as to what they would they do in a given case when it arose’ and, as a result, the British draft had to be modified such that it provided only for the means by which a conference ‘might be invited.’81 Simon stated that forthwith he, assisted by other members of the British delegation in Geneva, had proceeded to draft a new agreement which provided that an invitation to enter into immediate consultation could be issued either by organs of the LON to non-members or by a nonmember to the LON. The new draft, he noted, was not able to declare that an invitation would be accepted, however, he added that there was good reason to believe that the United States, at any rate, would be prepared to enter into consultation in ‘any proper case.’82 Simon pointed that the new draft went on to define the object of consultation as follows: firstly, ‘to exchange views for the purpose of preserving the peace and adverting a conflict;’ secondly, ‘to use good offices for the restoration of peace’; and thirdly, ‘in the event that it proves impossible to restore the peace, then to determine which party or parties to the dispute are to be held responsible.’83 Following upon this definition, Simon pointed out, was what he called a saving clause: a specification that nothing in the agreement ‘in the least 79 Norman H. Davis, 1933, quoted in ibid., 78. 80 278, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (26 May 1933), 1446–7. 81 Ibid., 1447. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid., 1448.

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alters the obligations which already rest on the shoulders of the members of the League.’84 Simon stated he proposed this clause with ‘some fear and trembling’ despite feeling that it accorded with the recent declarations issued by the administration in Washington.85 In stating this, Simon was perhaps alluding to the administration’s wariness about associating itself with the LON in respect to security matters. Not unrelated to this, is the point that the inclusion of the so-called saving clause reflected the fact that the British plan contemplated that in the event of a breach, parties to the consultative pact who were also a members of the LON would consult with other powers both in their character as signatories of the new pact and in their character as signatories of the covenant. The United States, of course, could only offer consultation in its character as a signatory of the Pact of Paris as extended into the projected consultative pact.86 As a contemporary observer noted, this distinction is of the utmost importance with reference to the French claim for security, inasmuch an affirmative finding on aggression committed by a member of the League of Nations would involve the innocent States-members of the League in the enforcement of the sanctions contained in Article 16, to which, however, the United States must remain a stranger.87

With this distinction in view, Simon stated that it was of capital importance that ‘we should not exaggerate or distort…[the American]…declaration by one atom.’88 Nonetheless, he insisted that the declaration was an important contribution, stating that he did not think that the United States had ever before formally declared a willingness to consult. Above all, Simon applauded the American government and president for the support they had given to efforts to ‘abandon a tradition’ in respect to neutrality which the American people had hitherto ‘most jeal-

84 Ibid. 85 Ibid. 86 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 77. See also Boeckel, ‘Consultation and a Continental European Security Pact,’ and ‘Security and the Supervisions of Arms Reduction,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933.’ 87 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 77. 88 278, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (26 May 1933), 1445. See also Charteris, ‘Germany

and the Disarmament Conference,’ 77.

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ously guarded.’89 Interpreting for the benefit of the House of Commons the new American stance on neutrality as conveyed by Davis, Simon stated the following: [T]he United States insists that it must preserve its own independent judgment as to who is right and who is wrong in connection with a dispute….[W]e have no ground whatever to complain, that the United States should declare, while she comes forward and makes this new contribution, that it will depend upon her own judgment of the situation, after that judgment has been analysed; but, as soon as she does take the view that, in some conflict of the future, A is the wrongdoer and B is the oppressed, observe the extremely important effect which will follow on the application of the old classical doctrine of neutrality. If in that event, for example, the aggrieved State and those who act with the aggrieved State take steps to endeavour to prevent sustenance and succour going to the wrongdoer, this declaration, as it seems to me, amounts to this, and is meant to amount to this, that, in that event, if the judgment of the Executive of the United States agrees with the view of those in consultation, then: “We will refrain from any action tending to defeat such collective effort which the States may thus make to restore peace.” In other words, the idea of standing with folded arms, a mere spectator from afar, of the struggles between two other States, one of which is the aggressor and has acted wrongly, and the other of which is the sufferer—that is in terms abandoned and this new doctrine substituted.90

In the event, Simon had no need to fear the American reaction to the inclusion of the saving clause: immediately following Simon’s submission of the new draft of the consultative pact, Davis asked to speak whereupon he told delegates that it ‘fulfilled the purpose.’ He then went on to explain in detail how the American government planned to associate itself with Part 1 of the disarmament convention.91 Davis indicated to the conference that while the American government would sign all the other parts on signing the convention, it did not intend to sign Part 1. He pointed out that for reason of constitutional difficulties, that is, the fact that the Senate might reject a treaty that contained a pledge to consult, the American government intended to attach in respect of Part 1 at the time of signature a

89 278, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (26 May 1933), 1445, 1449. 90 Ibid., 1445–6. See also Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 77. 91 278, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (26 May 1933), 1448.

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unilateral declaration.92 This declaration, Davis told the conference, would read along the following lines: In the event that a decision is taken by a Conference of the Powers in consultation in determining the aggressor with which, on the basis of its independent judgment the Government of the United States agreed, the Government of the United States will undertake to refrain from any action and to withhold protection from its citizens if engaged in activities which would tend to defeat the collective effort which the States in consultation might have decided upon against the aggressor.93

Defining the Aggressor In his speech of 22 May, Davis had reiterated the definition of an aggressor offered by Roosevelt in his peace message of 16 May: ‘we may come to the conclusion that the simplest and most accurate definition of an aggressor is one whose armed forces are found on alien soil in violation of treaties.’94 The push to define the term aggressor at the Disarmament Conference had been lead by Litvinov. On 6 February 1933, Litvinov submitted to the conference a definition of the term, arguing that defining the aggressor ‘with utmost precision’ was essential ‘in order to remove any possibility of its justification.’95 Litvinov’s submission was addressed in what was later described as a ‘luminous’ report submitted to the conference on 24 May 1933, by Politis on behalf of the conference’s Committee on Security Questions of which Politis was the chair.96

92 Ibid., 1448–9. See also Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 78, and Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933,’ note 11. 93 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 78. 94 Boeckel, ‘American Contributions to Possible Agreement,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarma-

ment Conference, 1933.’ Davis further stated: ‘An aggressor is a State which sends its armed forces across the frontiers of another state in violation of treaty.’ Norman H. Davis, 1933, quoted in Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 76. 95 For Litvinov’s definition of the aggressor, see Endel Krepp, Security and Non-Aggression: Baltic States and U. S. S. R. Treaties of Non-Aggression (Stockholm: Estonian Information Centre and Latvian National Centre, 1973), 16. 96 Memorandum submitted by Ricardo J. Alfaro, Yearbook of the International Law Commission, vol. 2 (1951): 33–40, 34. See also Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 296, and Vespasian V. Pella, ‘The Determination of the Aggressor,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 319.

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It should be noted here that French government had signalled from the beginning that it favoured the effort to introduce into international law an ‘accurate definition of the formerly vague and elusive notions of the aggressor’ on the basis that this was ‘indispensable to the establishment of a solid basis for an effective organisation of peace.’97 In this regard, it should be recalled that the French memorandum of 14 November confined legitimate defence to the repulsion of armed forces that have ‘violently penetrated the territory of a state which defends itself.’98 In a note on 25 April, the French delegation, resuming the proposals of 14 November, sought to integrate the principle of the definition ‘in a system of assistance to the State which was a victim of an aggression and to secure the adoption, as a corollary, of a strengthening of the principle of arbitration.’99 The French delegation, with the support of Greece, declared that they were ‘dissatisfied’ with the Roosevelt definition of May 16 and demanded a ‘stricter’ one: a definition which would ‘automatically release the sanctions provided for in Art. 16 in given cases.’100 As noted by Bourquin, ‘if we do not succeed in identifying the guilty party, repression is necessarily paralysed.’101 In the event, what quickly became known as the Politis–Litvinov formula involved a ‘rigorous conception of the renunciation of force.’102 At the same time, it is important to add that the ‘objective sign’ which Roosevelt identified with aggression, that is, ‘the penetration of armed forces into the territory of another State’ accorded completely with the Politis definition as was pointed out with ‘lively satisfaction’ by the Russian delegate Valerian Salel’evich Dovgalevsky on 25 May.103 97 Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 304. 98 Le Temps, November 16, 1932. See also Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 305. 99 Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 305. 100 Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 79. 101 Maurice Bourquin, ‘General Report on the Preparatory Memoranda Submitted to the

General Study Conference in 1935,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 23. 102 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 53–54 (1935), 233. See also Horsfall Carter, ‘Naming

the Aggressor,’ 144. 103 Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 303. On 23 December 1933, Roosevelt reiterated for the benefit of the Disarmament Conference the test of aggression that he had included in his message to various Heads of State of 16 May. At this later date, he called for a ‘simple declaration that no nation will permit any of its armed forces to cross its own borders into the territory of another nation,’ adding that such ‘an act would be regarded by humanity as an act of aggression, and as an act therefore that would call for condemnation by humanity.’ President Roosevelt, 1933, quoted in Alan B. Plaunt, ‘Collective Security,’ in Bourquin, ed.,

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The Politis–Litvinov formula found legal embodiment in the Conventions for the Definition of Aggression of 3–5 July 1933 (also known as the London Conventions because they were signed at the Soviet embassy in London), as agreed to by the governments of Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Turkey, the USSR and Yugoslavia. These conventions were based on and conceived of as an extension of the Pact of Paris which was expressly referenced in Article 1 of the conventions. The same article also expressly mentioned the Committee on Security Questions (Politis Report), stating that the parties undertook to accept in their relations with each other the definition of aggression provided in that report.104 Article 2 of the conventions thus enumerated the following five actions each of which in itself would constitute an act of aggression: a declaration of war; invasion by armed forces of the territory of another state even without a declaration of war; an attack upon the ships or aircraft of another state; the naval blockade of the coasts or ports of another state; and support given to armed bands which shall have invaded the territory of another state or the refusal to put a stop to all protection in their favour.105 Politis had stated at the Disarmament Conference that the Collective Security, 296n. Alan B. Plaunt observed that this statement embodied the same basic principle as the Litvinoff [Litvinov] Convention,’ but added that it was not ‘sufficiently comprehensive or definite to be of practical use. It is merely a statement of principle’ (ibid., 296). 104 Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 296–7, 305. See also Convention for the Definition

of Aggression, 3 July 1933. Afghanistan, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Turkey: Convention for the Definition of Aggression, Annex and Protocol of Signature, signed at London, 3 July 1933, League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 147 (Geneva: LON, 1934), 68–77; Romania, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Czechoslovakia, Turkey and Yugoslavia: Convention for the Definition of Aggression and Annex, signed at London, 4 July 1933, League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 148 (Geneva: LON, 1934), 212–9; Lithuania and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Convention for the Definition of Aggression and Annex, signed at London, 5 July 1933, League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 148 (Geneva: LON, 1934), 80–5; and LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, General Commission, Report of the Committee on Security Questions (Rapporteur, M. N. Politis), Conf.D./C/G/108.Conf.D./C./C.R.S./9(1) (Geneva: LON, 24 May 1933), http://www.derechos.org/peace/dia/doc/dia17.html. See also Pella, ‘The Determination of the Aggressor,’ 318. Pella referred to the London Conventions as the Litvinoff-Titulescu Conventions. 105 See for example Convention for the Definition of Aggression, signed at London, 3 July 1933, in League of Nations Treaty Series, 71. The wording of the articles of and the annex to the three conventions which defined aggression were identical. The Politis Report indicated that ‘by territory is to be understood the territory over which a state exercises in fact its authority.’ Politis Report, 1933, quoted in Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 301n.

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state which would be named the aggressor is the first state that commits one of five acts of aggression so enumerated. Importantly, he had added that ‘the chronological order of the facts is decisive here.’106 Against a state that was the first to commit one of these acts, there would ‘be automatically against its author a presumption of aggression,’ a presumption that would ‘no longer be a simple presumption,…but irrefutable, juris et de jure.’107 As Pella pointed out, in this last respect the definition of aggression in the London Conventions was superior to that laid down in the 1924 Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of Disputes. In a submission to the ISC on behalf of the Romanian Social Institute, Pella observed that although the Geneva Protocol certainly had ‘the force of a presumption,’ it was, however, ‘open to proof of the contrary,’ that is, the presumption in question was a rebuttable presumption (juris tantum).108 The London In declaring this, the report was addressing the case of those territories, such as Manchuria, where ‘there is a marked partition of sovereignty. How is it possible to apply, for example, the ordinary notion of the respect of territorial integrity in regions where the maintenance of order is ensured by foreign forces?’ Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 300. 106 Nikolaos Politis, 1933, quoted in S. M. Schwebel, ‘Aggression and Self-Defence in

Modern International Law’, Recueil des Cours, vol. 136, part 2 (1972): 411–98, 463. ‘Thus, if the armed forces of one State invade the territory of another State, the latter State may declare war on the invading State or invade its territory in turn, without itself being regarded as an aggressor’ (ibid). 107 Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 297. Emphasis in the original. On 10 October 1933, Paraguay, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Chile signed at Rio de Janeiro the Anti-War Treaty of Non-Aggression and Conciliation (The Saavedra Lamas Treaty). The preamble to this treaty declared the following: ‘The undersigned States, desirous of contributing to the maintenance of peace with the end of condemning wars of aggression and territorial conquests carried out by force of arms…in view of replacing them by peaceful solutions founded the high ideals of justice and equity, in the conviction that one of the most effective means of ensuring the moral and material benefits derived from world peace is the organization of a permanent system of conciliation of international disputes…decide to give these intentions the form of a convention of non-aggression and concord.’ Anti-War Treaty of Non-Aggression and Conciliation, 1933, quoted in Julian Makowski, ‘Peaceful Methods of Settlement of International Disputes,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 230. On 26 December, 1933, at the Seventh Pan-American Conference at Montevideo on the initiative of the United States, a convention was unanimously adopted concerning the rights and duties of states. The convention stated the following: ‘The maintenance of peace is the highest interest for the States. The disputes which may arise between them for whatever reason must be settled by peaceful methods.’ Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, 1933, quoted in Makowski, ‘Peaceful Methods of Settlement of International Disputes,’ 231. The Montevideo conference urged the governments of Bolivia and Paraguay to accept LON mediation with a view to ending the so-called Chaco War. 108 Pella, ‘The Determination of the Aggressor,’ 318.

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Conventions were not open to proof of the contrary in any case should one of the relevant five facts be established. In this way, Pella observed, the conventions bypassed the serious difficulties that the administration of proofs of the contrary might pose in many cases.109 Importantly also, what Pella described in reference to Article 2 of the conventions as the ‘almost automatic’ determination of the aggressor, would allow for the rapid provision of assistance by other states to the target of an act of aggression whether under the auspices of Article 16 of the covenant or in light of any regional agreement involving mutual guarantees. Here it is worth noting that Article 2, before enumerating the aforementioned five actions, made a reservation in respect to existing agreements, thereby safeguarding existing treaties which guaranteed aid to the victims of aggression.110 In order to draw out the significance of the definition of aggression outlined in Article 2, Article 3 provided ‘that no political, military, economic or other consideration may serve as an excuse or justification of the aggression’ to which Article 2 referred.111 The annex to the conventions, which in fact was an annex to Article 3, ‘furnished certain indications for determining the aggressor’: it provided a list of examples, albeit not an exhaustive list, of the circumstances which could never serve as an excuse or justification. 112 These circumstances were divided into two groups, the first of which concerned the internal condition of a state and the second of which its international conduct. Against the background of the justifications issued by Japan for the continuing occupation of Manchuria, it is noteworthy that under the head of the internal condition of a state, alleged defects in the administration of the state and internal disturbances whether due to revolution or civil war were mentioned.113 In a memorandum submitted to the ISC’s 1935 conference on the topic of the definition of aggression which had been commissioned by the Commission française de coordination des hautes études internationales and which had first been pub-

109 Ibid. and Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 296. 110 Ibid., 318–9. Pella added that ‘participation in common action’ to assist a victim of

aggression ‘could not in any case be considered an act of aggression’ (ibid.). 111 Convention for the Definition of Aggression, signed at London, 3 July 1933, in League

of Nations Treaty Series, 73. 112 Ibid., 75. 113 Ibid.

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lished in the July–September issue of the Revue de Droit International in 1934, Augustin Camille Jordan noted that among the circumstances mentioned under the head of international conduct of a state, was that of frontier incidents. As he further noted, such incidents had often been cited as a pretext for aggression in the past. Doubtless he was aware when submitting his memorandum to the ISC that the preparation of an Italian plan of aggression in East Africa was well underway. Frontier incidents would serve as the pretext for the execution of this plan.114

Condemning Recourse to Force In condemning all recourse to force, the London Conventions overcame the problem posed by the fact that the covenant and the Pact of Paris prohibited war only. According to Ian Brownlie, the ‘important conclusion to be drawn from the nineteenth century experience is the unsatisfactory nature of “war” as a term of art in view of the freedom which the concept conferred on states in characterizing their own actions’; because of the difficulty posed by this freedom and that posed by the fact that in the nineteenth century ‘“war” as a term of art had acquired a restrictive and technical meaning and the influence of this doctrine continued during the life of the League,’ war was employed ‘less commonly as a term of art [after 1920] in international instruments.’115 In the interwar period, the term aggression was increasingly used in order to characterise acts of force which were not intended for the purpose of self-defence with a view to emphasising the illegality of action which the covenant might be interpreted as permitting under certain conditions. For example, the covenant was interpreted by some as permitting the invasion of the territory of another state for reasons that did not include annexation. Yet the notion of aggression was very hazy and therefore was itself vulnerable to dubious interpretations, a consideration which formed part of the background to the efforts to define it. The uncertainty in the years after 1920 as to what was or was not permitted in respect to the acts of force was reflected in a statement 114 Ibid., and Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 297. 115 Ian Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States (Oxford: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 1963), 41, 67. Ian Brownlie adds in reference to the nineteenth century experience that the term war ‘might include situations in which no hostilities were taking place but fail to cover conflicts which though perhaps limited in scope were nevertheless serious threats to peace’ (ibid., 41).

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made by the committee of jurists consulted by the League Council on the question of whether Italy’s occupation of Corfu in the context of the ItaloGreek conflict of 1923 violated the covenant. The committee stated the following: Coercive measures which are not intended as acts of war may or may not be consistent with the provisions with Articles 12 to 15 of the Covenant, and it is for the Council, when the dispute has been submitted to it, to decide immediately having due regard to all the circumstances of the case and the nature of the measures adopted, whether it should recommend the maintenance or the withdrawal of such measures.116

In the context of the Disarmament Conference, various proposals had been put forward concerning the prohibition of recourse to force as it had become apparent that the prohibition was not ‘sufficiently comprehensively affirmed’ in the Pact of Paris which, as noted above, on the face of it only forbade resort to war.117 The proposed continental security pact, to cite one such proposal, forbade ‘resort to force’ as an instrument of national 116 LON, OJ 5, no. 4. (1924), 524, Emphasis added. See also Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 300, and Waclaw Komarnicki, ‘Definition of the Aggressor,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 314. Waclaw Komarnick pointed out that ‘international practice’ showed the ‘same confusion, the same arbitrariness, the same uncertainty’ as had international jurists in their attempts to define aggression: ‘We need only recall the Corfu incident of 1923, the proclamation on that occasion by the Committee of Jurists of the League of Nations, recognising the legitimacy of coercive measures; the refusal of the Council of the League to authorise Greece to employ the same coercive measures in 1925 at the time of the conflict of that Power with Bulgaria; and finally, the Sino-Japanese conflict of 1931.’ Note the following observations by Brownlie concerning the treatment of the terms war and aggression in the interwar period: ‘In spite of...[its]...inherent limitations and of...[its]...other defects,’ the covenant was ‘the source of and inspiration for developments which in sum destroyed the presumption in favour of the lawfulness of war. Thus in 1945 it was possible to argue that resort to war in 1939 and the following years was illegal unless a necessity for self-defence was proved. Between the two world wars “illegal war” was generally equated with war which was not undertaken in self-defence or by virtue of Article 16 of the Covenant; such use of force was characterized as aggressive war, war of aggression, act of aggression, or simply aggression. “War” with its technical and subjective meaning was employed less commonlly...Armed force by state organs directed against other states, otherwise than in self-defence was “illegal”. The growth of the assumption of illegality and the desire to remove ambiguities from non-aggression pacts then fashionable, and from mutual assistance and security treaties led states to examine the problem of defining aggression.’ Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 67–8. 117 William Arnold-Forster, ‘Renunciation of Force,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 305. See also Komarnicki, ‘Definition of the Aggressor,’ 314n, and Boeckel, ‘Consultation and a Continental European Security Pact,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933.’

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policy and laid down a very precise definition of aggression, a definition almost identical to that laid down in the London Conventions.118 Even though most thought a prohibition of resort to force was implicit in the Pact of Paris, the Sino-Japanese dispute had shown that the word war as employed in the Pact of Paris (as well as in Article 16 of the covenant), ‘might, if legalistically interpreted,’ that is, interpreted with reference what were traditionally regarded as the marks war in a legal sense such as a declaration of war and the rupturing of diplomatic relations, ‘be too narrow for the purpose.’119 In order to avoid this outcome, the London Conventions condemned not only war in the more restrictive sense of that term, but also those ‘forcible methods’ that states had up until then often used in order to

118 Boeckel observed that the new pact laid down a precise definition of aggression. ‘A state is to be considered the aggressor if it is the first to commit any one of the following acts: (1) declare war, (2) invade the territory of another state, (3) attack the territory, ships, or aircraft of another state with its land, naval, or air forces, (4) give support to armed bands from its territory which have invaded another state, or refuse to take all measures in its power on its own territory to deprive such bands of help or protection.’ Boeckel, ‘Consultation and a Continental European Security Pact,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933.’ 119 Arnold-Forster, ‘Renunciation of Force,’ 305. See also Komarnicki, ‘Definition of the Aggressor,’ 314. That the term war continued to be accorded a ‘restrictive and technical meaning’ during the period after 1920 is illustrated by aspects of the approach to the invasion and subsequent occupation of Manchuria by Japanese forces adopted by China and Japan and by the LON’s two principal organs in the period dating from September 1931 to February 1933: ‘At no time did China or Japan declare war, break off diplomatic relations, or request third states to observe neutrality. No operations took place at sea and neither party molested the other’s private shipping. On 21 September 1931 China appealed to the League by virtue of Articles 10, 11, and 15 of the Covenant. No reference to Article 16 was made either in the Assembly or the Council. The Japanese delegate in the Council asserted that “it is far from our idea to make war on the Chinese Republic.” On 10 December 1931 Briand stated in the Council that up to then there had been “no resort to war by Japan or China”....In its report the Lytton Commission concluded: “This is not a case in which one country has declared war on another country without previously exhausing the opportunities for conciliation provided in the Covenant of the League of Nations.” This conclusion was adopted by the Assembly in its resolution of 24 February 1933. The reason for this attitude on the part of the League was primarily the desire to avoid aggravating the situation and exposing weakness in the League by raising the question of applying Article 16. But it is to be noticed that apart from these considerations there was a certain logic in such an attitude. The parties themselves were only willing to use as much force as was necessary to attain their ends and it is desirable in such a case not to remove the self-imposed proportionality principle by a determination that “war” exists on the part of an international organ.’ Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 220, 386.

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repress and punish breaches of international law.120 It is nonetheless reflective of what was widely seen as the real intent behind the Pact of Paris that the preamble to the London Conventions declared that the contracting parties were ‘[m]indful of the fact that the Kellogg-Briand Pact,’ of which they were all signatories, prohibited ‘all aggression.’121 Jordan described the thinking behind the conventions as follows: What the signatories [of the London Conventions] wished to obtain was, in the words of M. Politis, ‘that the idea of peace be recognised as having a sort of priority;’ it is of paramount importance that peace be maintained, whatever may be the wrongs endured by the State which has been attacked. The responsibility for the aggression and the responsibility for the dispute are two distinct things. Domestic law does not allow the individual to take the law into his own hands by violent means. The same principle should be followed in the international field.122

Consistent with this, Joseph Limburg and Jan Hendrik Willem Verzijld, in a submission to the 1935 session of the ISC on behalf of the Netherlands Committee for the Coordination of International Studies, argued that what the Politis Report and the conventions based on it wished to firmly establish was that it could no longer be left to each individual state ‘the sovereign right decide that it is being attacked and that, consequently, it has the right to defend itself.’123 The notes concerning the question of legitimate defence issued by the American and British governments relative to the conclusion of the Pact of Paris were widely seen as diminishing the force of 120 Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 297–8. 121 Convention for the Definition of Aggression, signed at London, 3 July 1933, in League

of Nations Treaty Series, 69. 122 Ibid., 298. See also, Augustin Camille Jordan, ‘La définition de l’aggression,’ Revue de Droit International 14, no. 3 (1934): 111–28. The Revue de Droit International was founded and directed by the French jurist Albert de Geouffre de La Pradelle, Volume fourteen, number three of the Revue was introduced with an essay penned in 1929 by Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and joint recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 in part for this promotion of the Pact of Paris. Butler’s essay was on the topic of the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. Most of the rest of this volume and number of the Revue comprised the official documents relating to the ISC’s preliminary study meeting on the topic of collective security which took place in Paris in May 1934. 123 J. Limburg and J. H. W. Verzijl, ‘Collective Security,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 312.

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that pact to the extent that they indicated that there was room for discretion on the part of states in relation to that question. These notes, often referred to as reservations albeit incorrectly as there were no formal reservations to the Pact of Paris, were seen as illustrative of the difficulty ‘of getting States to give up the “right” to decide what is, or is not self-defence.’124 As an example of the state of uncertainty that prevailed when it came to the question of legitimate defence, Jordan cited the discussion preceding the issuing of the Interpretative Report of the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations which recommended the ratification of the Pact of Paris. Notably, the report stated that its purpose was simply to put on record what the committee understood to be the correct interpretation of the pact and not with any intention of modifying it or making a reservation to it. Nonetheless, Jordan thought it noteworthy that Senator Borah, who along with Secretary of State Kellogg insisted all throughout the discussion that the ‘text of the Pact remained intact and unmodified by any interpretations placed on it,’ had gone as far during the debate to ‘maintain that the Spanish-American War [of 1898] was a war of self-defence, and furthermore, that every nation reserved the right to employ force to protect its nationals when their lives might be endangered in foreign lands.’125 In order overcome a situation in which states regarded the question of who had violated the pact and, thereby, what was or was not a case of self-defence as a matter of unilateral judgement, Pella recommended the creation of a consulting body in order to address cases of violation and a definition, direct or indirect, of legitimate defence. He stated in regard to the latter recommendation following: The best method of reaching a precise definition of what constitutes legitimate defence in international law is to define the aggressor. On this point we agree entirely with the opinions of M. Politis, who has declared that by means of the system of the definition of the aggressor it is possible to remedy

124 Plaunt, ‘Collective Security,’ 295. See also Komarnicki, ‘Definition of the Aggressor,’

315, and Pella, ‘The Determination of the Aggressor,’ 317. 125 Philip Marshall Brown, ‘The Interpretation of the General Pact for the Renunciation of War,’ American Journal of International Law 23, no. 2 (1929): 374–9, 374–5. Philip Marshall Brown observed in relation to Borah’s comments concerning the Spanish–American War of 1898 and in the context of discussing the meaning of the Pact of Paris the following: ‘It needs no argument to show that an interpretation of this nature that converts a treaty for the renunciation of war into a sweeping recognition of an undefined right of self-defence is of immense significance.’ See also Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 302.

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a defect which has been remarked and regretted in the texts of the Covenant of the League of Nations and of the Pact of Paris. These defects must be remedied, then, as has often been repeated, by creating legally a presumption ‘which, being easily applied, will be, for Governments inclined to resort to aggression or to violence, the most salutary of warnings.’126

It should be clear based on what has already been said why the London Conventions abandoned the so-called excuse of provocation and with it the expression unprovoked act of aggression which had been included in actual agreements such as the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee between Germany, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Italy which was signed at Locarno on 16 October 1925 (Treaty of Locarno) and certain draft agreements.127 The expression was seen as dangerous on the ground that it would be ‘very easy for each State, for reasons of policy, to justify or excuse the aggression.’128 The Politis Report was very clear in specifying that the only acts that could count as provocation and thereby justify a war of legitimate defence were the acts of aggression enumerated in the report. According to the Politis Report: “Provocation” is either one of the acts of aggression defined in Article 1; in such case the State which has been the victim of such an act can obviously retaliate by acts of a similar nature and no difficulty arises [since it is in a position of legitimate defence]. Or “provocation” consists in a breach of international law or in the unfriendly attitude of Governments or public opinion without the commission of an act of aggression. In such case the provocation cannot be regarded as an excuse.129

The London Conventions were thus emphatic in their rejection of recourse to forcible methods beyond that of self-defence and that of providing assistance to a victim of aggression. As already indicated, Article 2 of the London Conventions incorporated a reservation in regard to the latter 126 Pella, ‘The Determination of the Aggressor,’ 317–8. 127 Ibid. See also Treaty of Mutual Guarantee between Germany, Belgium, France, Great

Britain and Italy, done at Locarno, 16 October 1925, in LON, League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 54 (Geneva: LON, 1926), 291–7. 128 Pella, ‘The Determination of the Aggressor,’ 319. 129 LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, General Commis-

sion, Report of the Committee on Security Questions, Part 1, Definition of Aggressor. See also Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 297.

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case: the determination of the aggressor was to be made ‘under reserve of the agreements in force between the parties in conflict.’130 This qualifying clause concerned action taken in view of the covenant on the recommendation of the LON, most particularly, action taken in view of Article 16 which provided for participation in collective action against a state that had resorted to war in disregard of its obligations under the covenant. The qualifying clause in Article 2 entailed that a state carrying out any one of the five acts enumerated in the same article on the recommendation of the LON could not be counted as an aggressor. The same qualifying clause would also have authorised any action taken in response to a German violation of Articles 42 and 43 of Section III of the Treaty of Versailles which concerned the left bank of the Rhine: Article 44 of that section provided that a German violation of Articles 42 and 43 ‘in any manner’ would mean Germany would be ‘regarded as committing a hostile act against the Powers signatory…and as calculated to disturb the peace of the world.’131 The qualifying clause was also necessary so as not to hinder any action undertaken in view of the Treaty of Locarno’s guarantee of mutual assistance. It should also be noted that under Article 2 of this treaty, which began with the mutual undertaking of Germany and Belgium and Germany and France to not attack or invade each other or resort to war against each other, express exceptions were made not only for so-called legitimate defence but for a ‘flagrant breach’ of Articles 42 and 43 of Section III of the Treaty of Versailles and action taken in pursuance of Article 16 of the covenant.132

130 Conventions for the Definition of Aggression, 1933, quoted in Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 297. The English translation of the reservation included in Article 2 of the London Conventions read as follows: ‘subject to agreements in force between the parties.’ 131 Treaty of Peace with Germany (Treaty of Versailles), https://www.loc.gov/law/help/ us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000002-0043.pdf. 132 Treaty of Mutual Guarantee between Germany, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Italy, done at Locarno, 16 October, 1925, in LON, in League of Nations Treaty Series, 294–5. The Treaty of Mutual Guarantee also made an express exception of action taken in pursuance of Article 15 (7) of the covenant. Article 15 (7) provided the following: ‘If the Council fails to reach a report which is unanimously agreed to by members thereof, other than the Representatives of the parties to the dispute, the Members of the League reserve to themselves the right to take such action as they shall consider necessary for the maintenance of right and justice.’

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Article 11 and the Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War The most serious objection to the attempt to define aggression was based on the concern that it would encourage violations of international law and even result in their impunity. In the House of Commons on 24 November 1927, Austen Chamberlain, referring to the Geneva Protocol of 1924, declared the following: If you lay down, far in advance, for circumstances that you cannot foresee, rigid definitions by which the aggressor is to be determined, are you quite sure that in thus making these strict rules for circumstances which are unknown to you, you may not find, when the occasion arises, that by some unhappy turn in your definition you have declared to be the aggressor that party which, to the knowledge of all men at the time, is the aggressed and not the offender?…[I]think that if you lay down tests by which you must be bound, you will find that the aggressor will carefully conform to your particular test, and will escape the liability which ought to follow upon his actions just because of the precision of your definition. I, therefore, remain opposed to this attempt to define the aggressor, because I believe that it will be a trap for the innocent and a sign-post for the guilty.133

Eden similarly deprecated any attempt to draw a sharp distinction in advance between aggression and self-defence, warning during the discussion of the Politis Report on 25 May, that if the report’s definition of aggression was adopted the determination of the aggressor in a particular case would depend in the future not on the merits of the question, for the judging of which it was indispensable to know the historical background, but on the cleverness displayed by one or the other party in impelling or inciting the adversary to accomplish one of the acts indicated in the proposed definition.134

To an extent, the London Conventions responded to the objection raised by Chamberlain and after him Eden: that a precise definition of

133 210, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (24 November 1927), 2105–6. See also ArnoldForster, ‘Renunciation of Force,’ 308. 134 Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 301. See also Arnold-Forster, ‘Renunciation of Force,’ 308.

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aggression accompanied by the abandonment of the excuse of provocation would reward wrong-doers and punish the law-abiding. It was for this reason that the aforementioned annex to Article 3 of the conventions invoked the principle of pasta sunt servanda in stating the following: ‘the High Contracting Powers further agree to recognise that the present Convention can never legitimate any violations of international law that may be implied in the circumstances’ mentioned in the list of certain indications for determining the aggressor furnished in the same annex.135 In addition, the Politis Report envisaged, without precluding the organisation of other sanctions, that a state that had been wronged through an infraction of international law by another party would be able to avail itself of ‘recourse to procedures of pacific settlement’ and, if necessary, would be within its right to ‘employ to means of pressure, such as the breaking off of diplomatic, economic and other relations, which do not constitute measures of force.’136 According to Jordan, the objections issued by Chamberlain and Eden to the effort to define aggression called attention to ‘a difference in underlying principle’ between Anglo-Saxon and continental jurisprudence: the former type of jurisprudence was inclined towards flexibility, that is, towards adaptation ‘to each particular case’ whereas the latter type was inclined towards rigidity.137 As the conventions themselves stated in their preambles, the signatories of the London Conventions sought in the interests of general security to ‘define aggression as specifically as possible, in order to obviate any pretext whereby it might be justified.’138 Yet at the same time as laying down precise rules defining aggression, the conventions allowed for a measure of flexibility in respect to their application. Here it should be recalled that

135 Convention for the Definition of Aggression, Annex and Protocol of Signature, signed at London, 3 July 1933, in League of Nations Treaty Series, 75. See also Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 298–9, and Pella, ‘The Determination of the Aggressor,’ 318. 136 LON, Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, General Commission, Report of the Committee on Security Questions, Part 1, General Observations: Article 2. See also Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 299. 137 Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 301. 138 Convention for the Definition of Aggression, Annex and Protocol of Signature, signed

at London, 3 July 1933, in League of Nations Treaty Series, 69.

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the presumption of aggression under the conventions was subject to the agreements in force between the parties to the dispute.139 In the event that the body charged with applying the rules defining aggression would be the LON and in the event that in the case of a particular dispute there might be doubt as to rights and wrongs involved, the LON had a range of options available to it. Article 11 of the covenant provided that in the case of war or the threat of war, ‘the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of the world.’140 Safeguarding the world might take the form of sanctions under Article 16 of the covenant, however, it might also, depending on the circumstances, take the form of so-called peace conservatory measures. The potential of Article 11 in respect so such measures was well demonstrated by the actions of the council during the Greco-Bulgarian crisis of October–December 1925 the onset of which saw Greek forces advance into Bulgarian territory. The Greek advance followed an incident on the Greek-Bulgarian frontier which saw a Greek officer bearing a white flag shot and killed. Citing Article 11, the Bulgarian government, in a telegram sent from Sofia on 23 October, requested that the council be convoked immediately.141 Walters, who as noted earlier was Drummond’s chef de cabinet, described the council’s response when it met on 26 October as follows:

139 Ibid., and Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 302. 140 ‘Appendix 3: Covenant of the League of Nations, 19 April 1919,’ in United Nations

Library (Geneva), League of Nations Archives, The League of Nations, 1920–1946, 163. See also Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 302. 141 Walters, A History of the League of Nations, 311, 315. Walters observed that the leading figure in the transformation of Article 11 into an instrument for the prevention of war was Belgium’s Louis de Brouckère. ‘[H]is insistence on its importance had created so much interest that, early in 1927, he, Cecil and Titulescu were instructed to make a special study of the subject. Their report, based in large part on the record of what had actually been done in various concrete cases, proved that the Council possessed far greater legal powers to deal with an emergency than had hitherto been realised. It prescribed not only the steps which should be taken to carry out an impartial investigation into the actual facts of the dispute, but also a series of measures calculated to lessen the danger of hostilities, and ranging from the mildest of warnings to a formal order of the withdrawal of troops. It further showed that, if these should be disregarded, the Council could recommend Members of the League to sever diplomatic relations with the offending State, and could authorize naval or air demonstrations or even stronger action than these. The report, which was unanimously approved by the Council and the Assembly, was a startling revelation of the possibilities latent in the Covenant’ (ibid., 379–80).

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The hostile forces were still in contact and some skirmishing was still going on. Accordingly, the Council’s first demand was that all fighting must cease and that each side should withdraw its troops behind its own frontiers, the movement to begin at once and be completed within sixty hours. Until it had received assurances on these points, the Council declined to listen to the legal and moral justifications which each was prepared to set forth at length. That, said Briand, would come in time. Whatever the origin of the dispute might be, said [Austin] Chamberlain, it would be an affront to civilization if a frontier incident between two Members of the League should lead to warlike operations, instead of being submitted to peaceful settlement by this Council. Scialoja, representing Italy, sat silent; his thoughts might be guessed.142

It was on the basis of Article 11 that the council dispatched military attachés in order to investigate on the ground whether the demand for an immediate ceasefire and other demands that the council had issued were being carried out.143 It was also on the basis of Article 11 that the council established a commission of inquiry which was charged with investigating the background to the dispute, apportioning responsibility for it, advising on what measures might be undertaken in order to prevent another such dispute from arising, scrutinising the claims of each side to reparations and devising a reasonable settlement in respect to those claims.144 The LON’s handling of the Greco-Bulgarian dispute informed a ground-breaking report, subsequently adopted by the assembly and the council, prepared by Brouckère, Cecil and Titulescu in 1927. According 142 Ibid., 312. 143 Ibid., 313, 315. 144 Ibid., 313. ‘Five weeks later, on December 7th, 1925, the Council reconvened for its

regular session, the thirty-seventh of the series. The Commission had already completed its work. It found that the responsibility for the original frontier skirmish was divided. In that skirmish a Greek officer, advancing under the white flag to stop the firing, had been shot dead; and it was natural that this aroused great indignation. But the Greek government, instead of laying its grievance before the League in accordance with the Covenant, had taken the law into its own hands and invaded Bulgarian territory. A considerable number of Bulgarian soldiers and civilians had been killed or wounded. The population of numerous villages had fled; their homes and crops had been pillaged. For the moral and material losses inflicted on Bulgaria the Commission decided that an indemnity of 30 million leva (£45,000) should be paid; adding that, in making its calculation, it had allowed for an indemnity due to Greece for the death of her officer killed under the white flag. It also proposed that each country should appoint a neutral officer to serve on its frontier for two years; the two officers should be of the same nationality, and should at once meet and settle any local incident that might arise. All this was simple enough and was accepted by both parties’ (ibid., 313–4).

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to Walters, this report demonstrated that under Article 11, the council was equipped with far more wide-ranging powers to deal with situations in which the danger of war loomed than had previously been thought. According to the report, the options available to the council in order to reduce the threat of hostilities ranged from ‘the mildest of warnings to the formal order of a withdrawal of troops.’ The report also showed that under Article 11, if the council’s orders were ignored, the council could recommend the severance of diplomatic relations between member-states and the recalcitrant state ‘and could authorize naval or air demonstrations or even stronger action than these.’145 It was also in 1927 that Germany, which had been admitted to the LON in September of the previous year against the background of the signing of the Treaty of Locarno, submitted to the LON’s Security and Arbitration Committee a proposal which urged that members should bind themselves in advance, in case of dispute, to accept and carry out any recommendations which the Council might make in order to reduce the danger of war—such as the cancellation of mobilization orders, the withdrawal of troops, or even the cessation of hostilities if these should have begun.146

The German proposal was subsequently converted into a treaty: the Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War (Convention en vue de déveloper les moyens de prévenir la guerre) which, following its unanimous adoption by the Twelfth Assembly, was opened for signature on 26 September 1931.147 Article 1 of the convention concerned conservatory measures of a nonmilitary character ‘relating to the substance of the dispute’ which the council, ‘acting in accordance with the powers conferred on it by the covenant, might recommend with a view to preventing the aggravation

145 Ibid., 379–80. 146 Walters, A History of the League of Nations, 381–2. 147 Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War, in Manly O. Hudson, Interna-

tional Legislation: A Collection of the Texts of Multipartite Instruments of General Interest, vol. 5 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1936), 1090–8. For its adoption by the assembly, see Walters, A History of the League of Nations, 462.

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of the dispute.’148 Article 2, which expressly referred to Article 11, provided that ‘[i]f in circumstances which, in the Council’s opinion, do not create a state of war between the Powers at issue which are parties to the present Convention, the forces of one of those Powers enter the territory or territorial waters of the other or a zone demilitarised in virtue of international agreements, or fly over them,’ the council ‘may prescribe measures to ensure their evacuation by those forces.’ Further to this, the article imposed an obligation on the contracting parties to undertake such evacuation without delay.149 Article 3 provided that if the circumstances referred to in Article 2 should arise, ‘or if, in the event of a threat of war, special conditions, and in particular the possibilities of contact between the forces of the parties to the dispute, render it necessary,’ the council may ‘fix lines,’ for a length of time to be decided by the council and if possible in consultation with the parties at issue, ‘which must not be passed by their land, naval or air forces and, where necessary in order to avoid incidents, by their civil aircraft.’150 Also under Article 3, the contracting parties agreed, should they be involved in a dispute and should the council recommend it, to give ‘strict orders’ to the commanders of their forces ‘to take all necessary precautions to avoid incidents.’151 Article 4 provided for the appointment of commissioners by the council for ‘the sole purpose of verifying on the spot’ that any conservatory measures of a military character that had been recommended by the council had been executed.152 Article 5 of the convention anticipated a situation in which a party to a dispute might ignore the council’s demands. It provided that should there be any violation of the conservatory measures of a military character as defined in Articles 2 and 3 and should this violation continue despite the council’s ‘injunctions, the Council shall consider what means of all kinds are necessary to ensure the execution of the...Convention.’ Article 5 further provided that should ‘war break out as a consequence of this violation, such violation shall be regarded by the High Contracting Parties as prima

148 Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War, in Hudson, International Legislation, 1092. 149 Ibid. 150 Ibid., 1093. 151 Ibid., 1093. 152 Ibid., 1094.

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facie evidence that the party guilty thereof has resorted to war within the meaning of Article 16 of the Covenant.’153 It is worth noting here what was not included in Article 5: the article did not provide for sanctions against a party acting in violation of Articles 2 and 3. Walters pointed out that the French delegation, had demanded that ‘the new Convention should lay down a system of sanctions against any State which failed to carry out the instructions of the Council,’ a demand that was later withdrawn at which point it was opened for signature.154 Walters observed that had the convention been ‘promptly and widely accepted,’ it would have greatly enhanced the LON’s capacity to deal with emergencies. This was especially the case because the convention provided under Article 7 that the decisions and recommendations of the council in respect to peace-conserving measures at times of emergency, were binding provided they were ‘concurred in by all the Members voting other than the parties to the dispute.’155 Thus, in respect to Article 11, the convention would have definitively nullified the rule of unanimity as provided for in Article 5 of the covenant: ‘Except where expressly provided in this Covenant…decisions at any meeting of the Assembly or the Council, shall require the agreement of the Members of the League represented at the meeting.’156 In this way, the danger that a party to a dispute, should it be represented at the council, might veto the recommendations or orders of the council under Article 11 (which, unlike Article 15, contained no clause excluding the vote of a party to a dispute), would have been eliminated. Members had been alerted to this danger in 1927 against the background of the report prepared by Brouckère, Cecil and Titulescu, however, it was at the time discounted. This stance was perhaps informed by the behaviour of the Greek representative on the council during the Greco-Bulgarian crisis: according to Zimmern, he showed himself to be ‘either too loyal to the Covenant or too much embarrassed to make use of his voting power.’157 In any case, in 153 Ibid., 1094–5. 154 Walters, A History of the League of Nations, 462. 155 Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War, in Hudson, International Leg-

islation, I1095. See also, Walters, A History of the League of Nations, 462. 156 ‘Appendix 3: Covenant of the League of Nations, 29 April 1919,’ in United Nations Library (Geneva), League of Nations Archives, The League of Nations, 1920–1946, 163. 157 Alfred E. Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law 1918–1935 (London: Macmillan, 1936), 423.

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Walter’s view what was most important was the prevalence of the view at the time that it was inconceivable that the council would ‘allow its action to be paralysed by the vote of the very State whose aggressive designs it desired to check.’158 Yet in the context of the council’s deliberations dating from 19 September 1931 concerning the occupation of Manchuria by the Japanese army, the council allowed exactly such a paralysis to set in. This was due to a number of factors: pressure in the form of the Japanese delegation’s insistence on its power of veto, a power which it actually used on 24 October; the substantial risks involved for Great Britain, France and China and for the Japanese government vis-à-vis the Japanese army, should the council adopt an interventionist policy; and the fact that the American government, which like other powers had major interests at stake in the Asia-Pacific region and which like the principal LON powers had no wish to antagonise Japan, while doing ‘much to encourage the organs of the League, for the most part ‘stood aside, sharing neither the rights nor duties of League powers,’ this proving to be ‘a fatal handicap to joint action.’159 Against this background, the council revised what had up until then been the prevalent view at the LON in respect to action taken under Article 11, which had been invoked by the Chinese representative on the council on 22 September, in order to prevent war. The view which now prevailed was that preventative action required the consent of all the members of the council, including the consent of any member who was a party to the dispute under consideration. In this way, the Sino-Japanese dispute, as Zimmern observed, ‘destroyed the whole elaborate machinery that had been built up at Geneva on the basis of Article XI.’160 The Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War would also seem to have been a casualty of a dispute which resulted in a weakening in the authority of the council.161 As the successful exploitation of the veto within the framework of the council

158 Walters, A History of the League of Nations, 380. 159 Ibid., 473. 160 Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law 1918–1935, 423. Walters maintained that the insistence on unanimity in respect to Article 11 was ‘contrary both to common sense and to the intention of those who drafted its text.’ He also maintained that had ‘the principal governments so desired, they could have found unimpeachable grounds for overriding the legal absurdity of the veto,’ albeit without urging that they should have taken this course of action. Walters, A History of the League of Nations, 380, 478. 161 Walters, A History of the League of Nations, 462.

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remained a possibility, and the Manchurian crisis demonstrated that it was likely to remain so at least in cases where powerful interests were at stake, there could not be ‘any widespread belief in the certainty of action’ by the council.162 By November 1932 the convention had been signed by almost half the members of the LON, however, as it only ever received a small number of ratifications it never came into force.163 As we have seen, the qualifying clause contained in Article 2 of the London Conventions served to exclude from the definition of aggression any action taken on the recommendation of the LON, most especially under Article 16, and action taken in response to a violation of Section III of the Treaty of Versailles and a violation of the Treaty of Locarno. At the same time, the clause served to temper the rigidity of a convention in which aggression was precisely defined. In presuming aggression only under reserve of agreements in force between the parties to a dispute, the conventions allowed for a degree of flexibility in respect to their application. It was open to the council, should the circumstances suggest it, to make use of the machinery for war prevention built up in Geneva on the basis of Article 11. Further to this, it would have been open to the council to take into account the measures permitted to it under the Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War if that convention had indeed come into force. In this way, the London Conventions accommodated cases in which there was uncertainty as to whether or not the prohibition on recourse to force had been respected or as to whose shoulders on which responsibility for any violation of that prohibition rested. As Jordan noted, in cases of doubt, the LON had a variety of options available to it, such as conducting an inquiry, imposing a ceasefire on the parties if hostilities had commenced and offering or even imposing arbitration in order to determine where responsibility lay.164 It was through preserving a degree of flexibility, that the conventions were able to respond to another important consideration raised by Austen Chamberlain when arguing against the definition of aggression: ‘let us not underrate the limitations which are put on the right to go to war by the Covenant, or the obligation which is put on us to exhaust peaceful methods

162 H. R. G. Greaves, ‘The Prevention of War,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 309. 163 Walters, A History of the League of Nations, 462. 164 Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 302.

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before we go to war.’165 Nonetheless, as Jordan contended, in general the London Conventions erred on the side of rigidity rather than elasticity and in his view this was for the very good reason that peace should have priority even in the face of infractions of international law short of aggression itself. In this regard, Jordan stated the following:166 It is no longer necessary to inquire into the psychological motives behind the resort to force, the righteous or unrighteousness of the State committing the forbidden act, in accordance with the views of the older authors of international law and even of the authors of the Covenant of the League of Nations who went no further than to impose recourse to peaceful methods before resorting to war. The Pact of Paris, on which the London Agreements are expressly based, considers that even a war that is just according to the definitions of the canonists is an evil in itself; it should not be tolerated that a State should take arms, even in order to obtain a just reparation. It is forbidden that the State which has the law on its side resort to force. It must have the patience to await a peaceful solution. To specify forbidden acts, in order to avoid all attempts to evade this obligation, such is the highly important result obtained by the definition of aggression. It is a strong support for this idea, which should impose itself on the members of the international community: that Rights can wait, and that Peace cannot.167

A possible compromise between the negative attitude of the British government towards the definition of aggression and the strict test proposed by the Disarmament Conference’s Security Commission was put forward by the British Labour politician William Arnold-Forster. Along with others, he recommended the creation of an international authority to deal with violations of the Pact of Paris and suggested that this authority should use the Security Commission’s definition of aggression as a guide in determining whether such a violation had occurred. Addressing British scepticism about the value of a definition of aggression, Arnold-Forster maintained that while the commission’s definition of aggression would normally prove decisive, it must not be regarded as an all-inclusive formula or as an automatic test which an always be relied upon to cut with precision through a tangled political situation. It may be 165 210, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (24 November 1927), 2106. Emphasis added. 166 Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 301. 167 Ibid., 305.

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of very substantial value as a means of crystallising and extending the new social ethic as to the use of national force and it should help in the process of curtailing the anarchic liberties too often claimed by imperial Powers; but it will not work by itself automatically. It must be used by an international authority and treated as a guide…but not as an immutable law; and that in cases of doubt, the international authority should be empowered to impose obligatory peace-conserving measures, including an armistice.168

Leaving aside this slight equivocation in regard to the utility in all cases of the Security Commission’s definition of aggression, an equivocation that he no less addressed to President Roosevelt’s definition of 16 May (in the wake of which some concluded that the negative attitude of London could no longer be sustained), Arnold-Forster was firmly of the view that a definition along the lines indicated by the commission should be incorporated into international law. In addition, it should be noted that in insisting on the need for an international authority to oversee the application of the definition of aggression, Arnold-Forster’s concern was to ensure, above all, that ‘the renunciation of the recourse to force should not be stultified by the reservation of a self-judged right of intervention or right of selfdefence.’ At the very least, he observed, there should be provision for a regular system of consultation in periods of crisis. In the absence of oversight in either of these forms, the line between aggression and self-defence would remain too ambiguous ‘to permit of general confidence’: as long as the scope for framing the former in terms of the latter remained substantial, progress towards the renunciation of force would be stifled.169 As Arnold-Forster noted, the prospects for the creation of an international authority were not promising: in an Armistice Day speech in 1928, Secretary of State Kellogg, had declared that the United States was not ready to accept an international tribunal empowered to decide ‘when a nation has violated its agreement not to go to war; I do not believe all the independent nations have yet arrived at the advanced stage of thought which will permit such a tribunal to be established.’170 Kellogg was thus compelled to place his faith in ‘the tribunal of public opinion’: he stated

168 Arnold-Forster, ‘Renunciation of Force,’ 308–9. 169 Ibid. See also Jordan, ‘Definition of Aggression,’ 303. 170 Frank B. Kellogg, ‘The Paris Pace to Renounce War,’ Advocate of Peace through Justice

90, no. 12 (1928): 686–93, 686n, 690. This speech was delivered before the world alliance for international friendship in New York.

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that ‘a nation claiming to act in self-defence must justify itself before the bar of world opinion as well as before the signatories of the [Pact of Paris].’171 The hope Kellogg vested in the restraining force of world opinion did not seem misplaced in 1928. However, by 1933 the times seemed to demand much more. As Arnold-Forster stated in an allusion to Davis’s declaration on 22 May, ‘an explicit undertaking by the United States to confer with the League in case of breach or of threatened breach of the Briand-Kellogg Pact or the Disarmament Convention would be of substantial value as a contribution to the proper working of the collective peace system.’172

The Draft Convention Is Adopted In a memorandum entitled ‘The Disarmament Conference in extremis,’ Leeper observed that the statement of the United States Government of 22 May to the General Commission from which it appeared that the United States intended to refrain from action tending to defeat united action against an aggressor was ‘most welcome,’ a view shared by many at the conference.173 Leeper added, however, that although it would very likely improve Anglo-American relations, the unfortunate fact was that the statement did not go ‘far enough to satisfy France’s tenacious demand for security.’174 Leeper maintained that the only way in which France could have been satisfied on this score, would have been if the British government ‘had announced that in view of America’s new attitude they no longer saw any difficulties in reaffirming Article 16 and interpreting it in the most precise fashion.’175 As Tyrrell explained in a dispatch to Simon,

171 Frank B. Kellogg, 1928, quoted in Oscar T. Crosby, ‘The Paris Pact,’ Advocate of Peace through Justice 90, no. 12 (1928): 693–9, 698. 172 Arnold-Forster, ‘Renunciation of Force,’ 309. 173 Memorandum by Mr. A. W. A. Leeper, Foreign Office, 29 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd

ser., vol. 5, 282. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 352, and Boeckel, ‘Security and the Supervisions of Arms Reduction,’ and ‘American Contributions to Possible Agreement,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933.’ 174 Memorandum by Mr. A. W. A. Leeper, Foreign Office, 29 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 282. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 352. 175 Memorandum by Mr. A. W. A. Leeper, Foreign Office, 29 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 282.

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[i]t was always believed in France that the key to action by Great Britain was the abandonment of neutrality by the United States. The British determination to avoid the possibility of any conflict with the United States over action taken on behalf of the League on the high seas was the general ground on which Great Britain declined to accede to the Geneva protocol, and which, in popular discussions, has been advanced for her reluctance to commit herself more definitely under the Covenant. The dependence of Great Britain on sea-borne supplies, and the special ties which united her to America, are appreciated. When, therefore, Mr. Roosevelt came forward with his offer to abandon neutrality, afterwards confirmed by Mr. Norman Davis, it was at once supposed that this would afford Great Britain the necessary assurance to enable her to define her attitude at Geneva.176

However, as both Leeper and Tyrrell observed, Simon’s speech in the House of Commons on 26 May in response to the statement by Ambassador Davis, appeared to rule out such a course of action.177 Tyrrell informed Simon that in light of this, the French attitude in respect to disarmament had stiffened considerably, adding that the French, while ‘welcoming Mr. Roosevelt’s generous advance,’ were highly conscious, ‘from past experience, of the difficulties in the President’s path.’178 French doubts that American isolationist policy was about to be modified were soon confirmed. On 5 April, Secretary of State Cordell Hull had proposed that Congress enact legislation that would have given the executive the authority to declare an embargo on the export of arms or munitions of war to one of the parties to a conflict in cooperation with other nations.179 The arms embargo resolution was subsequently passed by the House of Representatives, however, on 28 May, an amendment to the resolution proposed by Senator Hiram Johnson, an isolationist who along with Borah had lead the campaign against American membership of the LON in 1919, was adopted by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The amendment, which Hull stated on 29 May did not reflect 176 Lord Tyrrell (Paris) to Sir J. Simon (received 13 June), 7 June 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 333. 177 Memorandum by Mr. A. W. A. Leeper, Foreign Office, 29 May 1933, and Lord Tyrrell (Paris) to Sir J. Simon (received 13 June), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 282, 333. 178 Lord Tyrrell (Paris) to Sir J. Simon (received 13 June), 7 June 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 331, 333. 179 United States Department of State, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931– 1941, 23–4.

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his views or that of the president (even though the latter, apparently reluctantly, had accepted it), provided that ‘any prohibition of export, or of sale for export prohibited under…[the]…resolution shall apply impartially to all of the parties in the dispute or conflict to which it refers.’180 That Great Britain did not intend to make any further contributions to the organisation of security was indicated by Simon in his 26 May speech to the House of Commons in the course of pointing out that in recent weeks, some of the leading Continental statesmen in Geneva had been involved in discussions concerning arrangements ‘for the purpose…of securing pacts of non-aggression and mutual support as between themselves.’181 After having stated that the security circle proposed for the Continent ‘is one into which this country does not seek to enter,’ Simon pointed out that the British draft convention provided for such arrangements: Article 5 of the draft covered special regional arrangements.182 A more emphatic statement of the government’s position was given by Simon at the conclusion of his speech. Referring to Roosevelt’s offer of 17 May, Simon stated that Britain was ready alongside the United States, ‘to join…this consultation of the world—with a view to promoting security.’183 He then stated that Britain would ‘strive to perform’ those obligations into which Britain had entered, adding however that ‘our friends on the Continent well understand—and it cannot be too clearly understood—that it is no part of the policy of Great Britain to assume further and additional obligations of this character.’184 In light of this, Leeper stated in his 29 May memorandum that he could not see France agreeing to any substantial measure of disarmament. He added that even if the British government were to agree to the ‘effective, continuous and automatic supervision of armaments,’ a policy supported by France and which had been endorsed by Davis in his speech of 22 May, he

180 Lord Tyrrell (Paris) to Sir J. Simon (received 13 June), 7 June 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 333. See also Divine, ‘Franklin D. Roosevelt and Collective Security,’ 42–59; Charteris, ‘Germany and the Disarmament Conference,’ 79; and Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 226n. For Cordell Hull’s declaration, see United States Department of State, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931–1941, 24. 181 278, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (26 May 1933), 1442. See also Boeckel, ‘Consultation and a Continental European Security Pact,’ and ‘Effective, Automatic, and Continuous Supervision,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933.’ 182 278, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (26 May 1933), 1442. 183 Ibid., 1454. 184 Ibid.

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doubted that his would be enough to cause France to agree to surrender any of its superiority in respect to armaments.185 With French security doctrine hanging ‘over Geneva like a cloud,’ as Tyrrell put it, and with other neighbours of Germany showing themselves to be highly anxious, there appeared to be no prospect of securing the passage of British draft convention ‘or anything like it’ according to Leeper.186 This being the case, Leeper thought, two lines of action suggested themselves. The first of these was the adjournment of the conference for a period of a few months in order to allow the WEC to proceed in the hope that it might produce a positive result, an outcome that Leeper thought unlikely. However, irrespective of the fate of the WEC, Leeper maintained that adjournment would be a dangerous course to follow as it would provide Germany with ‘if not justification at least a wonderful opportunity’ to proceed further with its rearmament.187 The second line of action addressed by Leeper and which he regarded as urgently demanded, was to carry the war into the German camp. My suggestion is that we should at once take the French Government fully into our confidence in this matter…. If we have certain secret information that the Germans are rearming, it is a safe guess that the French have a great deal more. They will not be loth to use it at the proper moment. M. Paul-Boncour, when questioned the other day by the Deputy as to why he did not show up Germany’s misdeeds, replied that a proper occasion should be chosen for this. What more proper occasion could be chosen than that at the Disarmament Conference, after Herr Nadolny has made one of his speeches in the best Hitlerian manner expounding Germany’s peaceful intentions, the British and French representatives should stand up one after another and declare that, much as they appreciate the sentiments which have been expressed, it is impossible for disarmament discussions to proceed when to their knowledge Germany is actually rearming. Till this matter has been cleared up by the Council of the League, before whom

185 Memorandum by Mr. A. W. A. Leeper, Foreign Office, 29 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 282. See also Boeckel, ‘Effective, Automatic, and Continuous Supervision,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933.’ 186 Lord Tyrrell (Paris) to Sir J. Simon (received 13 June), 7 June 1933, DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 331. See also Memorandum by Mr. A. W. A. Leeper, Foreign Office, 29 May 1933, DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 282. 187 Memorandum by Mr. A. W. A. Leeper, Foreign Office, 29 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 284.

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they would propose at once to bring it, it is useless and indeed dishonest to continue the meetings of the General Commission.188

In the event, following the acceptance of the General Commission of the British draft convention ‘as the basis of the future Convention’ on 7 June, the conference adjourned.189 At this point, Henderson embarked upon a ‘disarmament pilgrimage’: as Henderson explained to a meeting of the Bureau of the Disarmament Conference on the evening of 7 June, he considered it ‘essential to discuss points of difficulty in conversations between various principal delegates before the Bureau met again to prepare text for second reading.’190

188 Ibid., 285. Emphasis in the original. In a memorandum submitted to the British Foreign Office on 10 May, Temperley presented an argument that foreshadowed the argument Leeper presented on 29 May. Temperley argued as follows: ‘The time has come when Germany’s attitude to disarmament and the attitude of the United Kingdom towards Germany ought to be reviewed….If it is dangerous to go forward with disarmament, what then is to be done? There appears to be one bold solution. France, the United States and ourselves should address a stern warning to Germany that there can be no disarmament, no equality of status and no relaxation of the Treaty of Versailles unless a complete reversion of present military preparations and tendencies takes place in Germany. Admittedly this will provoke a crisis and the danger of war will be brought appreciably nearer. We should have to say that we shall insist upon the enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles, and in this insistence, with its hint of force in the background, presumably the United States would not join. But Germany knows that she cannot fight at present and we must call her bluff. She is powerless before the French army and our fleet. Hitler, for all his bombast, must give way. If such steps seem too forceful, the only alternative is to carry out some minimum measure of disarmament and to allow things to drift for another five years, by which time, unless there is a change of heart in Germany, war seems inevitable. German rearmament will by then be an accomplished fact….There is a mad dog abroad once more and we must resolutely combine either to ensure its destruction or at least its containment until the disease has run its courses.’ Letter from Mr. Cadogan (Geneva) to Mr. A. W. Leeper, 10 May 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 1933, 213–7. This memorandum was shown to Vansittart who endorsed it in its entirety. At his suggestion, it was circulated to the cabinet. This occurred on 16 May. 189 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 352, and Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 206. See also 281, Parl. Deb. H. C. (5th series) (7 November 1933), 45. 190 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 353, and Mr. Patteson (Geneva) to Sir J. Simon, 7 June 1933, in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 323.

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A Meeting at the Quai d’Orsay On 8 June, a conversation was held between Daladier, Eden, and Davis among other representatives of France, Great Britain, and the United States at the Quai d’Orsay in the course of which Daladier stated that France was prepared to go further down the path of disarmament but only on condition of better guarantees of security. He stated that he did not ‘wish at the moment to refer to pacts of mutual assistance or other proposals of that nature; what he had in mind were what he would call technical guarantees.’191 What Daladier was referring was a system of effective supervision as a safeguard against surreptitious German rearmament. As noted, such an approach had been endorsed by Davis on behalf of the United States in his speech of 22 May wherein he stated the following: We are heartily in sympathy with the idea that means of effective, automatic, and continuous supervision should be found whereby nations will be able to rest assured that as long as they respect their obligations with regard to armaments the corresponding obligations of their neighbours will be carried out in the same scrupulous manner. The Disarmament Conference has already formulated measures for the establishment of a permanent disarmament commission. The powers proposed for this commission may well be reinforced.192

At the meeting at the Quai d’Orsay, Davis stated that it had been difficult for the United States to accept the idea of supervision (an idea to which, it should be noted, the British Service Departments were strongly opposed), but that President Roosevelt ‘had been convinced that to decree the abolition of aggressive weapons without automatic and continuous supervision would be no solution.’193 Davis declared that he thought supervision, which he maintained would provide more security than pacts of mutual assistance, was the key to reaching an agreement on a measure of disarmament, this being, he added the only way to keep Germany disarmed and

191 Record of a Conversation held at the Quai d’Orsay on 8 June 1933, at 10:30 a.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 337. 192 Boeckel, ‘American Contributions to Possible Agreement,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933.’ 193 Record of a Conversation held at the Quai d’Orsay on 8 June 1933, at 10:30 a.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 338.

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thereby ‘avert the German menace.’194 Davis stated that he fully understood the difficulties faced by France and agreed that there should be no ‘serious measures of disarmament’ until there was clarity in regard to the situation in Germany. Thus, Davis suggested that Germany should be offered ‘a certain disarmament programme,’ an offer which he considered necessary. However, he also suggested that it should be ‘intimated to Germany that no actual steps would be taken until we were able to judge of political developments in Germany.’ 195 Following an inquiry made by the British secretary of state for air, namely, Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart (Lord Londonderry) who was also present, Eden stated that ‘everyone appreciated the importance which France attached to the question of supervision’; Eden then asked Daladier what concessions France might make in respect to material, which was the sole area where French superiority lay, should the new French proposals concerning supervision prove acceptable.196 Daladier replied that the French Government would undertake to cease the manufacture of material and arrest their programmes, and then if it should prove that the transformation of the Reichswehr was being properly effected and that the measures of supervision were working satisfactorily, they could proceed to the destruction of part of the material. The French Government would be prepared at once to stop the manufacture of offensive weapons. During the period of the institution of supervision there would thus be a truce. If, at the end of three years, the supervision proved to be effective, the French Government might contemplate the destruction of material.197

Tyrrell had advised Simon on 7 June that although the French feared the American offer would not materialise, understood that Great Britain would not accept definite commitments and had no confidence in Germany, France would ‘undoubtedly weaken even on the question of the maintenance of her superiority in war material, provided the question of supervision and control can be settled to her satisfaction.’198 Tyrrell 194 Ibid. 195 Ibid. 196 Ibid. See also Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 227. 197 Record of a Conversation held at the Quai d’Orsay on 8 June 1933, at 10:30 a.m.,

DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 339. 198 Lord Tyrrell (Paris) to Sir J. Simon (received 13 June), in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 333.

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implied that France had no choice but to accept supervision as an alternative to pacts of mutual assistance given the British attitude towards ‘definite commitments in hypothetical circumstances,’ which, especially in light of the reaffirmation of American neutrality by the Senate, seemed unlikely to change. Tyrrell also suggested that the French had become genuinely convinced that an effective and permanent system of supervision would much diminish ‘the danger of sudden and surprise aggression,’ noting that this explained the ‘great satisfaction’ with which the French received this feature of Davis’s speech ‘and the tenacity with which it has been taken up.’199 However, Tyrrell recognised that any further than what was proposed on 8 June France could not go: as Daladier had declared at the meeting at the Quai d’Orsay on that day it would be ‘extremely difficult to get his Government and his people in present circumstances to accept the idea of reduction of armaments.’200 As Tyrrell observed in the wake of that meeting, Daladier was ‘bound by the whole force of French parliamentary and public opinion,’ which ‘requires him either to produce a stormproof disarmament convention or to take steps to maintain French superiority in arms. For French opinion there is no via media between these two courses.’201

Germany Withdraws from the League Out of the conversations at the Quai d’Orsay grew an agreement in principle to offer Germany a Disarmament Convention to be executed in two phases each lasting a period of four years. As Gathorne-Hardy notes, during the first phase

199 Ibid. See also Boeckel, ‘Effective, Automatic, and Continuous Supervision,’ in Boeckel, ‘The Disarmament Conference, 1933.’ Davies notes that Daladier ‘was influenced by the ideas of politicians such as his Air Minister Pierre Cot, who advocated strict supervision procedures as an alternative mechanism for keeping French secure,’ unlike Paul-Boncour ‘who had devoted much of his political career to promoting mutual assistance.’ Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 776. 200 Record of a Conversation held at the Quai d’Orsay on 8 June 1933, at 10:30 a.m., in DBFP, 2nd ser., vol. 5, 338. 201 William Tyrrell, 1933, quoted in Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 777. Davies states that in the view of Maxime Weygand and the rest of ‘the traditional military establishment, Daladier definitely chose the wrong course’ in making the concessions he made in respect to the MacDonald Plan in June 1933. Davies, ‘France and the World Disarmament Conference,’ 777.

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the system of supervision would be tested, and there would be limitation but no reduction of armaments on the part of the armed Powers. During the same period, the transformation of continental armies into a standardized short-service system would be carried out, which would involve the gradual growth of the Reichswehr to the figure permitted in the Convention, but there was to be no rearmament by the disarmed Powers. During the second period, the disarmament provisions of the Convention would be put into effect, on a basis of complete equality.202

As a result of conversations with Neurath in the final week of September, the British and Americans allowed themselves to hope that an agreement might eventually be reached.203 However, on 6 October, in a telegram sent to Simon, the German chargé d’affaires, Otto von Bismarck, effectively declared that Germany would only accept a convention that allowed for immediate German rearmament.204 The latest German initiative was completely rejected by the British cabinet on 9 October which decided to hold fast to the plan that grew out of the meeting at the Quai d’Orsay. On 14 October, the same day that the plan was presented to the bureau of the conference in Geneva, Henderson received a telegram from Berlin announcing that Germany was withdrawing from the conference.205 The pretext given for this was that ‘it is now established that the Conference will not fulfil its sole task, which is to bring about general disarmament.’206 On the same day, Germany deposited with the secretary-general a notice announcing that it would be withdrawing from the LON. As a consequence of the German withdrawal, German nationals participating in the work of the League resigned their posts, among them was Picht who would go went on to become a functionary of the new Reich. Krüss resigned his position as a member of the ICIC and other related roles on 9 November.207 On 13 November, Murray wrote to him, pointing out that despite the fact that the United States was not a member of the LON, it had ‘always been 202 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 353. 203 Ibid., and Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 235–6. 204 Alteras, ‘The Geneva Disarmament Conference,’ 238. 205 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, and Alteras, ‘The Geneva

Disarmament Conference,’ 235–6. 206 German Government to the President of the Disarmament Conference, 1933, quoted in Scelle and Cassin, ‘French Opinion and the Problem of Collective Security,’ 76. 207 Grundmann, The Einstein Dossiers, 217.

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represented in the midst of [the ICIC] and that Japan, although it had broken its political relations’ with the LON, had ‘expressly made known to us, its intention of continuing to participate fully in the work of Intellectual Cooperation.’208 For his part, Krüss informed the secretariat that there was ‘not any hope of renewing some collaboration or other in the near future.’209 Nonetheless, the executive committee of the ICIC, which met in Geneva on 19 and 20 December, after having noted the resignation of Krüss and having discussed the implications of the German withdrawal from the LON for the ICIC’s future work, expressed the hope that intellectual relations with Germany might be renewed. In that regard, the committee drew attention to the fact that several States which are not members of the League of Nations co-operate in the work of intellectual co-operation and expressed a unanimous desire, that in view of the fact that this work was in no respect political, but purely intellectual, Germany’s co-operation, which had begun before Germany became a member of the League, might be continued.210

The hope expressed by the ICIC in regard to renewed intellectual engagement with Germany was not entirely in vain. Following negotiations of a delicate character, a degree of German collaboration with the work of the ICIC via German collaboration with the ISC would resume. However, for the moment, it appeared that the German relationship with even the ISC had come to an end. Certainly, it had come to an end under the most recent form it had assumed. The last letter on file sent by Hoetzsch to Picht in the former’s capacity as chair of the German coordinating committee was dated 18 July and the last letter sent to Hoetzsch by Picht in the latter’s role as principal secretary of the IIIC, fatefully enough, was dated 13 October.211 It was Toynbee’s understanding, or at least this was 208 Gilbert Murray, 1933, quoted in Renoliet, L’Unesco Oubliée, 40. 209 Jean-Daniel de Montenach, 1933, quoted in Renoliet, L’Unesco Oubliée, 240. 210 LON, IIIC, ‘Eleventh Session of the Executive Committee of the Intellectual Commit-

tee of Intellectual Co-operation,’ Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin, 2, no. 1 (1933– 1934): 19–21. See also Renoliet, L’Unesco Oubliée, 241. Renoliet notes that at the meeting of the executive committee of the ICIC in December 1933, only Bonnet, who was present as the director of the IIIC, was reserved on the question of future collaboration with German scholars. 211 Hoetzsch to Picht, 18 July 1933 and Picht to Hoetzsch, 13 October 1933, AG 1-IICIK-II-4.b, UA.

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what he later told Bonnet, that following the German announcement of its withdrawal from the LON, Hoetzsch had ‘recommended the severance of the German connection’ with the ISC and the ‘dissolution’ of the German coordinating committee.212 Nonetheless, as we shall see, considerable energy was expended within the framework of the ISC over the next few years, most especially in the form of Toynbee, in seeking to re-establish relations with representatives of the Third Reich.

212 Toynbee to Bonnet, 27 June 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.m, UA.

CHAPTER 6

Collective Security, Air Police and Defining the Aggressor

Paris and Its Preparations We saw that in the summer of 1933, the ISC decided to shift from examining economic problems to studying a problem of paramount political concern: collective security.1 It was a topic that come increasingly to the forefront in that summer’s wake: one of the noted effects of the German rupture with the Disarmament Conference and the LON was to refocus attention on security, most particularly in France.2 It was thus fitting that from 24 to 26 May 1934, a preliminary conference on this topic, the work of which was consecrated to ‘selection…and filtrage,’ was held in Paris. The conference’s inaugural meeting, which took place in the salle Louis Liard at the Sorbonne at 10:15 a.m., had been due to be opened by Herriot who had replaced the recently deceased Painlevé as the French member of the ICIC and who therefore was now chair of the governing body of the IIIC. However, the arrangement for the inaugural meeting had to be changed as Herriot, who was also the minister of state, was required at a meeting that morning of the council of ministers. Replacing Herriot at the conference’s inaugural meeting was Émile Borel, president of the Institute of France and member of the Chamber of 1 Maurice Bourquin, ‘General Report on the Preparatory Memoranda Submitted to the General Study Conference in 1935,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 3. 2 Scelle and Cassin, ‘French Opinion and the Problem of Collective Security,’ 77.

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Deputies. Official France was well represented at the meeting for in attendance, in addition to Borel, were officials from the French ministries of education and foreign affairs and members of the French diplomatic corps. Representatives of the Municipal Council of Paris and members of the press were also present.3 Charléty, in his capacity of rector of the University of Paris and president of the conference, gave the address of welcome in the course of which he noted with regret the absence of Germany from the LON and, therefore, the absence of German savants from the scholarly convocation in Paris. However, by way of consolation, Charléty pointed out that the ISC’s ‘geographical domain’ had continued to expand, calling attention to the fact that representatives of the Australian Institute of International Affairs were present in the room. Charléty also drew attention to the progress of the ISC’s work, commending the ‘disinterested serenity’ in which it was undertaken and its contribution to the fostering of a ‘society of minds.’4 In turning to the topic the conference was to address, Charléty reminded those present of the celebrated words of Blaise Pascal: that ‘justice without force is powerless, force without justice is tyrannical.’5 He did not add that in a famous exchange at the Fifth Assembly, Herriot, as prime minister of France, paraphrased these lines, only to have MacDonald respond that the LON ‘should inspire not with her power but because of her “spirit of serenity and justice”.’6 Toynbee responded to Charléty’s address on behalf of the conference. He too voiced regret concerning the absence of a German delegation, describing this absence as ‘painful.’ He declared that a delegation from this ‘great European nation’ was so ‘wanted’ in light of Germany’s incontestable importance to intellectual life and to the contemporary world’s political and industrial life. Toynbee stressed that the absence of a German delegation was not the ‘fault’ of the conference, although adding that this was only a

3 For details of the opening meeting, see ‘Note,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, CI, no. 40–41 (1934): i–iii, and ‘Ouverture de la Conférence,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 187–93. See also Bonnet to Takashi Komatu, 16 May 1934, Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales, 1 May–30 June, 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.m, UA. 4 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934), 187–8. 5 Ibid., 189. 6 Acts of the Second Assembly: Meetings of the Committees, 1921, quoted in Bonnet, ‘La Société des Nations et la Coopération Intellectuelle,’ 201.

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‘mediocre consolation’; he then called on the conference to do its best to ‘repair the breach as soon as possible.’7 Toynbee underlined in his response the gravity of the crisis that the world then faced, pointing out that one could say without exaggeration that the ISC was about to confront a problem on which depended the ‘fate of human society.’8 Drawing on what was a common theme in philosophical and religious circles at the time, Toynbee stated that the problem in view concerned the realisation of security within a context in which human beings, on the one hand, were equipped with ‘unheard of’ technological powers and, on the other, remained what they had always been. Human beings, he declared elaborating on his point, are ‘wild, ferocious and formidable beasts’ who have now ‘armed themselves with nails and teeth of a destructive power, almost infinitely reinforced.’ This was not a problem that the physical sciences could solve, he advised, but rather was a problem which required a ‘science of the spirit…[a]…science of the soul.’9 Toynbee’s address was followed by addresses by Borel and Bonnet respectively after which Bourquin, who, it is useful to recall here, in addition to his other activities was a member of staff at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, submitted a report on the proposed plan de travail for the years 1934–1935.10 Bourquin had been appointed the conference’s general-rapporteur in November of 1933. Prior to that appointment, the task of undertaking the work of preparing a skeleton programme for the 1934–1935 study cycle had been in the hands of Bonnet.11 It was thus in July 1933, that Bonnet circulated a note among conference members ‘pointing out certain aspects of the problem [of collective security] to which, it seemed to him, attention might be profitably be directed.’12 In his note, Bonnet suggested that the conference should focus on the limitations on the state’s exercise of sovereignty that are necessitated by a 7 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934), 190. 8 Ibid., 191. 9 Ibid., 192. 10 ‘Rapport du Professeur Maurice Bourquin,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934):

197–207. 11 Bonnet to Cleeve, 9 July 1933, Huitième session de la Conférence permanente des hautes études Internationales, London, 3–8 June 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-VIII-1, UA and Bourquin, ‘General Report on the Preparatory Memoranda,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 3. 12 Bourquin, ‘General Report on the Preparatory Memoranda,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 3.

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system of collective security and, in relation to this, on the ‘guarantees of the application’ of such a system in the form of sanctions. Bonnet further suggested that the conference should address the ‘problem of neutrality’ as this was a problem which a system of collective security inevitably raised. More generally, he maintained that the conference should aim to produce an ‘international study of the collective security of all nations’: collective security should be studied and discussed as a ‘world problem’ and not as a bi-national or multi-national problem with a view to preventing the conference from descending into a ‘confrontation of a series of national points of view.’13 Immediately following his appointment and based on Bonnet’s note and the responses of conference members to it, Bourquin prepared a memorandum. Therein he pointed out that he had sought to ensure that the subject of collective security was treated in as clear and concrete terms as possible and declared that the question that the conference was to address did not ‘belong to the sphere of abstract speculation.’ To address the topic of collective security in abstracto, he warned, would be to paralyse the conference’s efforts. Bourquin defined the principles governing collective security, as the ‘fundamental rules from which the system of security should be derived,’ the rules in question being the rules embodied in the covenant and the Pact of Paris. In putting forward this definition of the principles governing collective security, Bourquin was suggesting that the conference should proceed on the basis of the presumption that a system of collective security has merit, although he was careful to add the qualification that to proceed on the basis of a presumption in favour of collective security was not to discount the need to understand the political impediments and psychological resistances to its realisation. It was because of his concern that the conference should proceed in the manner that he suggested, that Bourquin pressed in the strongest terms the view that the conference must not begin with a discussion of the concept of sovereignty and the extent to which the ‘political aspirations and preoccupations it expresses, can be reconciled with the requirements of collective security.’14 13 Bonnet to Cleeve, and attached document entitled ‘Tentative Outline Programme,’ 9 July 1933. See also Bourquin, ‘General Report on the Preparatory Memoranda,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 3. 14 ‘Collective Security: Meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Studies Conferences of 1934 and 1935,’ Intellectuel Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin, 2, no. 2 (1934): 44–53, 46–7, and ‘Documents: Fourth Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Confer-

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As explained in a note written in support of Bourquin’s programme of study issued on behalf of the Prague School of Political Science, from a realistic point of view, one should, in agreement with Professor Bourquin, declare that in dealing with every question of an international nature, and with the question of collective security in particular, it is undesirable to begin with the concept of sovereignty. Unlimited sovereignty in the realm of international law is as deceptive as unlimited liberty or prosperity in the municipal realm. Just as the unrestricted liberty of the inhabitants of a territory would signify bellum omnium contra omnes and would consecrate the triumph of force over justice, so the normal and regulated international relations between the States would be quite impossible if no concessions by way of reciprocal limitations to their liberty of action, to their sovereignty were made.15

In contrast with the Prague School of Political Science, BCCIS was very critical of the way in which Bonnet and, following him, Bourquin had attempted to frame the conference agenda. In a note sent to fellow committee members on 23 August 1933, Salter’s replacement as chair of the BCCIS, namely, Meston, the chair RIIA, complained that Bonnet simply wanted the ISC to ‘plunge’ immediately into a discussion of ‘sanctions, international police and the other concrete remedies that are uppermost in the minds of statesmen today,’ adding that the conference was ‘not meant to provide nostrums for statesmen, but to investigate, in a detached and scientific spirit, the principles of collective security.’16 ence of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations (January 28th–29th, 1933),’ LON, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1934, 180. 15 LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies: A Short Record of a Preliminary Study Conference on Collective Security held in Paris on May 24–26, 1934, edited by the IIIC, 2 rue de Montpensier Palais Royal, Paris I, June 1934, 18–9, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. The IIIC attached the following note to the record of the preliminary study conference on collective security: ‘In view of the essentially preparatory character of the study meetings on “Collective Security” held during the Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference on International Studies and of the memoranda submitted by Members of the Conference, it has been decided not to issue a full printed record of the Session. The present roneographed record has been prepared for the convenience of the Members of the Conference and of other bona fide students of international affairs, on the understanding that the documents which it reproduces are the property of the Conference and that they may not be published, whether in whole or in part, without the authorisation of the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation.’ 16 ‘Note by Lord Meston,’ 23 August 1933, and ‘Draft Letter to Bonnet in Reply to His Letter of 9 July 1933,’ 21 August 1933, AG 1-IICI-K-VIII-1, UA. Salter resigned his position

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Lord Meston’s note strongly endorsed the views that Manning had expressed in a draft of a letter which was addressed to Bonnet and which had been written two days before Meston issued his note. Manning stated in his draft letter that the method of approach to the topic of collective security could not be the same as it was for the study of state intervention in the economy. As outlined in his draft letter and in a memorandum distributed to members of the BCCIS, the basis on which Manning argued this was as follows: collective security is not ‘like interventionism, a phenomenon which the scientist can be invited to observe; it is on the contrary, an ideal, a social objective, about which the collaborating institutions have formally undertaken to “think”.’17 Manning renewed his campaign to render the agenda of the conference more amenable to his outlook and that of other members of the BCCIS upon seeing the plan of work issued by Bourquin in November 1933. Displeased by the latter’s plan, Manning drafted another letter addressed to Bonnet, submitting it to the BCCIS for its approval at its meeting of 4 January, a meeting that had been scheduled in view of the fact that the ISC’s executive committee would be meeting later that month. In his second draft letter, which ran to five pages, Manning insisted that the agenda of the conference must be framed so as take ‘full account of the political aspirations underlying and expressed by the ideas of “sovereignty” and “independence” and that allowance must be made for different national viewpoints on the question of collective security: the actual principle of collective security must be subject to critical examination and not be treated as a “chose jugée”.’18 In a memorandum explaining the thinking behind his second draft letter, which Manning also circulated among his colleagues on the BCCIS, Manning stated that he was offended by what he saw as the attempt by Bourquin and, by implication, Bonnet to foreclose debate and orchestrate the adoption of a common position at the conference. Manning’s memo-

as chair of the BCCIS due to the crowded nature of his schedule. See Cleeve to Chalmers Wright, 18 May 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.m, UA. 17 ‘Draft Letter to Bonnet Reply to His Letter of 9 July 1933,’ 21 August 1933, and ‘Reflections on the Skeleton Programme by Professor Manning,’ 21 August 1933, AG 1IICI-K-I-1.m, UA. Emphasis in the originals. 18 BCCIS, ‘Agenda,’ 28 December 1933, and ‘Draft of Letter to Bonnet in Reply to His Letter of 24 November 1933,’ prepared by Professor Manning, Conférence permanente des hautes études, 1 October 1933–31 January 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.k. UA.

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randum reminded colleagues that it was not for the rapporteur ‘to dictate the thinking of the member institutions.’19 The contents of Manning’s letter were formally conveyed to Bonnet by Cleeve on behalf of the BCCIS several days after the meeting of 4 January. Cleeve, after having apologised to Bonnet for the frankness with which she explained the BCCIS’s position, stated that it was absurd to think academics ‘proceeding under quasi diplomatic forms could produce a “solution” to problems which resist the endeavours of statesmen.’20 As noted by Jiri F. Vranek, a member of the BCCIS and an assistant lecturer in international politics the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth, the British group was determined to convince the ISC’s executive committee of the importance of Manning’s argument.21 In this, the BCCIS was successful. As a consequence of the British committee’s efforts, at its meeting in Paris on 26 January 1934, the ISC’s executive committee decided, as Bourquin diplomatically put it, that Bourquin’s memorandum should be ‘taken as the basis of discussion, subject to certain modifications in the direction of greater flexibility and with certain additions.’22 Relevant to an understanding of Bourquin’s approach to the plan of work he devised is the knowledge that Bourquin represented Belgium at the Disarmament Conference and that, in that context, he served as president of the committee ‘charged with studying questions relative to control and guarantees of execution.’ While in Geneva, Bourquin witnessed first-hand ‘the tumult,’ as he described it in a letter to Bonnet, that arose in the wake of a note handed to a representative of the British government in Paris on the night of 17 April.23 That note, which was signed by the French foreign minister, Louis Barthou, was written in response to a letter signed by Simon on

19 ‘Memorandum on a Draft Letter to M. Bonnet by Professor Manning,’ AG 1-IICI-KVIII-1,UA. 20 Cleeve to Bonnet, 9 January 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.k. UA. 21 See the excerpt from the letter of Jiri F. Vranek included in the addendum to the agenda

of the BCCIS meeting of 4 January, 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-VIII-1,UA. See also Appendix D: Eighth International Studies Conference, Department of International Politics, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1934–1935, AG 1-IICI-K-VI-1, UA. 22 Bourquin, ‘General Report on the Preparatory Memoranda Submitted to the General Study Conference in 1935,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 3. 23 Bourquin to Bonnet, 24 April 1934, Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales, 1 February–30 April 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.l, UA.

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the subject of an effective system of guarantees that would permit the execution of a convention which would allow substantial rearmament on the part of Germany. Simon’s letter was received at the same time as were published in Berlin, Germany’s budget estimates for 1934–1935. These estimates provided for an increase in expenditure on Germany’s army, navy and air force by an amount of 352,000,000 marks. In light of this and Germany’s refusal to return to Geneva, Barthou declared in his note of 17 April, that further negotiations were ‘impossible.’ The note stated that while the French government appreciated the British government’s assistance in the French efforts to establish a system of guarantees, the ‘post-war horrors which France had to endure more than any other country impose on her the duty of showing prudence’ in regard to her security.24 The effect of this note, as Bourquin informed Bonnet, was that the issue of control and guarantees of execution would have to be again brought before the Disarmament Conference’s General Conference, which was due to resume on 29 May the date originally foreseen for the opening of the study conference on collective security of which Bourquin was generalrapporteur. Confessing his distress about the situation and asking if the dates of the Paris conference could be brought forward, Bourquin told Bonnet that it was ‘absolutely impossible’ for him to be absent from Geneva at that time, not only because of his role as a delegate of Belgium but also because of his role as president of a committee charged with addressing questions which, as the Belgian jurist put it, ‘figure now at the heart of the problem.’25 Commentary in the British press was unanimous on the point that the French note meant that the disarmament negotiations in their current guise were dead. However, the reactions to this development were mixed. The Times declared that while Germany was ‘doubtless…showing contempt’ for the Treaty of Versailles, there was ‘no proof that her military preparations’ exceeded the ‘legitimate requirements of national defence.’ The English journalist Vernon Bartlett, writing in the News Chronicle of which he was the diplomatic correspondent, bemoaned the fact that the French note had ruined the possibility of a Franco-German ‘compromise based on the British plan.’ The Daily Telegraph stated that the note had brought an end 24 ‘Text of French Note,’ Courier-Mail (Brisbane), April 20, 1934. See also ‘“Mortal Blow to the Disarmament Conference:” French Note Rejects All Limitations Plans Due to German Estimates,’ Courier-Mail (Brisbane), April 20, 1934. 25 Bourquin to Bonnet, 24 April 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.l, UA.

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to the ‘noble effort’ to secure stability Europe, adding that the French had displayed their ‘traditional realism.’ Although acknowledging that the timing of the German announcement of the increase in its arms estimates was highly unfortunate, the Telegraph stated that in light of the French action, the British government’s ‘reluctance to give extended guarantees is abundantly justified.’ By contrast, the Daily Mail expressed sympathy for the French position, declaring that there was no need for ‘lamentations’ for the passing of the Disarmament Conference and suggesting that the memorandum was to be welcomed for bringing to a close an ‘era of selfdeception.’ The Daily Express adopted a similar tone of grim satisfaction, concluding that ‘only British Ministers could have supposed that the Nazi tiger could be tamed like a cat.’26

Security, Sovereignty and War In his report to the Paris conference, Bourquin noted the criticisms of earlier proposals regarding its agenda, in particular, that it proceeded from the assumption that collective security is a priori of value. He then posed the question as to whether collective security, a doctrine which, he observed, had proved seductive not only for statesmen and jurists but also for the wider public, rather than being a ‘healthy’ and fruitful idea, was really a ‘mirage’ that held out certain dangers.27 In posing this question, Bourquin was drawing in particular on a conference submission that had been prepared by Francesco Coppola, member of the Royal Italian Academy, professor of international politics at the University of Rome and head of the Italian delegation to the ISC’s 1934 conference. Coppola had been emphatic that before studying facts and theories in relation to collective security, the very notion of security should be subject to ‘historical and philosophical criticism.’28 The ISC’s executive committee had endorsed the proposal of the Italian group that the 1934 meeting should conduct such a debate. Thus, Bourquin’s report also specified that the central question of the scope of the prohibition of the recourse to force, a prohibition which Bourquin pointed

26 ‘“Mortal Blow to the Disarmament:” French Note Rejects All Limitations Plans Due to

German Estimates,’ Courier-Mail (Brisbane), April 20, 1934. 27 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934), 200–1. 28 Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 2 (1934), 51.

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out is a necessary presupposition of any system of collective security and, indeed, is its ‘fundamental norm,’ would also be a matter of debate. In addition, and as a result of the urgings of certain conference members, the plan of work now encompassed the question of procedures for peaceful change as a means of discouraging states from employing force in order to obtain justice for themselves and a discussion of collective security in relation to the principle of sovereignty.29 The four meetings which followed Bourquin’s report were devoted to a discussion of the definitive order of the day of the 1935 conference. From the outset of this discussion, Coppola sought to defend the claim contained in his submission that since the end of the war the ‘political intelligence of the world,’ especially that of Europe, had been troubled, deceived and paralysed by what he described as this ‘myth of security, this nightmare with vague contours.’ Since the end of the war, Coppola affirmed, security had been conceived of as ‘objective, absolute, automatic, universal’ but, he added, this was a false idea.30 According to Coppola, security is a subjective and not an objective condition: it is a psychological or sentimental rather than material phenomenon. Thus, he stated, it is ‘perfectly understandable’ that a people, at certain points in its history, may feel a ‘powerful, primordial need’ for a sense of security, adding that should such a need be felt, it would be the right of a people to respond to it and only ‘natural’ that they should do so. Coppola maintained that as the conditions which determine whether a people or state felt secure are relative, security could not be the subject of a ‘fixed, single rule and less still of a universal guarantee’; it was ‘absurd’ for a group of states to accept that the particular interest of one state among them was a ‘universal interest’ let alone ‘a universal duty.’31 Although decrying the denial to states of the discretionary power to employ force in the pursuit of their national interests as ‘anti-historical’ and ‘anti-human’ and scoffing at the fashion for employing the term aggressor, Coppola smoothly suggested to his audience that in contemplating the

29 Ibid., 52–3. 30 ‘Discussion sur la Sécurité Collective,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 210–

3, 211, and Francisco Coppola, ‘Aperçu Sur l’Idée de Sécurité Collective,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 256–60, 257. 31 Coppola, ‘Aperçu Sur l’Idée de Sécurité Collective,’ 257–8.

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‘possibility of war’ he was only seeking a way to ‘avert’ it.32 Indeed, Coppola declared that collective security stood as one of the ‘greatest obstacles to the establishment of a real peace…not only diplomatically and juridically but also politically and psychologically.’ He explained that this was because the collective security system had given rise to an ‘immobile equilibrium’: it could not incorporate all the ‘moving and living forces’ that had emerged since the war.33 Coppola then warned that there would soon be outbursts of violence due to the international system’s putatively rigid and unnatural resistance to the sweep of history. In order to avoid such outbursts, a system or equilibrium that was ‘plastic’ and ‘flexible’ was necessary: a system that could be readjusted from time to time, in order to accommodate new ‘forces and needs.’ Elaborating on this point, Coppola argued that rather than seeking to avoid particular wars through their suppression, an effort, he maintained, that would only result in ‘another and greater war’ and perhaps even universal war, the community of nations should seek to address their causes through affording people means other than war of ‘satisfying their essential interests and vital needs.’34 Coppola hastened to add that his criticisms were of the notion of collective security and not of the institution of peace, noting in this connection that there had appeared of late a ‘too facile classification of loyal and pacific nations, on the one hand, and mischievous and war-like states on the other.’ The latter classification, Coppola declared, was from a strictly ‘purely scientific’ viewpoint a rather ‘childish notion’: the ‘scheming, diabolic state was a pure fiction.’35 Responding to Coppola’s provocations, Zimmern drily stated that he ‘admired Professor Coppola’s independence of spirit’ as reflected in his claim that ‘international wars were against human nature whereas national wars of passion were according to nature and therefore justifiable.’ Such a contention was bold Zimmern suggested, not least because it contradicted the policy of the professor’s own government it being a signatory to the Pact of Paris. Noting Coppola’s representation of war as an attack by ‘virile, hungry nations upon weak, decadent nations,’ Zimmern advised Coppola 32 LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 96– 7, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. 33 Coppola, ‘Aperçu Sur l’Idée de Sécurité Collective,’ 259–60. 34 Ibid., 260. 35 LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 228, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA.

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that it was in the interest of the so-called hungry states to maintain a regime of peace. Should these nations maintain a ‘war spirit,’ Zimmern warned, the richer nations would ‘organise their resources as to prevent the hungry nations from access to the minerals indispensable for modern warfare.’36 Others criticising Coppola’s discourse argued that to suggest that the LON’s collective security system sought to counter individual wars with wars on a universal scale was to equate a publicly authorised response to a crime with the crime itself: as if aggression and collective self-defence in response to aggression occupied the same moral plane because both involved the use of force. For example, Scelle, having noted the view proclaimed by some that it was illogical to counter war with war, insisted that a sharp contrast must be drawn between the uncontrolled use of force in the pursuit of private ends, and the use of force under the control of a ‘public authority in the general interest,’ the latter operation being characterised by Scelle as a police action in response to a crime.37 A related issue to which a number of conference participants drew attention concerned the solipsistic tendency on the part of certain states to view sovereignty, not as a legally qualified and thereby limited power, but as a licence to do whatever a given state was capable of doing. According to the latter view of sovereignty some pointed out, international law, far from being seen as a framework which conditions and thereby protects the independence of states, was to be seen as an unwanted imposition on the state and a constraint on its supposedly untrammelled right to fulfil its subjectively determined security needs.38 In their conference submission, Albert de Geouffre de La Pradelle, a professor of public international law at the University of Paris, founder and

36 Ibid., 231–2. 37 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 212–3. See also Zygmunt Cybichowski,

‘Quelques observations concernant le programme d’étude sur la question de la sécurité collective,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 265–8, 267. A Danish delegate to the conference, Georg Cohn, argued that it was ‘theoretically paradoxical and practically unrealisable to want to combat war by war.’ Georg Cohn, ‘Observations concernant le programme d’étude sur la sécurité collective,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 222–8, 225, 227–8. Georg Cohn was director of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. He was an exponent of the principle of neutrality. 38 Gaspar Bayón y Chacón, ‘Révision des traités devenus inapplicable et des situations juridiques mettent en danger le maintien de la paix,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 228–38, 228.

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director of the Institut des hautes études internationales, and an expert at the Paris Peace Conference, and Louis Le Fur, also a professor of public international law at the University of Paris, insisted that it was erroneous to maintain that sovereignty is an unqualified power. The two professors declared that to defend what they described as ‘arrogant sovereignty’ is to ‘rebel against all law, as against justice.’ Geouffre de La Pradelle and Le Fur pointed out that there is nothing in the French conception of sovereignty, of which, they insisted, Jean Bodin was the master, that contradicts the idea that the sovereignty should submit to justice.39 Limburg, councillor of state and former member of the parliament of the Netherlands, and Verzijl, a professor of international public and history of diplomacy at the University of Utrecht, argued in a similar vein, contending that the international system can no longer ‘tolerate leaving it to each individual State the sovereign right’ to determine if it has been attacked and that, as a consequence, has a right to defend itself. They insisted that the definition of aggression, should be ‘rigorously fixed’ and not be left to arbitrary determinations by individual states.40

Collective Security and Neutrality The discussion of collective security also gave rise to a discussion of neutrality as, obviously, a system of repressive measures aimed at checking aggression would either be weak or dysfunctional as long as the voluntary neutrality remained an option. In raising this issue, Reverend Father YvesMarie Leroy de la Brière, professor of Christian principles of jus gentium at the Catholic Institute of Paris, recalled that the doctrine of neutrality, which, he stated, had become ‘kind of dogma,’ had only been developed towards the end of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century and that before that the notion of neutrality had been largely ignored. Brière saw the origins of this doctrine as lying partly with ‘an inorganic 39 Albert de Geouffre de La Pradelle et Louis Le Fur, ‘Vues générale sur la question de

la sécurité collective,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 239–56, 243, 246. See also Cybichowski, ‘Quelques observations concernant le programme d’étude sur la question de la sécurité collective,’ 268; and Ricardo de Jasper to Bonnet, 14 October 1933, AG 1IICI-K-I-1.k. UA. The position of Albert de Geouffre de La Pradelle and Louis Le Fur was advocated by members of the Spanish International Studies Federation in their submissions to the conference. 40 J. Limburg and J. H. Verzijl, ‘Mémoire sur “la sécurité collective”,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 260–5, 262.

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conception of international society’ and partly with a desire to stop the ‘evil [of war] from spreading,’ that is, partly with a desire to protect in times of war those who had those who had ‘no special reasons to join the fray.’ Irrespective of the latter consideration, Brière stated that he viewed the doctrine of neutrality as a ‘gross inferiority of the law because the fact of abstaining oneself when there is a crime is contrary to morality and law.’41 It is worth noting here that the modern conception of neutrality emerged in a context in which the just war doctrine, which had been under assault from the competing doctrine of raison d’état since the seventeenth century, had largely been abandoned by the late eighteenth century in favour of the political conception of war: war was an instrument of national policy.42 In a memorandum submitted to the 1935 conference of the ICS on behalf of the BCCIS, Hersch Lauterpacht, professor of public international law at the LSE, observed that where states enjoyed an ‘unrestricted’ right to embark on war and where, as a consequence, war must be conceived as just on both sides, absolute neutrality, by which Lauterpacht meant ‘absolute impartiality in all circumstances,’ followed as a ‘clear duty.’ Thus, the historical basis of absolute neutrality, according to Lauterpacht, concerned the ‘institution of war as a prerogative right of sovereign States’: the acceptance of the doctrine that war is a legitimate method by which states could resolve their differences.43 Paul de La Pradelle noted that the classical understanding of neutrality as codified in the 1907 Hague Conventions (Hague V and XIII) was ‘perfectly consistent’ with the conception of war as a method by which states settled their international differences, that is, a conception of war as a ‘veritable institution’ of international law.44 Yet while these conceptions came to form part of the corpus of international law, there was an important sense in 41 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934), 212, and LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 282, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. 42 On the decline of the just war doctrine, see Robert Kolb, ‘The Origin of the Twin Terms jus ad bellum/jus in bello,’ International Review of the Red Cross 37, no. 320 (1997): 553–62; G. I. A. D. Draper, ‘Grotius’ Place in the Development of Legal Ideas About War,’ in Hedley Bull, Benedict Kingsbury, and Adam Roberts, ed., Hugo Grotius and International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 201; and Hugh Smith, ‘The Womb of War: Clausewitz and International Politics,’ Review of International Studies 16, no. 1 (1990): 39–58, 40. 43 Hersch Lauterpacht, ‘Neutrality and the Covenant of the League,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 414–5. 44 Paul de La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security,

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which they were not of it according to Lauterpacht. He stated in relation to the modern conception of neutrality, it is not ‘deduced’ from the principles underlying international law and nor could it be: ‘on the contrary, it is, like the admissibility of war, a denial of the existence of a true legal community among States.’45 In August 1935, John B. Whitton, a professor of international law at Princeton University and soon to become the director of the Geneva Research Centre in Geneva, touched on this point in a lecture given at the annual session of the Geneva Institute of International Relations. Therein he contended that the institution of neutrality is inconceivable in any really organized community. That it has persisted so long in international law is proof that the society of States is still in a stage of primitive law, characterized by the prevalence of self-help….Neutrality was inevitable when all wars were presumed to be legal or “just”. It was perhaps admissible when no international machinery existed to determine the justice or injustice of a conflict, and when no international measures were available to be put into action against the law-breaker. Neutrality had some philosophical basis when the doctrine of exclusive sovereignty of States dominated international relations, and when, before the days of Article 11 of the Covenant, non-belligerents were supposed to be indifferent to war, its causes and its consequences. But neutrality has no proper place in the world of to-day.46

At the Paris session of the ISC in 1934, Geouffre de La Pradelle distinguished between what he termed a continental conception of neutrality and

45 Lauterpacht, ‘Neutrality and the Covenant of the League,’ 414. 46 John B. Whitton, ‘Is American Neutrality Possible?,’ in Problems of Peace, Tenth Series:

Anarchy or World Order (London: Allen and Unwin, 1936), 80–1. The Geneva Research Centre was founded in 1920 at the time of the First Assembly of the LON by a small group of Americans in association with the American League of Nations’ Association with a view to transmitting information to the American public about the activities of the League. In 1930, it became an independent research centre, depending at first on resources obtained through public subscriptions and then later on funds donated by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the International Corporation Fund. In the autumn of 1936, with the support, financial and otherwise, of the foundation and the endowment, the GRC was reconstituted such that it was no longer an American institution but was rather an international research centre. Geneva Research Centre: Study, 22 January 1937, Geneva Research Centre, 1935–1940, AG 1-IICI-K-V-3, UA.

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what he termed in a general fashion an Anglo-Saxon conception.47 From the perspective of the former he stated, the covenant and the Pact of Paris had established that ‘from the moment there is aggression there is injustice [and thus] indifference is impossible.’ He pointed out that according to the continental conception, the whole system whereby it was possible to adopt a ‘like attitude towards both the “aggressor” and the “aggressed”’ and to treat them as equals, ‘appeared to have lapsed.’48 Citing his experiences at various international meetings such as that of the International Law Association, Geouffre de La Pradelle observed that the Anglo-Saxons had yet to embrace this new conception. He declared that he had been ‘struck’ by degree of attention American lawyers had been giving to the question of neutrality, pointing out that while some had endorsed the new conception, others continued to express support for the old. In respect to the latter position, he stated that it was an ‘interesting example of politics influencing law,’ adding that ‘lawyers must see to it that their views as technicians shall prevail.’49 Whitton clearly was one of those American lawyers insisting that neutrality would have to disappear. Further to this, he maintained alongside Philip C. Jessup, a professor of international law at the University of Columbia, and Quincy Wright, a political scientist at the University of Chicago who specialised in international law and international politics, that the neutral duties of the United States had been modified as a result of the Pact of Paris.50 Whitton concluded his aforementioned Geneva lecture in recalling what he referred to as that ‘magnificent statement’ issued by President Wilson in the course of an address to Congress on 2 April 1917: ‘Neutrality is no longer possible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its people.’51 As La Pradelle pointed out, this attitude had found expression at the LON Council in 1921 when the council

47 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934), 212, and LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 283, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. 48 LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 283, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. 49 Ibid., 283–4. 50 Whitton, ‘Is American Neutrality Possible?,’ 65. 51 Ibid., 81, and La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 405.

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‘presented the maintenance of the neutrality of Switzerland, in spite of its admission as a member, as an exception confirming the rule.’52 This was not the first time that the council recognised the special status of Switzerland in respect to the question of neutrality. At its session of 13 February 1920, the council had passed a resolution in which, while noting that ‘the conception of neutrality is incompatible with the principle that all Members will be obliged to cooperate in enforcing respect’ for international engagements, recognised that Switzerland ‘is in a unique situation, based on a tradition of several centuries’ and that the recognition of this fact had been ‘explicitly incorporated in the Law of Nations’ in the form of the treaties of 1815 issuing from the Congress of Vienna and especially the Act of 20 November 1815. The incorporation of Switzerland’s situation in international law, the council further noted, had itself been recognised by the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles under Article 435 of that treaty and thus the guarantees given in favour of Switzerland were ‘international obligations for the maintenance of peace.’53 The council recognised that Switzerland’s case was special for an additional reason: also because of its geographical location. As Diedrich Schindler, a professor of public law at the University of Zurich, stated in memorandum entitled ‘The Perpetual Neutrality of Switzerland,’ ‘surrounded by several powerful States, Switzerland, if she were involved in a modern war, would risk, more than any other country in the world, complete annihilation.’54 Yet La Pradelle contended, as did Lauterpacht, that it would be misleading to claim that the Covenant of the LON and the Pact of Paris had rendered ‘voluntary neutrality’ inadmissible, just as it would be misleading to claim that the policy of neutrality, which in addition to the Hague Conventions was provided for in bilateral treaties and domestic texts and 52 La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 405. 53 LON, OJ, 1, no. 3 (1920), 57. Note that on 13 February 1920, the Council of the

LON also declared the following in relation to Switzerland: ‘The Members of the League of Nations are entitled to expect that the Swiss people will not stand aside when the high principles of the League have to be defended.’ It was in this sense that the council welcomed the formal declarations by Switzerland in accordance with which Switzerland recognised and proclaimed ‘the duties of solidarity which membership of the League of Nations imposes upon her, including therein the duty of co-operating in such economic and financial measures as may be demanded by the League of Nations against a covenant-breaking State’ (ibid.). See also Diedrich Schindler, ‘The Perpetual Neutrality of Switzerland,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 419–20. 54 Schindler, ‘The Perpetual Neutrality of Switzerland,’ 420–1.

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declarations, remained unaffected by these agreements. Indeed, La Pradelle observed that a close study of the covenant and the Pact of Paris as informed by official interpretations of them, demonstrated that voluntary neutrality remained a legal option. However, he also observed that the examination of these same texts, and especially of the political commentaries of which, since their ratification, they have constantly been the object, also proves that the classical conception of neutrality, codified in the Hague Conventions of 1907, has undergone profound modification. In theory, as in practice, neutrality is at present an idea in active evolution.55

La Pradelle noted that from 1921 onwards, formerly neutral states had begun to mount arguments which asserted that certain articles in the covenant allowed scope for ‘the classic conception of voluntary neutrality.’56 For example, paragraph 7 of Article 15 of the covenant provided that in the case of a dispute between members of the LON, if the council ‘fails to reach a report which is unanimously agreed to by the members thereof, other than the Representatives of one or more of the parties to the dispute, the Members of the League reserve to themselves the right to take such action as they shall consider necessary for the maintenance of right and justice.’57 The effect of this provision was that the covenant did not rule out recourse to force in all circumstances: the covenant was based on a ‘discrimination among wars, some of them being illicit and some of them being tolerated,’ and, in respect to tolerated wars, a policy of ‘free and impartial’ neutrality could not but be allowed. Yet what was most remarkable in La Pradelle’s view, was that the covenant, due to its omissions and ‘hastily voted text,’ even gave scope to a policy of voluntary neutrality in relation to the illicit recourse to force: both Articles 10 and 16, left it up to individual states to determine whether a given situation constituted a violation of the covenant’s prohibition concerning resort to war.58 In 1921, the First Assembly adopted four amendments and a set of nineteen resolutions regarding the method of application of Article 16 of the covenant in respect to the declaration of ‘an economic blockade against 55 La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 404. 56 Ibid., 405. 57 ‘Appendix 3: Covenant of the League of Nations, 29 April 1919,’ in United Nations Library at Geneva, League of Nations Archives, The League of Nations 1920–1946, 164. 58 La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 405.

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a State which goes to war in disregard of its engagements under Articles 12, 13 and 15.’59 The drafting of the proposed amendments to Article 16 and that of the so-called Resolutions Concerning the Economic Weapon occurred against a background of unease about collective action in the event of major hostilities in light of the absence of the United States and, to a lesser extent, the USSR and Germany from the LON. The fourth of the Resolutions Concerning the Economic Weapon stated the following: ‘It is the duty of each Member of the League to decide for itself whether a breach of the Covenant has been committed. The fulfillment of their duties under Article 16 is required from Members of the League by the express terms of the Covenant, and they cannot neglect them without breach of their Treaty obligations.’60 At the Fourth Assembly in 1923 and following

59 Charles H. Levermore, ed., Second Year Book of the League of Nations, January 1, 1921–

February 6, 1922; Including the Complete Story of the Washington Conference, with the Complete Texts of Treaties and Governments (New York: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1922), 162. 60 ‘Appendix I (2): Documents Relating to the League Covenant and Its Application in the Italo-Ethiopian War: Resolutions Concerning the Economic Weapon, Adopted by the Assembly, October 4, 1921,’ in Quincy Wright, ed., Neutrality and Collective Security (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1936), 195. See also ‘Resolutions and Recommendations Adopted on the Reports of the Third Committee: The Economic Weapon,’ LON, special supplement, OJ, no. 6. (1921), 25. For the impact of the absence of the United States from the LON on the attitude of the members of the LON towards collective action, see Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 66. In 1925, Arthur Balfour conveyed to the LON Council the following observation: ‘The League of Nations. In its present shape, is not the League designed by the framers of the Covenant. They no doubt contemplated and, so far as they could, provided against the difficulties which might arise from the non-inclusion of a certain number of States within the circle of League membership. But they never supposed that among these states would be found so many of the most powerful nations of the world, least of all did they foresee that one of them would be the United States of America.’ Arthur Balfour, 1925, quoted in Zimmern, International Government and the Rule of Law, 304. Zimmern stated that Balfour based an argument on this observation which ‘may be broadly summarised as an admission that the League could, for the present, be neither a World Concert of Great Powers nor a guarantee for its members against an upheaval such as that of the Great War. With “ordinary misunderstandings” the League was indeed “admirably fitted to deal”: but to prevent wars arising from “deep-lying causes of hostility” between “great and powerful states” was, he declared, beyond its strength.’ Zimmern, International Government and the Rule of Law, 304–5. For a further illustration of the British government’s statement at the council in 1920 of its view of the impact on the LON’s ability to prevent war in view of the absence of Germany, the USSR, and the United States, see Jean Ray, Commentaire du Pace de la Société des Nations selon la politique et la jurisprudence des organes de la Société (Paris: Recueil Sirey, 1930), 509–10. Note that the sixth resolution of the Resolutions Concerning the Economic Weapon stated the following: ‘If the Council is of the opinion that a State has been guilty of a breach of Covenant, the Minutes of the meeting

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the adoption of a Canadian amendment, an interpretive resolution was proposed concerning Article 10 which guaranteed the territorial integrity and political independence of League members. According to Gathorne-Hardy, the proposed resolution, like the Resolutions Concerning the Economic Weapon and a proposal in 1920 by the Canadian delegation to eliminate Article 10 altogether, was symptomatic of a general retreat from sanctions. The 1923 interpretative resolution declared the following: ‘It is for the constitutional authorities of each Member to decide, in reference to the obligation of preserving the independence and integrity of Members, in what degree the Member is bound to assure the execution of this obligation by employment of its military forces.’61 It should be noted that at the time of their adoption, the Resolutions Concerning the Economic Weapon and the proposed amendments to Article 16 were but provisional measures recommended to the council and members by the assembly. The first of the Resolutions Concerning the Economic Weapon provided that the other eighteen resolutions and the proposed amendments, so long as the latter had not been put in force in accordance with the requirements of the covenant, were to serve as rules for guidance [directives ]. In the event, the proposed amendments were not put in force and thus the assembly’s recommendations, which the council adopted in January 1922, remained but provisional suggestions. Jean Ray, a French commentator on the covenant, declared that to the extent that the amendments and resolutions in question contradicted the original text of Article 16, which, as he noted, still remained in force, he could not see how they could serve as rules for guidance (directives ). Even so, he felt moved to

at which that opinion is arrived at shall be immediately sent to all members of the League, accompanied by a statement of reasons and by an invitation to take action accordingly. The fullest publicity shall be given to this decision [acte].’ OJ, no. 6. (1921), 25. Jean Ray pointed out that according to rapporteur of the Second Committee of the Assembly in 1921, the significance of this resolution was as follows: ‘the council cannot make a decision [décision], it issues only a simple opinion [avis ]; it is on its moral authority that people count in order that the members of the League are brought into agreement.’ The same rapporteur observed in relation to the fourth resolution on the economic weapon that ‘the right of decision left to each state ‘does not thus imply that the members of the League can extract themselves from their undertakings.’ Ray, Commentaire du Pace de la Société des Nations, 517n. 61 Resolution proposed at Fourth Assembly, 1923, quoted in Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 66. ‘At the First Assembly, in 1920, the Canadian delegation proposed the elimination of Article 10…and further developed its point of view in 1922, by proposing, inter alia, that ‘no Member shall be under the obligation to engage in any act of war without the consent of its parliament, legislature, or other representative body.’

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wonder what remained of the moral authority of Article 16 in light of what he saw as the assembly’s public disavowal of it. As for the 1923 interpretative resolution, although Persia’s opposition to it prevented its adoption, the principle which it embodied came to enjoy widespread acceptance. La Pradelle observed that the reasoning expressed in the resolutions on the economic weapon, the proposed interpretative resolution concerning Article 10 and various other ‘nibblings’ at Articles 10 and 16, which according to him ‘in the long run denatured…[the]…meaning and scope’ of these articles, reached a result whereby it is the role of the state ‘which is required to carry out the duty of applying a sanction to decide that the facts exist which should set the machinery in motion.’ He concluded in relation to this result the following: ‘by virtue of this twofold fissure, voluntary neutrality is maintained, in the very place where it ought logically to have given way before the obligation of guaranty [sic] and of sanctions.’62 Yet La Pradelle also concluded that the ‘destructive’ interpretation of Articles 10 and 16 had not resulted in the wholesale restoration of the system of The Hague: although voluntary neutrality remained an option under the covenant, voluntary action of this kind was now ‘limited by elements of law and morality.’ La Pradelle characterised this change in the 62 La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 405–6. ‘The result which we are in danger of having obtained is to have ruined the force of the original Article 16 without having put anything in its place.’ Ray, Commentaire du Pace de la Société des Nations, 517. For the resolution concerning the provisional status of the Resolutions Concerning the Economic Weapon, see LON, special supplement, OJ, no. 6. (1921), 24. The proposed amendments to Article 16, which were four in number, ‘were approved by the Assembly without dissent, subject to the prescribed ratification of all the members of the Council and half the States represented in the Assembly.’ Levermore, ed., Second Year Book of the League of Nations, January 1, 1921–February 6, 1922; Including the Complete Story of the Washington Conference, with the Complete Texts of Treaties and Government s, 162. Note that the last of the four amendments to Article 16 provided for ‘very carefully guarded exemptions of particular States from the obligation to apply the sanctions.’ See Anton Bertram, ‘The Economic Weapon as a Form of Peaceful Pressure,’ Transactions of the Grotius Society 17 (1931): 139–74, 152–3. For the text of the fourth amendment and for further observations concerning the assembly’s 1921 recommendations in respect to Article 16, see Ray, Commentaire du Pace de la Société des Nations, 515, 518–9. Zimmern noted that the report of the League’s International Blockade Committee which had been established in order to ‘study ways and means for carrying out Article XVI,’ formed the basis of the Resolutions Concerning the Economic Weapon. He further noted that this report, ‘weakened the article in important respects, especially as regards the immediacy and the universality of its enforcement by member-states.’ Zimmern, International Government and the Rule of Law, 303n. The effect of the adoption of the Resolutions Concerning the Economic Weapon was ‘generally to weaken the provisions of the Covenant in regard to sanctions.’ Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 67.

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neutrality regime in the following terms: ‘for the signatories of the 1907 Conventions, neutrality was a question of interest; for the members of the League of Nations, it is a question of conscience.’ The assembly resolution of October 4 which provided that members had a duty to determine for themselves whether a breach of the covenant had been committed should be read against the background of this observation. It is also very important to note that the League system not only limited the scope of neutrality, but also entailed a transformation in the way in which neutrality could manifest itself. The origins of the latter development concerns texts on the subject of sanctions submitted to the Commission on the League of Nations at the Hôtel de Crillon. The drafts of the covenant of Sir Walter Phillimore, Sir Edward Grey, Cecil, and those of the British, French and Italian governments, provided for a full range of economic and military sanctions which members were to impose on a state which had resorted to war in violation of the covenant and with which, as a consequence, they were deemed to be ‘ipso facto in a state of war.’63 By contrast, the draft of Colonel House, the Hurst-Miller draft (the informal name of an Anglo-American draft named after its principal architects David Hunter Miller, an American expert on treaties, and Cecil Hurst, a legal expert from the British Foreign Office), and the draft of the South African prime minister, Jan Christian Smuts, distinguished between economic and military sanctions. These three drafts treated economic sanctions as ‘obligatory and immediately executory’ whereas military sanctions were treated as ‘optional’ or at the discretion of the council alone. In addition, Colonel House’s draft and the Hurst-Miller draft substituted for the phrase ‘in a state of war,’ the expression ‘act of war, considered as committed by the guilty State against all the signatories.’ It was to the latter formulation, that President Wilson eventually gave his seal of approval and thus the first paragraph of what became Article 16, the only article in the covenant addressing sanctions, read in part as follows: ‘Should any Member of the League resort to war in disregard of its covenants under Articles 12, 13 or 15, it shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other Members of the League, which hereby undertake immediately to subject it to the severance of all trade or financial relations.’64 According to Lauterpacht, it seemed that it was Wilson himself who inserted this

63 Ibid., 406. 64 Ibid., 407. See also Morley, Society of Nations, 77.

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wording, ‘deliberately’ substituting it for the ‘original phrase “become at war with”.’ What this substitution signified was a rejection of the notion, which had been entertained at the outset of the drafting of the covenant, that action against a violator of the covenant, would ‘necessarily assume the form of war.’65 With the economic and military sanctions disassociated and with economic sanctions now provided, it was left to the drafters of the covenant to provide for military sanctions. This was done in a separate paragraph, that is, in the second paragraph of what became Article 16. It should be noted here that the text of this paragraph as addressed at the first reading ‘spoke of “specification” by the council of armed contingents which the members of the LON would be obliged to furnish.’66 However, the second and third readings saw a considerable narrowing of the paragraph’s reach, such that any suggestion of members being legally obliged to supply the LON with armed contingents at the request of the council was eliminated.67 The text finally adopted by the conference which became paragraph two of Article 16 of the covenant, stated that it was the ‘duty of the Council…to recommend…what effective military, naval or air force the Members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League.’68 Thus, the process of weakening the LON commenced even before its birth.69 The final formulation of the LON’s sanctions regime resulted in a collective security system that was bound to be less effective than some thought it should have been. The differing treatment accorded economic and military sanctions destroyed, according to La Pradelle, the possibility of ‘an ideal and logical repressive system.’ However, La Pradelle also regarded it as a somewhat compensatory factor that the ‘disassociation of the economic and military sanctions’ laid the basis for a new customary regime in regard to neutrality.70

65 Lauterpacht, ‘Neutrality and the Covenant of the League,’ 413. 66 La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 407. 67 Ibid. 68 Emphasis added. ‘Appendix 3: Covenant of the League of Nations, 29 April 1919,’ in United Nations Library at Geneva, League of Nations Archives, The League of Nations 1920–1946, 164–5, and La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 407. 69 La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 407. 70 Ibid., 406–8.

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The origins of the development of this new regime are also traceable to the Paris Peace Conference in the context of which the states which were neutral in the Great War came to the realisation that the old system of neutrality could not be accommodated by an international order which insisted on a duty of sanctions. In relation to this, La Pradelle noted that on 19 March 1919, representatives of the neutral states, for whom neutrality had the ‘the aspect of a constitutional dogma,’ met with representatives of the Commission on the Covenant where the former affirmed that although they were ‘resolutely opposed to military sanctions, they were ready to accept economic, commercial and financial sanctions, which they considered compatible with neutrality.’71 As La Pradelle suggested, the distinction between the two kinds of sanctions is entirely artificial as it is the ‘idea of sanction itself which is at the source of their incompatibility’ with neutrality. Irrespective of this, the trend away from the old absolute neutrality towards a qualified neutrality was a considerable departure from the Hague system as this system did not, in principle, discriminate between types of sanctions. In relation to this, La Pradelle observed that to the extent that the new and evolving neutrality regime was in conflict with the letter of the Hague system, support for the former could be found in legal doctrine and state practice.72 In terms of doctrinal support, it should be noted that publicists such as Le Fur and Bourquin saw the new neutrality regime as a reaffirmation in the field of international relations of the theory of Hugo Grotius who had written in the seventeenth century of the ‘duties of the voluntarily neutral State’ under the heading of, according to Brière’s loose translation, ‘those who are between two fires.’73 In respect to state practice, an observation made by La Pradelle is compelling: he observed that declarations issued in modern and contemporary history, such as the ‘protests addressed to

71 Ibid., 407–8. 72 Ibid., 408. 73 Ibid., 408; LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 282, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. See also Louis Le Fur, ‘La théorie de droit natural depuis le XVII siècle et la doctrine moderne,’ Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 18 (1927): 259–442; and Maurice Bourquin, ‘Grotius et les tendances actuelles du droit international,’ Revue de Droit International et de Legislation Comparée 7, no. 1–2 (1926): 86–125, 113–5.

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neutrals during the last war,’ showed that ‘impartiality is not a necessary element in the traditional customary conception of neutrality.’74 La Pradelle was somewhat optimistic in regard to the new neutrality regime, believing that it tended towards the establishment of an ideal system of collective repression of war and, in view of this, the disappearance of the institution of neutrality altogether.75 Lauterpacht was less sanguine. He was aware that the institution of qualified neutrality in a system of collective security had certain advantages. Above all, he observed, it admitted of ‘gradation and elasticity, permitting the ‘adjustment of the degree of assistance and pressure to the degrees of responsibility and to the exigencies of the moment.’ In this way, according to Lauterpacht, the institution permitted the avoidance of what some of the critics of collective security most feared or pretended to fear: the conversion of a ‘system of repression of war into a system producing a general conflagration in the extreme form of war.’76 Lauterpacht further observed that qualified neutrality in a system of collective security also corresponded with the current state of ‘political integration and solidarity’ in the international arena and in this respect, one might add, those who framed the covenant had no choice but to make room for it.77 Lauterpacht nonetheless expounded on the disadvantages of qualified neutrality for the purposes of collective action. Doubtless with recent events in mind, he made the following observation: Frequently, the military preponderance of the aggressor will be such that, if confronted only with the forces of the opponent, he will achieve his object in a war of very short duration followed possibly by the annihilation or annexation of the attacked State. Qualified neutrality in such emergencies becomes a shallow phrase and collective repression a by-word. What will be left is the doubtful operation of the doctrine of non-recognition or of economic pressure after the termination of war in order to compel the aggressor to give up the fruits of victory….The dangerous fallacy of qualified neutrality as an instrument of collective action is that it is based on the unlikely contingency that the aggressor will attack a State of equal power and that in a long war of attrition the indirect help of neutrals will assist the victim. The attacked State

74 La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 408. 75 Ibid. 76 Lauterpacht, ‘Neutrality and the Covenant of the League,’ 415. 77 Ibid.

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may have succumbed long before the effects of economic discrimination will have made themselves felt.78

Contrary to those who maintained that the Pact of Paris meant that the old conception of neutrality was no longer sustainable, Lauterpacht insisted that, unlike the covenant, it was entirely compatible with the absolute neutrality of its signatories. The reason why the pact, which La Pradelle stated ‘should logically have condemned neutrality,’ was considered by Lauterpacht and others to have not modified the rights and duties of neutrality, was as follows: although the Pact of Paris involved the renunciation of the ‘hitherto sovereign right of war,’ it did not involve the undertaking of an obligation to repress illicit wars.79 Aside from a clause in the preamble which declared that a signatory state which promoted its ‘national interest by resort to war should be denied the benefits’ provided by the pact, it was not endowed with any sanctions.80 One of the great preoccupations in discussions of the status of neutrality within the meaning Pact of Paris was the question of the attitude of one of the pact’s principal authors, namely, the United States, its attitude being a major preoccupation of LON members, foremost among them in this regard being Great Britain. The United States’ view of the significance of the Pact of Paris in regard to its neutrality was not difficult to ascertain: leaving aside the 22 May intervention of Davis at the Disarmament Conference, through its official actions since signing the pact, the United States had demonstrated that it did not regard its rights or duties of neutrality to have changed. In 1928, the United States signed the Havana Convention on Maritime Neutrality, a convention which ‘affirmed in emphatic language the neutral duties of impartiality,’ going on to ratify it in 1932. On 10 October 1933, the United States signed the Argentine Anti-War Treaty (that is, the Anti-War Nonaggression and Conciliation Treaty between the United States of America and Other American Republics), in which neutrality had an important place and which expressly ruled out intervention,

78 Ibid., 415. 79 La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 409, and Lauterpacht, ‘Neutrality and the

Covenant of the League,’ 416. 80 ‘Appendix II (1): Documents Relating to the Pact of Paris and the Italo-Ethiopian War: The Pact of Paris, August 2, 1928,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Collective Security, 224. See also La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 409, and Lauterpacht, ‘Neutrality and the Covenant of the League,’ 416.

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either diplomatic or armed, in disputes between the contracting parties. In February 1934, the American Senate, fearing a situation in which the United States would be held to be in violation of the duty imposed on it by international law as a neutral state, passed the arms embargo resolution with an amendment introduced the previous year which provided that an embargo declared by the president ‘must apply impartially to both belligerents alike.’81 According to La Pradelle, at the beginning of 1934, it appeared as though the ‘movement in favour of “strengthening the Kellogg Pact”’ which had emerged in Congress even before the Pact of Paris was signed and which commanded support among the public and members of the current administration (the latter having shown themselves in favour a policy of qualified or benevolent neutrality comparable to that which had arisen in the course of interpreting the covenant), was ‘destined to score an opening victory.’82 In this regard, the Senate’s amendment of the arms embargo resolution appeared to be a setback: while La Pradelle considered that the amended resolution represented a marginal improvement on the traditional neutrality system, it fell ‘far short…of the status accepted by neutrals, traditional and eventual, within the framework of the Covenant of the League of Nations.’83 Nonetheless, in view of the signing of the Anti-War Treaty by the United States, La Pradelle felt justified in the ‘belief that progress, though barely perceptible thus far, cannot fail to become more marked in the future.’84 This interpretation of the Anti-War Treaty paralleled that of Jessup with whose work La Pradelle was familiar. At the 1934 ISC conference, Jessup, having noted that the question of neutrality aroused a great deal of interest 81 Lauterpacht, ‘Neutrality and the Covenant of the League,’ 416. On the Senate’s fears, see Whitton, ‘Is American Neutrality Possible?,’ 64–5. On the adhesions to the Anti-War Treaty, see LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 280, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. ‘Late in May, the arms embargo resolution, which had already been passed by the House of Representatives, was reported by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to the Senate with an amendment that any embargo established under it applied impartially to all belligerents. Secretary Hull stated on May 29 that such an amendment was not in accord with the views of the President and of himself. The amended resolution was subsequently passed by the Senate but was not enacted.’ United States Department of State, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy 1931–1941, 24. 82 La Pradelle, ‘The Evolution of Neutrality,’ 409. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid.

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in the United States, insisted on the need to ‘establish a system of neutrality within the scheme of a general framework for the prevention of war’ and suggested that the ISC should investigate what new forms neutrality might take.85 Although acknowledging that neutrality was a key feature of the Anti-War Treaty, Jessup argued that within the meaning of treaty its form was attenuated: neutrality therein ‘included… the means of restricting war.’86 The main basis for this contention was Article 3 of the treaty which provided that in case of non-compliance, by any state engaged in a dispute…the contracting undertake to make every effort for the maintenance of peace. To that end they will adopt in their character as neutrals a common and solitary attitude; they will exercise the political, juridical, or economic means authorised by international law; they will bring the influence public opinion to bear but they will in no case resort to intervention, either diplomatic or armed; subject to the attitude that may be incumbent on them by virtue of other collective treaties to which such states are signatories.87

In his lecture at the Geneva Institute of International Relations, Whitton observed that should the threat of war loom or should it break out, the United States would in all probability consult with other governments in the effort to maintain peace. In relation to this, he noted that Stimson had declared that consultation was a ‘corollary’ of the Pact of Paris and that consultation with other governments had been a feature of the United States’s response to the Manchurian, Chaco and Leticia disputes.88 Whitton further noted that in ratifying the Anti-War Treaty, the United States had agreed to ‘adopt with the other signatories, a common attitude’ in the cause of preserving peace, adding that this looked ‘like an implied agreement to consult.’89

85 LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 280, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. 86 Ibid., 280–1. 87 ‘Appendix III: Argentine Treaty on Non-aggression and Conciliation, October 10,

1933,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 234. See also LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 281, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. 88 Whitton, ‘Is American Neutrality Possible?,’ 62. 89 Ibid.

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Nonetheless, Whitton observed that an important trend in American foreign policy at the time was that of an intensification of isolation, adding that ‘[n]ever since the war—not even during the Harding administration with its extraordinary reaction against Wilsonian policies…has the inclination to keep clear of foreign entanglements so strong.’90 Even though inclined to consult with other interested parties if peace were threatened, the United States, he advised, was not prepared to promise to join in the application of international sanctions. Whitton noted that this had been made clear not only by the Senate in ratifying the Pact of Paris, but also by Davis who had declared that the United States would not ‘participate in European political negotiations and settlements and will not make any commitment whatever to use its armed forces for the settlement of any dispute anywhere.’91 At the ISC conference in Paris in 1934, Jessup similarly advised against expecting much from the United States in respect to collective security: the United States would not enter into any ‘obligation in advance of an event in the application of forcible sanctions’ let alone ‘participate in the creation of an international police force.’92 As he observed in a study published the following year, the United States will not now enter into any treaty, pact, covenant, agreement, or understanding, which binds it in advance to use its military, air or naval forces as a means of bringing pressure on a state which threatens to resort to war or actually begins hostilities. There is no realistic advantage from the American standpoint in discussing such an arrangement at this time.93

Jessup stated that the most that could be expected of the United States was that it would participate in forcible sanctions should an event occur which endangered its security.94 Speaking at the Paris conference, Jessup

90 Whitton, ‘Is American Neutrality Possible?,’ 59. 91 Norman H. Davis, 1933, quoted ibid., 63. 92 Philip C. Jessup, ‘The United States and Collective Security,’ in LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 183, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. 93 Philip Jessup, The United States and the Stabilisation of Peace: A Study of Collective Security, a Report to the Eight International Studies Conference, London, June 3rd–7th, 1935 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1935), 126. 94 Ibid.

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observed that while properly speaking the Pact of Paris should have eliminated neutrality, it remained of utmost significance that the ‘rights of neutrals’ continued to figure prominently in diplomatic documents.95 At the same time, Jessup considered that in ratifying the Pact of Paris, the United States had modified its duties as a neutral state, arguing that in the case of a war conducted in violation of that pact, the United States would be within its rights to ‘penalise the aggressor and favour the victim,’ adding that this was a ‘logical consequence of the Pact itself.’96 Here it should be noted that on 26 September 1934, at the closing session of a conference held in Budapest, the International Law Association agreed upon seven preliminary articles of interpretation of the Pact of Paris, giving these the name of Budapest Articles of Interpretation of the Pact of Paris.97 According to these articles of interpretation, adherents of the Pact of Paris had the ‘right to differentiate in favour of the victim of an aggression.’98 As Wright pointed out, although these articles were not official, they were indicative of the ‘general opinion’ of international lawyers as to the significance of the Pact of Paris. As he also pointed out, the Budapest articles were in conformity with the non-recognition doctrine enunciated by Stimson in relation to the Manchurian dispute as was, it should be added, the second article of the Argentine Anti-War Treaty.99 Yet there remained a good number of eminent international lawyers, among them being a highly influential American lawyer called John Bassett Moore, who maintained that the neutral status of the United States had not been affected by the Pact of Paris. In light of the division between legal authorities on the question of neutrality, Whitton concluded, the United States’s government was ‘not likely to take precipitate action in this matter, particularly for fear of subjecting itself to damages.’100 95 LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 288, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. 96 Whitton, ‘Is American Neutrality Possible?,’ 65. 97 ‘Appendix II (2): Documents Relating to the Pact of Paris and the Italo-Ethiopian War:

Budapest Articles of Interpretation of the Pact of Paris,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 227–8. 98 Whitton, ‘Is American Neutrality Possible?,’ 65. 99 Quincy Wright, foreword to Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, and ‘Appendix III:

Argentine Treaty on Non-aggression and Conciliation, 10 October 1933,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 234. 100 Whitton, ‘Is American Neutrality Possible?,’ 65.

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The Organisation of Peace and the Peace Treaties It was partly because of the seeming impossibility of ‘vanquishing the resistance of states to abandoning, even voluntary and freely, the least part of their sovereignty’ in the name of regulation of international relations, such regulation having the appearance of, according to the Spanish professor Gaspar Bayón y Chacón, a ‘limitation on [their] sovereignty,’ that the ISC conference paid considerable attention to the question of treaty revision.101 Indeed, on the afternoon of Saturday, 26 May following the closing meeting of the conference which took place on the morning of the same day, a supplementary study meeting was held in order to consider this issue. Toynbee was the chair of this meeting and in that capacity he noted that the question of treaty revision had been raised by both Coppola and Geouffre de La Pradelle on the first day of the conference, although in very different ways.102 Coppola’s contribution on the question of treaty revision at the conference consisted solely of a suite of rhetorical flourishes apparently aimed at assuring his audience of the peaceful nature of Fascist regime’s territorial ambitions. Others, however, subjected the question to some considered analysis. One noted contribution of the latter variety came in the form of memorandum prepared by Alfred Verdross, a former secretary of the Austrian legation in Berlin, dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna and professor of international law at the Consular Academy (Konsularakademie). A larger version of this memorandum had earlier been submitted to the Disarmament Conference in response to the memorandum of the French delegation of 14 November 1932 on the French Constructive Plan. On 3 February 1933, the day after the Disarmament Conference resumed, Verdross’ submission was published in Völkerbund which was the review of the Deutsche Liga für Völkerbund.103 Verdross commenced his memorandum in arguing that outside of pure wars of conquest, force is deployed by states either in order to compel accep101 Bayón y Chacón, ‘Révision des traités devenus inapplicable et des situations juridiques mettent en danger le maintien de la paix,’ 228. 102 LON, IIIC, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 280, AG 1-IICI-C 1934–93, UA. 103 Alfred Verdross, ‘Observations on the Peace Proposals of November 14, 1932,’ in LON, Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 35 AG 1IICI-C 1934–93, UA, and Alfred Verdross, ‘Plan de l’organisation de la paix,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 218–22, 218.

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tance of a situation founded in law by a state which, contrary to law, refuses to willingly accept it or to affect a change in a situation which is founded in positive international law but of which the maintenance appears unjust. Verdross contended that the covenant recognised both of these grounds for deploying force, observing that Article 15, Paragraph 7, laid ‘down in substance, that, if the Council fails to reach unanimous agreement, the parties to a dispute are entitled to take such action as they shall consider necessary for the maintenance of law [droit ] and justice [justice].’104 Verdross went on to argue that if in the history of the state system both of these functions, that is, the maintenance of law and the maintenance of justice, ‘have had to be fulfilled by war,’ one could ‘hope to eliminate legitimate self-defence [écarter la légitime défence],’ by which he would seem to have meant that one can only hope to eliminate self-help, ‘only if a means is found of carrying them out through the pacific settlement of disputes.’105 104 Verdross, ‘Observations on the Peace Proposals of November 14, 1932,’ 35–6, and Verdross, ‘Plan de l’organisation de la paix,’ 218–9. 105 Ibid. Brownlie observes that ‘[t]he customary law, so far as can be ascertained from the vague and contradictory materials, equated legitimate defence with self-help. Discussions of the “right of legitimate defence” by writers in the decade 1920–1930 continued this treatment of the law. “Legitimate defence” involved action to prevent or redress violation of legal rights.’ Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 231. Note that Brownlie includes Verdross among the aforementioned writers. Brownlie makes the point that in the 1920s, ‘legitimate defence appears always in the context of the threat or use of force.’ He also points to the following development in the same period: ‘[T]he illegality of self-help was increasingly apparent. It must be remembered that in this decade there was considerable emphasis both in draft treaties and in the Locarno Treaty on the need to restrict self-help even in cases of armed attack and frontier incidents, action being deferred wherever possible until the Council had an opportunity for action. In this atmosphere it would have been difficult to maintain that force could be used to redress any violation of legal rights. This point is supported by the Council’s response to the Greco-Bulgarian frontier incident of 19 October 1925 which saw Greek forces penetrate the Bulgarian frontier. This was justified by the Greek government in a communication to the secretary-general as legitimate defence’ (ibid.). Emphasis in the original. In responding to the Greek government’s claim, Briand, speaking in the context of the council, stated the following: ‘He had understood the representative of Greece to indicate that all these incidents would not have arisen if his country had not been called upon to take rapid steps for its legitimate defence and protection. It was essential that such ideas should not take root in the minds of nations which were Members of the League and become a kind of jurisprudence, for it would be extremely dangerous. Under the pretext of legitimate defence, disputes might arise which, though limited in extent, were extremely unfortunate owing to the damage they entailed. These disputes, one they had broken out, might assume such proportions that the Government, which started them under a feeling of legitimate defence, would no longer be able to control them. The League of Nations…offered the nations a means of avoiding such deplorable events.’ LON, OJ 10, no. 11 (1925), 1709.

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It should be noted here that the meaning of Article 15, Paragraph 7, was far from clear. Brownlie states in relation to this paragraph the following: Superficially it was the most significant of the qualifications of the control of self-help by the League since, unlike the other paragraphs, it contained an express reservation of freedom of action to member states; but it may be that the paragraph did not necessarily condone all wars although in its reference to ‘right [droit ] and justice’ it was very vague. However, its wording and the tendency in international practice before 1914 to regard war as a means of redress for what were, formally at least, legal wrongs would seem to justify a suggestion, though not a very confident one, that the paragraph would only have permitted war in enforcement of a claim founded in law after a demand for satisfaction had been made and no satisfactory response received. On this assumption it would not have permitted a war of conquest, or wars for the gaining other advantages to which there was no legal right.106

Article 15, Paragraph 7, was on the face of it in conflict with Article 10 of the covenant which provided that members undertook to respect and preserve against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of members of the LON. Paragraph 7 of Article 15 seemingly contradicted Article 10 as the former ‘permitted war in certain circumstances to enforce claims whereas the plain words of Article 10 would seem to put a prohibition on war except in self-defence.’107 It is worth noting here in light of the discussion below of Verdross’s insistence on the need to address conflicts of interests, that Article 10 was subject to the criticism that it served to preserve the ‘status quo; peace was to depend upon possession but not justice.’108 Brownlie states that the travaux préparatoires of the covenant, without being definitive on the matter, ‘strongly’ suggest Also of relevance here is another statement made by Briand in the context of the council’s discussion of the Greco-Bulgarian dispute: ‘It had been proved that when a nation which appealed to the League, when it felt that its existence was threatened, could be sure that the Council would be at its post ready to undertake its work of conciliation.’ LON, OJ 6, no. 11 (1925), 1709. For this statement, see also Alfred Verdross, ‘Règles générales du droit international de la paix,’ Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 30 (1929), 483–5. 106 Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 61. Brownlie states that the covenant ‘made the basic assumption that resort to war was a mode of self-help and execution where there was no other means of enforcing legal rights’ (ibid., 217). 107 Ibid., 62–3. 108 Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 62.

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that the intention of the drafters was that Article 10 was to be ‘subordinate’ to Article 15, Paragraph 7.109 As he notes, this observation is supported by the following statement of Miller: While I cannot give the language that Wilson used, it is appropriate here to say that the very general notion that Article 10 is a guarantee against invasion is erroneous….It has been very frequently pointed out by careful students of the Covenant that its provisions do not go so far as to inhibit war in every case. Legally speaking, war in certain circumstances is permissible under the Covenant (Article 15, paragraph 7); and with a permissible war there could of course be a permissible invasion.110

If the covenant did not prohibit war in every case, it certainly obliged states to seek to resolve disputes by pacific means as far as possible. That the covenant permitted resort to war in certain instances is further demonstrated by Article 12, paragraph 1 which stated, echoing the so-called Bryan Peace Treaties (that is, the Treaties for the Advancement of Peace between the United States and other powers as negotiated by Secretary of State William J. Bryan), of 1913 and 1914 on which Article 12 was modelled, the following: ‘if there should arise between…[members]…any dispute likely to lead to rupture they will submit the matter either to arbitration or judicial settlement or to enquiry by the Council, and they agree in no case to resort to war until three months after the award the arbitrators or the judicial decision or the report by the Council.’111 Miller’s line of 109 Ibid., 63. 110 David Hunter Miller, The Drafting of the Covenant, vol. 1 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s

Sons, 1928), 170. Brownlie states that ‘the correct interpretation of Article 10 is probably that it was subordinate to Article 15.’ Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 217. 111 ‘Appendix 3: Covenant of the League of Nations, 29 April 1919,’ in United Nations Library at Geneva, League of Nations Archives, The League of Nations 1920–1946, 164. Emphasis in the original. See also Verdross, ‘Règles générales du droit international de la paix,’ 470, 495. The Bryan Peace Treaties of 1913 and 1914 were a series of bilateral treaties concluded between the United States and several other states and called on states to submit all their disputes to an international commission charged with providing a solution within a period of one year. Until that time that the commission issued its report, the parties to the dispute were forbidden to engage from what the treaties called acts of force. See Treaties for the Advancement of Peace Between the United States and Other Powers Negotiated by the Honourable William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State of the United States, with an introduction by James Scott Brown, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1920), and ‘The Bryan Peace Treaties,’ American Journal of International Law 7, no. 4 (1913): 823–9.

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argument does not serve to reconcile Articles 10 and 15 or only does so inferentially given that Article 10 does not admit of exceptions. Yet even if one accepts that Article 15, Paragraph 7, was intended as a qualification of Article 10, one must account for the fact that it was never invoked as justification for the use of force during the period of the LON. The reason for this, Brownlie argues, was that the covenant presumed against ‘the legality of war as a means of self-help’ in the sense of ‘a means of enforcing rights,’ a presumption that was reinforced and furthered by subsequent legal developments.112 The most important of the subsequent legal developments in this regard was the Pact of Paris, a pact which was deemed necessary precisely because the covenant, although presuming against self-help, permitted war in certain circumstances. Where the covenant hesitated the Pact of Paris was firm: ‘war is not a suitable instrument for anything except defense against war itself, actual or immediately threatened.’113 Verdross observed in 1929 that in his opinion the Pact of Paris wanted ‘to suppress even the wars that the Covenant of the League of Nations…[did]…not forbid, that is, a war undertaken for the maintenance of law and justice…after the report of the Council…[was]…adopted unanimously but…[was]…not accepted by one of the Parties in litigation, or after the report of the Council…[failed]…of unanimity.’114 As Verdross noted, according to Article 1 of the pact, the contracting parties condemned ‘recourse to war for the regulation of international controversies,’ and, according to Article 2, they recognised that ‘the regulation or solution of the disputes or conflicts, of whatever nature or origin, which could arise between them, should never be sought than by pacific means.’115

112 Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 57–8. Brownlie notes that states resorting to war or employing other forms of force ‘either made no legal apology at all, denied the existence of war in the formal sense, or talked in terms of necessity and selfdefence’ (ibid., 57). He further observes that ‘treaties making reference to force permitted under the Covenant ignored’ Article 15, Paragraph 7, however, he adds that ‘[i]n spite of the practice of states in the matter, works of authority and jurists continued, at least until 1929, to consider war as a means of settlement and in many cases to repeat the doctrine on the right of. self-preservation and necessity’ (ibid., 218). 113 Quincy Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ American Journal

of International Law 30, no. 1 (1936): 45–56, 55. 114 Verdross, ‘Règles générales du droit international de la paix,’ 501. 115 Ibid.

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Yet while filling the gaps that the covenant left open in respect to the resort to war, the Pact of Paris presented a problem in that like the covenant it used the problematic term war. Verdross declared in relation to this that it would be a great advance if ‘all acts committed in self-defence were prohibited, excepting from this prohibition acts of self-defence in cases of emergency in the technical sense of the expression’: acts aimed at repelling an attack on national territory.116 Such a prohibition, he observed, would be in the spirit of the Locarno Treaties and also of the Five Power Declaration of 11 December 1932. Verdross pointed out that under Point 3 of the Five Power Declaration, the contracting parties had declared that their governments formally agreed that ‘in no circumstance will they endeavour to settle present or future disputes by resorting to acts of violence.’117 Verdross considered this pact to be particularly noteworthy because under Point 3, the parties had not contented themselves with reasserting a principle recognised in international law, but had ‘formulated a new principle beyond the terms’ of both the covenant and the Pact of Paris: although both covenant and the pact mentioned war, neither contained a ‘reference to acts of violence as distinguished from acts of war.’118 Brownlie observes that it was most regrettable that the covenant employed the expression ‘resort to war’ in Articles 12 and 16 because the term war ‘had acquired a restrictive and subjective connotation in the practice of states and in decisions of municipal courts’ in the century preceding the creation of the LON. What he calls the state of war doctrine allowed that actions such as ‘military occupations, invasions, bombardments, blockades, and lesser forms of conflict’ could occur ‘in the absence of any state of war, at least in the opinion of the government concerned.’119 The 116 Verdross, ‘Observations on the Peace Proposals of November 14, 1932,’ 41. 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid. 119 Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 26–7, 59–60. Among the advantages of what Brownlie refers to as the state of war doctrine were the following: ‘In the era of constitutional government, the executive was usually bound to observe time-consuming and politically embarrassing procedures before recourse to “war”.’ Such procedures involved the ‘preparation of public opinion and the rallying of sufficient support in the legislative assembly. Recourse to “war” incurred a certain odium; “war” was a term that acquired a deep psychological and emotional significance. “War” implied a full-scale combat which offended pacific sentiment and was wasteful of lives and a nation’s resources’ (ibid., 28). Brownlie notes that the ‘“state of war” involved a termination of commercial intercourse between the contending states and the invalidation or suspension of treaties. In the more modern period,

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persistence of the notion that the existence of a state of war in a legal sense is ‘not linked to objective phenomena’ but rather ‘depends on the intentions of one or more of the parties concerned,’ was reflected in a report issued by the secretary-general in 1927.120 In his report, Drummond noted the following: [F]rom the legal point of view the existence of a state of war between two States depends upon their intention and not upon the nature of their acts. Accordingly measures of coercion, however drastic, which are not intended to create and are not regarded by the State to which they are applied as creating a state of war, do not legally establish a relation of war between the States concerned. This would seem to be the case even if…States find it necessary to guide their own conduct by the view that a state of war exists.121

Brownlie points out that there is no reason why the existence of war in a legal sense could not be determined with reference to material conditions, adding that in certain drafts of the covenant expressions other than resort to war were used, among these being resort to armed force. Indeed, he points out that ‘the principle of effectiveness in the interpretation of treaties’ would suggest that the expression resort to war should be ‘interpreted in accordance with objective conditions.’122 Nonetheless, he observes that ‘[w]hen the obligations of the League were for the most part made to depend on the individual member’s appreciation of a situation and the effectiveness of the League machinery was open to question,’

the appearance of restrictions on the right to resort to war in the League Covenant and other instruments was to provide a further reason for avoiding “war”. The extreme subjectivity of what may be called the state of war doctrine was tolerable in the period before the League when war was still viewed to some extent as a private duel and not a matter automatically of concern to the community of states. As a rule only powerful states would assert their rights as neutrals in a case in which the parties to a conflict did not themselves admit a state of war. Limited forms of coercion and also large-scale hostilities could take place without the victim of an attack asserting that “war” existed since the attacker was often a major Power and the victim a relatively weak state anxious not to aggravate the situation’ (ibid., 28–9). 120 Ibid., 26. 121 ‘Annex 964: Legal Position Arising from the Enforcement in Time of Peace of the Mea-

sures of Economic Pressure Indicated in Article 16 of the Covenant, Particularly by Maritime Blockade,’ Report by the Secretary-General of the League, submitted to the Council, 15 June 1927, in LON, OJ 8, no. 7 (1927), 834. 122 Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 60.

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the “resort to war” formula was utilised to avoid obligations under the Covenant.’123 It should be recalled here that the League powers did not recognise the hostilities that broke out in the context of the Manchurian dispute between China and Japan as a state of war. According to Brownlie, such recognition was withheld mainly because of a ‘desire to avoid aggravating the situation and exposing the weaknesses in the League by raising the question of applying Article 16.’124 Aside from these and other prudential considerations, there was nothing to prevent the other League powers from declaring that a state of war existed and, in view of this, applying sanctions even though neither Japan nor China had recognised that a legal war existed as between them.125 Here it is worth noting certain observations made by Wright against the background of the LON’s recognition in 1935 of the existence of a state of war as between Italy and Ethiopia even though neither party had officially recognised the existence of such a state: The law seems to be that war in the material sense can be converted into war in the legal sense through declaration or recognition of its juristic character by the participants or by other states …. Thus, it seems clear that absence of a declaration or other unequivocal expression of an intention by one of the belligerents to make war will not hamper the League in applying sanctions if the members desire to do so. On the other hand, in the absence of such unequivocal expression of intention by one of the belligerents (as in the Manchurian hostilities) the League Powers may provide themselves with an

123 Ibid. 124 Ibid., 387. Brownlie observes that there ‘was a certain logic’ in the adoption of the view that the Manchurian conflict did not amount to a state of war. He notes that ‘[t]he parties themselves were only willing to use as much force as was necessary to attain their ends and it is desirable in such a case not to remove the self-imposed proportionality principle by a determination that “war” exists on the part of an international organ’ (ibid.). 125 ‘At no time did China or Japan declare war, break off diplomatic relations, or request third states to observe neutrality. No operations took place at sea and neither party molested the other’s private shipping. On 21 September 1931 China appealed to the League by virtue of Articles 10, 11, and 15 of the Covenant. No reference to Article 16 was made either in the Assembly or the Council. The Japanese delegate Council asserted that “it is far from our idea to make war on the Chinese Republic.” On 10 December 1931 Briand stated in the Council that up to then there had been ‘no resort to war by Japan or China.’ Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 387.

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excuse for not applying sanctions by refusing to recognise the hostilities as a state of war.126

Thus, the League powers were entitled to recognise de facto hostilities as a state of war irrespective of the attitude adopted by the defaulting state towards its action. As should be clear, however, the League powers had sought to ensure almost from the outset that they had a certain latitude when it came to the application of Article 16. Noteworthy in relation to both these points is the third resolution in the set of resolutions passed by the assembly in 1921 concerning the economic weapon. This resolution prescribed the following interpretative rule in respect to cases involving a state going to war in disregard of its engagements under the covenant: ‘The unilateral action of the defaulting State cannot create a state of war; it merely entitles the other Members of the League to resort to acts of war or to declare themselves in a state of war with the Covenant-breaking State; but it is in accordance with the spirit of the Covenant that the League of Nations should attempt, at least at the outset, to avoid war, and to restore

126 Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 51. Emphasis added. ‘It is submitted that in case a state using military force disclaims an intention to make war and the victim cannot or does not recognize war, a state of war does not exist until such time as third states recognize that it does….If both contending states deny an intention to make legal war, it is believed that there must be general recognition by third states that war exists before it can be certain that this is the case. Probably recognition by the League of Nations Council or Assembly that de facto hostilities have become legal war would be adequate evidence that legal war existed so far as the members of the League are concerned.’ Quincy Wright, ‘When Does War Exist?’ American Journal of International Law 26, no. 2 (1932): 362–8, 366–7. ‘In the future, legal war is unlikely to exist unless the Council or the Assembly of the League recognizes de facto hostilities as war. It may be assumed that League organs will withhold such recognition until they believe that circumstances are opportune for giving effect to Article 16 of the Covenant. In other words, recognition of war and recommendation that the sanctions of Article 16 should be applied would be effected by the same act of the League Council or Assembly.’ Quincy Wright, ‘Collective Rights and Duties for the Enforcements of Treaty Obligations,’ Proceedings of the American Society of International Law at the Twenty-Sixth Annual Meeting held at Washington DC, April 28–3, 1932 (Washington DC: American Society of International Law, 1932), 116–7. ‘[I]t is not correct to assume that the attitude of member states in the peculiar circumstances of the China Incident and the desire to avoid application of Article 16 can be represented simply as a reversion to the state of war doctrine in its usual form. In the particular context of the Covenant members had a discretion in determining the illegality of acts of force but…a determination that resort to war had occurred could be made in spite of views to the contrary expressed by parties to the conflict.’ Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 395.

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peace by economic pressure.’127 It was in the letter of the covenant that in the event of the submission of a dispute likely to lead to a rupture to the council, the LON should attempt, at least at the outset, to effect a settlement: to conciliate an outcome. According to Brownlie, the LON placed an ‘emphasis on conciliation’ and in his view it was this emphasis in conjunction with a ‘general desire to avoid the application of Article 16’ that ‘led to a formal and restrictive interpretation of the phrase “resort to war” on many occasions.’128 At the same time, there was a general appreciation of the problem entailed by the state of war doctrine: that it made it all too easy for the governments of member states to avoid carrying out their obligations under the covenant. Hence, in the wake of the covenant, those charged with drafting treaties and other instruments ‘usually avoided “war” as a term of art and referred instead variously to aggression, war of aggression, acts of aggression, acts of hostility, unprovoked attack,’ and, as in the case of the Five Power Declaration, acts of violence.129 Notably, the non-aggression pacts that the Soviet Union entered into with Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Finland in 1932, provided in Article 1, paragraph 2 of these pacts that ‘[a]ny act of violence attacking the integrity and inviolability of the territory or the political independence of the other High Contracting Party will be considered as an act of aggression, even if it is committed without declaration of war and avoids warlike

127 ‘Economic Weapon of the League—September 26–27,’ in Levermore, ed., Second Year Book of the League of Nations, January 1, 1921–February 6, 1922, 162. Wright observed that in stating that the unilateral action of the defaulting state cannot create a state of war, the third of the Resolutions Concerning the Economic Weapon ‘presumably’ meant that such action cannot create a state of war ‘against members of the League other than its victim.’ Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 48n. The latitude desired by the League powers in respect to Article 16 concerned both the application of the sanctions provided for under Article 16 and the application of Article 16 itself. Jean Ray noted that in respect to sanctions, the idea was that the members of the LON would first of all apply economic pressure which could then be gradually escalated. e League would only declare the existence war in the legal sense if the defaulting state continued to engage in acts of war. Ray, Commentaire du Pace de la Société des Nations, 516n. At the time when the assembly was discussing the economic weapon, the Swiss delegate Giuseppe Motta stated the following: ‘It is not permissible for the covenant-breaking state to a set in motion l state of war in the world. The states which form the League of Nations are the sole judges.’ Giuseppe Motta, 1921, quoted in Ray, Commentaire du Pace de la Société des Nations, 516n. 128 Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 394–5. 129 Ibid., 393.

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manifestations.’130 Obviously, a notable exception to the this trend was the Pact of Paris which, as we saw, also employed the term war, its ‘original sponsors and its signatories’ seemingly not taking into account how the use of this term might limit the effectiveness of this pact. Yet here again, practice outran the letter of the law: in ‘practice the Pact was treated as having been infringed by the threat or use of force whether or not this was accompanied by an admission by the states concerned that a state of war existed.’131 In 1929, in the context of the general course he taught that year at The Hague Academy which was called ‘General Rules of the International Law of Peace,’ Verdross noted the conviction expressed by the contracting parties in the preamble to the Pact of Paris that ‘all changes in their relations with one another should be sought only by pacific means and be the result of a peaceful and orderly process.’132 Verdross observed that in order to attain this end, peaceful procedures had to be developed in accordance with which all legal disputes can be resolved definitively by an ‘impartial authority,’ adding that as a consequence ‘if a case at law is submitted first to a procedure of conciliation, the Parties must have the right to bring the affair, in the case of the failure of this procedure, to an arbitral tribunal.’133 A few years later, in his response to the French delegation’s memorandum, Verdross noted that arbitral awards and judicial settlements were now an established means of peacefully settling conflicts in law, that is, disputes between states arising from disagreements as to what positive international law requires them to do or not to do in a particular situation. However, he pointed out that by contrast, states had yet to reach an agreement ‘regarding the manner in which conflicts of interests are to be settled.’134 By conflicts of interests, Verdross meant situations in which a certain State A, demands that a positive law be modified because it finds that law ‘harmful 130 For an example of the non-aggression pacts between the Soviet Union on the one hand and Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Finland on the other, see Treaty of Non-aggression and Pacific Settlement of Disputes Between the Soviet Union and Finland, concluded on 21 January 1932. http://www.histdoc.net/history/nonagen1.html. 131 Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, 396. 132 General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy (Pact of

Paris, 1928, quoted in Verdross, ‘Règles générales du droit international de la paix,’ 502. Emphasis added by Verdross. See also ‘Alfred Verdross (1890–1980) Biographical Note with Bibliography,’ European Journal of International Law 6, no. 1 (1995): 103–15, 103. 133 Verdross, ‘Règles générales du droit international de la paix,’ 502. 134 Verdross, ‘Observations on the Peace Proposals of November 14, 1932,’ 36. Emphasis

in the original.

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and intolerable’ and a certain State B, ‘refuses to consent to this modification.’135 Article 19 of the covenant permitted the assembly to invite states to ‘advise the reconsideration…of treaties which…[had]…become inapplicable and the consideration of international conditions whose continuance might endanger the peace of the world.’136 However, as the assembly was not endowed with the ‘authority to impose’ on states the amendment of treaties, this article could not address the issue which Verdross characterised as conflicts of interests.137 The Locarno Treaties, Verdross pointed out, made no provision for a ‘coercive decision whatsoever’ in regard to conflicts of interests, but merely provided for mediation and this meant that under the Locarno system should the parties to a dispute fail to reach an agreement, the conflict giving rise to the procedure of mediation would remain unsettled. By contrast, Verdross noted, the General Act of the assembly in 1928 purported ‘to impose a coercive solution.’138 The 1928 act that Verdross invoked had its origins in the work of the Security Committee of the Preparatory Commission of the Disarmament Conference. Chaired by Beneš, this committee produced three multilateral and seven bilateral treaties concerning arbitration, conciliation, nonaggression and mutual assistance. In September 1928, the Ninth Assembly grouped together the three multilateral treaties produced by the Security Committee under the rubric of a General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, to which all states were then invited to accede. The purpose of the General Act was the implementation of the Pact of Paris through the institution of procedures for the peaceful settlement of disputes that would be ‘applicable to all cases.’139 The General Act contained four chapters, the first of which provided for ‘procedure by conciliation, the second, for reference of justiciable disputes to the Permanent Court or to an arbitral tribunal,’ and the third for the extension of the ‘expedient of arbitration to disputes for which the machinery of the Permanent Court was not appropriate.’140 Notably, the fourth chapter provided that acces-

135 Verdross, ‘Plan de l’Organisation de la Paix,’ 219. 136 ‘Appendix 3: Covenant of the League of Nations, 29 April 1919,’ in United Nations

Library at Geneva, League of Nations Archives, The League of Nations 1920–1946, 165. 137 Verdross, ‘Obervations on the Peace Proposals of November 14, 1932,’ 37. 138 Ibid., 36. 139 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 187. 140 Ibid., 187–8.

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sion to the General Act could be either ‘complete or partial; States were left free to accept either the conciliation procedure alone, or conciliation and judicial settlement, without committing themselves to the principle of arbitration in all cases.’141 Verdross maintained that the General Act did not in reality provide for the pacific settlement of disputes arising from conflicts of interests because the arbitral tribunal provided for in its third chapter was saddled with rules of procedure biased towards making awards based in positive law rather than equity. Hence, according to Verdross, the decision of the arbitral tribunal in question likely would favour those insisting on their legal rights rather than those having to endure harmful and intolerable situations. Verdross was critical of the French memorandum of 14 November 1933, precisely because it confined itself to ‘demanding adherence to the General Act…of the League of Nations,’ while avoiding the ‘fundamental question underlying the organisation of peace’: the question of ‘appeasing conflicts of interests.’142 As indicated above, Verdross contended that in order to ensure peace among nations, it was not enough to prohibit self-help: means had to found for modifying ‘unjust juridical situations’ on the ground that just as issuing penal codes and threatening punishment would not in the long term prevent revolutionary uprisings within states, the threat of collective sanctions will not, in the long term, prevent conflicts of interests from ‘breaking out into full violence.’143 It is useful to observe here that as conceding Germany’s point concerning equality of rights was the sine qua non of the agreement to renounce violence under Point 3 of the Five Power Declaration, one can characterise this pact as an example of the kind of appeasement of conflicts of interests which Verdross favoured.144 In order to illuminate Verdross’s observations concerning conflicts of interests, we might note his argument in ‘General Rules of the International Law of Peace’ that peace demanded more than arbitral tribunals charged with dealing with disputes in law. Verdross explained that it is necessary, also to

141 Ibid., 188. 142 Verdross, ‘Obervations on the Peace Proposals of November 14, 1932,’ 38. 143 Ibid., 37–8. 144 Ibid., 41.

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make the law of nations evolve in order to adapt its rules to the always variable needs of humanity. Such a modification of the positive law can only be made in a given case if the tribunal arbitral has the faculty of judging ex aequo et bono…. In order to attain, in reality, the noble end proclaimed by the Kellogg pact, it seems to me thus necessary to renew continually general and private international law, in conformity with the rules of justice taken in an ideal sense. The first task of all positive law, it is true, is to guarantee to the members of society peace and security. But the peace itself can only be realised effectively and maintained only on the condition that it is founded on justice, taken in an ideal sense.145

The above quotation touches on Verdross’s conceptualisation of the relationship between positive and natural law: there exists in the context of general international certain peremptory (jus cogens ) norms the derogation from which not even consent renders permissible and which, therefore, set limits to the reach of customary and treaty law.146 Jus cogens norms, Verdross stated in a 1937 article headlined ‘Forbidden Treaties,’ prohibits states from concluding treaties contra bonos more. This prohibition, common to the juridical orders of all civilized states, is the consequence of the fact that every juridical order regulates the rational and moral coexistence of the members of a community. No juridical order can, therefore, admit treaties between juridical subjects which are obviously in contradiction to the ethics of a certain community.147

Verdross maintained that treaties that were contra bonos mores are void, acknowledging at the same time that establishing which treaties would be qualified as such was not without its difficulties due to the fact that the ethics of the international community was at a more primitive stage of development than that of national communities and that the international community encompassed a variety of legal orders, these being based upon

145 Verdross, ‘Règles générales du droit international de la paix,’ 502. 146 Bruno Simma, ‘The Contribution of Alfred Verdross to the Theory of International

Law,’ European Journal of International Law 6, no. 1 (1995): 33–54, 49–51, and Alfred Verdross, ‘Forbidden Treaties in International Law: Comments on Professor Garner’s Report “The Law of Treaties”,’ American Journal of International Law 30, no. 4 (1937): 571–7, 571–3. 147 Verdross, ‘Forbidden Treaties,’ 572.

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‘different moral conceptions.’148 Nonetheless, he did not think these facts precluded the presence of common values, arguing that one could identify ‘far-reaching agreements concerning single values, not withstanding different basic conceptions.’149 The decisions of municipal courts of civilised countries, Verdross observed, provided an important clue in regard to the question of which treaties were contra bonos mores: contracts which ‘restrict the liberty of one contracting party in an excessive or unworthy manner or endanger its most important rights ’ are rejected by the courts of all civilised countries as they do not conform with the ethical requirement of a ‘juridical order guaranteeing the rational and moral coexistence of the members.’150 According to Verdross, in order to establish what international contracts are immoral, we need to ask what is the ‘ethical minimum’ recognised by all the states of the international community in terms of the tasks devolved upon states. In answer to this question, Verdross stated the following: ‘maintenance of law and order, defense against external attacks, care for the bodily and spiritual welfare of citizens at home, protection of citizens abroad,’ concluding in relation to the ethical minimum thus specified that a ‘treaty norm…which prevents a state from fulfilling one of these essential task must be regarded as immoral.’151 Bruno Simma, to whom Verdross was a mentor, noted years after the latter’s death that Verdross’s observations concerning immoral treaties were ‘informed not only by the philosophical impulse of the natural lawyer that Verdross had…become but also by a quite specific legal-political issue, namely that of the validity of the 1919 Paris Peace Treaties.’152 Natural law philosophy, while discernibly present in Verdross’s response to the memorandum of the French delegation, was not at its forefront as one would expect in what was a response to a series of concrete French proposals concerning the organisation of peace. What was at the forefront, 148 Ibid., 573. 149 Ibid., 574. 150 Ibid. 151 Ibid. 152 Simma, ‘The Contribution of Alfred Verdross to the Theory of International Law,’ 51n. Anthony Carty notes the following in relation to a text written by Verdross: ‘The apparently cursory approval of National Socialism in the 1937 textbook, Völkerrecht is rooted in a deep commitment to German nationalism.’ Anthony Carty, ‘Alfred Verdross and Othmar Spann: German Romantic Nationalism, National Socialism and International Law,’ European Journal of International Law 6, no. 1 (1995): 78–97, 80.

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however, was precisely the legal-political issue of the treaties of peace issuing from the Paris Peace Conference. As we saw, Verdross criticised the French memorandum for evading the fundamental question underlying the organisation of peace: the question of appeasing of conflicts of interests which, as suggested above, he treated in this context as meaning appeasing those conflicts that arise ‘in connection with a modification of the law.’153 In respect to the conflicts of interests that had emerged in the aftermath of the Great War, Verdross suggested that a realistic examination of the political situation would indicate that what was needed was not ‘the organisation of peace in general,’ but the ‘organisation of the European situation, such as it was created by the Treaties of Versailles, St. Germain, Trianon and Neuilly.’154 Here Verdross was contending firstly, that the principal conflicts of interests of the era were between European states and, secondly, that these conflicts had arisen ‘chiefly as a result of the situation created by the Peace Treaties’ which he regarded as being in violation of Wilson’s Fourteen Points.155 Verdross observed that once there was general recognition that the treaties of peace were the main source of conflicts of interests in Europe, ‘it will be realised that most of these disputes could be settled peaceably by setting up a Court of Revision with the function of adjusting, at the request of one of the parties to the dispute and in conformity with the Fourteen Points of President Wilson, the existing state of affairs.’156 Such a court of revision or what the New Commonwealth Society, of which Verdross was a member, called an equity tribunal, was to be distinguished from a normal juridical tribunal in that a tribunal of the latter type made decisions based on positive international law alone whereas a court of revision, as envisaged by Verdross and the New Commonwealth, would be authorised ‘to take decisions ex aequ et bono.’157 Verdross offered the view

153 Alfred Verdross, ‘Plan for the Organisation of Peace: Observations on the French Proposals of November 14, 1932,’ Intellectual Cooperation: Monthly Bulletin 2, no. 4 (1934): 168–71, 169. See also Alfred Verdross, ‘Plan de l’Organisation de la Paix’, Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 218–22. 154 Ibid., 170. 155 Ibid. Carty writes that Verdross considered that the ‘Versailles Treaty was illegal…in so

far as it violated the Wilson Points.’ Carty, ‘Alfred Verdross and Othmar Spann,’ 79. 156 Verdross, ‘Plan for the Organisation of Peace: Observations on the French Proposals of November 14, 1932,’ 170. 157 Ibid. Verdross rejected a proposal that the International Court of Justice should ‘function generally and simultaneously as a Court of Equity.’ His reasons were firstly, that ‘in view

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that ‘if a structural unit of this kind is introduced into the European edifice,’ then it would be possible to overcome, at least in the European context, the weaknesses in the covenant and in the provisions of the Pact of Paris. In offering this view, he called attention once more to the fact that these instruments made no ‘reference to acts of violence as distinguished from acts of war.’158 It was only with the introduction of such a unit, Verdross insisted, that the legal restrictions on self-help would become a reality and that the prescription in the French memorandum concerning the ‘obligation to render assistance’ would acquire a ‘positive value.’159 Verdross concluded his response to the French memorandum as follows: The prohibition of recourse to violence in cases of self-defence as well as the mutual obligation to render assistance in the event of attack will become really effective means only if the spirit of solidarity and understanding of the community of interests are strengthened in Europe. This spirit cannot exist and overcome the interests of individual States unless each member of the community of Western Christian States agree to respect an equitable order. The institution of such an order presupposes the existence of a Court of Revision; it will therefore be understood that any other measures which might be taken for the organisation of European peace must ultimately depend upon the establishment of this tribunal.160

Verdross accepted that part of the French plan that provided for the appointment of commissions composed of diplomatic agents and military attachés charged with making findings in relation to cases of aggression or threatened aggression. He contended that it was essential that the right to determine whether or not there had been a violation of the law should be taken away from the disputing parties and be transferred to an international body. However, what he could not accept was the French proposal

of its history, its ideas and its constitution, the International Court of Justice was set up for the purpose of applying the positive international law to a concrete dispute’ and secondly, that were it to also serve as court of equity ‘it would run the risk of failing in its essential duty and of confusing law with equity.’ Verdross added in relation to this second point that ‘the general authorisation to take a decision according to equity would annihilate the consciousness of law and destroy juridical security, for, without a solid basis, decisions would be purely and simply arbitrary’ (ibid.). 158 Ibid., 171. 159 Ibid. 160 Ibid.

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that the council should have conferred on it the right to decide on the basis of a majority vote in the cases described above, what measures should be taken against a state guilty of violating the law. Verdross argued that this would be ‘illogical’ because, firstly, the council ‘as a supreme political body, has neither the authority nor the trust necessary for such action’ and because, secondly, ‘there would be a certain danger in allowing nonEuropean States to participate in the taking of a decision regarding the obligations between European States in the matter of rendering aid.’161 That Verdross urged that the responsibility to decide on measures of assistance should be transferred to a European Court of Justice of ‘recognised impartiality,’ was perhaps because he, like other critics of the French plan, especially its German critics, was concerned that France ‘would generally be able to influence sufficient members of the Council to ensure a majority in favour of her views, or that of her cortège habituel.’162 Offering a view that contrasted with that of Verdross in regard to the question of revision, was a paper submitted to the 1934 ISC conference prepared by Pella and Gheorge Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa (Georges Vladesco Racoassa), on behalf of the Romanian Social Institute of which the latter was the director in addition to being a professor of sociology at the University of Bucharest. Contrary to some, Pella and Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa insisted that treaty revision was not anticipated in Article 19 of the covenant. Rather, they argued, citing the procès-verbaux of the work of the preparatory commission on the covenant, that Article 19 was intended to deal only with treaties that were ‘inapplicable or incompatible with the spirit of the Covenant,’ notably adding that revisionism was not an ‘element of security’ but was rather ‘an element of trouble.’ Elaborating on the latter point, the authors stated that revisionism posed a danger to the ‘essential scaffolding’ of international law: the principle of pacta sunt servanda, they insisted, would be ‘annihilated by the consecration of revisionism.’ Further to this, Pella and Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa maintained that enshrining revisionism would only serve to encourage mischievous states to threaten international security so as to create pretexts for having their treaty obligations revised.163 161 Verdross, ‘Plan for the Organisation of Peace: Observations on the French Proposals of November 14, 1932,’ 40–1. 162 Ibid., 41, and Bulletin of International News 9, no. 11, 7n. 163 Institut Social Romain [Vespasian Pella and Gheorge Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa], ‘Les Principles

généraux de la sécurité collective,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 269–75, 271– 2. See also Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934), 211.

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That the paper of Pella and Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa went further in rejecting treaty revision than any other submission, and it should be noted here that even Geouffre de LaPradelle and his colleague Le Fur had conceded the case for it, partly relates to the concern on the part of the Romanian state to assure its own internal security. This is evident in the statement of Pella and Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa that the ‘revisionist movement’ tended ‘to transform the principle of nationalities—an ideal principle of international organisation, founded on tolerance and liberty—into an aggressive principle’ that menaced ‘the interior order of States.’ The revisionist movement, Pella and Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa declared, sought to foment ‘disloyal attitudes’ among and rebellion on the part of certain citizens, such that they came to form ‘veritable States within the State.’164 For the sake of the peace of the world, Pella and Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa proposed, not treaty revision, but energetic action on the moral and intellectual fronts to reanimate the spirit of internationalism and to restore the authority of the LON which, in recent times, in the view of Pella and Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa, had been undermined by certain ‘interested and subjective attitudes.’ Like many of the other submissions to the conference, the paper submitted by Pella and Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa called for states to ‘renounce the fetishism of national sovereignty’; it insisted that the institution of sovereignty can only be a source of security where it is understood to be an ‘eminently’ social institution that is ‘relative and restrained’ rather than absolute.165

Closing and Administrative Meetings Herriot delivered the conference’s closing address at a public meeting on the morning of 26 May which also took place within the walls of the Sorbonne. In the course of his address, Herriot saluted the members of the conference on behalf of the French government and thanked Bourquin for his labours on the conference’s behalf. Herriot observed that on more than one occasion, he had the ‘joy and honour’ of encountering Bourquin in Geneva. Herriot then affirmed his faith in international law and expressed the hope on behalf of humankind that war, which he described as a ‘bar-

164 Institut Social Romain, ‘Les Principles généraux de la sécurité collective,’ 272. See also Limburg and Verzijl, ‘Mémoire sur “La Sécurité Collective”,’ 263. 165 Institut Social Romain, ‘Les Principles généraux de la sécurité collective,’ 272–3.

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barous usage’ and ‘monstrosity,’ would be ‘torn from the breast of human society,’ adding that it was the same hope that had lead to the signing of the ill-fated Geneva Protocol ten years earlier.166 As was the custom, the closing address was followed by the ISC’s administrative meeting in the course of which the demission of the German national committee for international studies was noted and the admission of the Australian Institute of International Affairs to the conference was confirmed. The ongoing negotiations ‘in view of assuring collaboration with China and Japan’ were also noted.167 In relation to the demission of the German national committee, questions were raised concerning the viability of the lexicon project. Long dubious about the worth of the project in any case, the BCCIS submitted that it could not see how the project could continue: without German collaboration, the BCCIS insisted, the project would be but a ‘torso.’ Based on the same pretext, Rocco recommended that the project be suspended.168 Despite the misgivings about its viability, the administrative meeting decided that the ISC would continue to support the project.169 Haas had attended the conference in his capacity as chair of what was called the International Editorial Committee for the Lexicon of Political Terms and had assisted at a meeting, to which he attached much importance, of this committee on the evening prior to the administrative meeting.170 At that point in time, Haas was trying to organise a Persian chapter of the ISC, an association to which he apparently wished to remain linked, 166 Edouard Herriot, ‘Discours de M. Edouard Herriot,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 214–6. 167 ‘La séance administrative de la Conférence,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934): 216–7. 168 For British doubts about the lexicon project, see Vranek to Haas, 15 March 1934. For the view of the Italian coordinating committee on the project, see Rocco to Bonnet, 12 March 1934, Conférence permanente des hautes études Internationale, publication (préparation): Lexique des termes politiques, AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.a, UA. 169 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41 (1934), 217. 170 ‘Le Conférence de Paris sur la sécurité collective,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 40–41

(1934): 183–6, 186. The meeting of the lexicon’s international editorial committee was held at the Sorbonne and was attended by Louis Eisenmann, Margaret E. Cleeve, Giuseppi Righetti and Wilhelm Haas. See Chalmers Wright to Haas, 2 May 1934, and Director of Publications (Haas) to Eisenmann, Cleeve and Righetti, 14 May 1934, Conférence permanente des hautes études Internationales, publications (préparation): Lexiques des termes politiques, AG 1-IICIK-II-4.a, UA. Haas stated in a letter sent to Eisenmann Cleeve and Righetti that he wanted to ‘underline the importance of this meeting which must decide the future’ of the committee’s

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perhaps because, as he put it, he felt in a certain respect ‘rather out of the world’ in Teheran.171 This sense of being rather out of he world may also explain why Haas was so keen to keep the lexicon project alive. In a letter to the BCCIS’s Vranek, Haas declared that he agreed with the British view that a lexicon without German terms would be ‘rather incomplete.’ Yet he added that he thought that it was worth keeping the project alive for the time being as, in his ‘personal opinion,’ once Russia had joined the LON the re-entry of Germany would be ‘much more probable.’ Haas argued this even though, as a sceptical Vranek pointed out to him, he had stated in an earlier communication to Vranek that his hope in German collaboration was ‘completely dashed.’172 In the event, in December 1934, the executive committee of the ISC decided, ‘owing to political and other difficulties,’ to suspend the project, a decision that was endorsed by the administrative meeting of the ISC in May 1935. Against a background of heightened bellicosity in international affairs, a project premised on the idea that international differences were in some measure traceable to misunderstandings arising from lexical discontinuities and semantic ambiguities may have seemed a somewhat curious undertaking.173

The New Commonwealth and Air Power The third phase of the Disarmament Conference commenced on 29 May and concluded on 11 June. The latter date marked the effective collapse of the conference even though, due to last minute negotiations, it would remain ‘[o]stensibly…still in being’ for some years in the form of committees charged with continuing investigations into security pacts, guarantees of execution, air forces and manufacturing and trade in arms.174 In addition to recommending the conduct of these investigations, the conference

work. Conférence permanente des hautes études Internationales, publications (préparation): Lexiques des termes politiques, AG 1-IICI-K-II-4.a, UA (ibid.). 171 Haas to Chalmers Wright, 25 January 1935, IICI-K-II-4.a, UA. 172 Haas to Vranek, 5 April 1934, and Vranek to Haas, 15 March 1934, IICI-K-II-4.a,

UA. 173 ISC, Ninth International Studies Conference 27–30 May 1936: Annex A, Addendum No. 2 to Notes on the Agenda of the Administrative Meetings, Neuvième conférence permanente des hautes études internationales, tenue à Madrid, 27–30 May 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-IX1. 174 ‘The International Anarchy,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 138–9.

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had recommended before concluding its third phase that an investigation be undertaken into a new proposal that had been put forward by Litvinov: that the conference be transformed into ‘a permanent peace organisation of a wholly different character, in which the consideration of disarmament should be postponed to security.’175 The acceptance of this proposal amounted to an admission of failure. Indeed, Gathorne-Hardy noted that in advancing this proposal, Litvinov had offered the ‘criticism…to the effect that there was a complete lack of agreement on any single concrete proposal, and even on a general formula.’176 As stated in the RIIA’s Bulletin of International News on 21 June, ‘[a]ll hope of disarmament has vanished, that of limitation of armaments had grown tarnished and faded, and the fear of general rearmament and its possible ghastly results had become a threat and a nightmare before the mind of the world.’177 Much blame was heaped on France for the deadlock. However, the New Commonwealth, which had been represented at the ISC meeting in Paris by Jäckh, urged that those who blamed France, and who in doing so based themselves on the apparently reasonable German note of 16 April, ‘should think again.’178 The monthly organ of the New Commonwealth Society, namely, the New Commonwealth pointed out in an editorial in July 1934 that the French had repeatedly pressed for the ‘essential elements’ of disarmament: for budgetary limits on arms expenditure, for the ‘suppression of manufactures of arms for private profit, for unconditional acceptance of periodic and automatic supervision by a Board of control and, above all, for de-militarisation of the air.’179 According to the same editorial, it was the British government that should shoulder a good portion of the blame for the conference’s deadlock as it had ‘either rejected or evaded’ the necessary pre-requisites of disarmament for which the French government had pressed, all the while misleading British opinion by suggesting that France in issuing its note of 17 April was ‘as usual, being “difficult”.’180 Describing this note as Barthou’s

175 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 356. 176 Ibid., 356. 177 J. W. W.-B. and H. L., ‘The Disarmament Conference: The Latest Compromise,’ Bulletin of International News 10, no. 26 (1934): 3–12, 12. 178 New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934), 138. 179 Ibid. 180 Ibid.

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‘fireworks display,’ the New Commonwealth observed that in offering its assessment of the negotiations in Geneva, it had simply stated a ‘few brutal facts.’ One of these facts, the New Commonwealth editorialised, concerned the statement issued by the American delegate and the delegates of small states on 14 October 1933: that the conference ‘could not be allowed to become an instrument of re-armament,’ a view which, the New Commonwealth pointed out, the British government had embraced at the time.181 More generally, the New Commonwealth condemned successive British governments for failing to take the lead in establishing the rule of law in Europe. In one particularly biting editorial, it observed that successive British governments, hugging to their belief that this island is still an island, cherishing a childish faith in the power of the Navy, and oblivious to the new menace from the air, have thwarted every attempt at Geneva to develop the League into what its authors intended it to be—an international authority instead of a debating society. If anyone doubts this, let him repair to the wigwam of the Foreign Office. There he will find a goodly collection of scalps—the Treaty of Mutual Assistance, the 1924 Protocol, and the Tardieu and Herriot Plans for an International Police Force—trophies which have been brought home by a succession of foreign ministers representing all political parties….British policy since the signing of the Covenant stands condemned by its results. It has brought not peace but a sword, not justice but anarchy, not appeasement but irritation, not security but the menace of mutual annihilation.182

The New Commonwealth insisted that because of the special position Britain occupied in European affairs and because of its relations, both imperial and non-imperial, throughout the world, Britain was uniquely suited to the role of bridging the gap between ‘two potentially hostile territories’: treaty revision and security. To bridge this gap, the publication maintained, would not be an act of philanthropy on Britain’s part but would rather be in a matter of self-interest. From a strategic point of view, the New Commonwealth advised, Britain was now a part of mainland Europe and the New Commonwealth vowed that the society of which it was the monthly organ would assist Britain in the pursuit of the British interest in European

181 Ibid. 182 New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934), 137.

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security through shaping public opinion.183 Thus, breaking from its general practice of courting elite opinion, on Monday, 11 June 1934, the New Commonwealth organised several ‘sandwichmen’ to patrol the West End streets of London, from Oxford Street to Victoria, bearing what the New Commonwealth described as ‘arresting’ posters and distributing New Commonwealth Society leaflets, both of which urged citizens to insure against war by joining the society and featured the following declarations: ‘Abolish International Duelling and Establish the Reign of Law by Setting Up an International Policing System in Europe’ and ‘Support an International Air Police and Save London from Hell’s Angels.’184 Air power was of particular concern to the New Commonwealth Society. It proclaimed that the ‘new and revolutionary idea of international government has to be applied first of all to the new and revolutionary science of aviation,’ the implication of this proclamation being a policy of air disarmament in Europe. Thus, the society’s monthly organ welcomed the fact that in 1933, the Disarmament Conference’s Air Committee had been ‘driven, however reluctantly,’ to accept that the abolition of national military air forces was a necessary pre-condition for any ‘plan for “civilising” or de-militarising aviation.’ It also welcomed the fact that this committee was moving towards the view that civil aviation must be ‘regulated by an international system of controls,’ as had been argued, the publication noted, ‘clearly and incisively’ by Cot. The Air Committee, the New Commonwealth enthused, was even moving towards the view that a European ‘air police force, with certain military attributes’ should be established in order to guard against the abuse of civil machines.185 Cot had discussed these policies with Jäckh and William Horsfall Carter, this last being the editor of the New Commonwealth, in a meeting which took place in the course of a visit by Cot to London in June 1934. At this meeting, the French air minister promised to ‘support and make known’ the New Commonwealth’s work among his fellow country-men.186 Cot’s 183 Ibid. 184 ‘Our Monthly Log: Sowing the Seed,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 152. 185 ‘“Civilising” Aviation,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 139. In a resolution of

23 July 1932, the Air Committee of the Disarmament Conference ‘went no further than to demand prohibition of bombardment from the air and the “regulation” civil machines’ (ibid.). 186 ‘Our Monthly Log: Visit of Mr. Pierre Cot,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934):

152.

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visit to London occurred around the same time that Davies published a brochure called Force and the Future in which he insisted that in the next war, ‘the superiority of the aeroplane and the bomb will be decisive’ and that air power would likely render naval and ground forces ‘obsolete for offensive purposes.’ Davies’s conclusion, namely, that these developments meant that an ‘international air police is the real key disarmament,’ was welcomed by the Times, which, in a review of the brochure, stated that it showed that the Disarmament Conference had hardly yet begun to face the real problem of the future—air power.’187 Not long after this brochure appeared, Davies, in a review of James M. Spaight’s Air Power and the Cities (1930), posed the question as to whether air power would be used in ‘future wars to bomb cities, to break the morale of the enemy by spreading death and destruction among the civil population’ or whether this was ‘mere sensationalism.’ A British civil servant and an ‘authority on the air army,’ Spaight was of the latter view, a view which Davies described as reflective of orthodox military opinion. Orthodox military opinion maintained, according to Davies, that ‘tradition and usage point towards the doctrine of the military objective, and against indiscriminate bombardment for the sake of moral effect’ based in part on the consideration that ‘indiscriminate bombing is less efficient, and, therefore, “bad war.”’188 However, Davies disputed the value of conclusions based on tradition and usage, citing an observation made by Marshal Foch in 1921: that it was always a mistake on the part of military minds to assume that the next war would possess a form similar to that of the last. In relation to this, Davies stated that one of the great factors in the next war will obviously be aircraft. The potentialities of aircraft attack on a large scale are almost incalculable, but it is clear that such an attack, owing to its crushing moral effect on a nation, may impress public opinion to the point of disarming the Government and thus become decisive.189

187 ‘From Press and Platform: Current Public Opinion on Our Policy,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 149. 188 D. M. J. D., review of Air Power and the Cities by J. M. Spaight, New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 151. 189 Ferdinand Foch, 1921, quoted ibid.

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Davies went on to note that one now had to take into account the fact that the air power arsenal had recently acquired an ‘entirely new strategic weapon’ in the form of the long-range bomber. In light of this, Davies maintained, a ‘sudden massed air attack would be much more decisive than coastal bombardment, and therefore not necessarily “bad war”.’190 While disagreeing with Spaight on the question of the military objective, Davies noted that there was one respect in which the former approached the ideas of the New Commonwealth: in Air Power and the Cities (which was reprinted in Berlin by the Reich Ministry of Defence in 1934), Spaight recognised the great potential of air power as a means of averting war, envisaging it as the instrument of an organised and enforced world peace.191 In regard to this last point, it should be noted that Spaight wrote in his book the following: The action will be essentially arresting, preventative, check-mating action. The fire of war will be smothered at or soon after its outbreak. That smothering action will be, in the hands of a peace-enforcing League, ‘sanction war.’ Air power, one cannot doubt, will be the instrument of the international fire brigade of the future. No better could be found. It will serve the same purpose in ‘private’ wars so long as they endure. It is the ideal fire-extinguisher when the nations’ hate affairs begin to smoulder into flame. That being so, why should air power be the bogey-man of the pacifists, the arch-enemy of even the most moderate peace organisers? It is really nothing of the kind. It is their friend and ally. It will blaze the trail for them. It will be the pioneer of the new order of war-prevention of which they dream….It will go far to killing war.192

Against the background of the furore caused in Britain by the French plan for international control of civil aviation, Spaight’s apparent enthusiasm for a peace-enforcing league of the kind described above dissipated. Waqar H. Zaidi notes that the French plan, which was dismissed by many in Britain as yet another attempt by France to turn the LON into a French security apparatus or as a notional bargaining-chip designed to extract the mutual guarantees that France so desired, was regarded by the Air Min-

190 New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 151. 191 Ibid., and James M. Spaight, 1930, quoted in ‘From Press and Platform: Current Public

Opinion on Our Policy,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 148. 192 J. M. Spaight, Air Power and the Cities (London: Longmans, 1930), 234.

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istry as a ‘threat to British aviation.’ Zaidi states that as part of its campaign to ‘convince government that it was not feasible and not in the national interest,’ the ministry ‘sanctioned a direct and public rebuttal’ of the plan, a rebuttal which took the form of a book entitled International Air Police (1932). The author of the book was Spaight and therein he maintained that a ‘strong national air force consisting of heavy bombers would best ensure peace through deterrence.’193 Defence of the French stance at the Disarmament Conference was a prominent feature of editorials and articles appearing in the New Commonwealth: as was stated in its publicity material, the New Commonwealth viewed international politics from a ‘realist standpoint’ and this meant, from the perspective of that organisation, that the LON must be transformed into an ‘effective authority for the prevention of war.’194 An article by the Dutch theosophist Jacobus Johannes van der Leeuw which appeared in the New Commonwealth in July 1934, the month before he died in a plane crash in the former German African colony of Tanganyika, well reflected the New Commonwealth’s brand of realism. Entitled ‘Why a World Police Force Is Inevitable,’ the article called attention to the havoc being wreaked on the world by ‘reckless technical progress, far ahead of all moral and social evolution.’ World unity, it stated, was no longer a ‘Utopian dream’ but had become a ‘terrible reality.’ The unity of the modern world, the article continued, was not based in anything as noble as the ‘belated realisation of the brotherhood of nations and races,’ but had been inflicted on humanity through science’s virtual abolition of space. As a result, the article affirmed, troubles, be they in Manchuria or the Balkans, were quickly felt in other parts of the world: science had joined the nations together such that they now formed a ‘real and living organism’ and one with a highly ‘sensitive nervous system.’ For human-beings to continue to deny this ‘technical fact,’ through continuing to think of themselves in terms of sovereign units competing in a struggle for power would only mean worldwide suffering.195 193 Zaidi, ‘Proposals for the International Control of Aviation, 1920–45,’ 158. 194 Jäckh to Bonnet, 10 December 1934, and the enclosed pamphlet entitled New Com-

monwealth: International Section and Research Bureau, Conférence permanente des Hautes études internationales: 1 December–31 January 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.o, and New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934), 151. 195 J. J. van der Leeuw, ‘Why a World Police Force Is Inevitable,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 140–1.

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Leeuw expressed contempt for ‘half-hearted…pacts without teeth,”’ which contained no provisions concerning what should be done in the event of aggression. Such pacts, he insisted, were mere ‘sops to the guiltyconscience’ of those who knew that war should be abolished but were too ‘cowardly’ to take on this task. Further to this, Leeuw argued, such pacts were dangerous. Leeuw insisted that pacts without teeth encouraged in people a feeling of complacency, a feeling which was replaced by cynicism as soon as an event such as the invasion of Manchuria, revealed to all the truth: that no-one who made these pacts really believed in them. The same lethal cocktail of utopian ‘self-delusion’ and ‘hypocrisy,’ Leeuw observed, had characterised the Disarmament Conference as evidenced by the fact that this conference had shelved the difficult problem of international security.196 That the French had maintained at the conference from the very beginning that the question of security had to be discussed ‘first and foremost,’ Leeuw opined, was because the French understood that ‘disarmament without security is more dangerous than no disarmament at all’; the French understood this, he declared emphatically, because the French are ‘realists.’197 By contrast, according to Leeuw, the British approach to international politics since the war had been characterised by idealism ‘in the more dangerous sense of that word’: it consisted in first denying the League teeth and then calling on nations to disarm, an approach which, Leeuw stated, was based on the illusion or myth that a sovereignty subject to no effective checks can be combined with freedom from aggression.198 In an article appearing under his own name in the New Commonwealth, Horsfall Carter (who was at that time assisting in the English translation of Bergson’s 1932 work the Deux sources de la moralité et la religion), reiterated the New Commonwealth’s support for the French stance at the Disarmament Conference. The French, Horsfall Carter claimed, were at that time refraining from mentioning an IPF out of deference to British sensitivities. However, Horsfall Carter noted, in regard to the principle expressed in the covenant, that is, ‘that the only right use of force in the inter-state 196 Ibid., 140–1. 197 Ibid., 141. 198 Ibid., 141. Note that the New Commonwealth editorialised that it was completely illusory believe that states would ‘forgo…[their]…own means of defence’ until international means of collective self-defence were established: to contend that states would disarm amidst a condition of disorganised anarchy, was to ‘fall foul of psychological realities.’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 138.

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community is the policing function,’ the French remained ‘adamant.’ Horsfall Carter agreed with the statement contained in a French note passed to the British government on 23 March 1934: that the questions debated in Geneva concerning controls on military expenditure and arms manufacture, ‘ratios, [and] paramilitary formations,’ were ‘completely dominated by the essential problem of guarantees of execution’ of the obligations entered into under the covenant.199 Horsfall Carter stated that the position expressed by the French government in Geneva, though gall and wormwood to the diplomats of the old school, who are only anxious to produce a face-saving Convention whereby German re-armament is sanctioned—was a most valuable reminder of the conditions for any ‘disarmament’ as realistically foreseen by the makers of the Covenant.200

It was to be regretted, Horsfall Carter insisted, that despite the commitment of the British government and that of the Dominions to the principle of mutual assistance under Article 10 of the covenant, the British government continued to evade the issue, citing the difficulties involved in ‘“naming” the aggressor.’ Horsfall Carter noted that it was in relation to this difficulty that Simon had famously declared that the British were resistant to ‘making defined engagements for undefined circumstances.’201 He observed that the whole discussion of this issue was haunted by the ‘ghost of “War-Guilt”’: in some quarters, the assignation of guilt for the outbreak of war in 1914 was now seen as problematic and, in light of this, some maintained that the problem of assigning of such guilt would ‘always arise.’202

199 Horsfall Carter, ‘Naming the Aggressor,’ 141. The French note of 23 March 1933 also stated the following: ‘When an engagement has been contracted towards the international community, its violation ought to be considered as a threat to the community itself’ (ibid.). On the French note, see also ‘Germany Charged with Violating Pact: France Will Not Sanction Rearmament,’ Lethbridge Herald (Alberta), March 23, 1934. For the fruit of Horsfall Carter’s efforts in translating Bergson’s Deux sources de la moralité et la religion, see Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, trans. R. Ashley Audra and Cloudesley Brereton with the assistance of W. Horsfall Carter (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1956). Originally published in 1935. 200 Horsfall Carter, ‘Naming the Aggressor,’ 142. 201 Ibid. 202 Ibid. See also René Vignol, Définition de l’aggresseur dans la guerre (Paris: Librairie du Recueil Sirey, 1933).

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Rejecting this last view, Horsfall Carter contended that the basis for an objective definition of aggression could actually found in the covenant. The basis for this contention concerned a doctoral thesis defended in 1933 before the Faculty of. Law at the University of Montpellier by a captain in the French army, namely, René Vignol. Horsfall Carter observed with obvious appreciation the following of Vignol: ‘like every good Frenchman, [he] is impatient with the “mysticism of peace,” as he calls it, deriving from the illusion of security to which “Anglo-Saxon” States, officially, are still hugging.’203 Horsfall Carter considered that Vignol was clear-eyed in identifying the weakness of the Pact of Paris: like many of his compatriots, the latter was acutely aware that the pact possessed no juridical force because it did not provide for any machinery for the settlement of disputes or for sanctions in case of aggression.204 In regard to this matter, Vignol had observed that ‘peace does not declare itself, it organises itself, it does not beg for itself, it imposes itself.’205 Although both the pact and the covenant were deliberate attempts ‘to get away from the pagan conception of war as justified by the individual interests of any State,’ the covenant differed from the pact because it enshrined collective security obligations that, Vignol maintained, were indefeasible. In explaining Vignol’s thesis, Horsfall Carter noted that the founders of the LON had ‘deliberately discarded’ the idea that the League should take the form of a super-state and be equipped with ‘means of compulsion’; instead, its founders had decided that it would be an ‘association of States possessing equal rights.’206 Thus, as Horsfall Carter observed, the ‘sovereignty’ of the League could be nothing else but the separate sovereignties of its member states acting in concert. The decision on the part of the LON’s founders that it would take the form of an association of sovereignties rather than a super-state rendered it essential that members ‘solemnly give reciprocal guarantees of territorial integrity’ (territory being ‘generally recognised as one of the essential attributes of temporal sovereignty’), otherwise the LON could not serve as an instrument of security. Importantly, as Horsfall Carter noted, 203 Horsfall Carter, ‘Naming the Aggressor,’ 142. See also Jordan, ‘Definition of the Aggressor,’ 299. 204 Ibid. 205 ‘La paix ne se déclare pas, elle s’organise. Elle ne so quémande pas, elle s’impose.’ René Vignol, 1933, quoted ibid. 206 Horsfall Carter, ‘Naming the Aggressor,’ 142–3.

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Vignol, in an echo of Rousseau’s discussion of the terms of the social pact in the Social Contract, maintained that the guarantee of territorial integrity given by members should not be regarded as a burden, that is, an imposition on their sovereignty; rather, it should be regarded as a ‘responsibility’ which corresponded with their ‘duly recognised independence.’207 Horsfall Carter stated that ‘unquestionably most students of international affairs’ would agree with Vignol’s argument that an ‘objective and indisputable criterion’ of aggression, and with it an ‘indispensable basis for effective League action,’ was to be found in the terms of the covenant. According to Vignol, the criterion in question was implied by the stipulation in Article 10 concerning the preservation of the territorial integrity of all members of the LON as against external aggression: ‘violation of a frontier.’; Indeed, as Vignol considered this criterion to be more than satisfactory as a determinant of League action, he did not see the utility of a definition of aggression.208 Elaborating further on the French captain’s argument that it could be demonstrated that the covenant implied a criterion of aggression, Horsfall Carter pointed out that Article 10 avoided all reference to the ‘abstract conception of “sovereignty”’; instead, it emphasised the ‘territorial integrity’ of states. In this way, he noted, the covenant provided for the ‘concrete 207 Ibid., 142. ‘Finally, each in giving himself to all gives himself to none, and since there are no associates over whom he does not acquire the same rights as he cedes, he gains the equivalent of all that he loses, and greater strength for the conservation of what he possesses.’ Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book I Ch. vi, 54. 208 Horsfall Carter, ‘Naming the Aggressor,’ 143, and Jordan, ‘Definition of the Aggressor,’ 299–300. Jordan pointed out that Vignol based his demonstration on the interpretation of Article 10 of the Covenant by M. [Vittorio] Scialoja, which he…[considered]…as the most restrictive: “Article 10 may be said to deal with the possessory action (defence of the present state of things against violence, independently of considerations of the justice of that state), while the petitory action (legal action for the recognition of a just demand) is dealt with by the following articles.” Therefore, writes M. Vignol, “if Article 10 guarantees States against all disturbance in possession, it must forbid invasion, for if it defended exclusively definite occupation, Article 10 would give rise to a petitory action and not to a possessory action.” Jordan observed in relation to Vignol’s thesis that ‘[t]he reasoning in ingenious, but it seems difficult to admit the conclusion. In the field of positive law, the only rules which are binding on States are those which they have recognised, either expressly or tacitly. As there is no international legislator, in the present state of the law, recognition is the condition sine qua non for the existence of a rule of international law binding on the States. Now the States have not interpreted in this sense the Covenant of the League of Nations. In reality, as we have seen, in spite of appearances, the Covenant does not identify aggression with the initiative of hostilities; there remain cases in which, under certain conditions, the invasion of the territory of another State is permitted; moreover, the concept of aggression remains very vague, and this is enough to justify the necessity of a definition’ (ibid.).

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embodiment’ of the otherwise subjective conception of aggression. Drawing on Article 10, Horsfall Carter maintained that it is clear that an act of aggression is simply ‘armed trespass,’ an action which, he observed, should automatically lead to the ‘enforcement by common action of international obligations’ as provided for in Article 8 of the covenant.209 As Horsfall Carter noted, this was the understanding of aggression enshrined in the Soviet proposal put forward by Litvinov on 6 February 1933, a proposal of which Vignol was mindful in advancing his argument concerning Article 10, in the Politics Report of 24 May 1933 (that is, the report of the Committee on Security Questions), and in the communication sent by Roosevelt to the Disarmament Conference on 16 May 1933. This same understanding, Horsfall Carter further noted, was reflected in the assembly’s report of 24 February 1933, which ‘formally…[recognised]… the sovereignty of China over Manchuria’ and which went on to declare that the ‘presence of Japanese troops outside the area of the South Manchurian Railway, where they are entitled to be, is “incompatible with the principles of law…[in]…conformity with which the [Sino-Japanese] dispute must ultimately be settled”.’210 In regard to the British government, Horsfall Carter considered that the supposed conceptual difficulties involved in naming the aggressor were only the nominal grounds for what he described as Britain’s evasion of its obligations under Article 10. In his view, the actual reason for the British government’s evasive attitude concerned its reluctance ‘to undertake moral responsibility for all the territorial provisions of the Peace Treaties.’211 Horsfall Carter’s response to this issue related to that other pillar of the New Commonwealth’s campaign for international law and order: that any ‘explicit guarantee’ of the principle of collective security must be accompanied by an ‘equally explicit re-affirmation of the principle of treaty revisability.’212 Horsfall Carter chose the word re-affirmation in this context because, as originally drafted by President Wilson and then Cecil, the guarantee of territorial integrity and political independence in the covenant was linked to ‘a guarantee of peaceful change.’213 Article 3 of Wilson’s draft 209 Horsfall Carter, ‘Naming the Aggressor,’ 142–3. 210 Ibid., 143–4. 211 Ibid., 142. 212 Ibid., 142. 213 Ibid.

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of the covenant of 10 January 1919, the so-called Paris draft, stated the following: The Contracting Powers unite in guaranteeing to each other political independence and territorial integrity; but it is understood between them that such territorial readjustments, if any, as may in the future become necessary by reason of changes in present racial conditions and aspirations or present social and political relationships, pursuant to the principle of self-determination, and also such territorial readjustments as may in the judgement of three-fourths of the Delegates be demanded by the welfare and manifest interest of the peoples concerned, may be effected if agreeable to those peoples; and that territorial changes may in equity involve material compensation. The Contracting Powers accept without reserve the principle that the peace of the world is superior in importance to every question of political jurisdiction or boundary.214

As Gathorne-Hardy observed, although at first glance it may have appeared that, as drafted, this article conferred sweeping powers of territorial revision on the LON, this was not in fact the case: any territorial changes proposed by three-fourths of the delegates would only be effected if they were agreeable to the parties concerned, thereby placing them on a voluntary basis. Nonetheless, the language employed in the proposed article was of sufficient concern to Miller to cause him to immediately issue an objection.215 Miller later stated that he ‘never believed in providing in advance for some kind of tribunal or body charged with the duty of considering changes in boundaries.’216 His comment on the idea at the time was as follows: That the territorial adjustments made by the Peace Conference will not satisfy all claims, is the only thing now certain about them. Such general provisions as above mentioned will make that dissatisfaction permanent and will compel every Power to engage in propaganda and will legalise irredentist agitation in at least all of Eastern Europe. It is submitted that the contrary principle should prevail; as the drawing of boundaries according to racial or social conditions is in many cases an impossibility, protection of the rights of minorities and 214 Woodrow Wilson, 1919, quoted in G. M. Garthorne-Hardy, ‘Territorial Revision and

Article 19 of the League Covenant,’ International Affairs 14, no. 6 (1935): 818–27, 820–1. 215 Garthorne-Hardy, ‘Territorial Revision and Article 19 of the League Covenant,’ 821. 216 Miller, The Drafting of the Covenant, vol. 1, 53.

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acceptance of such protection by the minorities constitute the only basis of enduring peace.217

Despite this criticism, the article reappeared without modifications in Wilson’s second Paris draft of the covenant which was published on 20 January. In the meantime, on 16 January Cecil presented a British draft which was much more exacting than Wilson had been in regard to the question of territorial adjustments: it proposed a mechanism by which parties could be compelled to make such adjustments. The Cecil draft read as follows: If at any time it should appear that the boundaries of any State guaranteed by Article 1 (i), (ii) do not conform to the requirements of the situation, the League shall take the matter under consideration, and may recommend to the parties affected any modification which it may think necessary. If such recommendation is rejected by the parties affected, the States Members of the League shall, so far as the territory in question is concerned, cease to be under the obligation to protect the territory in question from forcible aggression by other States, imposed upon them by the above provisions.218

On the afternoon of 21 January, Miller conferred with Cecil at the Hôtel Majestic in regard to Wilson’s second Paris draft and the Cecil draft. In the course of a ‘very frank’ exchange which lasted an hour and a half, Miller pointed out to Cecil that the latter’s proposal permitting boundary changes ‘would simply legalise agitation in Eastern Europe for a future war’ and suggested that ‘instead of this principle the Swiss idea should be adopted—that the government should be accepted by the minority whatever its race was.’219 Cecil broadly accepted Miller’s point but insisted that treaties could not be rendered ‘immutable’ and suggested that perhaps ‘a provision could be made for revision generally, not specifically relating to boundaries, at intervals from time to time,’ a suggestion to which Miller was somewhat receptive.220 However, the Hurst-Miller draft of the covenant, 217 Ibid. 218 Robert Cecil, 1919, quoted in Garthorne-Hardy, ‘Territorial Revision and Article 19 of the League Covenant,’ 821. ‘President Wilson, however, preserved his phraseology unchanged in his next draft, of January 20th, 1919.’ Garthorne-Hardy, ‘Territorial Revision and Article 19 of the League Covenant,’ 821. 219 Miller, The Drafting of the Covenant, vol. 1, 52. 220 Ibid., 53.

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which served as the basis for the deliberations of the drafting commission of the Paris Peace Conference when it commenced work on 3 February 1919, made no provision whatsoever for treaty revision. At the eighth meeting of the commission, the British delegation proposed an amendment to incorporate a stand-alone article, that is, an article entirely independent of the one concerning territorial guarantees, which read as follows: ‘the body of Delegates shall make provision for the periodic revision of treaties which have become obsolete and of international conditions the continuance of which may endanger the world.’221 Somewhat modified, this proposal was adopted, its modified form being ‘substantially identical’ to the covenant’s Article 19.222 By 1934, the calls for this article to be applied or strengthened were intensifying, although there was also resistance to this, as evidenced by the submission of Pella and Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa to the ISC conference that year.223 Despite the propaganda efforts of the New Commonwealth, the question of an IPF remained divisive. A report in The New Commonwealth noted that at the National Peace Congress at Birmingham in June 1934, ‘rabid pacifists’ had shown a complete inability to appreciate the fact that ‘“international righteousness” would remain an empty phrase’ unless a collective system of security was established. Nonetheless, the same report affirmed that the meeting had witnessed a shift from ‘negative and pathetic projects for “disarmament” tout court ’ to a general acceptance that disarmament could only be attained ‘through “security”.’224 The report maintained that this development reflected the appreciation shown for the address at the congress by Ivor Mainsky, the Soviet ambassador at London, which had registered this shift in focus.225 At the Birmingham congress, Noel-Baker had presented the case for an international air police, arguing in favour of ‘an air convention embodying 221 British Delegation, 1919, quoted in Garthorne-Hardy, ‘Territorial Revision and Article 19 of the League Covenant,’ 822. 222 Garthorne-Hardy, ‘Territorial Revision and Article 19 of the League Covenant,’ 822. 223 Ibid., 818, 822. For a defence of the applicability of Article 19, see David Mitrany,

‘Territorial Revision and Article 19 of the League Covenant,’ International Affairs 14, no. 6 (1935): 827–36. 224 ‘Disarmament Through Security,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 146. On the divisiveness of the issue of an IPF at the National Peace Conference at Birmingham, see also Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 106. 225 New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 146.

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the abolition of national military air forces and international control of commercial aircraft.’ However, the resolution eventually passed on this question at Birmingham excluded the crucial word national out of respect for the feelings of the large contingent of Quakers present. Instead, the resolution proposed that all naval and military aviation be abolished and that civil aviation be converted ‘into a peaceful international service.’226 It is useful to note here that at this time, a certain number of Quakers, despairing of the outcome of the disarmament negotiations, were indicating a willingness to countenance the idea of an IPF if that were the only way to achieve disarmament.227 The issue of the IPF also divided the labour movement. The Labour Party Conference had endorsed the idea in 1933, however, this was at the cost of upsetting the pacifists within its ranks as well as those wary of the creation of what sections of the left in Britain and elsewhere denounced as an international capitalist army.228 Among Conservatives, there was little support for an IPF. Instead, according to Michael Pugh, members of local Tory branches, disturbed by the political situation in Germany and concerned about the state of British defence capability, began ‘nagging the Conservative Central Office for a rearmament program.’229 However, also according to Pugh, the Tory leadership was highly conscious of the fact that public sentiment did not favour rearmament at that time. It was the dilemma resulting from the protests of the party’s rearmament wing on the one hand, and electoral imperatives on the other, that saw Neville Chamberlain bring to cabinet in 1934 his own version of an IPF, although in the event his plan did not survive the scrutiny of the chiefs of staff who objected that it committed Britain ‘to guarantees beyond her capabilities.’230 Yet if the efforts of the New Commonwealth did not result in immediate and widespread conversion to the idea of an IPF, there was a discernible drift of opinion in that direction in Britain in 1934. In fact, while visiting the New Commonwealth’s headquarters that year, Cot commented on the ‘remarkable’ shift in British public opinion in regard to the ‘rescuing

226 Ibid. 227 Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 106–7. 228 Ibid., 107. 229 Ibid., 108. 230 Ibid., 108.

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of aviation from the old armaments competition.’231 The New Commonwealth would itself launch a special investigation of the proposal for an IPF in 1934. On its initiative, a Leverhulme Research Fellowship was awarded to Captain Basil Liddell Hart on 22 June for the purpose of researching the ‘creation and use of an international force in the light of history and present technical conditions.’232 Liddell Hart, a renowned strategic expert and the military correspondent of the Daily Telegraph (although by the time of the 1935 ISC, which he attended as a member of the BCCIS, he would be the military correspondent of the Times ), had already undertaken a study of the technical aspects of international force for the RIIA. At the same time, Liddell Hart well understood the philosophical basis of the proposal for an international force: that force is not merely ‘punitive but protective’ and that members of the LON who abided by the covenant were entitled to protection. During the course of a meeting chaired by Davies (who had persuaded Liddell Hart to embrace the New Commonwealth), at Chatham House on 29 November 1932, Liddell Hart argued that the LON must be in a position to take of swift military action against those who defied the Covenant by plunging into aggressive action, adding, in an allusion to the Manchurian situation that without this capacity it was unlikely to survive.233

Repairing the Breach with Germany During the years 1933–1934, meetings at Chatham House heard contrasting views on the foreign policy ambitions of Nazi regime. On 21 March 1933, John Wheeler-Bennett, having acknowledged the terror tactics employed by the Nazis in acquiring power and having condemned their attacks on the Jewish population in Germany, argued that in relation to foreign policy, Hitler would show himself to be more moderate than the domestic outrages of his regime would suggest. Wheeler-Bennett declared before his Chatham House audience that Hitler was a man of ‘sense with an appreciation of realities,’ adding that he was ‘convinced’ that Hitler 231 ‘Our Monthly Log: Visit of Mr. Pierre Cot,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 152. See also Scelle and Cassin, ‘French Opinion and the Problem of Collective Security,’ 73. 232 Ernst Jäckh, ‘Progress of Our Research Work,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 144–5 and ‘Our Monthly Log: Appointments,’ New Commonwealth 2, no. 10 (1934): 152. 233 Captain Liddell Hart, ‘An International Force,’ International Affairs 12, no. 3 (1933): 205–33, 205–6. For Davies influence on Liddell Hart, see Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 105.

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did not ‘want a war.’ The German leader, Wheeler-Bennett explained, was ‘greatly anxious to make Germany self-respecting’ and also ‘anxious to be respectable’ himself. Indeed, Wheeler-Bennet affirmed that Hitler was ‘the most moderate member of his party.’234 At Chatham House in April of the following year, a contrasting assessment of Hitler’s foreign policy was offered by an American journalist named Leland Stowe. Andrew Crozier records that Stowe warned his audience that ‘clandestine military preparations and training’ were underway in Germany and had stated that in his view such preparations were being undertaken with a view to war.235 In the following month, Edward Conze, a British citizen of German, Dutch and French descent who had been raised in Germany but who had quit the country in 1933, warned that the foreign policy of the National Socialists was to become the ‘chief Power in Europe,’ to depose France ‘from this position’ and to recover ‘supreme political influence in the Balkans and Baltic States.’ He observed that the ‘programme is quite clear. It is to get the necessary markets for German products and get the necessary land for settling German peasants and colonists in Ukraine.’236 Such warnings as to the true intentions of the regime did not always fall on receptive ears: there was a tendency among certain RIIA members, as Crozier observes, ‘to put the most favourable gloss on the declarations of peaceful intent from Germany and simply misjudge the situation there.’ Indeed, Crozier adds that the most consistent message delivered at Chatham House ‘was the culpability of French, American, and to some extent, British policy for the current state of affairs in Germany and Europe.’237 Wheeler-Bennett conveyed such a message in concluding the address he delivered in March 1933. He stated that the real reason for the advent of the Nazi movement was ‘desperation,’ that is, ‘the longing of German youth to get out of the system that was created around it…at Versailles,’ declaring that Hitler was ‘more than anything else the child of [Raymond] Poincaré and [Georges] Clemenceau.’238 234 John W. Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The New Régime in Germany,’ International Affairs 1, no. 6 (1933): 313–26, 318–9. 235 Andrew Crozier, ‘Chatham House and Appeasement,’ in Chatham House and British Foreign Policy 1919–1945: The Royal Institute of International Affairs During the Interwar Period (London: Lothian Foundation Press, 1994), 240–1. 236 Edward Conze, 1934, quoted ibid., 240. 237 Crozier, ‘Chatham House and Appeasement,’ 241. 238 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘The New Régime in Germany,’ 322.

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Toynbee was among those sympathetic to Germany’s grievances in relation to what had long been bitterly referred to in Germany as the Diktat of Versailles and to the view that aspects of the Versailles arrangements should be peacefully revised. Given this, and given the pain that the absence of the German group from the ISC conference in Paris evidently caused him, it may be of little surprise to learn that Toynbee, in the month of June in 1934, travelled to Berlin with the intention of reviving German interest in the ISC. Remarkably, he even entertained the hope that the re-engagement of German scholars with the ISC would assist in facilitating Germany’s return to the wider international fold. It was in view of his larger ambition in respect to Germany, that Toynbee met during his visit to Berlin with the prominent Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, discussing with him Germany’s ‘“peace intentions” and need for colonies.’239 As a result of his visit, Toynbee concluded that Hitler was more dangerous on the domestic front than he had thought. At the same time, he returned home feeling somewhat comforted: as he stated in a letter to Lord Lothian, he felt ‘less alarmed about the foreign policy of the Nazi regime’ than he had been earlier.240 Toynbee found his visit to Berlin somewhat comforting from another perspective: as he told Bonnet in a letter marked confidential, among those interested in the study of international relations whom he had encountered in Berlin, he was ‘agreeably surprised’ to detect a ‘distinct desire to explore the possibility of renewing participation on Germany’s part in the work of the Conference.’ Among those expressing such a desire was Hoetzsch who, Toynbee told Bonnet, had been very interested to learn that at the very time when Japan had signalled its intention to withdraw from the LON, the Japanese Council of the IPR had applied for membership of the ISC and that it had been ‘duly admitted.’241 In regard to the ISC, Toynbee informed Bonnet that in addition to Hoetzsch, he had held talks with Fritz (Friedrich) Berber who, Toynbee pointed out, was one of the ‘few members of the former staff who is still connected’ with the DHP. Toynbee added that irrespective of this connec239 William H. McNeill, Arnold J. Toynbee: A Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 171. 240 Arnold J. Toynbee, 1934, quoted in McNeill, Arnold J. Toynbee: A Life, 171. 241 Toynbee to Bonnet, 27 June 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.m. See also Fergus Chalmers

Wright, ed., Population and Peace: A Survey on International Opinion on Claims for Relief from Population Pressure (Paris: IIIC, 1939), 23n. No Japanese institution was ever formally affiliated with the ISC, however, individual Japanese scholars assisted at some of its sessions.

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tion, Berber’s main work now was undertaken as a member of the staff of Viktor Bruns’s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht). Toynbee told Bonnet that after having carefully considered the matter, Berber and Bruns had suggested to him that they thought that the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute would ‘welcome co-operation with our Conference.’ Toynbee reported that Berber and Bruns were of the view that the institute fulfilled the conditions of ISC membership: that institutions seeking membership must show that they are of a ‘scientific character’ and that they ‘substantially’ represent ‘all the activities in the field of the scientific study of international relations that were being carried out in the country in question.’ Toynbee explained that Berber and Bruns ‘seemed to believe’ that the Kaiser Wihelm Institute ‘fulfilled these conditions, particularly if it were to take into partnership with itself for this purpose a new academy for the study of German law,’ namely, the Akademie für Deutsches Recht, which had recently been founded in Berlin and which had a section, Toynbee noted, dealing with international law.242 Toynbee stated in his letter that in his view, cooperation with Berber and Bruns was preferable to cooperation with Hoetzsch because his ‘impression’ was that Berber and Bruns would ‘probably be both more representative and more effective’ than Hoetzsch ‘in present circumstances.’ Further to this, Toynbee stated hat he felt that the ISC was ‘under no obligation’ to Hoetzsch: it was Toynbee’s understanding that following the German announcement of its withdrawal from the LON, it was Hoetzsch who had ‘recommended the severance of the German connection’ with the ISC and the ‘dissolution’ of its German unit.243 Toynbee also informed Bonnet that Berber was considering passing through Paris on his way to London in July with a view to developing further his ideas concerning cooperation with ISC. Toynbee asked Bonnet if he, Toynbee, might put Berber in communication with him, adding that this would in no regard involve committing him ‘personally’ or the IIIC

242 Toynbee to Bonnet, 27 June 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.m. See also Deutsche Hochschule für Politik, Vorlesungs-Verzeichnis für das Winterhalbjahr Semester, 1932/33, Conférence des hautes études internationales—Allemagne (31 May 1933), 1929–1933, AG 1-IICI-K-IV-2.a, UA. Berber was listed as member of the teaching staff and as general-director of the Research Department of the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik in a brochure concerning the acadmey’s teaching and research program for the winter semester of 1932–1933. 243 Toynbee to Bonnet, 27 June 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.m.

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to any course of action. In concluding his letter, Toynbee offered the view that he rather felt that ‘these German overtures, are worth considering— of course with prudence and caution!’244 Bonnet replied to Toynbee the following month, telling him that he had been ‘extremely interested’ to hear the news of his visit to Berlin. Bonnet noted that the particular German views that Toynbee described in his letter were similar to those which had been conveyed to him by other sources. Bonnet stated that while he shared Toynbee’s ‘hope’ that they would ‘be able before long to secure for the Conference once more the collaboration of German scholars,’ he also stressed the importance of proceeding cautiously, reminding Toynbee that one of the conference’s conditions of admission was that an institution ‘must not engage in political propaganda or direct political activities.’245 Berber was very keen to participate in the conference on collective security in 1935, writing to Toynbee in October 1934 in order to tell him that he considered it ‘very desirable’ that there be German representation at the conference. Berber added that as the two German names appearing on the conference’s list of participants, namely, Jäckh and Bonn, were ‘of course not representative for the new Germany,’ proper German representation was all the more ‘urgent.’ Berber then underlined the ‘high scientific standing and reputation’ of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and elaborated on his own qualifications. In respect to these qualifications, Berber pointed out that the Chair of Constitutional and International Law at the University of Hamburg had been transferred to him on a provisional basis for the coming winter. He also noted that a book he had authored called Security and Justice (Sicherheit und Gerechtigkeit ) which had been published that year, touched on issues that the conference would address.246 244 Ibid. 245 Bonnet to Toynbee, 4 July 1934, Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales, 1 July–30 November 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.n, UA. Detlev F. Vagts, notes that Bruns had founded this institute in 1924 with a view to equipping Germany with the means ‘to struggle with the victors of Versailles in various international forums.’ Vagts adds that even though Bruns had participated in international tribunals and thus could be ‘suspected of cosmopolitanism,’ he retained his position at the institute due to his ‘prestige.’ Under Bruns’s leadership, Vagts notes, the institute sought to ‘maintain its independence and to continue to relate to foreign writers and literature,’ although he also notes that in continuing in his position Bruns leant the regime ‘respectability.’ Detlev F. Vagts, ‘International Law in the Third Reich,’ American Journal of International Law 54, no. 3 (1990): 661–704, 668–9, 673, 680. 246 Berber to Toynbee, 8 October 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.n, UA. Vagts points out that Berber did not in the end obtain the Chair in Constitutional and International Law at the

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This last point was true to the extent that Security and Justice addressed such issues as ‘status quo v. revision’ and ‘French security v. German equality.’ However, as one would expect, these issues were all examined from within the framework of what one contemporary observer described as a ‘typically’ National Socialist account of international law. Beyond this, the view of international law that Berber put forward in Security and Justice was remarkably similar to that which had been articulated by Coppola, the Fascist propagandist, at the conference of the ISC that year. For example, Berber insisted in Security and Justice that ‘all attempts to “formalize world history by transforming it into international law”, to “transform international politics into a court procedure,” completely to rationalize the vital, irrational, mystic powers at work in international politics…[are]…doomed to failure from the beginning.’247 In his October letter to Toynbee, Berber stated that even though there was as yet no German coordinating committee for international studies in existence, he hoped that he could be extended a personal invitation to the 1935 conference. Berber added that with the consent of the relevant ministries, he would be able to accept such an invitation on behalf of both the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and the University of Hamburg.248 Toynbee forwarded Berber’s letter to Bonnet for clarification along with a copy of his own response to it, a response in which Toynbee had noted that the conference had in the past extended observer status to prospective members. In a letter accompanying these two documents, Toynbee advised Bonnet that Berber was the ‘sole surviving pre-National Socialist member of the staff’ of the German Political Academy. He also pointed out that Berber had been chosen by the regime in Germany to ‘represent the Third Reich in intellectual international relations,’ adding that his own personal

University of Hamburg. He records that Berber’s ‘hope’ of obtaining the Hamburg chair was ‘blocked’ by Carl Schmitt ‘who wanted the post for one of his protégés.’ Instead, Berber became head of the Institute for Foreign Policy at the University of Hamburg which he transferred to Berlin in 1937 where it became a ‘research and propaganda arm of the Foreign Ministry, to which it was attached.’ Vagts, ‘International Law in the Third Reich,’ 684. 247 Josef L. Kunz, review of Sicherheit und Gerechtigkeit. Eine gemeinverständliche Einfürung in die Hauptprobleme der Völkerrechtspolitik by Fritz Berber, American Journal of International Law 29, no. 2 (1935): 350. 248 Berber to Toynbee, 8 October 1934, ICI-K-I-1.n, UA.

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wish was that Berber would be invited to the 1935 conference ‘as a step to bringing Germany back into relations’ with the ISC.249 That the Third Reich had endorsed Berber to represent it in intellectual international relations shows that Toynbee had been correct in his assessment that Berber would be a more effective representative of the new Germany than Hoetzsch. Due to his Russian sympathies, Hoetzsch had come to be known as a ‘dangerous Russophile’ and was labelled pro-Bolshevik (even though he was not), by the National Socialists. Hoetzsch’s defence of Germany’s membership of the LON under the Weimar Republic, even though leavened by a dose of scepticism in regard to the activities of that organisation, would also have ensured that the new regime took a dim view of him.250 In fact, Hoetzsch would be ‘retired’ by the National Socialists from his position at the University of Berlin in the following year.251 Thus, it was Berber, a man who had been converted to Quakerism by British relief workers in the aftermath of the war and someone whom Toynbee later described as ‘a mystery man,’ who would be issued with an invitation to the forthcoming ISC conference on collective security just as Toynbee wished.252

249 Toynbee to Berber, 10 October 1934, and Toynbee to Bonnet, 10 October 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.n, UA. Toynbee told Bonnet that he ‘very much’ hoped that they would be able to arrange for Berber’s attendance at the 1935 session of the ISC as a ‘first step towards bringing the German back again in a constitutional way.’ Toynbee to Bonnet, 19 October 1934, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.n, UA. 250 C. Paul Vincent, ‘Hoetzsch Otto,’ in Vincent, A Historical Dictionary of Germany’s Weimar Republic, 212. Korenblatt notes that Hoetzsch’s efforts in the 1920s to ‘improve Germany’s political and cultural ties’ with the Soviet Union, earned ‘him the lasting suspicion of the Nazi regime.’ Korenblatt, ‘A School for the Republic?,’ 404. 251 Vincent, ‘Hoetzsch Otto,’ 212. 252 Toynbee, Acquaintances, 277. Vagts states that Berber, although a dedicated ‘oppor-

tunist,’ was ‘[l]ess vaultingly ambitious’ than Carl Schmitt, that much better known legal apologist for the Nazi regime. He adds that Berber ‘made fewer enemies during the Third Reich and did less drastically evil things.’ Vagts, ‘International Law in the Third Reich,’ 684.

CHAPTER 7

The League of Nations and Collective Security

The Opening of the Eighth International Studies Conference At the LSE on the morning of 3 June, Meston, as one of the principal founders of the RIIA and as chairman of the BCCIS, inaugurated what was named a General Study Conference on ‘Collective Security,’ the composition and objects of which had been detailed in the Times that same morning. As the opening of the conference fell on the same day as the birthday of His Majesty the King, Meston, who was the conference’s president, had sent celebratory greetings to King George on behalf of the ISC which, Meston noted in his message, was meeting ‘under the auspices of the League of Nations’ International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation’ and was ‘composed of representative of twenty nations.’ Meston declared in his message that these representatives wished to ‘tender their respectful greetings to the ruler of the land where they are assembled’ and prayed that ‘Your Majesty’s reign may endure for many happy years and may witness the achievement of that world peace for which Your Majesty had so consistently laboured.’1 In return, the King addressed a message to Meston in 1 ‘International Studies: Collective Security: Conference in London This Week,’ Times, June 3, 1935, and ‘Message to His Majesty the King from the Inaugural Meeting of the Eighth International Studies Conference,’ in League of Nations, International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, Eighth International Studies Conference: Minutes of a General Study Conference on ‘Collective Security,’ held in London from 3–7 June, 1935, edited by

© The Author(s) 2019 J. Pemberton, The Story of International Relations, Part Two, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21824-9_7

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the latter’s capacity as president of the conference in which he expressed his sincere wish that the conference’s ‘deliberations may have fruitful results for the promotion of the cause, which His Majesty has so deeply at heart, of peace and good understanding among nations.’2 Adding to the formality of the occasion, was the presence of Austen Chamberlain, who occupied a place of honour alongside Meston. Chamberlain had accepted an invitation to address the conference’s inaugural meeting, an acceptance which Murray considered a great honour, especially because the former secretary of state for foreign affairs was ‘little disposed, in general, to engage himself in new enterprises.’3 Also occupying places of honour at the meeting were William Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, the acting-chair of the council of the RIIA who would go on to host a reception for delegates in the evening of the same day; Beveridge; Allen W. Dulles, chair of the American Committee on Collective Security and chair of the conference’s study meetings; Eisenmann, chair of the conference’s executive committee; and Bonnet and Murray both of whom represented the ICO.4 In an address to the conference, Chamberlain extended to the participants on behalf of the BCCIS and the RIIA what he termed ‘a most hearty welcome to our metropolitan city,’ pointing out that they were gathered in London to study the question of collective security under the ‘ultimate auspices of the League of Nations.’5 Noting that he had represented Britain at the LON Council and in the LON Assembly for a period of almost five years, Chamberlain conceded that it was open to question as to whether

the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, 2 rue de Montpensier, Palais Royal, Paris 1, July 1935, 1, UNESCO Archives. 2 ‘Message from His Majesty the King to the President of the International Studies Conference,’ in League of Nations, International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, Eighth International Studies Conference: Minutes of a General Study Conference on ‘Collective Security,’ held in London from 3–7 June, 1935, 1. 3 ‘Étude scientifique des relations internationales,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 57–58 (1935): 455–8, 455. 4 ‘Addresses Delivered at the Inaugural Meeting,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 34. Other functions that the conference participants enjoyed included a dinner held by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths at the Goldsmiths’ Hall and a luncheon given by the LSE. See Eighth International Studies Conference: General, June 1935, Conférence permanente des hautes études internationales: Peaceful Change, March–April 1936, until 1 June 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-I-15.c, UA. 5 ‘Addresses Delivered at the Inaugural Meeting,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 34.

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the LON commanded the same respect that it had in the past. In relation to this question, he drew the audience’s attention to a distinction that he had drawn between ‘accidental’ and ‘deliberate’ wars when speaking in the House of Commons recently.6 The former, he observed, were wars which arose without being planned and without the ‘desire for war on the part of anyone.’ Such wars, he insisted, came about due to some incident or other which ‘suddenly brings passions to a boiling point’ or which strikes a blow at national pride. As a means of preventing the outbreak of unpremeditated wars, Chamberlain continued, the LON had an important role to play: it served as a forum in which tempers were given time ‘to cool’ and allowed for a ‘larger and more unbiased public opinion’ to be brought to bear on a given controversy.7 Chamberlain then noted that accidental wars were not the object of the conference’s interest. What would preoccupy the conference during its meetings, he emphasised, was ‘something much graver, much more difficult to cope with: the effort by some country to impose its will upon an unwilling world.’ He observed that ‘[no] doubt even such a country does not desire war; but it desires above all, and it means to have, its own way, even though it be at the cost of war.’ Chamberlain stated that as important as the LON was in terms of the marshalling of international public opinion and as an arena for forming moral judgements, it could not prevent deliberate wars. Such wars insisted this advocate of rearmament in the face of gathering German strength, can only be prevented where there is ‘certainty,’ or at least a ‘high probability,’ that any act of aggression would be met by a massing of forces against the aggressor that it ‘cannot hope to overcome.’8 Such a massing of forces was exactly what those advocating an IPF or insisting on mutual guarantees of security under the covenant had in view. Chamberlain was opposed to an IPF on the ground that it would detract from ‘sovereign control of the means of defence’ and in the context of the LNU, he had thus far succeeded in having the question of an IPF put aside.9 Nor was Chamberlain a partisan of the idea of a ‘common system of mutual

6 Ibid., 35. 7 Ibid., 36. 8 Ibid. According to Pugh, Chamberlain was of the view that the Germans ‘were nursing a grievance in order to build an army.’ Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 108. 9 Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 106.

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guarantees’ under the LON. In his address at the London conference, Chamberlain stated that while he hoped that the LON would retain its world-wide character and even extend it, he did not think that security against the dangers of which he had spoken could be found in ‘guarantees which are equally binding for every war, wherever, however and on what subject whatsoever it may arise.’ Chamberlain observed that ‘obligations so widely spread, so universal, and yet requiring—potentially—such immense sacrifices of the nations which undertake them are…beyond the strength of humanity,’ an observation that he would have cause to repeat in the House of Commons later that year.10 Concluding his speech to cheers from the audience, Chamberlain confessed to having a ‘deep-rooted’ faith in the LON, albeit a faith placed in ‘more modest plans than those originally contemplated’ for that body; it seemed to him that at the present stage in world history, it was those plans that ‘were most likely to achieve success.’11 As we have seen, the kind of binding guarantees dismissed by Chamberlain were precisely what the French had been seeking for a very long time and thus certain statements by Eisenmann, a professor of the history and civilisation of the Slavs at the University of Paris and member of the governing body of the Paris-based Centre d’études de politique étrangère (Centre for the Study of Foreign Policy) who spoke immediately following Chamberlain, would have been of no surprise to those assembled. Eisenmann stated that collective security was not merely topical but was in fact a ‘burning’ issue. The question of security, he added, should be at the forefront of every mind in a world still bearing the ‘traces of the greatest and most terrible of wars’ and which feared that it was ‘on the eve of a fresh conflict—perhaps less vast but more terrible in view of the perfecting of war technique.’ Eisenmann finished by exclaiming that there ‘is no other Security than Collective Security’ and that a ‘threat to one is a threat to all!’12 Eisenmann was followed by Dulles, who, in addition to his role as a partner in the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell in New York, was a legal adviser

10 ‘Addresses Delivered at the Inaugural Meeting,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 36. 11 ‘Keeping Peace in Europe: Sir A. Chamberlain on the League,’ Times, June 4, 1935. 12 ‘Addresses Delivered at the Inaugural Meeting,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 37,

and ‘Biographical Notes on the Delegates and Participants at the Conferences of Paris and London and on the Authors of Memoranda submitted in 1934 and 1935,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 497.

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to the American delegation to the Disarmament Conference.13 Dulles explained to the conference in London that the belief was widespread in the United States that the ‘old world forces of power politics’ were replacing the collective system of the LON and that peace would be maintained only so long as the current balance of power remained intact. Indeed, Dulles pointed out that in the view of many of his compatriots, the danger of an early war in Europe was ‘very acute.’14 Noting the American tendency towards isolation from European problems, a tendency which he suggested was intensifying as these problems became ‘more and more complicated,’ Dulles stated that it would be ‘futile’ to expect the United States to participate in a collective security system out of a sense of ‘duty’ to other nations. For the United State to enter another European war, he advised his audience, the perception would have to arise once more that its national interest was at stake. While Dulles thought that if his fellow citizens approached the question of collective security ‘realistically’ they would understand that ‘any disturbance to the peace is of vital concern to us,’ he emphasised the point that the majority of his compatriots were not ‘sufficiently convinced’ that the American ‘national interest and possibly national safety may depend upon keeping other people from going to war.’15

Views of Collective Security After the inaugural meeting, the conference repaired to Chatham House where it launched into a discussion under the heading of ‘Fundamental Principles of the Problem of Collective Security,’ the basis for this discussion being various memoranda submitted by conference members. In a memorandum submitted on behalf of the Centro italiano di alti studi internazionali (Italian Centre for International Studies), Coppola, echoing comments he had made at the ISC’s session in Paris in the previous year, poured scorn on the whole notion of collective security, declaring that the belief that security could be achieved ‘by virtue of universal international

13 ‘Biographical Notes on the Delegates and Participants at the Conferences of Paris and London and on the Authors of Memoranda submitted in 1934 and 1935,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 496–7. 14 ‘Addresses Delivered at the Inaugural Meeting,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 40–2. 15 Ibid., 43–4.

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texts’ was ‘theoretical, platonic, ridiculous.’16 Coppola again insisted that it was unnatural and anti-human for a state to engage in war where its ‘historic interests’ were not at stake and again warned that a collective security system ran the risk of transforming particular wars into world wars. Most importantly in light of Italian foreign policy ambitions at the time, Coppola highlighted yet again the explosive potential of the supposedly paralysing dogma of collective security which, he maintained, ultimately and disastrously would fail in its attempt to freeze the ‘perpetual “becoming”’ of history.17 Towards the end of the discussion of fundamental principles, Coppola extended his attack to encompass the post-war peace settlement arrived at in Paris in 1919. He complained that this settlement had been framed as ‘a moral settlement of the world’ and that as such it had been presented as unchangeable. It was as if, Coppola exclaimed, the ‘doctrine of a new religion’ had been handed down by President Wilson ‘from the Sinai’ of the Hôtel de Crillon: it was as if the LON Covenant, rather than being a document enshrining the interests of the victors in the war, was a ‘decalogue of international redemption.’ Coppola suggested that those entertaining such conceptions of the peace settlement, should take note of the following fact drawn from modern history: that the Holy Alliance, which had been formed after the Napoleonic wars and which undertook not only to protect the interests of the contracting parties but ‘to act in Europe as an international police,’ although ‘concluded among the greatest Powers of Europe, was unable to stand against the force of history calling for a change.’18 As he had the previous year, Coppola sought to pre-empt claims by conference participants that his statements contained an implicit threat: he affirmed that the criticisms he offered of the post-war international system should not be taken to mean that Italy was an adversary of peace. Nonetheless, Coppola made it abundantly clear that in saying this he was only thinking of the peace that existed among Western powers. Indeed, he urged those same powers to reinforce their peaceful relations through uniting in ‘defence of something which is the loftiest conquest of humanity’: 16 Francesco Coppola, ‘The Idea of Collective Security,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 144–5, 148. See also Roberto Forges-Davazanti, ‘Collective Security and Reality,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 149–50. 17 Coppola, ‘The Idea of Collective Security,’ 144–7. 18 ‘Fundamental Principles: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 182–3.

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Western civilisation. Having noted that some of those assembled appeared to doubt that Western civilisation was humanity’s greatest conquest and having called attention to Toynbee’s observation that he did not fear war ‘coming from Asia or Africa’ but that he did fear a European war, Coppola pointed to what he considered to be a persistent ‘psychological error’ committed by Western peoples: the failure to understand that the West no longer occupied the same position in the world that it had occupied before the Great War when ‘the white race was unquestionably dominant.’ It was natural, Coppola observed, that in the pre-war era the Western powers fought wars against each other in a bid for primacy in Western society as this entailed primacy in the world. However, he added Western civilisation was now under threat and the threat it faced demanded collaboration among the Western powers.19 Warming to his theme, Coppola advised the conference of the following: [T]o-day, dangerous forces, growing forces deny the legitimacy, deny the fact of this hegemony of the Occident….Those forces are represented by a few States which have acquired great strength and which have already begun the struggle against the Occident on the economic front. Such States might be tomorrow the rallying point, the leaders of the revolution against the West. Again, there is the new world of Islam, which has already risen against Europe as a religious movement, and which has acquired henceforth a clearly political character. There are also other forces of eternal barbarism, in Europe and out of Europe, regarding which some of the great Western nations today display a strange blindness.20

Coppola’s theatrics, which encompassed a paean to the ‘two great centuries of Pax Romana’ by way of a riposte to Toynbee’s point that the alternative to collective security was a world of ‘violence and conquest’ ultimately leading to a ‘totalitarian world-state,’ a point which Coppola dismissed as a ‘scare-crow of monstrous unity,’ met with certain rebukes.21 Having thanked Coppola for his ‘eloquent peroration,’ Lytton suggested that the anti-European revolution invoked by him, that is, Coppola, was a mere invention, declaring simply, ‘I have never seen it’22 Mircea 19 Ibid., 183. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., 165–6. 22 Ibid., 184.

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Djuvara, a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Bucharest and a Romanian delegate to the LON, stated that he agreed with Coppola’s contention that ‘the basis of historical evolution is to be found in spiritual values,’ however, contrary to Coppola he questioned whether such values can be national in character. Citing the distinction Bergson drew in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion between the ‘morality and justice of closed societies’ and that of open societies, Djuvara stated that ‘spiritual progress consists in advancing towards a society as open as possible’ and that from this standpoint one must condemn ‘a morality which is fiercely and selfishly national.’ Against this background, Djuvara argued that sovereignty, whether in regard to municipal or international law, cannot ‘mean…the right to do anything whatever at any moment what ever,’ but rather should mean precisely the condition of being ‘limited by law and justice.’23 Cassin also intervened, in his case in response to the claim of Coppola and that of Coppola’s colleague, namely, Senator Roberto ForgesDavazanti, a former director of the National Fascist Party and the current director of La Tribuna, that collective security was a ‘dangerous’ illusion which did not correspond to psychological ‘realities.’ Cassin, who was a founder and former president of the influential Union féderale française des associations française d’anciens combattants et de victimes de la guerre and president of the Comité d’action pour la Société des Nations, suggested that perhaps his Italian colleagues were not ‘sufficiently alive to the psychological revolution’ that had take place in those countries which had taken a part in the war of 1914–1918.24 Cassin pointed out that this revolution was consequent upon the fact that the conception of sovereignty as a pouvoir absolu had reached a point whereby ‘millions of men…had met with their death.’ Against the background of this devastation, he stated, there had arisen a movement of revolt against the ‘old absolute sovereignties’ and in support of an evolution in the direction of an international community in which various national communities lived peacefully side by side. Noting that Coppola had sought to paint those who guarded the institutions arising from the peace treaties as conservatives, Cassin stated that it was those 23 Ibid., 176–7. 24 Ibid., 170, and ‘Biographical Notes on the Delegates and Participants at the Conferences

of Paris and London and on the Authors of Memoranda submitted in 1934 and 1935,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 495. See also, Delegues de la Commission française de coordination des hautes études internationales, Conférence permanente des hautes études internatoinales, 1–15 May 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.r, UA.

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who advocated a ‘return to the formula of absolute sovereignty’ and the ‘view that each human group can find security only in its own strength’ who were swimming against the tide of history.25 In a submission by the BCCIS which canvassed British opinions on the subject of collective security, it was pointed out that the view that the covenant was but a step on the way to a more effective security system had ‘never won general acceptance’ in Britain. The same submission declared that the British people, because of their ‘insular position and long successful practice of Balance of Power diplomacy,’ had little ‘sense of what insecurity means’ and thus did not comprehend the attitude of those continental European states which linked disarmament to security guarantees.26 BCCIS further noted that there was a strong current of opinion in Britain which was acutely aware that the British Empire was undergoing a ‘difficult and delicate process of constitutional reconstruction.’27 In regard to this last point, it is worth noting that Alan B. Plaunt, whose biography in the proceedings of the conference noted that he had been a member of the Canadian group at the IPR’s biennial conference in Kyoto in 1929, pointed out in a report submitted in the name of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs that Smuts had recently told a Chatham House audience the following in regard the idea of equipping the LON with proper sanctions: It is said that the crucial case of Manchukuo has exposed the real weakness of the League and shown that, unless armed with force to carry out its policies, it is doomed….I cannot visualise the League as a military machine. It was not conceived or built for that purpose, it is not equipped for such functions. And if ever the attempt were made to transform it into a military machine, into a system to carry on war for the purpose of preventing war, I think its fate is sealed. I cannot conceive the Dominions, for instance, remaining in such a League and pledging themselves to fight the wars of the Old World; and if the Dominions leave it, Great Britain is bound to follow.28

25 ‘Fundamental Principles: Discussion,’ in Bourquin ed., Collective Security, 168–70. 26 British Coordinating Committee for International Studies [hereafter BCCIS], ‘British

Opinion on Collective Security,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 84. 27 Ibid., 85. 28 J. C. Smuts, ‘The Present International Outlook,’ International Affairs 14, no. 1 (1935):

3–19, 8. See also Plaunt, ‘Collective Security,’ 60.

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The occasion on which Smuts offered this reflection was at a dinner at the Savoy Hotel on 13 November 1934, which was arranged by the RIIA and at which Smuts, now in opposition and engaged in scholarly pursuits, gave an address in his role as the evening’s guest of honour. In the words of Edward George Villiers Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby, alongside whom Smuts had worked in the Imperial War Cabinet of David Lloyd George and who as the occasion’s chair proposed ‘the Toasts of “The King” and of “The Queen, the Prince of Wales and other members of the Royal Family”’ and of Smuts himself, the South African statesman spoke ‘with a sentiment of intense loyalty to the great Empire of which he…[was]…a part.’29 After having warned of the fate that would befall the LON should it concentrate its efforts on furnishing itself with ‘teeth’ rather than be content to remain first and foremost ‘the Round Table of the nations,’ that is, an open forum of discussion, Smuts posed the following question: how might the German sense of inferiority which was ‘poisoning the mind, and indeed the very soul of Germany’ be eliminated? Smut’s answer was that the only way to remove Germany’s ‘inferiority complex’ was to accord Germany ‘complete equality of status with her fellows and to do so frankly, freely and unreservedly.’30 Smuts insisted that he understood and sympathised with French fears, but added that one could not ‘but feel for Germany in the prison of inferiority in which she still remains sixteen years after the conclusion of the war,’ advising his audience that maintenance of the status that Germany was prescribed at Versailles was becoming not only ‘an offence to the conscience of Europe’ but a ‘danger to future peace.’31 Drawing out the connection between Smuts’s comments on sanctions and on Germany’s apparent psychological plight, Plaunt observed that a section of Canadian opinion felt that to harden the LON’s regime of sanctions at the present juncture would be to deliver ‘a blank cheque to the status quo Powers and prevent the necessary realignments that are taking place.’ He added that the same section of opinion thought that Canada should persist with its policy of lending support to the LON but should oppose ‘sanctions as unjust so long as treaty revision is not proceeded with.’32

29 Edward George Villiers Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby, 1934, quoted ibid., 4. 30 Smuts, ‘The Present International Outlook,’ 7–8, 10. 31 Ibid., 10. 32 Plaunt, ‘Collective Security,’ 60.

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In the course of his address at the Savoy, Smuts called attention to the political outlook in the Asia-Pacific region, noting in this regard the achievements of the Washington Conference which sat from 12 November 1921 to 6 February 1922 and which had on its agenda the distinct but politically related topics of the question of the limitation of armaments and Pacific and Far Eastern questions. Smuts told his audience that this conference was ‘the most promising thing for world peace since the Covenant’: the negotiators taking part in it sought to realise in the Far East what the League in Geneva was seeking to realise in Europe.33 One of the most important treaties issuing from the conference was the Nine-Power Treaty Relating to Principles and Policies to be followed in Matters Concerning China, which was published and signed on 4 and 6 February 1922 respectively. This treaty involved an agreement to assure the sovereignty, independence and territorial and administrative integrity of China, to promote China’s economic development and political stability, to finally bring to an end the competition for special rights and privileges in China and to internationalise the principles of the Open Door and equality of opportunity.34 The political settlement reached under the Nine Power Treaty in respect to China was a fundamental condition for the conclusion of another key treaty issuing from the Washington Conference: the Five-Power Limitation of Naval Armaments Treaty which was signed by France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and the United States also on 6 February and which prescribed ratios as between its signatories in respect to naval power. Another fundamental condition of the naval accord issuing from the Washington Conference was the Four-Power Treaty for the maintenance of peace in the Pacific which was signed on 13 December 1921.35 Under Article 1 of this treaty, the United States, Great Britain, France and Japan, agreed ‘as between 33 Smuts, ‘The Present International Outlook,’ 13. See also ‘Navies and the Pacific,’ The Round Table 24, no. 96 (1934): 693–716, 698–9. 34 G. F. Hudson, The Far East in World Politics: A Study in Recent History, 2nd ed. (New York: Octagon Books, 1976), 199–200. Originally published in 1937 by Oxford University Press. The signatories of the Nine Power Treaty were the United States, the British Commonwealth, Japan, China, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal. See also Quincy Wright, ‘The Washington Conference,’ American Political Science Review 16, no. 2 (1922): 285–97, 285, 289, and ‘Appendix 15: The Agenda of the Washington Conference, 1921,’ in Wilson Leon Godshall, Tsingtau Under Three Flags (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1929), 508–9. 35 ‘The Four Power Treaty,’ Advocate of Peace 83, no. 12 (1921): 424–5, 424. See also Hudson, The Far East in World Politics, 200, and The Round Table 24, no. 96 (1934): 693.

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themselves, to respect their rights in relation to their insular possessions and insular dominions in the region of the Pacific Ocean’ and to submit any dispute ‘arising out of any Pacific question and involving their said rights’ to a joint conference should diplomacy fail to produce a result.36 Accords on comparative naval power; the territorial integrity and independence of China; the Open Door and equality of opportunity; and on a loose system of conferencing, such were the principal elements of the peace machinery for the Asia-Pacific region as established at Washington. However, Smuts told his audience at the Savoy, many now raised the question as to whether ‘the promise of Washington…may not prove to be a mirage’: Japan had already given notice of its withdrawal from the LON in light of the League’s condemnation of its occupation of Manchuria and the establishment there of the puppet-state of Manchukuo and there was reason to fear that Japan might withdraw from the Washington treaties.37 Indeed, as stated in The Round Table: A Quarterly Review of the Politics of the British Commonwealth (a journal established in 1910 as The Round Table: A Quarterly Review of the British Empire but which had its subtitle changed in 1919), just two months before Smuts speech at the Savoy Hotel and in more robust terms than Smuts had chosen to use in speaking of Japan, in establishing Manchukuo, Japan had overthrown both League principles and the Nine Power Treaty.38 Smuts himself stated that Manchukuo had pointed ‘the danger signal’ and that it now appeared that the Washington Naval Treaty was imperilled. Without wishing to suggest their outcome, he noted that there was an ‘air of pessimism’ surrounding the conversations in regard to naval questions then taking place among the parties to the Four-Power Treaty.39 Smuts advised his audience that if the naval ratios went then ‘the other issues settled at Washington may also be reopened and the whole Pacific 36 Advocate of Peace 83, no. 12 (1921), 424. Article 2 of the Four Power Treaty declared the following: ‘If the said rights are threatened by the aggressive action of any other power, the high contracting parties shall communicate with one another fully and frankly, in order to arrive at an understanding as to the most efficient measures to be taken, jointly or separately, to meet the exigencies of the particular situation’ (ibid.). 37 Smuts, ‘The Present International Outlook,’ 13. 38 The Round Table 24, no. 96 (1934), 699, 715. The Round Table noted that in occupying

Manchuria, Japan had ignored the procedures for dispute settlement laid down in the LON Covenant and the Four Power Treaty. 39 Smuts, ‘The Present International Outlook,’ 13–4. See also The Round Table 24, no. 96 (1934), 704.

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concert may collapse.’40 Such a collapse, he warned, would prove to be ‘something far more dangerous for the future than…[the]…present and passing differences in Europe,’ adding that ‘new trouble in the East’ might ruin the prospect of arriving at a ‘working equilibrium’ in Europe.41 Giving a hint of the danger he beheld, Smuts noted the following: ‘Adversity makes strange bedfellows, and those who have in the past talked loudest of the so-called Yellow Peril may in future be tempted to look for friends in that unlikely quarter. When Europe calls in the Far East to redress the balance of the West it will be an evil day for Western civilisation and the peace of the world.’42 Smuts noted that the British Commonwealth was caught between two worlds: in the form of Great Britain, the Commonwealth was tied to the old world, whereas in the form of the Dominions, the Commonwealth was associated with ‘the outer new world where the United States already…[played]… so great a part.’43 Having observed that the world as a whole was probably about to enter a tempestuous period of history and that in the midst of uncharted waters ‘the best insurance is to be with those with whom we have an instinctive and historic sympathy,’ Smuts advised that the objective of British foreign policy in respect to the Far East should be that of continuing ‘to conform to the general American orientation’ which had characterised British Far Eastern policy since Great Britain became associated with the United States during the Great War.44 Indeed, Smuts declared that the ‘ultimate affinity’ between Great Britain and the United States must be the foundation for all British foreign policy, adding that any policy which ignored or impaired that affinity would very likely disrupt the Commonwealth as a whole.45 It is telling of these concerns that Smuts had earlier stated in his speech, after having expressed confidence that the United States would eventually join ‘a conference of the nations,’ that he could not imagine ‘anything more calculated to keep the United States of America for ever out of the

40 Smuts, ‘The Present International Outlook,’ 13–4. 41 Ibid., 13. 42 Ibid., 14. 43 Ibid., 16. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid.

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League than its transformation into a fighting machine, pledged to carry out its decisions by force of arms if necessary.’46 As Smuts’s speech had implied and as the aforementioned BCCIS submission on collective security stated, there was an ‘articulate distrust in certain Dominions for anything in the nature of a link with the European Continent, especially so long as the United State held aloof from the League system.’47 According to the BCCIS, the fact of this distrust had made it apparent to many in Great Britain that ‘commitments, even of the Locarno character, would have, in future, to be accepted with the utmost circumspection’ and that arrangements of a more general nature in respect to the continent were simply out of the question.48 This understanding prevailed even though developments in Europe at the time had given rise to a more pronounced concern for the need to cooperate in respect to security. Indeed, the BCCIS was of the view that any proposed initiatives in this regard were ‘still liable to be assessed chiefly in terms of the amount of disarmament they may be thought to make possible.’49 Further to this, the BCCIS contended that a deepening of Great Britain’s security ties to the European continent was not practically possible: Britain as a world power with a security system encompassing a base in Singapore and the holding of the Suez Canal, simply could not throw its ‘material weight on the side of collective security in the sense of automatic European engagements,’ the absence of the United States from LON being a key consideration in advancing this contention.50 In a separate submission on behalf of the BCCIS, Gathorne-Hardy, then an honorary secretary of the RIIA, observed that the notion that collective security arrangements were an imposition on state sovereignty was a red-herring. The states which had joined the LON, he stated, had already ‘expressed their willingness to waive this difficulty and to treat recourse to war as a casus belli.’ He added that the signing of the Pact of Paris by both members and non-members of the LON, involved a further and much greater waiver of this supposed difficulty. The real problem in regard to collective security was not any theoretical objections to automatic 46 Ibid., 8. 47 BCCIS, ‘British Opinion on Collective Security,’ 85. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid.

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sanctions on the ground that this would derogate from state sovereignty, but that states were inclined ‘shirk their treaty obligations’ where these conflicted with their perceived interests or because public opinion, which now almost completely stigmatised the institution of war, caused them to feel that they could not guarantee their loyalty to their commitments. As a result, Gathorne-Hardy stated, there had emerged a ‘general scepticism as to the trustworthiness’ of treaty commitments and the impact of this was to undermine the deterrent effect of the collective security system: in order for it to serve as a deterrent there had to be a belief that it would in certain circumstances be made to function.51 Gathorne-Hardy insisted that if one wanted this system to work, then a ‘trustworthy statement of intention’ was of the essence. Lamentably however, he noted, this was exactly what the English-speaking nations obstinately refused to provide, a refusal that was greatly related in his view to the ‘temperamental objection of the Anglo-Saxon mind to definite long-range commitments.’ Under these circumstances, Gathorne-Hardy presciently observed, the most likely outcome of any threatened use force would be that the aggressor, having ‘advertised his grievance…will probably be welcomed with a generous provision of “fatted calf.”’52

Revisionism This last observation touches on another reason why there was wariness on the part of English-speaking audiences in regard to collective security guarantees: the rising tide of criticism of the post-war settlement and growing sympathy for revisionism. In its submission concerning British opinion, the BCCIS noted the following: [O]ne only has to read the House of Commons debates to realise the peculiar twist which this whole question of collective security and sanctions has acquired in Great Britain owing to the opinion that support for any methods of defence of law and order in Europe means bolstering up French ‘hegemony’. English people who, if they ever had it, have lost the stern victorious attitude of 1919 and who, in general, have a realistic sense of the living and dynamic, as opposed to the seemingly static, in social situations, are apt to

51 G. M. Gathorne-Hardy, ‘The Obstacles to Collective Security,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 137–8. 52 Gathorne-Hardy, ‘The Obstacles to Collective Security,’ 139–40.

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find shocking any tendency to construe the acknowledged principle of sanctity of treaties as though it implied the necessary and perpetual rightness of every treaty situation. Add to that the natural affinity between certain facets of English and German life and character, and we can begin to understand the weight attaching to the idea of ‘treaty revision’ as condition precedent of any scheme of security.53

Dulles had addressed the issue revisionism in his opening address, explaining that one of the reasons why many of his compatriots wanted the United States to more completely isolate itself from European problems was the strong ‘apprehension’ that American assistance was being sought ‘to help maintain a particular status quo rather than to maintain the peace.’54 The conference was also informed that there was a current of opinion in Canada which upheld the view that in the absence of mechanisms for treaty revision, all attempts at isolating the aggressor and ‘advance arrangements for punishing him,’ were simply means by which ‘satisfied Powers’ sought to ‘protect themselves from the need to make concessions to dissatisfied Powers’ and, more specifically, of ensuring a ‘preponderance of power against Germany.’55 According to this current of opinion, which upheld the view also that Canada should remain neutral in the event of a European war, to strengthen sanctions now would be to ‘give a blank cheque to the status quo Powers and prevent the necessary realignments taking place.’56 The New Commonwealth Society involved itself with enthusiasm in the collective security conference in London, the opening and closing ceremonies of which Davies, Horsfall Carter, Noel-Baker and other members of that organisation were invited to attend.57 Notably, the society showered the conference with papers on the subject of an IPF, a subject on which the conference received technical advice from Liddell-Hart who was by now the military correspondent of the Times and who attended the

53 BCCIS, ‘British Opinion on Collective Security,’ 89. 54 ‘Addresses Delivered at the Inaugural Meeting,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security,

43–4. 55 F. H. Underhill, ‘Canadian Foreign Policy in the 1930s,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 51. 56 Plaunt, ‘Collective Security,’ 60. 57 Jäckh to Chalmers Wright, 12 May 1935, Conférence permanente des hautes études

internatoinales, 1–30 April 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.q, UA.

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conference as a member of the BCCIS, and that of an equity tribunal, these papers being penned by such New Commonwealth figures as Davies, Cot, Horsfall Carter, Hans Kelsen and Scelle.58 In addition, the New Commonwealth sent two representatives to observe at the conference, one of these being George Schwarzenberger, a German exile who had been appointed secretary of the New Commonwealth Institute. As a participant in the study meeting on the prevention of war, Schwarzenberger framed the question of revisionism in terms of the ‘strong interdependence’ between collective security and ‘collective justice,’ contending that the renunciation of war logically entailed the establishment of methods for the realisation of justice. Echoing the analysis presented by Verdross at the 1934 conference, he noted that the ‘unilateral method of war’ had historically been a means of realising justice, adding that if revisionist states denied themselves this method in the interests of the community as a whole, then this would suggest that the status quo powers had a moral obligation to establish other methods for the realisation of justice.59 It would make no sense, Schwarzenberger insisted, for the revisionist states to renounce the historic means of realising justice for nothing in return: it would not make sense that they would undertake a ‘burden that is much heaver than the situation of the status quo Powers.’ Indeed, Schwarzenberger argued that the obligation to revise the status quo in the interests of justice was of a legal and not just of a moral character, basing his argument on Article 2 of the Pact of Paris which provided that states are bound to resolve their differences by peaceful methods alone.60 David Mitrany, a professor of political science at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton University, had been an active participant in the 1934 conference, in the proceedings of which he was described as a 58 ‘List of Memoranda on Collective Security,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 476–87, and ‘Eighth International Studies Conference, London, June 3–8, 1935: List of Participants in the General Study Conference on Collective Security,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 500. 59 ‘Prevention of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 281–2. Gaspar Bayón y Chacón of the University of Madrid observed that in order that collective security may be maintained at the present moment, ‘it is absolutely indispensable to create an immediately applicable judicial procedure capable of giving an adequate hearing to the claims and aspirations of the States which consider themselves injured or oppressed by certain clauses of the treaties.’ Gaspar Bayón y Chacón, ‘Respect of International Pledges: Revision of Treaties and International Situations,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 246. 60 ‘Prevention of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 282.

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delegate of the BCCIS, a ‘Editorial Staff’ of the Manchester Guardian and ‘Assistant European Editor’ of the Carnegie Endowment’s Economic and Social History of the World War (1924) of which Shotwell was the general editor. At the 1934 conference, Mitrany had expressed appreciation of the fact that the conference had ‘finally included a special study of neutrality,’ agreeing with Geouffre de Lapradelle that the Anglo-Saxons had yet to adopt the continental conception that the system of indifference in the face of aggression had lapsed.61 At the same time and in the context of discussing neutrality at the meeting supplementary to the 1934 conference which was chaired by Toynbee, Mitrany urged that what was needed was a ‘synthesis’ between the question of security and that of establishing a pacific procedure for treaty revision. At the meeting supplementary to the conference and after having expressed his regret that the Coppola could not take part in it given Coppola’s views on the subject of collective security, Mitrany declared that the question of the ‘development of social justice’ needed to be considered alongside that of establishing a ‘régime of legal security.’ However, he added that it was the establishment of the latter that was of ‘immediate and direct importance’ precisely because ‘historical evolution had always consisted in creating authority before gradually bringing about the development of social justice.’62 Somewhat in contrast with the nature of his intervention at the 1934 conference, the focus of Mitrany’s interventions at the 1935 conference concerned the prevention of war or, more specifically, the relation between security and justice. Mitrany maintained in London that the guarantee of Article 10 of the covenant could only be made ‘real and lasting’ by the 61 IIIC, ed., Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, vi, 281– 3. The biography of David Mitrany appearing in the outline of the plan of the European series of the Carnegie Endowment’s Economic and Social History of the World War read in part as follows: ‘Graduate of the High School of Commerce, Bucharest; B.Sc. in Economics (London); with Rumanian Army in the second Balkan War, 1913; during the War attached to Rumanian Legation at London, at the request and at the disposal of the British authorities worked for Foreign Office, Intelligence Department of War Office and the Ministry of Information; from July, 1919, for three years on the editorial staff (foreign affairs) of Manchester Guardian; since January, 1921, Foreign Editor of Manchester Guardian Commercial.’ In respect to the European series of the Economic and Social History of the War, Mitrany was described in the outline of the plan for that series as follows: Editor of Rumanian Series. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of Economics and History, Economic and Social History of the World War: Outline of Plan, European Series (Washington, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of Economics and History, 1924), 33, 121. 62 IIIC, ed., Seventh Session of the Permanent Conference of International Studies, 292–3.

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establishment of a procedure of peaceful change. The guarantee of territorial integrity under Article 10, he insisted, was never intended to be a ‘kind of absolute guarantee, without the possibility of revision.’63 However, and unlike some others arguing the case for revision, Mitrany generally did not favour treaty revision in the form of territorial change, citing in this regard the complexity of the factors involved. For example, he noted that although territorial change may result in the liberation of one national minority, it may also result in the creation of a new minority. He also noted that change of this nature may impose a heavy economic penalty on the state from which territory has been transferred. Giving an intimation of the functionalist theory he would later develop, Mitrany’s general conclusion in relation to the issue of revision was that the ‘changes which work for progress are rather those which cause frontiers to be forgotten, which remove material barriers and promote human intercourse, which mitigate political sectionalism, as in the treatment of national minorities, and further an understanding state of mind.’64 Mitrany observed that states demanding territorial changes do not do so simply in order to ‘collect territory, as a collector collects objets d’art.’65 Such changes, he contended, are usually demanded in order to satisfy vital social needs and, in light of this, he urged a procedure by which needs in respect to such things as population, food stuff and raw materials, can be satisfied short of territorial change. If the sole focus remained on strengthening the means by which the status quo can be preserved, Mitrany warned, the LON would indeed ‘degenerate into another Holly Alliance’ and as such it would invite retaliation from those ‘desperate enough and powerful enough’ to bring about territorial changes through violent assaults on the system.66

Anti-revisionism In stating this last, Mitrany was broaching what was in the view of many observers the precise problem with revisionism or, to use the expression 63 ‘Prevention of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 265. 64 David Mitrany, ‘Peaceful Change and Article 19 of the Covenant,’ in Bourquin, ed.,

Collective Security, 213. 65 ‘Prevention of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 265. 66 Mitrany, ‘Peaceful Change and Article 19 of the Covenant,’ 212, and Bourquin, ed.,

Collective Security, 265.

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preferred by many advocates of the revisionist cause, peaceful change. Critics of revisionism believed that what drove many of the partisans of revisionism was a desire to pacify unruly states rather than a desire to see justice done. Zimmern was one such critic. He maintained that the reason why matters such as Article 19 had been so much under discussion in recent times was not because the grievances of a number of smaller states were not being given a fair hearing, but because a number of powerful states were ‘inclined to makes us feel that if they are not allowed to have their own way, they will find their way in some other manner.’67 Ludwik Ehrlich was a professor of jus gentium and the general theory of the state at John Casimir (Jana Kazimierza) University at Lwów and a member of the Polish unit of the ISC, namely, the Central Committee of Polish Institutions of Political Science. At the 1935 session of the ISC, an organisation with which he had been associated since 1929, he argued similarly to Zimmern, suggesting during a discussion of the prevention of war that the conference had spent too much time discussing so-called peaceful change as a means of preventing war and not enough time discussing the following: the means of ensuring the maintenance of peace in case of the threat of war and the means of swiftly repressing war should war in fact break out. Citing the French proverb which states that l’appétit vient en mangeant (in other words, the more one gets, the more one wants), Ehrlich argued that some of the peaceful change approaches put forward would give rise to situations whereby a dissatisfied state would demand change on pain of war and once having had that demand met would resort to the same tactic once more.68 Mihai A. Antonescu (Michel A. Antonesco), a lecturer in international law at the Bucharest Academy of Higher Commercial and Industrial Studies and at the University of Bucharest who would later serve as minister of justice and after that deputy prime minister and foreign minister in the 67 ‘Prevention of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 280. 68 ‘Prevention of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 273. For a forceful

statement of the Romanian government’s. Attitude towards demands for treaty revision, see G. Vladesco-Rocoassa (Gheorge Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa), ‘Rumania and Collective Security,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 97–100. Note the following statement of Mircea Djuvara: ‘It is not enough that someone should say: “I want a certain thing” for the other to be obliged to give it to him; it is not enough that an active propaganda, a well-organised movement should demand a piece of property from someone with cries and threats; it is necessary that the universal conscience judge that this demand is just.’ ‘Prevention of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security,’ 268.

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dictatorship of Ion Antonescu, echoed observations made by Pella and Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa in the previous year in suggesting that the very fabric of international society was threatened by revisionism. Antonescu pointed to the efforts on the part of legal theorists over many centuries to ground the principle of pacta sunt servanda, be it in natural law, reason, good faith, ‘interest or irrevocable custom,’ and to ‘stress its omnipotence’ in order that the principle would come to be conceived as being ‘above the will’ of sovereign states. Antonescu noted that renewed efforts in this direction on the part of legal scholars such as Kelsen, had been undertaken in response to the rise of the Hegelian doctrine of contingent obligation and Georg Jellinek’s doctrine of auto-obligation. He noted that Kelsen, formerly of the University of Cologne but now living in exile in Geneva where he worked at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, had sought to render the principle of pacta sunt servanda ‘more objective’ through ‘creating…a hierarchy in which the rule “pacta sunt servanda” becomes the superior and creative principle,’ thereby further purifying and strengthening this rule and liberating it from ‘dependence on national sovereignty.’69

69 Michel Antonesco [Mihai A. Antonescu], ‘Respect of International Obligations: Revision of Treaties and International Situations,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 238–9. In the biographical notes appended to the proceedings of the 1935 session of the ISC, the following description appears: ‘Michel A. Antonescu, L.L.D. Assistant Professor of Public and Private International Law at the Bucharest Academy of Higher Commercial and Industrial Studies; Lecturer in Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest; Professor of International Law at the Higher School of Administrative Law; Barrister at the Court of Appeal Bucharest.’ Maurice Bourquin, ’Biographical Notes on the Delegates and Participants at the Conferences of Paris and London, and on the Authors of Memoranda, submitted in 1934 and 1935,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 493. In the list of participants annexed to the published proceedings of the 1937 session of the ISC the following description appears: ‘Antonesco, Michel A. Lecturer in International Law University of Bucarest [sic], and Academy of Commercial Science,’ International Studies Conference,’ Annex 3: List of Participants in the Session,’ in International Studies Conference, Peaceful Change: Procedures, Population, Raw Materials, Colonies, Proceedings of the Tenth International Studies Conference, Paris, June 28th–July 3rd, 1937 (Paris: IIIC, 1938), 621. In the list of participants annexed to the proceedings of the 1938 session of the ISC, the following description appears: ‘Antoneso, Mihai (Rumanian), Lecturer in International Law University of Bucarest [sic] and Académie de Hautes Études Commeriales et Industrielles.’ Alfred Zimmern, ed., The University Teaching of International Relations: A Record of the Eleventh Session of the International Studies Conference, Prague, 1938 (Paris: IIIC, 1939), 344. See also Mihai A. Antonesco, ‘The University Teaching of International Relations,’ in Zimmern, ed., The University Teaching of International Relations, 80–1. Wojciech Roszkowski and Jan Kofmans record that Mihai A. Antonescu had authored the following work: ‘Organizarea p˘acii s,i a Societat, ii Nat, iunilor (The establishment of a peaceful order and the League of Nations, 1929)’. They further

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Antonescu’s position was supported by Cassin who objected to the representation of pacta sunt servanda as some ‘selfish rule’ made up by those who derive benefits from a given treaty, agreeing with Antonescu that this rule was essential to the maintenance of social life.70 Somewhat in contrast, Cassin’s compatriots and colleagues, namely, Le Fur and Geouffre de Lapradelle, in their submission to the conference, showed themselves to be more accommodating of treaty revision: while agreeing that one must resist at all costs doctrines claiming a ‘conditional validity’ for treaties, they cautioned that law, as a rule of life, ‘cannot oppose life, that it must evolve with life in order to be able to continue to adapt itself to life.’71 Noting that ‘we have been told repeatedly that it is impossible to get a French influential opinion to see the necessity’ of treaty revision, Mitrany expressed ‘gratitude’ on his and the conference’s behalf for what he described as the ‘very remarkable’ contribution of Le Fur and Geouffre de La Pradelle: for their recognition of the need for ‘psychological détente’.72

Concrete, Political, and Realistic: A German View As one might expect, the topic of treaty revision excited the interest of Berber who was the sole German national participating in the study conference. Berber had written to Toynbee on 29 March 1935 in order to inform Toynbee that it was possible for him to accept a personal invitation

record that following a coup in Romania in August 1944, Antonescu was arrested and spent a period of detention in the USSR. In May 1946, he was tried and found guilty of war-crimes. He was then ‘executed by firing squad in the garden of the Jilava prison, along with Marshal Antonescu’ in May 1946. Wojciech Roszkowski and Jan Kofman, ’Mihai Antonescu,’ in Wojciech Roszkowski and Jan Kofman, Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 29–30. First published in 2008 by M. E. Sharpe. 70 ‘Prevention of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security,’ 255. 71 Louis Le Fur and Albert de Geoffre de Lapradelle, ‘The Revision of Treaties,’ in

Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 96. See also contrast José Cascón y Marìn and Pedro Cortina Mauri, ‘The Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 244. Horsfall Carter proposed to make Article 19 a ‘dynamic reality’ and conjugate it with Article 10 which he described as the ‘static element’ of the covenant, a task he considered urgent given that the coexistence of ‘satisfied and revisionist States’ had lead to conditions of ‘autarchy’ in Europe. See The New Commonwealth Institute: Annual Report 1935, Conférence permanente des hautes études internatoinales: New Commonwealth, AG 1-IICI-K-I-11, UA. 72 Mitrany, ‘Peaceful Change and Article 19 of the Covenant,’ 212, 214.

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to the conference. Apologising for the long delay in letting Toynbee know of this development, Berber stated that he trusted that Toynbee would appreciate the ‘delicacy of the matter and the reasons of the delay.’73 Upon receiving Berber’s letter, Toynbee wrote to Bonnet to inquire about the possibility of issuing such an invitation to Berber, informing the director of the IIIC of the following: ‘I hope very much this will come off, because I think that it would be of real value to have a German representative, even on a merely personal invitation, as an unofficial participant in the Conference at this next meeting.’74 Not all those planning on attending the conference were as keen as Toynbee was on Berber being present. Perusing its agenda, Jäckh discovered that Berber had been invited to participate in the conference and in view of this he penned a letter to Chalmers Wright whose role at the IIIC encompassed the position of secretary of the ISC by virtue of his position as the head of the IIIC’s International Relations and Social Sciences Section. Therein Jäckh stated that while he would be ‘very pleased to meet’ his ‘old colleague,’ he would like to be informed of the specific conference events to which Berber had been invited.75 That Jäckh was keen to know the occasions on which Berber would be present at the conference may have something to do the fact, as recorded by Korenblat, that Berber had served as Jäckh’s legal adviser when Jäckh was dealing with the Nazis in relation to the fate of the DHP. Korenblat notes that Jäckh later registered his disappointment with the comportment of Berber, as well as that of Hoetzsch, during the last stages of the DHP’s existence.76 As it turned out, Jäckh did not participate in the ISC’s study meetings in 1935, although he attended, as he declared he would in his letter to Chalmers Wright, the conference’s administrative meeting in order to observe on behalf of the New 73 Fritz Berber to Toynbee, 29 March 1935, Conférence permanente des hautes études internatoinales, 1–30 April 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.q, UA. 74 Toynbee to Bonnet, 3 April 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.q, UA. See also ‘Biographical Notes on the Delegates and Participants at the Conferences of Paris and London and on the Authors of Memoranda submitted in 1934 and 1935,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 492. Berber’s occupational roles were described in the biographical notes appended to the proceedings of the 1935 session of the ISC as being that of Privatdocent at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik and Referent at the Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht in Berlin. 75 Jäckh to Chalmers-Wright, 12 May 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.r, UA. For Chalmers Wright’s roles, see IIIC, International Studies Conference: Origins, Functions, Organisation, 74. 76 Korenblat, ‘A School for the Republic?,’ 409.

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Commonwealth. As Jäckh would have later discovered, this meeting was one of the conference events to which Berber had been specially invited.77 On the question of his exact status at the conference, Berber appeared sensitive. In response to an expression of regret on the part of Charles K. Webster, the Stevenson Professor of International History at the LSE, Wilson Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1922 and 1923 and secretary of the Military Section of the British Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference and, that there was not a ‘large German delegation’ to give a German point of view on regional security in Europe, Berber issued a mild rebuke. He pointed out that there was ‘no German delegation at all’ present at the conference, underlining the fact that he was there only as ‘guest’. Berber reminded the audience that no German had been a member of the conference since October 1933, adding that this particular date was sufficient to explain why this was the case.78 As Berber explained in the preface to a memorandum published for the benefit of the 1937 ISC, direct German collaboration with the conference was not possible dating from the autumn of 1933 because of the ISC’s ‘administrative connection’ with the LON.79 Having had Berber’s status clarified for him and having referred to Berber as ‘our German friend,’ Webster called upon Berber to elaborate on the reasons why Germany rejected a regional security system, a rejection that Webster claimed to find baffling. Webster, noting the presence of

77 Jäckh to Chalmers-Wright, 12 May 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.r, UA. See also IIIC, International Studies Conference: Origins, Functions, Organisation, 56, 64. The ISC’s administrative meeting was the ‘supreme organ’ of the ISC ‘except in questions of finance and staff’ which were ‘under the ultimate control’ of the IIIC. The administrative meeting governed the conference ‘in accordance with the general views of the Conference.’ Normally, in order to attend an administrative meeting, an individual had to be affiliated with a member institution. However, the ISC’s constitution allowed that in ‘wholly exceptional cases where the interests of the Conference would be specially served, individuals attending Study Meetings who have not been appointed delegates to the Administrative Meetings may be invited to attend an Administrative meeting.’ IIIC, International Studies Conference: Origins Functions Organisation 12, 22–3. 78 ‘Repression of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 388, 393, and ‘Biographical Notes on the Delegates and Participants at the Conferences of Paris and London and on the Authors of Memoranda submitted in 1934 and 1935’ in Bourquin, ed.,Collective Security, 505. 79 Fritz Berber, preface to Diedrich von Westermann, ed., Beträge zur Deutschen Kolonialfrage, 1937, quoted in International Studies Conference, Peaceful Change: Procedures, Population, Raw Materials, Colonies, 170.

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Ambassador Mainsky, observed that although the Soviet Union had previously denounced the League as a capitalist institution, it was ‘now in the regime of collectivity that the USSR herself seeks her own security’.80 In response to Webster’s question, Berber pointed that it was on the initiative of Germany that the first European regional pact, namely, Locarno, had been formed, adding that it was a pact ‘to which we cling even now, and very strongly.’ On being asked why Germany was out of some regional pacts, Berber stated that a comprehensive explanation of the German position, of which, he noted, comments appearing in the Times at the beginning of the year had shown ‘a very great understanding,’ had been given about a week before in a speech by Hitler that had lasted for two and half hours.81 Berber opined that if the contents of this speech were closely studied and the thirteen points made therein ‘accepted in the same spirit in which they were uttered,’ Europe would be ‘soon in a much greater state of security’ than ‘we will be after some years of the regional pacts’ should these become ‘the fashion in Europe.’82 The Hitler speech to which Berber called attention was delivered on 21 May 1935 at the Reichstag. The thirteen points Berber mentioned were listed towards the end of the speech and they were, as William L. Shirer writes, quite comprehensive. Germany could not return to Geneva until the League divested itself of the Versailles Treaty. When that was done and full equality of all nations recognised, he implied Germany would rejoin the League. Germany, however, would ‘unconditionally respect’ the non-military clauses of the Versailles Treaty, ‘including the territorial provisions.’83

In pronouncing his thirteen points, Hitler had referred to the FrancoSoviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance which had been initiated by Barthou and subsequently concluded on 2 May by Pierre Laval, Barthou’s successor as foreign minister, following Barthou’s assassination in October 1934.84

80 ‘Repression of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 388. 81 Ibid., 394. 82 Ibid. 83 William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (London: Arrow Books, 1998), 286–7. 84 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs 1920–1939, 399.

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In relation to a pact which had been a source of division in Europe, the Führer announced that as a result of the military alliance between France and Russia, an element of legal insecurity has been brought into the Locarno Pact…[and accordingly]…the German Government would be specially grateful for an authentic interpretation and future effects of the Franco-Russian military alliance on the contractual obligations of the single parties who signed the Locarno Pact.85

Having added these carefully crafted qualifications, Hitler then pledged the following: In particular they (the German Government) will uphold and fulfil all obligations arising out of the Locarno Treaty so long as the other partners on their side are ready to stand by that pact.86

Hitler promised in his speech to respect the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland. He declared that the German government considered this ‘action as a contribution to the appeasement of Europe,’ even though it involved an ‘unheard-of hardness for a sovereign State.’87 In regard to collective security, Hitler stated that although Germany was ‘willing “at any time”’ to join such a system, the German preference was for ‘bilateral agreements,’ adding that Germany ‘was ready to conclude nonaggression pacts with neighbour states.’ Further to this, Hitler declared that Germany was prepared to support the British and French proposals for a Western European air pact that had been put forward with a view to abolishing aerial bombardment as an instrument of war.88 In relation to the rearmament of Germany, Hitler affirmed that the German government was ‘ready to agree to any limitation that leads to abolition of the heaviest arms, especially suited for aggression,’ and wanted

85 Reichstag Speech, 1935, quoted ibid., 399. 86 Ibid. 87 Ibid. 88 Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 286–7, and ‘Herr Hitler’s Speech,’ Times, May 22, 1935.

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only parity with Western European states in the air.89 Dangling ‘special bait’ for Great Britain, Hitler pledged to maintain the Germany navy at level equivalent to thirty-five per cent of the British navy, thereby leaving the Germans at fifteen per cent ‘below the French in naval tonnage.’90 The speech was well received by many in Britain it being seen as a sign of German reasonableness and Germany’s peaceful intent.91 The response in the Times was enthusiastic: ‘No-one who reads it with an impartial mind can doubt that the points of the policy laid down by HERR HITLER may fairly constitute the basis of a complete settlement with Germany—a free, equal and strong Germany instead of the prostrate Germany upon whom peace was imposed sixteen years ago.’92 In regard to the naval offer made to Britain, on 2 June, just one day before the 1935 session of the ISC commenced, Hitler’s ambassador at large, Joachim von Ribbentrop, arrived in London to commence negotiations on an Anglo-German Naval Agreement which the German leadership hoped would be a prelude to a special Anglo-German relationship. Berber, who doubtless was aware of Ribbentrop’s movements seeing that Ribbentrop had become his patron, was an instrument of that same agenda, that is, the agenda of forging an Anglo-German relationship and this is doubtless why he had been given permission to attend the London conference. At the conference, Berber stated that it was very difficult for him to explain Germany’s position without going into great detail as there were so many aspects of the German ‘conception of life and politics’ that were ‘misunderstood’ by foreigners for many of whom Germany remained terra incognita. Berber noted that in the case of the English, this view of Germany was revealed by the fact that they spoke ‘about Germany as a Fascist State,’ a description, which, he stated, ‘my Italian friends will agree with me it certainly is not’. Berber then noted that the English also referred to Germany ‘as a totalitarian State…or as a dictatorship,’ adding that it was ‘not intending to be’ a totalitarian state and that it was ‘certainly’ not a dictatorship. Despite the difficulties posed by all this apparent ‘misunderstanding’ about Germany, Berber nonetheless ventured to explain to his audience the

89 Reichstag Speech, 1935, quoted in Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 287. On the question of air power see Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 400. 90 Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 287. 91 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 400. 92 Times, May 22, 1935.

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underpinnings of German foreign policy, summing up these underpinnings with the following three terms: concrete, realistic and political.93 Berber sought to explain what he meant by the terms concrete and realistic in stating his objection to Ehrlich’s characterisation of revisionist states as brigands: as being like a man who marches up to another and says: ‘Legally speaking your watch is yours, but I like it very much; you had better give it to me, as by doing so you will prevent murder.’94 Such an analogy, Berber stated, was too simplistic and ‘too theoretical’ in that it failed to acknowledge the variety of situations that might give rise to such a demand. As an example of one such situation, Berber cited the case of a man who, having been ‘reduced to a state of exhaustion,’ has his watch taken from him and then later, having recovered, asks for its return from those who took it. By way of offering another example, Berber highlighted the putative plight of Japan which, Berber observed, was in the ‘situation of a man who has never had a watch, but who is in urgent need of one, and another person has three or four watches and he wants to have one of them.’95 By way of offering an explanation as to what he meant by political, Berber stated that in the German view, words do not change a situation. He observed that an agreement on paper expressed in general terms such as a regional pact, would not change certain facts, such as the fact that ‘Russia does not love us, and we do not love Russia.’ Continuing in this vein, Berber stated that giving the ‘name of Sanctions’ or collective security to actions that in the past would have been ‘called war,’ did not effect any ‘material’ change in the thing being described. The name collective security, Berber insisted, pointed to an ideology and each ideology, he added, is ‘the expression of a very definite position.’96 In relation to this last point, Berber touched on the distinction that Chamberlain had made at the outset of the conference between accidental and deliberate wars, contending that prior to 1919 there had probably been only accidental wars. It was only with the appearance of the covenant’s Article 16, Berber maintained, that the ‘new method of deliberate war’ had

93 ‘Repression of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 394. 94 ‘Prevention of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 273–4. 95 Ibid., 276–7. 96 Ibid., 394–5.

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been introduced: sanctions and collective security.97 Berber concluded in relation to the question of sanctions and collective security that he favoured, although from ‘quite a different angle,’ the ‘critical attitude’ displayed by Coppola in describing these ‘new inventions’ as anti-human: deliberate war, Berber affirmed, ‘certainly is inhuman.’98 In response to Berber’s contentions, Zimmern stated that Japan’s ‘great mistake’ was that it failed prior to 1931 to air its concerns before the LON. Zimmern conceded that Japan did not bear all the responsibility for this failure. He observed that the Western powers, in refusing to enshrine in the covenant the racial equality amendment that the Japanese delegation had submitted to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and which Zimmern thought on the ground of principle should have been enshrined in the constitution of the LON, had given the Japanese ‘a sense of inferiority, which prevented them from readily resorting to the League.’ Nonetheless, Zimmern told the conference, taking its grievances to the LON would have been the right approach for Japan to take. Zimmern then advised the German ‘guest,’ private guest being Berber’s preferred description of his status at the conference, that this was an approach that Berber’s own country should adopt: Germany should air its grievances before the ‘public opinion of the world’.99 Berber responded to Zimmern by stating that the Germans had ‘talked for seven years between 1926 and 1933’ and had ‘made definite complaints,’ complaints which Berber described as modest, ‘most especially in the field of disarmament.’100 Towards the conclusion of the study meeting, Berber urged that the ‘three subjects concrete, realistic and political’ should in the future preoccupy the whole of the ISC’s attention. He pointed out that only a few minutes earlier he had had a conversation with Toynbee ‘to the end that a concrete situation to study would be much more important than to be in the clouds of abstract and general terms’.101 Berber suggested that ‘in order to understand one another really,’ the conference should investigate much more deeply the needs of those states whose situation is comparable to that of an unemployed man who seeks a change in his position. He drew 97 Ibid., 277. 98 Ibid. 99 Ibid., 279. 100 Ibid., 281. 101 Ibid., 395.

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a contrast between such states and those whose position is comparable to a group of bankers and industrialists whose concern lies with ‘the upkeep of prices or currency and matters connected with security.’ Until a study along these lines was pursued, Berber declared, he would ‘refuse to move on the basis of the problem of collective security’ when asked ‘for an explanation of the German position at present.’102

The Closing Meeting In his summation of the ISC’s 1935 proceedings, Bourquin stated that most of those present at the conference were of the view that collective security was justified on the basis of the following considerations: ‘either local sovereignties will be destroyed by violence, or they will voluntarily adapt themselves to new needs, by agreeing progressively through formal conventions, to concessions at the price of which it will be possible for them to subsist, as integrated elements in the international community.’103 Despite what Meston referred to as the ‘spurts of cynicism’ that the discussion of collective security had elicited from some elements at the conference and despite the energetic reaffirmations of one of those elements, namely, Coppola, of his distrust of the notion during the closing meeting, Bourquin sought to locate or pretend to locate in the conference’s proceedings some common ground.104 In his final report to the conference Bourquin noted that both Coppola and Forges-Davazanti had conceded the ‘necessity of an energetic struggle against war’ and pointed out that the collective security advocates were far from ignoring the element of ‘truth’ contained in the criticisms of the two Italians. All were agreed, Bourquin stated, on the danger of a system of 102 Ibid., 395–6. 103 Bourquin, ‘Report by the General Rapporteur on the Conference’s Study of “Collective

Security”,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 446. 104 ‘Address by Lord Meston,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 465, and Chalmers Wright, ed., Population and Peace, 574. Malcolm McPherson, a member of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, stated at the 1937 session of the ISC that he was ‘somewhat shocked’ to hear it said that the 1935 conference had a great degree of unanimity. He remembered, he stated, that there was a ‘very decided cleavage of opinion.’ He observed that the ‘majority was large and the minority small but—and this is the important point—the majority contained representatives of…only three of the seven major powers,’ namely, Great Britain, France and the United States. Neither Japan nor the USSR were actively represented at the Conference. Chalmers Wright, ed., Population and Peace, 574.

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collective security which would ‘refuse to look at living realities and would exist only in the world of legal abstractions’ and that a ‘lack of realism’ had often characterised the attempts at organising peace that had been witnessed since 1919.105 Following the Belgian’s report and in his capacity as president of the ICIC, Murray delivered a closing address in which the two qualities assigned to him by Madariaga were well in evidence: a passionate attachment to the moral law accompanied by a capacity to contain his feelings when practicality required it. That said, a qualifying point needs to be added: at certain points in his address this seasoned League official, that is, Murray, let his instinct for diplomatic restraint be overcome by his desire to give voice to certain principles about which he felt deeply.106 Murray stated that while he agreed with Bourquin’s characterisation of the general drift of the discussion at the conference, he had also noticed that the ‘extraordinary difference’ in the philosophies or ‘les mystiques ’ that existed ‘behind the beliefs of various nations and statesmen in the matter of public policy’ had made itself felt.107 Having noted the different mystiques represented at the conference, Murray drew attention to what he described as the ‘exceedingly able speech’ given by Coppola ‘where he defied us all’: Murray observed that Coppola had put ‘forward ideals which were totally different from the ideals most of us were pursuing.’108 Declining to adhere to the ‘beautiful objectivity’ he ascribed to Bourquin in his capacity as general-rapporteur, Murray went on to challenge and even gently mock Coppola’s arguments. He stated that he had been especially interested in Coppola’s statement that ‘a nation will fight, will go to the last extremity, for its honour or for its interest, but not for mere abstract considerations.’ Murray’s response to this provocation was that the ‘preservation of the general peace and the general security…is the most profound and far-reaching interest of civilisation’ and most certainly not an imagined interest. Further to this, Murray pointed out that there appeared to be a general acceptance that ‘nations are really no longer so many separate anarchical sovereign independent States, but they do form a society,’ adding

105 Maurice Bourquin, ‘Final Report,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 444–7. 106 Madariaga, ‘Gilbert Murray and the League,’ 183. 107 ‘Address by Professor Gilbert Murray,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 458. 108 Ibid.

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that ‘there as soon as a society of nations’ comes into being ‘there is duty[,] there is law.’109 Murray declared that he thought it ironic that the partisans of collective security had been depicted by Coppola as ‘following chimeras, things that did not exist, myths’ given Coppola’s very forceful reminder that a ‘nation must fight for its national honour.’110 What was national honour, Murray asked, but ‘almost par excellence the typical myth, the typical unreality, for which people have fought’. Veering closely towards open ridicule of Coppola’s paean to national honour, Murray, who had elsewhere denounced the fetishised sovereign state as an ‘idol covered in blood,’ observed that if a statesman informed him he was going to make war for the sake of his country’s honour, it would impress him in the same way as if a statesmen had said the following: ‘“Excuse me for a moment. I have to sacrifice a child to Moloch.” I should say, “If you like sacrificing children, that is a matter of taste. But there is no such person as Moloch. You ought to know that.”’111

The Ethiopian Crisis Madariaga’s observation concerning Murray’s temperament was made in relation to the Ethiopian crisis and in this regard it is worth calling attention to the strong sentiments Murray expressed in a letter to the Times on 23 May 1935 concerning the planned Italian invasion of what was called in English Abyssinia and in French Éthiopie. Before discussing Murray’s letter, the background to this planned invasion needs to be addressed. The first thing to note is that imperial expansion was a fundamental feature of Fascist doctrine and the Fascist government of Mussolini had long been preparing public opinion in support of an extended Italian colonial presence through mounting a clamorous press campaign, the endowment of

109 Ibid., 459–60. 110 Ibid., 459. 111 Ibid., 460, and ‘Address by Lord Meston,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 465. For Murray’s comment on the sovereign state, see Gilbert Murray, ‘Goethe et le monde anglo-saxon,’ in Entretiens: Sur Goethe à l’occasion du centenaire de sa mort (Paris: SDN, IICI, 1932), 77.

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universities with chairs devoted to colonial studies and the holding of colonial exhibitions.112 At the same time, rather ill-defined and sometimes vaguely threatening claims for the redistribution of colonies were being formulated for consumption abroad.113 For example, Coppola, writing in La Tribuna in 1926, pointed to Italy’s ‘rapidly increasing population’ and its poverty in terms of alimentary and industrial raw materials. He complained that Italy’s colonies were ‘perhaps twenty times inferior to the French colonial empire and a hundred times to the British Empire.’114 He noted that the Italian colonies were ‘poor in raw materials,’ and did not offer ‘vast possibilities for settlement,’ concluding that Italy as a matter of necessity must possess a colonial empire comparable to that of France and Great Britain.115 In an interview given to a correspondent of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung published on 15 November of that same year, Mussolini, adopting a more ominous tone than that of Coppola, stated the following: ‘Many nations wish to maintain their possessions of sun and earth. Italy believes that other nations will recognise her absolute need for earth and sun. If they do not, Italy will be compelled to obtain justice for herself “by herself.”’116 Here, Mussolini was drawing on a feature of earlier Italian imperialist rhetoric which itself was derived, like the Japanese right to live doctrine, from an old idea: that in cases of absolute necessity there is a natural right of expansion into the less densely populated parts of the world.117 Indeed, as early as 1930, attention was being drawn to the fact that the Japanese 112 Emanuel Moresco, ed., Peaceful Change: Colonial Questions and Peace; A Survey (Paris: IIIC, 1939), 63–4. 113 Ibid., 63. 114 Francesco Coppola, 1926, quoted in André Touzet, Le Problème colonial et la paix du

monde, vol. 2, L’expansion colonial italienne, para colonisation nipponne de l’Asie orientale (Paris: Sirrey, 1938), 40–1. 115 Ibid., p. 41. 116 Mussolini, 1926, quoted in Touzet, Le Problème colonial et la Paix du monde, vol.

2, L’expansion colonial italienne, para colonisation nipponne de l’Asie orientale, 41. See also Moresco, ed., Peaceful Change: Colonial Questions and Peace, 63. 117 For discussions of Italian imperialist discourse in Italy in the nineteenth century, the preFascist twentieth century and under the Fascist regime, see Patrizia Palumbo, ed., A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture from Post-unification to the Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). For a discussion of the idea of the natural right of expansion into the less densely populated parts of the world in cases of absolute necessity in the context of European colonial discourse, see Jo-Anne Claire Pemberton, ‘The So-Called

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arguments in support of Japan’s alleged right to obtain materials and to lands ‘outside her own present political boundaries’ were ‘almost identical’ to arguments in support of the same in Fascist colonial doctrine.118 A summary of the Fascist view of the putative natural right of expansion was given in a book penned by an English writer for which Mussolini wrote the preface: if the ‘big Empires’ controlling the ‘raw materials and empty spaces fit for colonisation, hem in a vital and prolific nation, not naturally enjoying the possession of abundant raw materials and empty spaces for her sons to settle in, and prevent, thereby, that Nation from maintaining a property standard of life for her sons…it is they who will be responsible for any wars which may break out in consequence of such a Nation’s rights to live and to enjoy a better life.’119 One might note the way in which the previous statement reverses the onus of responsibility, such that a state straying beyond its boundaries in a quest for resources is not seen as being in breach of the peace. Rather, according to the statement in question, it is the state or people resisting such an incursion that is held responsible for any ensuing military conflict. This reversal is comparable without being identical to an argument mounted by Matsuoka Y¯osuke in a pamphlet issued on the eve of the 1929 conference of the IPR in Kyoto. Matsuoka was then the vice-president of the South Manchurian Railway Company and was to serve as the leader of the Japanese delegation at Kyoto. A man with diplomatic experience, he had been a member of the Japanese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. It was Matsuoka who would lead the Japanese delegation from the hall of the LON Assembly on 24 February 1933 following the adoption by the council and the assembly of the report of the League of Nations’ Commission of Enquiry into events in Manchuria, announcing in the process that Japan would not be coming back. In the pamphlet he submitted to the IPR in 1929, Matsuoka contended that a nation seeking to

Right of Civilisation in European Colonial Ideology, 16th to 20th Centuries,’ Journal of the History of International Law 15, no. 1 (2013): 25–52. 118 Westel Woodward Willoughby, The Ethical Basis of Political Authority (New York: Macmillan, 1930), 145. 119 James Strachey Barnes, The Universal Aspects of Fascism (London: Williams and Norgate, 1928), 157. See also C. Walter Young, Japan’s Special Position in Manchuria: Its Assertion, Legal Interpretation and Present Meaning (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1931), 308, and Westel Woodward Willoughby, ‘Japan and Natural Resources in Asia,’ North American Review 218 (August 1923), 170–8.

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monopolise a superfluity of resources when other nations stood in need, would be acting and unjustly and thereby would be endangering the peace of the world.120 Another point of comparison between the Fascist rhetoric regarding the need for territorial expansion and the Japanese right to live doctrine concerns the idea, touched on in the Mussolini-approved manual cited above, that a virile people have a right to expand at the expense of a people who are less fertile. In 1926, Mussolini had declared on behalf of the Italian nation, ‘we are hungry for land because we are prolific and intend to remain so.’121 Leaving aside the fact that this boastful comment does not exactly cohere with the simultaneously aired fascist lament that Italy was suffering under the terrible burden of over-population, we might note that ‘biological necessity’ was also a feature of the right to live doctrine.122 In an essay appearing in 1932, Takaki, who as we saw was a member of the Japanese Council of the IPR, observed that the Japanese actions following the so-called Manchurian Incident had seen the Japanese people grow in ‘self-consciousness and strength.’ Takaki stated that these actions could be viewed as ‘an expression of the irrepressible need for the biological development of the Japanese nation, and be called the pent-up cry of “Manifest Destiny” on the part of the late comer in the circle of the society of nations,’ adding that viewed as such they were comparable to the ‘inevitable process of the so-called biological necessity of the American expansion’ in the mid-nineteenth century.123 The specific demographic situation of Italy was raised during the negotiations of the Four-Power Pact in 1932 when Italy demanded that Africa be opened for Italian and German emigration. In this context, Nicolá Pascazio declared on behalf of Rome that the interests of the native inhabitants were not at issue as they were ‘incapable of civilising themselves and 120 Young, Japan’s Special Position in Manchuria, 310n; Yosuke Matsuoka, ‘Economic Cooperation of Japan and China in Manchuria and Mongolia: Its Motives and Basic Significance,’ Pacific Affairs 2, no. 212 (1929): 786–95; and Stewart Brown, ‘Japan Leaves the League of Nations: Japan Stuns World, Withdraws from the League,’ 24 February 1933, United Press International, http://www.johndclare.net/league_of_nations6_news.htm. 121 Mussolini, 1926, quoted in Moresco, Peaceful Change: Colonial Questions and Peace,

65. 122 Sandra Wilson, ‘The Manchurian Crisis and Moderate Japanese Intellectuals: The Japan Council of the Institute for Pacific Relations,’ Modern Asian Studies 26, no. 3 (1992): 507– 44, 535–6. 123 Yasaka Takaki, ‘World Peace Machinery and the Asia Monroe Doctrine,’ Pacific Affairs 5, no. 11 (1932): 941–53, 944.

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were in any case too few adequately to exploit the resources of their territories.’124 Over the next couple of years, Rome sought to persuade the French government to allow Italy to participate in the development of the French colonies in Africa, maintaining that the French had more territory there than they were able to exploit. When this did not elicit a positive response from Paris, a vituperative campaign against France in the Italian press was unleashed.125 Yet the Fascist regime also represented its colonial ambitions as moderate and benign. In a speech given on 18 March 1934, as recorded in L’Afrique Française, the monthly bulletin of the Comité l’Afrique française et du Comité du Maroc, Mussolini claimed in respect to Africa that it was not a question of territorial conquest but of Italy’s ‘natural expansion’ in cooperation with other African colonial powers and with a view to unlocking the rich resources of Africa for the benefit of the world.126 This message was echoed in the same year by Giuseppe di Michelis, the president of the International Institute of Agriculture in Rome from 1925 to 1933, Italian delegate to the League in 1930 and 1931 and the Italian representative at the ILO from 1930 to 1936. In his book La coporazione nel mundo (World Reorganisation on Corporative Lines ) Michelis looked to the formation of a ‘Eurafrica’ as a means of solving Europe’s economic and demographic problems. In a work which would be published in English and French in the following year, Michelis, in addition to pointing to the general economic benefits to be gained from forming a Eurafrica, alluded to the old idea of the mission civilisatrice, stating that Europe must ‘feel itself impelled by its vocation of civilisation to carry the light of thought into regions which still live in barbarism.’127 Rome had been planning military action against Ethiopia as early as the autumn of 1933 with plans being devised, on the instructions of the 124 Moresco, ed., Peaceful Change: Colonial Questions and Peace, 64. 125 Ibid. 126 L’Afrique Française, 1934, quoted in Touzet, Le Problème colonial et la Paix du monde,

vol. 2, L’expansion colonial italienne, para colonisation nipponne de l’Asie orientale, 49, and Moresco, ed., Peaceful Change: Colonial Questions and Peace, 64. 127 Giuseppe di Michelis, World Reorganisation on Corporative Lines (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1935), 171–4. See also Giuseppe di Michelis, La coporazione nel mundo (Milan: Bompian, 1934), and Giussepe di Michelis, La corporation dans le monde (Paris: Éditions Denoël et Steele, 1935). For an interesting and nuanced account of the thought and career of Giuseppe di Michelis, see Jans Steffek, ‘Fascist Internationalism,’ Millennium 44, no. 1 (2015), 3–22.

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Duce, by the sixty-seven-year-old Marshal Emilio de Bono.128 Hitler’s rise to power was a factor in the devising of these plans, since it had altered the political situation in Europe. Rome was also mindful of the fact that, as the case of Manchuria and that of the war between Paraguay and Bolivia (known as the Chaco War) had shown, European powers were disinclined to directly intervene in non-European conflicts.129 The immediate pretext for the Italian action in Ethiopia the territory of which adjoined Italy’s East African empire, was a frontier incident at Walwal on 5 December 1934, involving a confrontation between Ethiopian and local Italian troops. Although located within Ethiopian territory at a distance of approximately 50 miles from the Italian Somaliland border, Walwal had been under Italian control for some time.130 On 14 December, the Ethiopians proposed that the frontier dispute between themselves and Italy be submitted to arbitration as provided by the Italo-Ethiopian Treaty of Friendship, Conciliation and Arbitration of 2 August 1928, a treaty which Madariaga described as the ‘last milestone’ in the Italian attempt to acquire control of Ethiopia by ‘cajoling’ rather than ‘bullying’.131 Having changed their method although not their aim, the Italians rejected the Ethiopian overture, claiming that ‘the facts were indisputable.’ On the same day, the Ethiopian government informed the LON Secretary-General of the Walwal incident, drawing his attention to continuing aggression on the part of Italy.132 On 3 January 1935, Ethiopia called on the council to arbitrate under Article 11 of the covenant. The timing of the Ethiopian appeal was not propitious: on the following day Laval would travel to Rome in order to cement the newly formed partnership between France and Italy in the form of the Franco-Italian Agreements of 7 January.133

128 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 402 and Henderson B. Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan: A Study in International Politics,’ The Review of Politics 24, no. 3 (1962): 342–64, 343. 129 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 403. 130 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 343 and Zimmern, The League of Nations and the

Rule of Law, 437. 131 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 405, and Salvador de

Madariaga, The World’s Design (London: Macmillan, 1938), 163. 132 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs 1920–1939, 405. 133 Ibid., 405–6.

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The Italian government, which ostensibly viewed ‘intervention by the Council as derogatory to its dignity as a Great Power or, perhaps, as a European Power,’ suggested ‘direct negotiations,’ an approach in conformity with that recommended by Japan during the early stages of the Manchurian crisis endorsed by the council.134 Madariaga, who was the first delegate of Spain to the council at the time, noted that ‘lest the Council,’ which he stated was worried by the Italian actions, ‘were not impressed by this precedent, the Italian Government most aptly reminded it that, in 1928 Italy had signed with Abyssinia the most complete all-in treaty of friendship, peace and arbitration, that had ever united two countries.’135 That the Italian government was now proposing that the so-called dispute be submitted to arbitration under the terms of the Italo-Ethiopian Treaty, must be viewed against the background of Laval’s forthcoming visit to Rome. In light of this tactical shift on the part of Rome, the Ethiopian government withdrew its complaint, deciding that it would hold it in reserve until the next meeting of the council.136 Addressing the matter several months later at the annual session of the Geneva Institute of International Relations, Noel-Baker observed that in acceding to the Italian proposal in regard to the Walwal incident, the council had committed the same grave error it had committed in relation to the Manchurian Incident. He contended that few people doubted that had the council openly discussed the matter in January and had Britain and France declared in that context their intention to uphold the collective system, ‘no more would have been heard of Signor Mussolini’s Abyssinian adventure.’137 The grave error, according to NoelBaker, was to leave a dispute fraught with peril in the hands of the two parties concerned, thereby ensuring that it became ‘so exacerbated’ that no solution to it was available that was not ‘full of danger.’138 The Franco-Italian Agreements concerned the African and European interests of both parties. In respect to Africa, they involved the concession of additional French territory to Italy in final fulfilment of the French promise 134 Alfred Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 1818–1935 (London: Macmillan, 1936), 437, and Madariaga, The World’s Design, 161. 135 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 161. 136 Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 437, and Gathorne-Hardy, A

Short History of International Affairs, 406. 137 Philip Noel-Baker, ‘The Future of the Collective System,’ in Problems of Peace: Tenth Series: Anarchy or World Order (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1936), 193. 138 Ibid.

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under the Treaty of London in 1915, territory which, Gathorne-Hardy pointed out, amounted to ‘no more than a number of square miles of thinly populated desert’.139 Under the agreements, the Italians were given certain assurances in regard to the national identity of children born of Italian parents in the French protectorate of Tunisia where the Italian population outnumbered the French population by tens of thousands and on which Rome was training its ‘covetous eyes’.140 A further concession to Italy involved the sale of a few thousand shares in the French railway extending from Djibuti in French Somaliland to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, this railway being the means by which Ethiopian goods reached the Red Sea.141 In respect to Europe, the two parties agreed to undertake certain cooperative measures, most notably, cooperative measures designed to ensure the autonomy of Austria which recently had been under pressure from Germany, pressure against which Italy had taken a stand in the previous year.142 On the face of it, France gained much more than Italy from the agreements, the minor concession made in respect to Africa being a small price to pay for ‘organising a common front against the European peril.’143 Mussolini himself was reported to have said that he had obtained no more than ‘three palm trees and a well’.144 At the same time, according to Madariaga, this comment and Mussolini’s jocular description of himself following the conclusion of the agreement as a ‘collector of deserts,’ caused ‘all those for whom the Italian leader is a man who knows what he wants and how to get it’ to suspect that there was ‘more than met the eye in the matter of Abyssinia’ and that the French concessions to Italy in Africa ‘did not tell the whole story’.145 Pressed on what these dealings with Mussolini might mean for Ethiopia, Laval asserted in the French Senate on 15 March that ‘nothing in the Rome Agreements tampers with the sovereignty, independence, and territorial

139 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 393. 140 Ibid. 141 Ibid. 142 Ibid., and Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 345. 143 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 393. 144 Mussolini, quoted in Madariaga, The World’s Design, 161. 145 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 160.

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integrity of Ethiopia’.146 In that context, Laval denied that he had given his assent to the Italian intervention, insisting that he had only discussed with Mussolini the economic dimension of the Ethiopian issue.147 Yet Mussolini’s subsequent brazen behaviour seemed to be a clear demonstration that he left the negotiating table convinced that ‘if French interests were no bar to his plans, Ethiopian interests were not a matter in which France would be greatly concerned.’148 Meanwhile, the arbitration process had yet to get underway due to obstacles placed in its way by the Italian government: it had raised numerous objections in relation to such matters as the make-up of proposed arbitration and conciliation commission and the scope of its investigations.149 In light of this and the quite flagrant preparations for military operations which the Italian government was undertaking, the Ethiopian government on 17 March appealed to the council under Article 15. In terms of vigorous LON action, the timing of this second Ethiopian appeal was also unfortunate. Only the day before, Hitler, repudiating the disarmament clauses of the Versailles Treaty, had decreed the reintroduction of conscription and an increase in the size of the German army such that it would be greatly outstripped in strength to the French peace-time army.150 This announcement caused a sensation outside of Germany and lead to the Stresa Conference on 11 April, at which the governments of Britain, France and Italy ‘regretfully recognised that the method of unilateral repudiation adopted by the German Government…had undermined public confidence in the security of a peaceful order’ and agreed to call on the council to pass a resolution condemning the German action.151 Madariaga considered it ironic that Mussolini was placed in the chair at a meeting which was convened in order to address the violation of a treaty given that he was planning, as everyone

146 Pierre Laval, 1935, quoted in Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs 1920–1939, 394. 147 Gooch, ‘The Breakdown of the System of Collective Security,’ 69. 148 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 394. See also Braddick, ‘The

Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 348. Braddick states that there is evidence that Laval even offered financial assistance to Mussolini to carry out his enterprise. 149 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 161; Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of

Law, 437; and Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 406. 150 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 396, 406. 151 Cabinet Minute Document, 1935, quoted ibid., 397.

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was well aware, to ‘violate several at one masterly stroke,’ although this matter apparently went without official comment at Stresa.152 On 16 April, in the course of an extraordinary session of the council which had been requested by France, Italy and Britain jointly submitted a resolution stating that Germany, in promulgating its Military Law of 16 March, had ‘failed in the duty which lies upon all the Members of the international community to respect the undertakings which they have contracted’. Further to this, the resolution, which in the event was adopted, warned that should Germany’s unilateral repudiation of its international obligations endanger peace in Europe, it would ‘call into play all appropriate measures on the part of the Members of the League within the framework of the Covenant.’153 Reflecting the new-found unity of the powers that had met at Stresa a few days earlier, Aloisi stated at the council that ‘in pursuing…[the]…aims of cooperation and agreement, the Fascist government has desired to base its action on an exact conception of realities, and, at the same time, on the most just appreciation of the rights and interests of all,’ adding that his government associated itself ‘fully’ with the declaration made that day in relation to the German action by the representatives of France and Great Britain.154 It is perhaps not surprising that neither Britain nor France, as Madariaga, who was present at the council meeting expressed it, were overly keen to inquire whether the Italian troops then pouring into Eritrea and 152 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 161–2. Note the following observations of Vansittart in relation to the Stresa conference: ‘It has often been asked why Mussolini was not warned at Stresa against the consequences of invading Abyssinia. The answer is twofold. Firstly, if the speculation of the sale at Rome was correct, Laval had “taken care of” that possibility. By assuring Mussolini in advance of French connivance, he had made it impossible for France to join in such a warning, which Mussolini would not have taken seriously from England alone. He was humouring both Italy and Germany. Alternatively, and at a pinch, Laval could have joined with another droop of those convenient eyelids—and with the same result. The second answer is that I did, of course, warn the Italians in personal talks; but it seemed better tactics, with an eye on Laval, first to secure agreement on Austria, that is, to provide a bait before administering a monition. The bait, however, was not enough. It was notorious that Britain had still a horror of. “commitments,” while Mussolini, besotted with dreams “of Africa and golden joys,” was speculatively bent on making the most of both continents by acquiring Abyssinia and preserving Austria—an impossible combination. Laval…[had]…already betrayed Abyssinia to Italy and Austria to Germany’. Lord [Robert] Vansittart, Lessons of My Life (London: Hutchinson, 1943), 46. 153 LON, OJ 16, no. 5 (1935), 550–1. See also Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 437. 154 LON, OJ 16, no. 5 (1935), 552.

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Somaliland were there for purpose of conquest or whether they were in Africa for a ‘pleasant summer vacation’.155 The Ethiopian government had requested on 15 April that the question of Ethiopia be placed on the agenda of the council’s extraordinary session, however, Aloisi resisted this. Adopting the tactic which had served Japan so well at the council during the Manchurian crisis, Rome sought to manoeuvre for enough time to establish a fait accompli.156 Madariaga later noted that in response to the Italian objection, there were some anxious and worried, rather than firm, words from Sir John Simon; there was the usual French silence, so ominous to all by its suggestion of complicity; and there was an attempt by the Spanish representative to connect the two questions, so strangely left unconnected at Stresa by pointing out that a breach of the Covenant was unthinkable on the part of a nation whose leader had just presided at Stresa over a meeting of Powers to uphold the sanctity of treaties.157

In the event, the council decided to postpone addressing the Ethiopian question until its next ordinary session which was scheduled for May, the hope being expressed by Simon that by that date, arbitrators would be appointed and the terms of the arbitration defined. On 25 May, two days after Murray’s letter appeared in the Times, the council, at which Britain, which wished to hasten the resolution of the dispute, was now represented by Eden, resolved to meet again if a fifth and final arbitrator had not been 155 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 164. 156 Ibid. 157 LON, OJ 16, no. 5 (1935), 549. What Madariaga actually said at the extraordinary council meeting of 16 April in relation to Italy’s role at Stresa was recorded in the League’s Official Journal as follows: ‘He pointed out that at that precise moment Italy, was, so to speak, at the head of a clear demonstration of good will which gave evidence of a constructive spirit of international peace and that a country could only have one policy.’ In relation to the Ethiopian government’s attempt to place the question of Italy’s actions in relation to Ethiopia on the agenda of the extraordinary council meeting of 16 April, Madariaga stated the following: ‘He hoped that those considerations would assist Ethiopia to accept the view, which seemed to be the view of the Council as a whole, that there was no need for the moment to place two items on the agenda of the extraordinary session of the Council, since the ordinary session in May was only four weeks ahead, and since in the meantime the question would—the members of the Council were quite sure—make considerable progress.’ While Laval spoke less than Simon on this matter he was not silent. Speaking immediately before Madariaga, he expressed the hope that the direct negotiations between the two parties would be successful and that the council ‘would never have to deal with the dispute’ (ibid.).

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appointed by 25 July or if the matter had not been resolved by the same date in August.158 Although MacDonald and Simon apparently had been silent on the issue at Stresa, they were concerned by the growing Italian military presence in Africa, not least because of British interests in East Africa and the Near East.159 Mussolini had announced in March 1934, that these regions were ‘cardinal points which should excite the interest and will of Italians.’160 Simon pressured Italy, particularly in the context of the LON, to reach a peaceful agreement with Ethiopia. According to Henderson B. Braddick, the British Foreign Office did not regard Italy as among the premier league of world powers and tended to favour the view that Mussolini would not ‘risk the Austrian status quo’ by resorting to war in Ethiopia. In the view of Whitehall, there were also question marks as to whether Italy had the economic and military capacity to succeed in a sustained conflict in Africa.161 Yet despite British expectations, Rome did not buckle in the face of diplomatic pressure, but rather ‘sent several divisions to Libya, near the Egyptian frontier.’162 Thus, the world looked on as Italian soldiers and materials of war passed through the Suez Canal, the blocking of which Cecil at the time was urging by ‘sinking ships in it if necessary’.163 Murray’s letter of 23 May to the Times was thus written against the background of the massing of Italian forces in Africa and the less than robust response of the other powers on the council to this action. At the outset of the letter, Murray stated that he was not inclined to severely condemn the LON for failing to stop the Japanese aggression in Manchuria. The LON had tried in that case: it had conducted an investigation and pronounced judgement. However, in Murray’s view, the LON simply was not in a position to ‘impose its will or its sense of justice on a highly armed non-Christian people at the other end of the world.’164 Without necessarily 158 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 406, and Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 437–8. 159 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan: Study,’ 344, 346n. 160 Mussolini, 1934, quoted ibid., 344n. 161 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 345–6. 162 Ibid., 346. 163 Donald S. Birn, ‘The League of Nations Union and Collective Security,’ Journal of Contemporary History 9, no. 3 (1974): 131–159, 137 and Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 440. 164 Gilbert Murray, letter to editor, Times, May 23, 1935.

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endorsing Murray’s perspective, Manning observed a few months after Murray’s letter was published, that Murray did not accept the Manchurian ‘set-back, as sobering though it was, as a reason to despair of the League’s adequacy elsewhere’.165 Yet Murray thought that there would be more than enough reason to despair of its adequacy should Great Britain, France and the rest of the League allow Mussolini to ‘set his will above the law’ when they had the power to stop him. Having observed that he was not ‘disposed to judge harshly’ the failure of the LON to stop the Japanese aggression and the reason why this was so, he stated the following: But the action of Italy towards Abyssinia threatens us with a catastrophe of an utterly different kind. One member of the League is openly planning against another member, under the eyes of all of Europe, aggression of the most extreme kind, and is claiming the right actually to prohibit any consideration of the matter by the League. If the League submits there is no law left between nations. The Covenant is gone…. I do not see what will be left of the Covenant if Signor Mussolini is allowed to…make war as if no League existed. Who will dare to speak of ‘cooperation to achieve international peace’ or ‘the prescription of open just and honourable relations between nations’? For those, if there are such persons in this country, who care nothing for what they call ‘ideal arguments,’ but think only in terms of immediate national convenience, I would suggest two other considerations. The nations of Europe are engaged at this moment in building a system of security based on a series of pacts of mutual assistance. Who will trust those pacts, who will trouble to fulfil them, if the Great Powers show at the very outset that they regard all such obligations as minor matters compared with the wishes of any one Great Power? What degree of trust will nations like Turkey or Persia, or the lesser States of Europe, put in the League? What will be the future value in foreign exchange of the word of Great Britain or France? And will it look well, so soon after the Council’s solemn condemnation of Germany for a breach of treaty for which, as your columns have shown, there were at least some extenuating circumstances, to condone and commit a far more flagrant breach of treaty for which no casuist has yet invented a shade of justification….

165 C. A. W. Manning, ‘The Future of the Collective System,’ in Problems of Peace Tenth Series: Anarchy or World Order, 57.

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What the world wants is to be sure that the members of the League mean to keep their Covenant. Then at last we shall have security—and also self-respect.166

Murray’s analysis of the situation was similar to that of Zimmern who too was inclined not to judge the LON overly harshly in respect to the Manchurian crisis (and also in respect to the Chaco War), given that its policing power was ‘obstructed, or rendered very difficult’ due to the absence of the United States. However, the Italo-Ethiopian conflict, Zimmern observed, was in a different category: it was occurring in a region where members of the LON ‘could, if they wished, make their authority felt instantly and decisively’. In particular, Zimmern drew attention to the fact that the aggressor’s lines of communication were ‘at the mercy of British sea-power.’ Like Murray, he considered that in relation to the Ethiopian crisis, the question confronting the LON was whether or not the rule of law applied to great and lesser powers alike. If the answer to this question was in the negative, that is, if it were held that the ‘writ’ of the League was ‘only to run to lesser powers,’ then the next question to ask must be the following: ‘what claim would…[the League]…have to the authority and to the dignity of law?’167

Peaceful Change The administrative meeting of the 1935 session of the ISC endorsed the recommendation of the conference’s programme committee that its next study cycle, which was to extend from the summer of 1935 to the summer of 1937, should have as its subject the ‘Peaceful Solution of Certain International Problems,’ or what became known in the following year as ‘Peaceful Change’.168 In a volume dedicated to the population dimension of the peaceful change question, Chalmers Wright, who attended the administrative meeting in his role as conference secretary, attempted to explain why that topic had been chosen. Chalmers Wright noted that with the possible exception of Berber, no other speaker at the conference in London in 1935 had endorsed Coppola’s claim that collective security was 166 Murray, letter to editor, Times, May 23, 1935. 167 Zimmern, International Government and the Rule of Law, 441. 168 ‘Address by Mr. Allan W. Dulles,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 464, and Maurice

Bourquin, preface to Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, xi.

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a false and dangerous idea. At the same time, he observed that no-one who listened to the debates at the conference could deny that Coppola’s ‘almost single-handed defiance’ of it was a factor in the decision to settle on the topic of peaceful change. According to Chalmers Wright, Coppola’s vehement denunciations (and doubtless also Berber’s mantra of concrete, realistic and political ), gave rise to a desire ‘to inquire more deeply into the nature of the gap between two apparently irreconcilable attitudes’ towards collective security ‘through initiating a study of “peaceful change”’.169 Yet it should not be thought that the push to initiate a study of peaceful change arose within the framework of the study meetings in London entirely spontaneously: it would appear that the selection of peaceful change as the subject for the 1935–1937 study cycle was orchestrated by the United States delegation to the conference. In addition to Dulles, this delegation included the well-connected figures of Armstrong, who as we saw was the editor of Foreign Affairs, and Jessup. In fact, in a footnote included in a report on the conference prepared by another American delegate, namely, Waldo G. Leland, for the American National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, Shotwell stated that it was ‘pertinent’ to note that the American delegation had decided ‘in their preliminary meeting’ that peaceful change was the topic that should ‘receive chief attention at the next meeting of the Conference.’170 As we have seen, Dulles touched on the issue of revisionism in his opening address. More pointed and more elaborate, however, were certain remarks contained within a memorandum written by Jessup and distributed in advance of the conference. This memorandum, which Leland stated was ‘one of the best (according to many the best),’ to come before the conference, ran to one hundred and fifty-seven pages. It was published by the American unit of the ISC, namely, the CFR for the benefit of the ISC under the heading of The United States and the Stabilization of Peace:

169 Chalmers Wright, ed., Population and Peace, 4n, and ‘Eighth International Studies Conference, London, 5–8 June 1935: List of Participants in the General Study Conference on Collective Security,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 492. 170 Report to the American National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation on the International Studies Conference, London, June 3–8, 1932, and on the meetings of the of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation, Geneva, July 10–12, 1935, by Waldo G. Leland, Paris, July 31, 1935, Conférence permanente des hautes études internatoinales, 1 July–31 October 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.t, UA.

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A Study of Collective Security.171 In its conclusion, Jessup beseeched the states of Europe to adopt a policy of peaceful change, simultaneously cautioning those states against having inflated expectations of what the United States was prepared to do in respect to the stabilisation of peace. In this regard, Jessup stated the following: The ‘stabilization of peace’ is not synonymous with ‘freezing the status quo.’ International relations are not static. Existing conditions and situations are not perfect. Possibilities of peaceful change are essential to collective security. The logic which traditionally characterises French thought, demands an alternative means of obtaining security before France will abandon reliance on arms. Peoples and Governments which are convinced of the righteousness of their demands for a change in conditions, will not abandon ultimate resort to the sword, unless they are convinced that the pen will be an effective instrument of reason. The shadows of the World War still adumbrate the next war…. The United States is not yet prepared to play a full role in world affairs. It is useless to ignore the fact. There is much that Europe could do to make more smooth the path of peace without reference to the action or inaction of the United States. The solutions of problems of minorities, of terrae irridentae, of the size of land forces and the rearmament of Germany, of spheres of influence in Africa—these and many others do not wait upon the United States. But tariffs, foreign exchanges, and all barriers to trade; naval armaments and the whole political problem of the Pacific and Far Eat—these and many other subjects are within the realm of vital American interest and probably American action…. The United States is indeed ready to make substantial contributions to the stabilisation of peace. Domestic difficulties make it impossible for the government to consider going further. International difficulties—particularly in relation to disarmament—have so far made it impossible for the government to go as far as it is willing to go.172

It would also appear that elements within the British delegation assisted with the American push for peaceful change to be the subject addressed during the conference’s next study-cycle. Toynbee certainly would have been in favour of adopting this topic as clearly would have been Mitrany. Notable also is the fact that in the course of a discussion on the prevention of war, Lytton stated that it was essential to establish ‘some method of peaceful 171 Ibid. 172 Philips C. Jessup, The United States and the Stabilisation of Peace, 148, 152.

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change’ as an ‘alternative to war,’ adding that he considered this topic ‘so important’ that he genuinely hoped that it would form the ‘basis of an entire conference’ in the future. A footnote to the conference proceedings announced that ‘in accordance with the wish expressed by Lord Lytton it was decided that the subject of the IXth and Xth International Studies Conferences (1936–1937) would be the study of Peaceful Change.’173 However, the pivotal figure in the British delegations in regard to the selection of this was Webster who in this matter was greatly assisted by Jessup. Both men played a leading role in the 1935 ISC’s programme committee when it met on 5 June and which, having settled on the subject, ‘prepared the formula defining the scope of the “peaceful change” study.’174 It should be noted that during the course of the discussion of the prevention of war, Jessup had urged an examination of ‘the broader problems involved in the question of change’ rather than simply treaty revision (an expression he thought should be dropped because of its negative connotations), in its juridical and political aspects.175 What Jessup urged was reflected in the terms of reference of the study established by the programme committee: it proposed that the ISC examine the ‘basic difficulties in, and procedures for, the peaceful solution of economic, social and territorial problems with special reference to questions of: (i) population, migration and colonisation and; (ii) markets and the distribution of raw materials’.176 These terms of reference were treated by the committee in a general fashion: there was no reference in them to the ‘specific national claims or aspirations’ which had been prompted by problems in the areas mentioned or the kind of changes to the status quo that were the subject of demands.177 Yet, as Chalmers Wright observed, specifying such particularities was unnecessary, an observation which he explained as follows: It may be presumed, however, that inasmuch as the ‘International Studies Conference is influenced in the choice of its subject by world opinion,’ the claims and changes which the Conference had in mind and which it apparently

173 ‘Prevention of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 261n. 174 Chalmers Wright, ed., Population and Peace, 20n, 330. 175 ‘Prevention of War: Discussion,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 269. 176 Fergus Chalmers Wright, foreword to Chalmers Wright, ed., Population and Peace, vii. 177 Chalmers Wright, ed., Population and Peace, 19–20.

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assumed to be common knowledge were those to which authoritative exponents of international affairs in various countries, and particularly in Great Britain, where the Conference was holding its session, were then directing their attention.178

According to Chalmers Wright, public opinion in 1935 was ‘fastened’ on the ‘grievances, real or alleged, of certain countries’.179 As André Touzet, aide-de-camp and chef du cabinet of the governor-general of French Indochina from 1916 to 1919, chef du cabinet of the Ministry of the Colonies from 1920 to 1924 and now Assistant Director of Finances of Indochina, noted in a book dedicated to Sarraut, the polemics in relation to those grievances tended to project the rhetoric of class warfare onto the international scene: ‘on the one hand, there would be the satisfied, well-provided, satiate, bourgeois, possessor nations, die Besitzende, die befriedigten Nationen, the sodisfatti, and, on the other, the unsatisfied nations, unprovided, hungry, proletarian nations, die Habenichste, the insodisfatti.’180 In the terminology which had acquired currency Englishspeaking countries, the world was allegedly divided between a ‘large number of “haves” and a few “have-nots”’.181 As Chalmers Wright observed, it was common knowledge that Germany, Italy and Japan were the principal have-not claimants and that the principal claim was the German ‘demand

178 Ibid., 20. See also Charles K. Webster, ‘The Problem of Peaceful Change,’ in C. A. W. Manning, ed., Peaceful Change: An International Problem (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1972), 4. Originally published in 1937. 179 Chalmers Wright, ed., Population and Peace, 20. 180 André Touzet, Le problème colonial et la paix du monde, vol. 1, Les Revendications colo-

niales allemandes (Paris: Sirrey, 1937), xxxvi–xxxvii. See also Chalmers Wright, ed., Population and Peace, 20. 181 André Touzet, 1937, quoted in Chalmers Wright, ed., Population and Peace, 20. See also Touzet, Le problème colonial et la paix du monde, vol. 1, Les Revendications coloniales allemandes, xxxvii. For André Touzet’s professional background, see ‘Appendix 1: Conference Membership and Committees,’ in William L. Holland and Kate L. Mitchell, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1936: Aims and Results of Social and Economic Policies in Pacific Countries, Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations, Yosemite National Park, California, 15–29 August 1936 (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1937), 436, and ‘André Touzet (1883–1956): Une carrière de haut fonctionnaire colonial entrecoupée d’une expérience malheureuse dans le privé,’ in Les entreprise coloniales françaises: Leurs dirigeants, leurs actionnaires, leur devenir; disparitions, reconversions, www.entreprises-coloniales.fr.

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for re-consideration of the colonial re-arrangements which had been made in 1919.’182

University Teaching of International Relations On the morning of 7 June, just before the conference’s closing meeting commenced, a meeting of professors took place under the following rubric: The University Teaching of International Relations. This was the first time since 1930 that the ISC had at one of its conferences fully addressed this topic. This is not to say the ISC had shown no interest in it in the intervening years. Since 1931 it had leant its support to the meetings of teachers of international relations that Zimmern organised under the auspices of the Geneva School of International Studies, meetings which were timed to coincide with the annual sessions of the assembly and which, according to Zimmern, elicited ‘great interest in university circles’. In this context, it should also be recalled that the ISC had collaborated in 1931 and 1933 with the LON’s Sub-Committee of Experts for the Instruction of Youth in the Aims and Ideals of the League, a sub-committee which had been renamed the Advisory Committee on League of Nations Teaching in 1935.183 Prior to 1935 and outside the framework of the ISC, conferences had been held in several countries at which were discussed problems concerning the method of teaching international relations, international law and certain related subjects. According to Zimmern, these conferences had given impetus to efforts to conduct further and more elaborate discussions of the university teaching of international relations within the framework of the ISC. In this regard, he drew attention to the regular meetings of teachers of international law and international relations held in the United States. He also drew attention to the International Conference on the Instruction in International Law and International Relations which was held at John Casimir University between 26 and 28 June 1934 and which was presided over by Ehrlich. Against the background of the success of the American congresses and that of the Lwów conference, and in view of a growing sense that it was time that the ISC examined once more the ‘nature and scope of the subject,’ the ISC’s executive committee decided at a meeting

182 Chalmers Wright, ed., Population and Peace, 20. 183 Zimmern ed., University Teaching of International Relations, 1. See also ‘Note,’

Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 68–69 (1936): 1–2.

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in December 1934 to place on the agenda of eighth session of the ISC an item providing for a discussion of the following subjects: the determination of the subject matter of international relations and the question of its place in the field of the social and political sciences.184 In an introductory report that he had prepared for the meeting on university teaching of international relations, Zimmern cited approvingly the definition given of international relations in the Examination Statutes of the University of Oxford: ‘The subject includes the study of both the relations between governments and between peoples, and of the principles underlying their development’.185 Zimmern noted in relation to this definition that the term peoples is vague: it can apply to individual citizens or subjects as well as to social groups ‘without a very determinate limitation, existing in the interior of states’ or even ‘overflowing the frontiers of states’. Equally vague, he added, is the term principle, as this may refer to scientific generalisations or imply rules having a normative value. Urging that the definition prescribed in Oxford’s examination statutes be taken in its greatest extent, Zimmern contended that it suggested that the study of international relations should focus, above all, on the relations between social groups. Those studying these relations, Zimmern maintained, should seek to throw into relief the ‘constant values’ that are a feature of them and establish rules of conduct based on these values. Such rules of conduct, Zimmern stated, are not scientific laws, but belong to another order entirely and depend on the ‘individual conscience.’186 In relation to the interactions among social groups, Zimmern observed that they gave rise to a vast array of social problems and that for this reason the study of international relation should not be closed to any field of human knowledge. Zimmern maintained that international relations encompassed a field of knowledge extending from the natural sciences to that of moral philosophy. For example, he stated that ‘certain notions of

184 Zimmern, ed., University Teaching of International Relations, 1–2. 185 Examination Statues, University of Oxford, quoted in W. E. C. Harrison, ‘The Univer-

sity Teaching of International Relations,’ Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 2, no. 3 (1936): 431–9, 434. The examination statutes of Oxford University also specified that the study concerned especially ‘the machinery and processes of international co-operation, including the organisation and activities of the League of Nations, to be studied in connection with twentieth century history’ (ibid.). See also Alfred Zimmern, ‘Rapport Introductif,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 57–58 (1935): 503–9, 504. 186 Zimmern, ‘Rapport Introductif,’ 504.

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biology or more exactly of medicine’ have a place in the study of international relations because they can explain the ‘growth of races and their diminution, the improvement of their physical character or their tendency to degenerate.’187 Zimmern observed that one must not leave out of the picture ‘the considerations or moral philosophy or religious principle’ that caused Francisco de Vitoria to ‘lay down that Christian duty and Natural Law were not bounded by latitude and longitude and that the “whole earth is in some sort one republic.’” Viewed in this light, Zimmern stated, international relations can identify itself with sociology, albeit sociology understood in the largest sense of that term. These two sciences, he continued, would then only differentiate themselves by their different emphases: sociology attached a great importance to discovering the ‘unity of human society’ whereas international relations stressed above all ‘the diversity of the various human groups’ and the influence these groups have on each other. International relations, Zimmern added, could also be assimilated to the study of history where history is approached in the way that Toynbee approached it in The Study of History: as ‘the description of avatars, of the development and interpenetration of diverse civilisations.’188 Thus, Zimmern made it clear that he did not regard international relations as a discrete discipline. Instead, he argued that the study of international relations should be approached via an extension of the field of vision of already existing disciplines: it was a ‘branch of studies.’189 Further, Zimmern wanted to insist that because of its multi-faceted character, the discipline of international relations was an ‘extremely difficult’ area of study and not at all a simple thing: it must address the fact of human diversity, the multiple links between the diverse human groups, and the multiple problems that arise as a result.190 It is the role of teachers of international relations, Zimmern affirmed, to induce students to consider their world in all its rich and disturbing complexity and, above all, to comprehend the ‘[a]ltogetherness (solidarisme) of public affairs’: to penetrate the mystery of the ‘One (unité) in the Many, the Many (pluralité) in the One,’ which, he 187 Ibid. 188 Alfred Zimmern, ‘Introductory Report to the Discussions in 1935,’ in Zimmern, ed., The University Teaching of International Relations, 7–8, and Zimmern, ‘Rapport Introductif,’ 504. 189 Zimmern, ‘Rapport Introductif,’ 503. 190 Ibid., 504, 507.

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stated, ‘has been in the minds of the great political thinkers since the Greek age and must be more than ever before our minds in the first generation of the League of Nations.’191 Although he differed from Zimmern in that he was firmly of the view that of international relations formed a ‘single and unique subject,’ Manning agreed with Zimmern on the point that international relations formed part of an ‘ensemble of social phenomena’. On this basis, he contended similarly to Zimmern that in order to understand international relations one must draw on an ‘infinite variety of sources’: law, political science, psychology and so on.192 By contrast, others present at the meeting on university teaching took issue with Zimmern’s avowedly sociological conception of international relations on the ground that it over-reached itself: it potentially encompassed the whole gamut of relations among peoples.193 For example, Vranek and Mantoux maintained that the subject matter of the discipline of international relations should largely be restricted to the political, legal and economic relations among states, the former insisting in addition on the importance of studying the various organisations which affect the relations among states and the latter commending the following three methods of study: the juridical method; the historical method; and the method of economic research.194 As did Mantoux, Ehrlich maintained that one must approach the study of international relations above all from the point of view of international law. The latter argued strenuously against the idea of treating international relations as a branch of sociology, contending that the study international relations should be undertaken from a strictly scientific perspective. Students in the field, he affirmed, should seek to determine what are the phenomena which give rise to international relations and to research the causes of these phenomena, that is, the underlying laws to which they owe their existence. Ehrlich observed that this was the procedure followed by every science and by what he termed the new science of international relations. He declared that he seized on every 191 Zimmern, 1935, quoted in Harrison, ‘The University Teaching of International Relations,’ 435, and Zimmern, ‘Rapport Introductif,’ 508. 192 ‘L’Enseignement des Relations Internationales Universitaire: Réunion tenue à Londres le 7 Juin 1938,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 57–58 (1935): 483–503, 498–9. See also David Long, ‘C. A. W. Manning and the Discipline of International Relations,’ The Round Table 94, no. 1 (2005): 77–96, 79. 193 Zimmern, ‘Rapport Introductif,’ 504. 194 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 57–58 (1935), 486, 490.

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opportunity to insist on the existence of this new science, adding that this was for reasons that were theoretical and, at least in the measure that the academic situation in Europe was concerned, practical. Having noted the existence of a few chairs of international relations in England, a department of international relations at the LSE, the Chaire de la Paix at Lyon and that in academic institutions in the United States international relations was treated in a number of different ways, Ehrlich stated that it was very important to ceaselessly repeat the point that a science of international relations had come into existence: it was a key means of ensuring that this field of study occupied a place in the organisation of different universities, especially those on the European continent. Based on the contention that it is very difficult to determine in an intellectually satisfying way what is meant by the term sociology, Ehrlich asserted that it would be quite dangerous to employ the term sociology in connection with the science of international relations: the cause of that science was best served by passing over the term sociology in silence.195 Most present at the meeting emphasised the importance of the study of history although there were disputes as to how far into the past the study of international relations should extend. Vranek suggested that the peace treaties concluded at the end of the war marked a historical turning point and that the frequency and intensity of relations between states since they were concluded suggested that 1919 should be the starting point. Mantoux stated that the view at the Graduate Institute of International Studies was that the period to study commenced in 1918, adding that if instructors there delved further into the past it was always in order to try to explain certain facts. Webster suggested that the study should commence with the year 1814, insisting that what he regarded as the extraordinary ‘contempt’ on the part of political theoreticians for the historical study of international relations in the period before the war was ‘one of the causes of the Great War.’196 William Eric Craven Harrison a professor of history at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, observed half in jest and in an allusion to the millenia-spanning breadth of A Study of History, that if Toynbee had

195 Ibid., 487–8, 493. 196 Ibid., 486, 490–1, 493, 495.

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his way then the history of international relations would commence with prehistoric times.197 If there was disagreement as to its exact nature and scope, there was agreement that international studies had acquired in recent years ‘institutional force’ in Britain, Europe and North America. As the meeting noted, this was above all the case in the United States where the achievements in the field, as Harrison declared, dwarfed anything that had been achieved in Europe ‘except perhaps Geneva itself and the living reality of the subject there.’ As illustrated by the highly acclaimed Ware study, the vibrancy of international studies in the United States was put down to a ‘more insistent urge to experiment’ assisted by a ‘tidal wave of endowment’.198 There was also general agreement that the study of international relations had a cultural end: ‘the preparation of an educated élite for a sympathetic understanding of other cultures, civilizations…and the reinforcement of public opinion against appeals to prejudice.’199 It was with this end in view, that Zimmern emphasised in his introductory report that the ‘intellectual qualities and cast of mind’ that are indispensable to the student wanting to undertake study in the field of international relations are not confined to ‘a small group of nations or a particular culture.’ Western peoples, he stated, do not enjoy a ‘monopoly’ on these attributes, no more than do the peoples of the ‘continent where the League of Nations finds its seat.’ Such attributes, Zimmern insisted, are to be found among all peoples whatever be their ‘degree of development,’ such as among ‘the descendants of the ancient civilisations of the Far East’ and the ‘young African races’.200 In terms of the geographical reach of the study there was little said. However, Leland, in his capacity as secretary of the Council of American Learned Societies, observed that in the United States people had come to the realisation that ‘the earth is round and we must inform ourselves more and more completely about all its parts, and not simply about the ones that

197 Ibid., 495. See also Harrison, ‘The University Teaching of International Relations,’

434. 198 Harrison, ‘The University Teaching of International Relations,’ 433. 199 Report to the American National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation on the Inter-

national Studies Conference, London, June 3–8, 1935, and on the meetings of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation, Geneva, July 10–20, 1935, by Waldo G. Leland, Paris, July 31, 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.t, UA; and Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 57– 58 (1935), 501. 200 Zimmern, ‘Rapport Introductif,’ 507.

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the occidental nations occupy and that dominate the occidental civilisation.’ Leland also thought it highly ‘pertinent’ to point out that the United States finds itself situated between Europe on the one side, and the Far East on the other. Leland considered it unfortunate that American citizens knew much less about the Far East than Europe, given that the United States was destined to enter into much closer relations with its Asian neighbours. In light of this, he stated, it was important that the generation then passing through American universities emerged with a better comprehension of the Far East than had his generation. Leland pointed out that educational authorities in the United States were currently applying themselves to the task of introducing into the teaching of colleges courses that treated of ‘Far Eastern questions,’ adding that efforts were also being made to ‘form a small corps of scholars capable of directing research in such domains as the art, history, philosophy and civilisation of China and Japan.’201

A Turning Point In a report of the meeting prepared for the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Harrison suggested that he found the discussion of instruction in the field of international relations somewhat lacking. A member of the Canadian branch of the IPR, Harrison lamented the fact that at the meeting on instruction, ‘nothing’ had been ‘said…about oriental studies’ and that participants were ‘without the benefit of opinion either from China or from Japan’.202 Overall however, Harrison considered that the discussion of instruction in London was conducted ‘very successfully’.203 In regard to the study conference, Harrison and the three other members of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs who participated in it, reported that the 1935 session of the ISC was the ‘most successful’ of those held up to date. Noting that the ISC until this point had been largely focussed on European problems, they stated on behalf of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs that should the ISC obtain increased support from institutions in the British Dominions and other non-European countries, then it ‘could become an effective body for the study and discussion of world problems as distinct from regional problems.’ As a body

201 Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 57–58 (1935), 498. 202 Harrison, ‘The University Teaching of International Relations,’ 436. 203 Ibid., 431.

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devoted to world problems, the Canadians contended, the ISC would be able fill a role that no other body, not even the IPR given its necessary bias towards the Pacific, had been able to fill in relation to the study of international affairs.204 At the same time, the Canadian group observed that the ISC had a number of ‘defects’. Above all, the group was critical of the tendency of certain participants to act as representatives of their respective countries. It was in light of this that the executive committee of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs wrote to the ISC’s secretariat, namely, the International Relations and Social Sciences Section of the IIIC, expressing its hope that at future conferences, participants would ‘conform to both the letter and spirit of the rules’: they would behave in conformity with its ‘unofficial and scientific character.’205 This complaint would be issued with considerably greater force in subsequent years, thereby bringing into question the conference’s very future. That aside, at the time of the conclusion of the 1935 conference, the general consensus was that London had been a turning point and that the future of the conference was bright. Somewhat in contrast to the Canadian group’s more critical assessment, a report issued by Leland on the conference for the benefit of the American National Committee of Intellectual Cooperation was glowing: it hailed Bourquin’s final report as ‘masterly’ and praised the many ‘thoughtful and able’ memoranda that had been submitted to the conference. Leland concluded that it was ‘impossible not to believe that the conference as a permanent institution has justified itself’. There was no reason to doubt, he declared, that the ‘documentation and discussion should not come to serve as the basis of doctrine first among students of politics and eventually among those who are responsible for policies.’ Although he noted that ‘political considerations and motives’ were not absent from the discussion in the study meetings, unlike the Canadian delegation he did not suggest that they were not overly prevalent; indeed, he stated that an ‘encouraging degree of objectivity’ had been realised. Leland’s report further noted that in the expectation of its expansion, both in terms of its membership and field of vision, the ISC’s 1935 administrative meeting had expressed the hope that the secretarial service offered to it by the IIIC

204 Draft Report on the Work of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs: 1935– 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-I-15.c, UA. 205 Ibid.

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would be considerably strengthened with a view to the ‘better coordination of studies…and to the preparation of the conference’.206 In relation to the glowing nature of Leland’s assessment of the ISC, it may be of relevance that Leland would serve as Shotwell’s substitute at the ICIC’s annual meeting in July 1935. However, irrespective of the grounds for Leland’s enthusiastic endorsement of the work of the ISC in the report he submitted to the American Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, there can be little doubt that this endorsement helped ensure that the hope expressed by the ISC’s administrative meeting in 1935 in regard to the strengthening of its secretariat was soon fulfilled. Due to the apparent success of the London conference, the Rockefeller Foundation, which had supported the work of the IIIC’s International Relations and Social Sciences Service over the previous few years, awarded the IIIC a further grant. This grant allowed Bonnet to enlarge the staff of the that service through appointing three new secretaries, one of them being Vranek, who up until the time of his appointment to the IIIC remained a member of the BCCIS. The same grant also allowed the IIIC to establish four international study groups, each equipped with their own secretary-rapporteurs, to deal with the different facets of the topic of peaceful change.207

206 Report to the American National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation on the Inter-

national Studies Conference, London, June 3–8, 1935, and on the meetings of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation, Geneva, July 1–20, 1935, by Waldo G. Leland, Paris, July 31, 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.t, UA. 207 Ninth International Studies Conference, Madrid, 27–30 May 1936: Notes on the Agenda of the Administrative Meeting, Neuvième conf´erence des hautes e´ tudes internationales tenue a`Madrid, 27–30 May 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-IX-1, UA, and Bonnet to Raymond Leslie Buell, 29 November 1935, Conférence permanente des hautes études internatoinales: Geneva Research Centre, correspondence concerning the Conférence permanente des hautes études internatoinales until 1 June 1939, AG-IICI-K.-I_16.a, UA. The other two appointments were Leo Gross, an Austrian, and Alfred R. Max, a Frenchman. Gross had the responsibility for the development of liaison between member institutions of the ISC and Vranek had responsibility for some of the special activities of the International Relations and Social Sciences Service of the IIIC. Chalmers Wright, who had been head of this service, resigned from the institute in December 1935. He temporarily returned in 1936 to help organise the Ninth International Studies Conference. Chalmers Wright was replaced by Oliver Jackson (a Briton) in February 1937 as secretary of the conference. See Henri Bonnet to Giovanni Gentile, 11 February 1937, Conférence permanente des hautes études internatoinales, 1 November 1935–18 November 1937, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.u, UA. See also IIIC, International Studies Conference: Origins Functions Organisation, 62–3, 74.

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A Hardening of Attitudes The contempt expressed by Coppola for the LON’s collective security system and his call to arms against the supposed forces of eternal barbarism at the 1935 conference gave a foretaste of what was soon to unfold albeit in a barbaric form within the realm of international affairs. On 3 October, Italy began its invasion of Ethiopia, during the course of which it deployed chemical weapons against what Fascist journalists, by way of celebrating the use of gas bombs, referred to as the ‘“barbarous” enemy’.208 That the regime would embark on such a course should not have been a surprise given the colonial ambitions it had long articulated and the indications given by members of the regime that it viewed war as an acceptable means of realising these ambitions. Yet at the same time, the regime had managed to carve out for itself a somewhat respectable image at the LON. This was not least due to the efforts of figures such as Rocco, to whom gracious tributes were paid within the context of the LON for his role as vice-president of the ICIC and apparent devotion to the cause of intellectual cooperation, following his death some weeks before the Seventh Assembly met in September 1935.209 A positive appraisal of the Fascist regime’s international role was offered in an article that appeared in the LNU’s broadsheet Headway in October 1934. Therein the author claimed that Mussolini’s differences with Geneva had arisen simply because he had been ‘over-impulsive to hasten international co-operation’ and had ‘embarked on short cuts of his own’ when the LON’s ‘machinery seemed to him too slow.’ It is also noteworthy that there was a view abroad that Mussolini, as stated in the same article, was ‘a realist’; the author in question opined that the Duce had shown patience in internal affairs and…[would]…learn to do the same in foreign.’210 Donald S. Birn observes that in publishing such pro-Italian sentiments, the editors of Headway were attempting to demonstrate their political impartiality: the LNU was not, after all, a party-political organisation and it was ‘sensitive 208 R. J. B. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy: Life under the Dictatorship (London: Allen Lane, 205), 298. 209 ‘Partie Technique du Rapport de M. Herriot à la XVI Assemblé de la S. D. N,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 59 (1935): 584–91, 591, and ‘Activité de l’organisation: Commission International de la Coopération Intellectuelle, 1936, ouverture de la session,’ Coopération Intellectuelle, no. 70 (1936): 4–8, 4. 210 An Oxford Liberal, ‘Mussolini and War,’ Headway 16, no. 1 (1934): 192–3. See also Birn, ‘The League of Nations Union and Collective Security,’ 136.

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to charges of bias from its Conservative members and critics.’211 Nonetheless, it is testimony to the fact that the Fascist regime enjoyed a measure of international respectability up until the time of Ethiopian crisis that in February 1935, Headway, in noting that there had been ‘fighting on the Italo-Abyssinian frontier with a heavy loss of life,’ advised its readers that hostility to the Fascist regime and deep suspicions about its leader did not ‘justify the assumption by excited participants in the present unfortunate controversy that a Great Power is brutally trampling in the dust the rights of a primitive people.’ Indeed, as late as June 1935, against the background of Italy’s notional acceptance of arbitration, Headway advised its readers that to prejudge Italy would be ‘false to the League spirit, and would do as grave damage to the League cause as any action Italy has been alleged to contemplate’; it then commended Italy for its ‘admission of the League’s competence and of her own duty to conciliate or arbitrate,’ describing this as a ‘loyal League Service’.212 Following Italy’s brazen breach of the covenant however, the LNU adopted a stern attitude. Significantly, in the context of the Ethiopian crisis the LNU exhibited a more punitive understanding of collective security than it had at the time of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Birn notes that at the time of the Japanese aggression, many in the LNU still conceived of collective security in terms of the ‘power of world opinion and pacific means of settling disputes.’213 By contrast, the invasion of Ethiopia saw the LNU shift to embrace an understanding of collective security which encompassed the use of military sanctions. This was even though many of its rank and file members had yet to comprehend the nexus between collective security in the form of military sanctions and the need for rearmament, a nexus of which LNU leaders such as Cecil and Murray were well aware given the expectation that should it become necessary to apply such sanctions to Germany, the consequence would very likely be war.214

211 Birn, ‘The League of Nations Union and Collective Security,’ 136–7. 212 ‘The League Helps,’ Headway 17, no. 2 (1935), 22, and ‘Italy and Abyssinia,’ Headway

17, no. 6 (1935), 102. See also Birn, ‘The League of Nations Union and Collective Security,’ 136–7. 213 Birn, ‘The League of Nations Union and Collective Security,’ 135. 214 Ibid., 137–9. On British and American reaction to the Ethiopian invasion, see also

Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915–1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2005), 396–7. Martin Ceadel notes that unlike David Davies, Murray was not at first concerned by the League’s ‘lack of military muscle’ as he thought the pressure of public opin-

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In June 1935, Simon’s replacement as foreign secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, decided that Mussolini’s ambitions for Ethiopia needed to be checked. Eden, as minister in charge of League of Nations affairs, was thus despatched to Rome to convey to Mussolini a proposal according to which Italy would ‘receive only the desert province of Ogaden and undefined economic concessions.’215 Mussolini refused the proposal outright. Angered by the British stance, the Duce insisted that Italian intervention in Ethiopia was no different from British intervention in Egypt or French intervention in Morocco. Mussolini resented the fact that he seemed to be being placed under a degree of pressure that had not been placed on Japan.216 The British government sought French assistance in pressuring Mussolini, but the French had no intention of sacrificing their alliance with Italy on the altar of British interests in Africa and the Mediterranean. This was especially the case in the light of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement which had been concluded on June 18 and which ‘strengthened the German position with regard to the French alliance system’.217 This agreement, which ran contrary to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, was reviled in France as ‘an act of supreme treachery.’218 Yet as the British threatened the possibility of withdrawing from continental European affairs unless French cooperation against Mussolini was forthcoming, Laval (who was memorably described by Vansittart as reeking of ‘la pourriture’ and as ‘one of the few [rotters] in whom the microscope has revealed nothing but more teeming decomposition’), conceded some ground: Britain may have had the luxury of withdrawing from continental affairs but France did not have the luxury of allowing that to happen.219

ion and moral sanctions were sufficient. However, after the Japanese seizure of Manchuria, he came to accept that the LNU ‘had been guilty during the 1920s “of not grasping firmly this nettle of security”’. Martin Ceadel, ‘Gilbert Murray and International Politics,’ in Christopher Stray, ed., Gilbert Murray Reassessed: Hellenism, Theatre and International Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 233–5. 215 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 347. 216 Ibid. 217 Ibid., 349. 218 Elizabeth Wiskemann, Europe of the Dictators 1919–1945 (Glasgow: Fontana/Collins,

1976), 111. See also Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 349. 219 Vansittart, Lessons of My Life, 45.

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On 31 July, against the breakdown of negotiations between Ethiopia and Italy, the council finally managed to set in motion the Italo-Ethiopian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to inquire into the Walwal incident and other subsequent incidents. It also authorised France, Great Britain and Italy to hold a three-power conference in Paris in order to negotiate a peaceful settlement.220 Britain and France proposed to Mussolini that Italy be allowed to colonise parts of Ethiopia and that it might enjoy, under the auspices of the LON, a degree of political and economic influence in its other parts. On 18 August, this proposal was rejected by Mussolini who viewed it as simply a ruse in view of the sway held by Britain and France at the LON.221 On 3 September, the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission announced that the Walwal incident was due to an ‘unfortunate chain of circumstances’ and that neither the Italian government nor the Ethiopian government were responsible for that clash and for the minor incidents that followed.222 The following day, at a meeting of the council, Aloisi raised grievances against Ethiopia completely unrelated to the Walwal incident. Declaring that ‘Italy’s dignity as a civilised nation would be deeply wounded were she to continue a discussion in the League on a footing of equality with Ethiopia’ and that Italy reserved ‘full liberty to adopt any measures that may become necessary to ensure the safety of its colonies and to safeguard its interests,’ he presented the council with a detailed memorandum that ostensibly proved that Ethiopia was a failed state which was unable to fulfil its obligations under the covenant.223 The memorandum 220 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 407 and Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 438. 221 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 350; Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 438; and Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 407. 222 ‘The Walwal Incident (Ethiopia/Italy) (1935),’ Yearbook of the International Law Commission 2, no. 1 (1978), 184. 223 LON, OJ, 16, no. 11 (1935), 1137; Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 438–9, ‘Appendix I (6): Documents Relating to the League Covenant and Its Application in the Italo-Ethiopian War: Report of the Council Committee on the Applicability of Article 16 in the Italo-Ethiopian Hostilities, October 1935,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 206. At the council meeting of September 4, Aloisi approvingly recalled the words of the Australian delegate, Sir Joseph Cook, during the discussion on Ethiopia s admission to the League. Cook ‘said that the admission into the League of peoples in a backward state of civilisation was difficult to justify when “similar admission was refused, and with good reason, to mandated territories. It was the Covenant and, indeed, the Peace Treaty which made the clear distinction between different degrees of civilisation.” He added that “every

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described Ethiopia as a ‘backward and savage country’; indeed, it claimed that Ethiopia was ‘hardly a country at all, but rather a group of tribes and peoples loosely, though brutally, held together by a tyrannous Emperor foreign to, and hated by, most of them.’ Through supposedly proving that Ethiopia was not really a state within the terms and in the spirit of the covenant, the Italian government would be in a position to claim that it was not acting in violation of that charter but was rather reinforcing it through ‘purifying the League from one of its unworthiest members.’224 The attempt at justifying the Italian action on the basis that the nation of Ethiopia was unworthy of LON membership and, indeed, was hardly a nation at all, was highly reminiscent of another of the tactics employed by Japan at the council in relation to Manchuria: the claim that China was not really a state within the meaning of the covenant. This last point aside, according to Madariaga, Rome’s attempted justification for its action was met at the council with ‘several lines of dialectical trenches’.225 The British delegation pointed out that Italy itself bore a large responsibility for Ethiopia’s membership of the LON as Italy, after France, was the leading proponent of its admission in 1923. Responding to the Italian arguments concerning Ethiopia’s unworthiness, arguments which drew inspiration from those mounted by Britain in opposing Ethiopia’s admission a dozen years earlier, the British delegation recalled the words of Count Bonin Longare, who, extolling the country’s virtues, observed in 1923 that Ethiopia was the ‘oldest of Christian nations, direct heir of the Crown of

year States entrusted with mandates were being questioned on the treatment of the natives as to what wages were paid, what kind of food, clothing, housing was provided. If Ethiopia were admitted into the League, it would be in a position to question Australia as to the treatment of the natives in New Guinea, although those natives were in a much better position than the natives of Ethiopia.” …The Australian delegate was not mistaken. While the League Covenant states that the well-being and development of backward peoples form “a sacred trust of civilisation[,]” while the treaties lay down the fundamental guarantees to be required of Governments[,] Members of the League of Nations[,] and the International Labour Office in order to ensure a minimum of rights, well-being and equitable treatment for all their nationals, the terrible scourge of slavery still exists in Ethiopia. Whole populations of vast areas conquered by her in the past fifty years are still decimated by raids and subjected to slavery in all its cruellest forms. Civilised nations must refuse friendship with a State which allows such customs to continue. To claim that Members of the League are bound to observe the rules of the Covenant in their relations with a Member who has always persistently failed to observe them is contrary to every principle of right and justice.’ LON, OJ, 16, no. 11 (1935), 1137. 224 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 162. 225 Ibid., 165.

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the Queen of Sheba…[and]… the uninterrupted outpost of Christian civilization on the African continent’.226 It was pointed out that even assuming that Ethiopia were unworthy of LON membership, there was no mechanism for dealing with the situation outside of ‘straining’ the meaning of Article 19 in regard to the revision of treaties. As was further pointed out, any attempt to manage the situation via Article 19 would be greeted with an uproar in several European capitals, not least of all Paris. It was also the view of other council members that even if Ethiopia ‘were so bad as to need a tutor’ (although in the view of the British ‘things were not too bad’ and were ‘becoming better’ in Ethiopia and the Emperor was ‘doing his best’), it was not obvious that the tutor should be Italy. Finally, the Italian representative was told that even if one did accept that Italy was the most appropriate tutor, it was not obvious why the tutorial should take the form of conquest.227

The Committee of Five In light of the Italian defiance, Mussolini having told domestic audiences and foreign reporters that Italy would ‘pursue her African designs “with Geneva, without Geneva or against Geneva,”’ the council accepted the Ethiopian request that the dispute be addressed under Article 15: as a dispute ‘likely to lead to a rupture.’228 On 4 September, the council appointed a Committee of Five, charging it with the task of effecting a settlement of the dispute under paragraph 3 of Article 15. This committee was composed of the first delegates of Great Britain, France, Poland, Turkey and Spain. The first delegate of this last, namely, Madariaga, was appointed the committee’s chair, an appointment which was illustrative of the fact that Spain in its republican guise was ‘often chosen to lead League efforts when

226 Ibid., 162–3. 227 Ibid., 163, 165–6. 228 Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 439. Henderson B. Braddick writes that while trying to mobilise the League ‘in the name of collective security,’ the British also made ‘further efforts to bargain with the Duce.’ New proposals for the settlement of the dispute, albeit once more at a cost to Ethiopia, were put to Mussolini between 12 and 18 September. Mussolini dismissed these new proposals as ‘not only unacceptable but derisory.’ Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 350.

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a “neutral” state was needed,’ Spain being a power of some influence but not a great power.229 Between 4 September and 3 October the council met almost continuously.230 Against the background of these meetings and having sent a fleet of warships into the Mediterranean, Hoare declared in a speech at the LON on 11 September that Britain would adhere to its collective security obligations. In his speech, Hoare stated the following: In conformity with its precise and explicit obligations, the League stands, and my country stands with it, for the collective maintenance of the Covenant in its entirety, and particularly for steady and collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression. The attitude of the British nation in the last few weeks [in the form of the results of the Peace Ballot] has clearly demonstrated the fact that this is no variable and unreliable sentiment, but a principle of international conduct to which they and their Government hold with firm, enduring and universal persistence.231

This speech was seen as astonishing at the time because of the British tendency to minimise its collective security obligations and downplay the LON’s role as an instrument of coercion. However, Braddick suggests that Hoare’s speech of 11 September did not in fact signal that the British government had suddenly shifted its position: that in the case of Hoare’s speech, just as in the case of the display of naval strength in the Mediterranean, the British government was bluffing.232 Gathorne-Hardy noted that on the day before Hoare delivered his speech in Geneva, Hoare had sought Laval’s counsel and, according to Laval, the upshot of this was as follows: ‘We found ourselves instantaneously in agreement upon…ruling out everything that might lead to war,’ including military sanctions, a naval

229 René Wadlow, ‘Salvador Madariaga: Conscience of the League of Nations,’ The Federalist Debate 22, no. 1 (2009): 1–3, 1. http://www.federalistdebate.org/index.php/ component/k2/itemlist/category/16-year-xxii-number-1-march-2009, and Madariaga, The World’s Design, 165n. 230 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 407. 231 LON, special supplement, OJ 40, no. 138, 46. For the Peace Ballot, see Gathorne-

Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 408–10. 232 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 411.

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blockade and the closure of the Suez Canal. Indeed, which Laval claimed that the closure of the canal was never even contemplated.233 Gathorne-Hardy maintained that Laval’s account of his conversation with Hoare was incorrect and that at no time did Hoare pledge ‘himself permanently to exclude military sanctions’.234 Braddick, however, endorses the Laval interpretation of the meeting, noting also that it was the belief at Whitehall that the majority of member states would oppose military action because their essential interests were not at stake. Hoare and Neville Chamberlain expected that no more than limited economic sanctions would be imposed in the event of LON sanctions.235 In regard to this last point, an important qualification enunciated by Hoare on 11 September should be noted: he insisted in his speech at the that the provision of security had to be a genuinely collective exercise. He told the assembly that ‘[i]f risks for peace are to be run, they must be run by all. The security of the many cannot be assured solely by the efforts of a few, however powerful they may be.’236 The task confronting the Committee of Five was most difficult in that it was trying to resolve a conflict which was wholly confected on one side and which, as the chair of this committee observed, could ‘not even be defined without incoherence’.237 In truth, what the council and its committee was trying to do, as the committee’s chair also stated, was to ‘marshal diplomatic and moral forces to avoid a military conquest of Abyssinia and a defeat of the Covenant.’238 Crafted with these imperatives in view and intended as bases for negotiation, the committee’s proposals involved significant concessions to Italy: it proposed on 24 September, ‘satisfaction to Italy at Abyssinian expense, both in territories and political control.’239 It also proposed ‘League assistance to Ethiopia in developing police, economic activities, finances, and public services.’240 Madariaga observed that this 233 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 411, and Pierre Laval, 1935,

quoted ibid. 234 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 411. 235 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 351–2. 236 LON, special supplement, OJ 40, no. 138, 44. 237 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 166. 238 Ibid. 239 Ibid. 240 Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 45.

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second proposal was in practical terms one of ‘satisfaction to Italy, since it was expressly and tacitly admitted that most of the “League” experts would be of Italian nationality.’241 The committee even proposed the reorganisation of the ‘spheres of influence of Great Britain, France and Italy for the benefit of Italy.’242 Although Ethiopia assented to the committee’s proposals as bases for negotiations, they were flatly rejected by Italy, the Italian representative, namely, Aloisi, declaring at the council on 22 September in response to the suggestions of the Committee of Five ‘that a case like Ethiopia cannot be settled by the means provided by the Covenant.’243 In declaring this, Aloisi was repeating a claim made in a lengthy memorandum which the Italian government had submitted to the council on 11 September and which contained the following statement: ‘Since this question affects vital interests and is of primary importance to Italian security and civilization,’ the Italian government ‘would be failing in its most elementary duty, did it not cease once and for all to place any confidence in Ethiopia, reserving full liberty to adopt any measures that may become necessary to insure the safety of its colonies and to safeguard its own interests.’244 On 26 September, under paragraph 4 of Article 15 and in recognition of the fact that the process of conciliation under Article 15 paragraph 3 had been exhausted, the council proceeded to draft a report recommending what it deemed to be a ‘right and proper’ resolution of the dispute. Therein it proposed that the League provide assistance to Ethiopia to improve its financial, economic and political conditions. The Ethiopian government acceded to this proposal, however, true to form, Rome rejected it, asserting that it did not ‘provide the “minimum basis” for the constructive realisation of the “rights and vital interests of Italy.”’245 On 3 October, the Italian government informed the LON that it had ‘authorised the High Command

241 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 166. 242 Ibid., 1. 243 ‘Appendix I (6): Report of the Council Committee on the Applicability of Article 16 in the Italo-Ethiopian Hostilities, October 1935,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 206. 244 League of Nations, Dispute between Ethiopia and Italy, Memorandum of the Italian Government, 1935, quoted in Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 46. 245 Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 439.

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in Eritrea, in view of the general mobilisation in Abyssinia, “to take the necessary measures of self-defence.”’246

Italy Condemned Ethiopia On 5 October with the expected Italian aggression underway, a development which caused President Roosevelt to recognise ‘war as existing for the purposes of applying the Neutrality Act of August 31, 1935,’ a Committee of Thirteen (which included all the members of the council with the exception of the parties to the dispute and which was also chaired by Madariaga), issued a report which provided a detailed account of the dispute and an examination of the case made by Italy in its memorandum of 11 September and the response to that case by the Ethiopian government on 14 September. This report was accepted by all members of the council bar Italy.247 Article 15 paragraph 6 of the covenant provided that if a report of the council was unanimously agreed to by members of the council other than the representatives of one or more of the parties to a dispute, the members of the LON agree that they ‘will not go to war with any party to the dispute which complies with the recommendations of the report.’248 As the Ethiopian government immediately accepted the council report, the members of the LON, Italy there included, were from that point on ‘bound not to go to war against…Ethiopia.’249 Noting that from the beginning of the dispute the Ethiopian government had ‘sought a settlement by peaceful means’ and that it had ‘appealed to the procedures of the Covenant,’ the report concluded by stating that in view of the ‘circumstances in which hostilities had broken out between Ethiopia and Italy… any violation of the Covenant should immediately be brought to an end.’250 On 5 October, the council, having heard statements by the representatives of Ethiopia and Italy and ‘taking cognizance of the grave facts before it,’ established another committee, charging it with studying and preparing 246 Ibid., 439–40. 247 Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 46. 248 ‘Appendix 3: Covenant of the League of Nations 29 April 1919,’ in United Nations

Library at Geneva, League of Nations Archives, The League of Nations 1920–1946, 164. 249 Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 46. 250 League of Nations, Report of the Council Under Article 15, par. 4 of the Covenant,

October 7, 1935, supplement, American Journal of International Law 30, no. 1 (1936): 1–26, 26.

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a report on the Italo-Ethiopian hostilities subsequent to 2 October.251 Composed of the first delegates of Britain, Chile, Denmark, France, Romania and Portugal and chaired by the first delegate of this last, what was called the Committee of Six submitted its report on 7 October.252 The report of this committee found that the Italian claim that a case like Ethiopia could not be settled by the means provided covenant disregarded the provisions of the covenant and also that of the Pact of Paris; it flatly rejected in light of these provisions the notion that Italy was free to determine matters of self-defence for itself.253 It declared the following: (d) Without prejudice to the other limitations to their right to have recourse to war, the members of the League are not entitled, without having first complied with the provisions of Articles 12, 13, and 15, to seek a remedy by war for grievances they consider they have against other members of the League. The adoption by a State of measures of security on its own territory and within the limits of its international agreements, does not authorise another State to consider itself free from its obligations under the Covenant. (e) The Pact of Paris of August 27, 1928, to which Italy and Ethiopia are parties, also condemns ‘recourse to war for the solution of international controversies’ and binds the parties to the Pact to seek by pacific means ‘the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts, of whatever nature or whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them.’254

The committee thus concluded in its final paragraph that ‘a state of war existed and that it had been resorted to by Italy “in disregard of its covenant under Article 12 of the Covenant of the League of Nations.”’255 It further concluded that Italy had violated the Pact of Paris, notwithstanding the

251 ‘Appendix I (6): Report of the Council Committee on the Applicability of Article 16 in the Italo-Ethiopian Hostilities, October 1935,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 203–4. 252 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 167. 253 Wright ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 52. See also Brownlie,

International Law and the Use of Force by States, 243. 254 ‘Report of the League of Nations Council Committee, 7 October 1935,’ supplement, American Journal of International Law 30, no. 1 (1936): 37–40, 39. 255 ‘Appendix I (6): Report of the Council Committee on the Applicability of Article 16 in the Italo-Ethiopian Hostilities, October 1935,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 207, and Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 52.

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Italian claim that Italy had signed this pact with ‘the same reservations as Great Britain, these reservations applying “to Africa and certain parts of the Empire,” a claim which was clearly wrong in respect to both states in that no reservations featured in the text of the pact.256 Indeed, the committee found that Italy had broken four pacts in total, meaning that Italy had outdone the efforts of Japan in relation to Manchuria as Japan in that context had only broken three. Although regarding Italy’s obligations under the covenant as the most significant in regard to its action against Ethiopia followed closely by its obligations under the Pact of Paris, the committee made a point of noting that Italy had violated the Italo-Ethiopian Treaty of Friendship of 1928 and an agreement sealed in 1906 by which ‘she pledged herself to consult with England and France in relation to Abyssinia.’257 It is important to point out that in recognising that a state of war existed, the report set a precedent, that is, it had declared that ‘it is not necessary that war should have been formally declared for Article 16 to be applicable.’258 On receiving the report, the council ‘agreed by roll-call, against the dissenting vote of the Italian representative,’ to approve the committee’s

256 Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 394n. ‘One thing must, however, be made quite clear. The Pact [of Paris], as signed on 27 August 1928, contained no reservations. Various statements were made in the course of the negotiations which might have led to the framing of reservations. Thus the British Foreign Minister referred, in a dispatch of 19 May 1928, to “certain regions of the world the welfare and integrity of which constitute a special and vital interest for our peace and safety,” and went on to say that, since “their protection from attack is to the British Empire a measure of self-defence,” His Majesty’s Government in Great Britain “accept the new treaty upon the distinct understanding that it does not prejudice their freedom of action in this respect”. But this was not a reservation or even a suggestion for one. It did not claim for the British Government the right to use war as an instrument of national policy in the region of the Suez Canal. It merely claimed for Great Britain the right to associate herself in any measures of self-defence, legitimate under the Pact, adopted by the governments and peoples in these “regions”.’ In order to reinforce the point that there were no reservations to the Pact of Paris, Zimmern cited a statement issued by Eric Beckett, the delegate of Great Britain on the Legal Committee of the LON Assembly in 1931, on 18 September 1931. Therein, Zimmern noted, Beckett made ‘it clear that the letter of May 19, 1928, so far from being a reservation, was simply a contribution to the preparatory work for an international agreement which, unlike most such agreements, was not negotiated in a conference but by means of correspondence between governments’ (ibid., 393). 257 Gooch, ‘The Breakdown of the System of Collective Security,’ 68. 258 Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 51.

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findings, endorsing in particular the concluding paragraph of its report.259 Although the application of Article 16 technically only concerned the council, the president of the council stated on 7 October that the assembly, which had been placed in a state of adjournment on 28 September in the course of its sixteenth ordinary session, would be reconvened two days later with a view to having it cooperate with council in this process.260 Thus, on 9 October, the assembly was presented with the minutes of the council meeting of 7 October with members being invited to express their views on the conclusion reached by the Committee of Six. The following day, Aloisi gave a speech which had almost no bearing on the case presented by that committee. Rather, the thrust of his speech was that war was a legitimate instrument for realising justice and national policy.261 Among other objections to the committee’s report, he offered the following: [t]hat the League had not paid sufficient attention to the memoranda of Italy outlining its grievances against Ethiopia…that Italy had done much more for civilization than Ethiopia; that Ethiopia, because of its backwardness and failure to live up to the conditions on which it was admitted to the League, had ceased to be a member or at least should be ejected under Article 16, Paragraph 4, or placed under mandate under Article 22; that Italian interests in Ethiopia had been recognised in treaties with France and Great Britain; that the League cannot force the course of history but must harmonise the part of the Covenant which relate to ‘evolution’ with those parts which relate to ‘conservation’ by a greater elasticity; and the League should recognise Italy’s expression of this new spirit — ‘this imperative necessity of life.’ ‘Caught as she is,’ he added, ‘in the tide of her full spiritual and material development, but confined by historical vicissitudes and international restrictions within territorial limits which are stifling her, Italy is the country which must make her voice heard in this assembly of the States as the voice of the proletariat calling for justice.’262

259 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 167. See also Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 442. 260 Phillips Bradley, ‘Some Legislative and Administrative Aspects of the Application of Article XVI of the Covenant,’ Transactions of the Grotius Society 22 (1936): 13–29, 21, and Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 47. See also Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 442. 261 Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 47, 54. 262 Ibid., 53–4.

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Wright considered that the fact that such arguments were presented and were believed to be of some persuasive value showed that in the popular mind at least, the idea lingered that under certain conditions war was a legitimate instrument.263 Yet from the perspective of the LON, the justifications put forward by Aloisi, such as his appeal to the imperative necessity of life and to proletarian justice, justifications which strongly echoed Coppola’s warnings about the danger of immobilising history and his characterisation of Italy as a hungry nation within the framework of the ISC, were legally irrelevant. As Wright explained, the view implied by the covenant and by the Pact of Paris albeit more forcefully, was that ‘war is not a suitable instrument for anything except defense against war itself, actual or immediately threatened’ and thus, under these instruments, the tests of “just war”…[had]…changed from a consideration of the subjective ends at which it is aimed to a consideration of the objective conditions under which it was begun and continued. The writer does not wish to depreciate the important contributions made to the jus ad bellum by the great mediaeval and early modern writers and does not deny the possibility of adapting their theories to modern conditions, but he believes that the conditions of war and of pacific settlement have so changed that the theory which has been accepted today is rather a new theory of just war than merely a new application of the old theory. The new theory has developed historically, not out of the mediaeval concept, but out of the concepts of nineteenth century international law, which treated war not as an instrument but as an evil which, in a disorganised world, could not be controlled. Consequently, under such conditions, the law could contribute most by abandoning the jus ad bellum and confining itself to the jus in bello, that is, to rules of war and neutrality for limiting the severity of belligerent operations and preventing their spread. With the post-war effort at world organisation, the jus ad bellum again becomes the predominating feature of international law, but with a concept which no longer attempts to distinguish between the justice or injustice of the belligerent’s causes, but instead, attempts to distinguish between the fact of aggression or the fact of defence.264

Aloisi did attempt at one point to claim defensive necessity and thereby address the question of the legality of Italy’s actions under the covenant: he observed at the assembly on 10 October that Italy had been forced to 263 Ibid., 55. 264 Ibid.

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act because the LON had yet to respond to the ‘imminent’ and ‘immediate danger’ that Ethiopia’s unceasingly ‘aggressive attitude’ had become.265 Citing as evidence remarks made by the United States’ Senate in ratifying the Pact of Paris and statements made by the British and Italian governments in acceding to it, Aloisi then stated that the pact placed ‘no restriction or limitation upon the right of legitimate defence, and that every State is entitled to decide, in its own discretion, whether circumstances require it to resort to an act of legitimate self-defence.’266 As noted above, the Committee of Six rejected this claim, choosing instead to act, just as the LON had acted in the context of the Manchurian crisis, on the contrary assumption: that the mere assertion of defensive necessity by a belligerent does not in itself have any legal value and that all that counts is whether the facts support the claim of defensive necessity or the counter-claim of aggression.267 As we saw, the council endorsed the finding of the Committee of Six: that Italy had not acted in self-defence but had resorted to war in violation of Article 12. On 11 October, fifty of the assembly’s members endorsed this finding either ‘expressly or tacitly,’ it having been agreed in the interests of procedural efficiency that ‘silence’ would be ‘construed as acceptance’ of the committee’s report.268 Austria, Hungary and Albania, ‘owing to their special relations with the transgressor declared their dissent,’ although without questioning the veracity of any of the findings in the committee’s report.269 Switzerland ‘made a reservation with regard to its participation in sanctions’ on two bases.270 First, there was the Swiss condition of ‘perpetual neutrality,’ Switzerland being entitled to hide behind this shield, according to Madariaga, as long as certain other states continued to pursue imperialist policies in spite of a covenant which implied the negation of imperialism. Second, there was the fact that Switzerland ‘is in part Italian by race and culture,’ a consideration that Madariaga did not think was easy 265 LON, special supplement, OJ, no. 138 (1935), 104. 266 Ibid. 267 Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 56. 268 Ibid., and Bradley, ‘Some Legislative and Administrative Aspects of the Application of

Article XVI of the Covenant,’ 21. See also Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 442. 269 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 410, and Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 442. 270 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 410.

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to dismiss. He observed that ‘Article 16 bade Switzerland cut off all that life,’ that is, cut all familial, commercial and other ties between its Italian part and the Italian nation, ‘at a moment’s notice. Switzerland simply could not do it, even if she had wanted to.’271 With the assembly having resolved by a majority vote that Italy had resorted to war in violation of the covenant, Article 16 came into operation. On October 10, in view of ‘the obligations which rest[ed] upon the Members of the League of Nations by virtue of Article 16,’ the assembly voted with the exception of Italy to recommend the creation of a committee ‘composed of one delegate, assisted by experts, for each Member, to consider and facilitate the co-ordination of the measures to be taken, and, if necessary, to draw the attention of the Council or the Assembly to situations requiring to be examined by them.’272 The reason why the assembly 271 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 180. Giuseppe Motta, a noted Swiss diplomat, declared the following at the assembly on 10 October 1935: ‘Hitherto, no one, apart from one of the parties directly concerned, has alluded to sanctions involving the use of force in the strict sense of that term. The Swiss delegation takes note of this important fact. The other category of sanctions is that of economic and financial sanctions. By their nature and purpose, such sanctions are not designed to be and, in our eyes, do not constitute hostile acts. They aim at exercising moral and, particularly, material pressure on one of the parties in order to induce it to restore peace…. The status of the Swiss Confederation, in so far as its external relations are concerned, continues to be governed by the principle of neutrality….[O]ur general obligation to take part in economic and financial sanctions…is not absolute and must be interpreted in the light of the resolutions of 1921 on the economic weapon. We do not consider ourselves bound to take part in sanctions which, by their nature and effect, would expose our neutrality to real dangers—dangers which we must judge in the full exercise of our sovereignty.’ LON, special supplement, OJ, no. 138 (1935), 106–7. Wright pointed out that when Article 16 was put into operation for the first time in 1935, it ‘followed closely the principals and procedures’ laid down in the Resolutions Regarding the Economic Weapon of 1921. He added that ‘[p]articularly’ were these resolutions ‘followed in holding that the obligation to apply economic sanctions is an individual obligation of each member of the League flowing from its ratification of the Covenant, and consequently the League organs can only recommend with respect to the moment when action is required and with respect to the particular measures which are required.’ Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the ItaloEthiopian War,’ 46. 272 LON, special supplement, OJ, no. 145 (1935), 2. Wright noted that the council and assembly discussions and the report of the legal sub-committee of the Coordination Committee on the dispute ‘confirmed and in some instances supplemented the conclusions of the Assembly in the resolutions of 1921. From this material it appears that: (a) Participation in sanctions is a definite obligation of all members of the League, once a member has gone to war contrary to its covenants, and this obligation supersedes, under Article 20 of the Covenant, all bilateral and multilateral treaties with the aggressor, but (b) sanctions have the sole object of stopping hostilities and of repairing the damage done by them, not of spreading war nor of

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recommended rather than resolved that responsibility for the coordination of the actions to be taken by members be devolved to a diplomatic conference was that based on Article 5, any decision taken under Article 16 by the council or the assembly required absolute unanimity as there was no express provision in Article 16 to the contrary. Thus, Italy was in a position to veto any action proposed by either body under that article where what was proposed took the form of a resolution. Article 16 paragraph 4 provided that in the case of a covenant-breaking state, the council could declare, with the concurrence of all the other members represented on that organ, that it was no longer a member of the LON. That this did not occur in the case of the Italian covenant-breaker, as Zimmern pointed out, was because the powers did not desire ‘for the present at any rate, to expel Italy from the League.’273 The move to impose sanctions was bitterly attacked in Geneva by Aloisi, who dismissed it as being based on an ‘anti-Italian

punishing the aggressor. (c) Furthermore, the economic measures described by the Covenant should be applied progressively with regard to their effectiveness in achieving these objects in the circumstances and to their consequences for the State applying them. (d) Thus states participating in sanctions are under no obligation to use armed force against the aggressor in their diplomatic relations in spite of the economic discrimination to which they are obliged to subject it. (e) While uniformity of action among the sanctioning measures and in the extension of economic assistance to them by States. (f) The legal position of members of the League who decline to apply some or all of the sanctioning measures recommended (characterized by M. Litvinov as “League deserters”) has not been defined. Presumably they have been guilty of a breach of Article 16 of the Covenant, but this does not in itself render them liable to the sanctions of Article 16.’ States. Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 48–50. 273 Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 443. ‘With so overwhelming a judgment that Italy was liable under Article 16, a Coordination Committee to advise members upon the detailed application of sanctions and to consist of all members of the Assembly, except the belligerent States, was recommended by unanimous vote of the Assembly except for the vote of Italy. It was recognized that a resolution in the Assembly would require absolute unanimity but that a recommendation could be passed by a majority vote.’ Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 47. ‘[A]t the First Assembly the President (M. Hymans) ruled that if the Assembly should “request” (prier) the Council to take a certain course, unanimity would be necessary, whereas, if it “recommended to the Council” (émettait le voeu que le Conseil ) to do so, a bare majority would suffice…Whatever might have been the objections, logical or philosophical, the step has been taken; a decision to express a “hope” (pious or impious), a “wish,” an “opinion,” a “view,” a “recommendation,” in fine a “voeu,” is not a “decision” of the Assembly within the meaning of the first paragraph of Article 5 [on the rule of unanimity] of the Covenant.’ See also Sir John Fischer Williams, ‘The League of Nations and Unanimity,’ American Journal of International Law 19, no. 3 (1925): 475–88.

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interpretation of the Covenant’ and who warned that such a move might lead to the ‘most terrible of wars and the end of the League.’274

The Shift to Sanctions The first session of the League’s Coordination Committee on the Application of Sanctions in the Italo-Ethiopian War took place between 11 and 19 October, the committee being steered in its efforts by a subcommittee: the Committee of Eighteen.275 As a contemporary observer noted, it was the Committee of Eighteen (originally known as the Little Coordination Committee), in the form of its sub-committees working in close cooperation with experts from the legal, economic, financial, communications and transit sections of the secretariat as well as government experts, that was the ‘active agency in the framing of policy for the implementation of sanctions.’276 As to the Coordination Committee, it ‘rarely met and equally rarely went beyond the ratification of decisions on the form and content of the sanctions resolutions’ that had been adopted by the Committee of Eighteen.277 During its first session, the Coordination Committee adopted four proposals concerning four categories of sanctions: first, it adopted a proposal that an embargo on the export to Italy of arms, munitions and implements of war be imposed forthwith and that the arms embargo some members of the LON had imposed on Ethiopia be annulled immediately; second, it adopted a proposal that financial sanctions be imposed on Italy, including 274 ‘Italian Warning: Sanctions Two-Edged Weapon,’ and. ‘League Assembly Condemns Italy—Sanctions Enforced,’ Advocate (North-Western Tasmania), October 11, 1935. 275 ‘Appendix I (8): Documents Relating to the League Covenant and Its Application in the Italo-Ethiopian War: Proposals of the Co-ordination Committee on the Application of Sanctions in the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 209– 214, and George W. Baer, Test Case: Italy, Ethiopia, and the League of Nations (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Press, 1976), 20. 276 Bradley, ‘Some Legislative and Administrative Aspects of the Application of Article XVI

of the Covenant,’ 22–23, 26. Note Bradley’s observation that the ‘inevitability of an expert intelligence service foreseen by Sir Arthur Salter in 1919, had become a reality in 1935–36’ (ibid.). See also Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 47. The members of the Committee of Eighteen were Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Great Britain, Greece, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the USSR. 277 Bradley, ‘Some Legislative and Administrative Aspects of the Application of Article XVI of the Covenant,’ 22.

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measures to render impossible loans and credits to the Italian government and any public authority, person or corporation on Italian territory; third, it adopted a proposal concerning the prohibition of the importation of goods produced in Italy or in Italian possessions with the exception of gold and silver bullion and coin; and fourth, it adopted a proposal for an embargo on the exportation to Italy of certain goods which are of use in war, among these being horses, mules, camels, rubber, bauxite and aluminium.278 In addition to the adoption of these four proposals, the Coordination Committee ‘recommended mutual assistance among the sanctioning Powers.’279 By 1 November, the first two of the above proposals had been accepted by fifty-one states and the third and fourth by forty-nine states. By the same date, the recommendation concerning mutual assistance had been accepted by forty-one states. Against this background and in light of the fact that the first proposal had already been put into effect by fifty-one states, the Coordination Committee recommended on 2 November that 18 November be the date for bringing into force proposals two, three and four.280 It should be noted that while the decisions of the Coordination Committee had the same effect as if they were actual assembly or council decisions, they were ‘technically,’ and therefore in name, ‘proposals, for the consideration of the individual governments concerned’.281 As we saw, the assembly had ‘voted the creation of the Co-ordination Committee as a “recommendation”’ and, in accordance with this, ‘all subsequent action by the agencies set up under this recommendation were similarly treated in order to avoid the technical difficulties.’282 In the context of the Coordination Committee, ‘allusions’ were made to its status as a conference, thus suggesting, presumably as a matter of political convenience, that it possessed an ‘independent character’.283 Nonetheless, the minutes of the 278 ‘Appendix I (8): Documents Relating to the League Covenant and Its Application in the Italo-Ethiopian War: Proposals of the Co-ordination Committee on the Application of Sanctions in the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 209–14, and Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 410. 279 Wright, ‘The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,’ 47. 280 Ibid., 47–48. 281 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 410n. 282 Bradley, ‘Some Legislative and Administrative Aspects of the Application of Article XVI

of the Covenant,’ 21n. 283 Ibid., 22.

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committee is revelatory of ‘its essentially legislative function, as a recess committee of the Council and the Assembly’ and provide proof that the ‘existence of the obligation’ to follow its recommendations ‘was not open to discussion.’284 It should also be noted in this regard that on 16 October, the Coordination Committee called ‘attention to the fact that Members of the League of Nations being bound by the obligations which flow from Article 16 of the Covenant, are under a duty to take the necessary steps to enable them to carry out these obligations with all requisite rapidity.’285 Even among the LON’s greatest partisans there were many who doubted that they would see the day when a country would be named an aggressor, let alone the day a major power and permanent member of the council would be named as such, points which explain the astonishment that some expressed in seeing the League’s until now dormant sanctions machinery come to life. Zimmern later observed that for those who had spent the previous decade and half seated ‘at the side of an immobile and seemingly rusty machine,’ the period extending from the end of the conciliation phase down to the first session of the Coordination Committee seemed to pass at ‘breathless and even breakneck speed,’ taking care to acknowledge at the same time that in Ethiopia ‘no doubt, where men whom the League had undertaken to protect were exposed to modern methods of mass-destruction, the pace did not seem so furious.’286 In a similar vein, Madariaga stated that for those who recalled the ‘reluctance’ of members of the assembly to censure Japan for rejecting the Lytton Report and the ‘circumlocutions and circumlocutions ’ of certain eminent LON figures in seeking to avoid naming Japan, the council’s ‘blunt’ statement that Italy had resorted to war was ‘little short of amazing,’ adding that the spectacle of the sanctions committee at work ‘seemed like an unbelievable dream’. According to Madariaga, the principal driving force behind all this activity was a determined Great Britain in association with those lesser powers who were ‘sincerely committed to a League policy’ at the forefront of which, Madariaga pointed out, were the three Scandinavian countries.287 284 Ibid. 285 ‘Appendix I (8): Documents Relating to the League Covenant and Its Application in the Italo-Ethiopian War: Proposals of the Co-ordination Committee on the Application of Sanctions in the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 209. 286 Zimmern, International Government and the Rule of Law, 442. 287 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 165, 175–6. See also Gooch, ‘The Breakdown of the

System of Collective Security,’ 70.

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Yet as breath taking as it was to see the LON’s sanctions machinery finally grind into action, as Gathorne-Hardy noted, the actual sanctions imposed on Italy fell well short of the ‘complete and general boycott’ envisaged by the LON’s founders and even the ‘minimum obligations’ specified in the first paragraph of Article 16.288 Madariaga observed that although the sanctions system was ‘honestly tried,’ the sanctions that were applied were applied ‘with tact, so as not to offend the aggressor, and always provided it was understood that they would not lead to war.’289 The plan seemed to be that of sapping Italy’s financial and economic strength against a background in which Italian forces, constrained by the difficulties imposed by the summer rainy season in the difficult terrain of Ethiopia, would find themselves ‘faced with either defeat or at any rate a long war, in which even the mildest sanctions might have time to play a decisive part.’290 Indeed, Neville Chamberlain, who unlike some others thought that Mussolini would back down, wrote in his diary as late as 8 December that ‘by putting his great army the other side of the Suez Canal, Mussolini has tied a noose round his own neck, and left the end hanging out for anyone with a Navy to pull. It would seem incredible that in such a position he should venture to attack us, and in the end I don’t believe he would…. If only our defences were stronger, I should feel so much happier, but though we are working night and day, they aren’t what I should like.’291 The mildness of the sanctions was exemplified by the fact that oil, of which Italy was a net importer, was omitted from the list ‘ostensibly on the ground that the list was confined to commodities controlled by League powers’.292 An embargo on oil had been suggested by the lesser powers during the Coordinating Committee’s first session as part of the ban on the export to Italy of certain important supplies, not least because these states

288 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 410, and B. J. C. McKercher, ‘The League of Nations and the Problem of Collective Security 1919–1939,’ in United Nations Library at Geneva: The League of Nations Archives, The League of Nations, 1920–46, 72. 289 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 71, 175. 290 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 412 and Madariaga, The

World’s Design, 171. 291 Keith Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1946), 273. See also Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 352. 292 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 410 and McKercher, ‘The League of Nations and the Problem of Collective Security 1919–1939,’ 72.

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had an interest in securing the protective umbrella of collective security.293 As the Italian aggression had not ceased by 6 November, the Coordination Committee recommended an oil embargo, although for a number of reasons its imposition was postponed until the end of the month.294 In explaining this postponement, B. J. C. McKercher highlights such considerations as the forthcoming British elections, political unrest in France and, most significantly in his view, the disposition of the United States, it then being the world’s major oil producer.295 While the British cabinet approved in principle the imposition of oil sanctions on 9 October, its understanding was that an oil embargo would only be effective if the United States cooperated by reducing ‘to its former proportion their exports to Italy, which had more than doubled during the present year.’296 Although Hoare thought it ‘perfectly problematic’ as to whether Congress would accord the president the exceptional powers required for such cooperation, it was nonetheless considered for a time at least a possibility.297 Indicating this, Neville Chamberlain’s diary entry of 29 November stated the following: Economic sanctions are now in force, but hitherto they have not included oil….The decision really turned on the possibility of making the embargo effective….U. S. A. has already gone a good deal further than usual…. Consequently the question is being taken seriously, Mussolini is making violent threats, and Laval once again has been wriggling.298

On the question of an oil embargo, the British government appealed to Washington as late as December 4, although without success.299

293 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 353, and Madariaga, The World’s Design, 176. 294 McKercher, ‘The League of Nations and the Problem of Collective Security 1919–

1939,’ 72. 295 Ibid. 296 Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, 272. See also McKercher, ‘The League of Nations and the Problem of Collective Security 1919–1939,’ 72–3. 297 Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, 272. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 415. 298 Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, 272. 299 McKercher, ‘The League of Nations and the Problem of Collective Security

1919–1939,’ 73.

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The Hoare--Laval Plan In a joint resolution on 31 August 1935, Congress had reaffirmed American neutrality: as stated by President Roosevelt in approving the resolution, Congress’s Neutrality Act was an ‘expression of the fixed desire of the Government and people of the United States to avoid any action which might involve…[them]…in war,’ a purpose which he described as ‘wholly excellent’.300 Section 1 of the Neutrality Act prohibited the ‘transportation of arms, ammunition and implements of war by vessels of the United States for the use by belligerent countries’ in the event of hostilities between two or more foreign states and it was under Section 1 of this act, that, on 5 October, President Roosevelt proclaimed an embargo on the transportation of the same to Italy and Ethiopia. As was noted at the time, the proposal concerning an arms embargo issued by the LON’s sanctions committee nine days later closely resembled the presidential proclamation in terms of the items it listed.301 This resemblance did not extend to the application of the embargo: the presidential proclamation, in line with American neutrality, applied the embargo to both parties. Nonetheless, according to Braddick, Washington ‘was doing what it felt it could to encourage effective League action against Italy’; he adds that ‘responsible officials in Washington intimated that in the event of hostilities between Italy and England growing out of the Italo-Ethiopian war, the provisions of the Neutrality Act would not be extended to England.’302 Leaving aside the question of the United States’ inclination in regard to the oil sanction, the most important reason for the postponement of the decision on the oil embargo, which had been initiated by Laval on behalf of a government which like the British government had given its public blessing to the embargo, was the need for more time: more time in order to reach a negotiated settlement, negotiations to this end having commenced 300 ‘Appendix IV (2): American Neutrality Legislation and the Italo-Ethiopian War: Statement by the President Giving His Approval to the Act, 31 August 1935,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Collective Security, 246–7. 301 ‘Appendix I (8): Documents Relating to the League Covenant and Its Application in the Italo-Ethiopian War: Proposals of the Co-ordination Committee on the Application of Sanctions in the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935,’ and ‘Appendix IV (3): Proclamation by the President Under Section 1 of the Act, Placing an Embargo on the Arms, Ammunition, and Implements of War to Italy and Ethiopia,’ in Wright ed., Neutrality and Collective Security, 210n, 248. 302 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 354.

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in Paris towards the end of October.303 Meanwhile in Britain, the National Government was returned to office on 14 November, it having campaigned on an election manifesto which declared its commitment to the LON and support for collective measures against Italy.304 This manifesto declared the following: The League of Nations will remain, as before, the keystone of British foreign policy. The prevention of war and the establishment of settled peace in the world must always be the most vital interest of the British people and the League is the instrument which has been framed, and to which we look for the attainment of these objects. We shall, therefore, continue to do all in our power to uphold the Covenant, and to maintain and increase the efficiency of the League. In the present unhappy dispute between Italy and Abyssinia there will be no wavering in the policy we have hitherto pursued. We shall take no action in isolation, but we shall be prepared faithfully to take our part in any collective action decided upon by the League and shared in by its members. We shall endeavour to further any discussions which may offer the hope of a just and fair settlement, provided that it be within the framework of the League and acceptable to the three parties to the dispute—Italy Abyssinia, and the League itself.305

Mussolini, who later told Hitler that his military operations would have quickly ground to a halt in the face of an oil embargo, warned that ‘while Italy would bear the minor deprivations with fortitude, the refusal of the oil need for his lorries and aeroplanes was a military measure and would be answered by war.’306 More specifically, he warned that should an oil embargo be imposed, this ‘would bring an attack on the British fleet in the Mediterranean’.307 Keith Feiling observes that although Neville Chamberlain did not share the view held in some circles that ‘tightening the screw would break down the Fascist régime, his instincts were decidedly more combative than some members of his party.’308 As evidence of this 303 Ibid., 355. 304 Ibid. 305 ‘Sir Samuel Hoare’s Speech: Debate in the House of Commons,’ Sydney Morning Herald, December 21, 1935. 306 Gooch, ‘The Breakdown of the System of Collective Security,’ 70. For Mussolini’s

comment to Hitler, see Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 356. 307 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 353. 308 Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, 272.

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combativeness, one might note the entry in his diary of the following on 29 November: I replied that if anyone else would give the lead, well and good, but in the last resort, if necessary, we ought to give the lead ourselves rather than let the question go by default…. If we backed out now because of Mussolini’s threats, we should leave the Americans in the air, and they would be unable to resist the arguments of their oil producers….It was inevitable that in such circumstances U. S. A. should decline in future to help us in any way, sanctions would crumble, the League would lose its coherence, and our whole policy would be destroyed….We should press Laval to tell Mussolini that, if he attacked us, France would at once come to our assistance and if he evaded this request, we should make it clear at Geneva that France, and not we, were blocking oil sanctions.309

With a decision on the oil embargo looming in light of the fact that the Committee of Eighteen was scheduled to meet in Geneva on 12 December, the British government found itself in the unenviable position of possibly having to act on its word and risk a war with Italy, a war for which Britain’s military chiefs of staff had advised cabinet the nation was unprepared.310 It was against this background, that what became known as the Hoare–Laval Plan was finalised in Paris on the evening of 7 December during which the following took place: Laval flourished a large dossier of proof that oil sanctions spelled war and that, if so, he could not guarantee France keeping her word, unless terms were put to Mussolini with which he might be expected to agree. And if, Hoare reflected, oil must be postponed, the League must be assured that a basis for negotiation had been found; once more he insisted on an Abyssinian port in full sovereignty and that the terms must be an extension from those of the League committee.311

Although Hoare succeeded in reducing the size of the territory which Laval was willing to give to Italy, the plan, according to Braddick, would

309 Ibid. 310 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 351. See also Sydney Morning Herald, December 21, 1935. 311 Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, 273.

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still have reduced Ethiopia to a third of its size.312 Even though this was less than what Italy could have seized by force, Mussolini, preferring a negotiated settlement provided he was awarded the larger part of the territory, was favourable to it.313 The plan was sent to cabinet for its consideration and on the night of 8 December, a fatigued Hoare, ‘after signing a communiqué with Laval declaring that they had found a basis for settlement,’ quit Paris for the Swiss Alps.314 Although the plan was meant to be kept confidential until that time it had been considered by cabinet, it was leaked to the Paris press on the following day, allegedly by the French Foreign Ministry with the approval of Laval.315 Gathorne-Hardy asserts that if Laval did indeed organise the leak it may have been because he wanted to pressure the British cabinet into approving the plan in a display of ‘loyalty to an absent colleague.’316 On 15 December, Neville Chamberlain entered in his diary an observation the last part of which he would have cause to air in Parliament four days later: I believed, and so far as I know, my colleagues believed also, that…[Hoare]…was going to stop off at Paris for a few hours on his way to Switzerland, to get the discussions with the French into such a condition that we could say to the League, “don’t prejudice the changes of a favourable issue by thrusting in a particularly provocative extra sanction at the moment”. Instead of that, a set of proposals was agreed to, and enough was allowed by the French to leak out to the press to make it impossible for us to amend the proposals, or even to defer accepting them, without throwing over our own Foreign Secretary.317

312 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’: 357–8. 313 Ibid., 355, 358. 314 Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, 272–3. See also Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 361–2, and Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 415. 315 Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, 273; Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 416; and Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 358. See also McKercher, ‘The League of Nations and the Problem of Collective Security 1919–1939,’ 73. 316 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 416. 317 Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, 273. In keeping with his diary entry, Chamber-

lain told the House of Commons on 19 December that the answer to the question as to why the government approved with such alacrity what was supposed to be a provisional agreement was simple: the agreement had been ‘published in the press, which not only declared agreement had been reached but purported to give the terms. They could not reject the agreement without everybody knowing that we had thrown over our Foreign Secretary.’ 307, Parl. Deb.

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Vansittart had been present at the negotiations between Hoare and Laval. He was also present alongside Hoare at a parting lunch with Laval of which he later stated the following: My chief recollection of it is his prodigious consumption of a near-Stilton, composed, or decomposed, somewhere in France: it was cannibalism, the man was eating himself. And now we come to deep waters. He was not cordial—he disliked me cordially for my attitude to Germany— but he seemed satisfied. Yet he could not have been satisfied, for he had hoped to keep Italy quiet with the whole, and the compromise [reached in Paris] saved the best part, of Abyssinia. Moreover compromise would keep Germany from the expansion with which he hoped to keep her quiet.318

Vansittart was definite on the point that it was Laval who orchestrated the leaking of the plan. At first, he thought that Laval had arranged for it to be leaked in order to put pressure on the British government in the expectation that it would prove to be an unwilling party to the bargain. However, Vansittart later concluded that it was unlikely that Laval would have pursued such a strategy. Vansittart considered that it would have been naive for Laval to do so and he knew Laval was anything but naive: Laval would have known that such discourteous behaviour, especially in relation to proposals which were bound to excite a negative reaction among the public, would not have been tolerated by any government. According to Vansittart, the only other possible explanation for the leaking of the plan, which Vansittart insisted was but a tentative plan, is that Laval wanted to destroy ‘all chances of compromise’ and thereby deliver to Italy the whole of Ethiopia as part of a grander scheme to ensure Germany had its way with Austria.319

H. C. (5th series) (19 December 1935), 2114. See also Sydney Morning Herald, 21 December 1935. 318 Vansittart, Lessons of My Life, 54. 319 Ibid. ‘If Laval had sold Abyssinia and Mussolini had sold Austria, the whole of Europe

was gone. The sale of Austria meant the betrayal of Czechoslovakia, which mean the destruction of Poland. Here was the Auvergnat Hun passing the lot to Germany, via Italy with himself and France thrown in. France had taken the first clear step on the road to Munich…..How could diplomacy manufacture Time in default of other munitions? Only by mitigating the French sale of Abyssinia….To the Italians Laval pandered; but possibly to ensure the German end of the deal, he sometimes pitched the Italian demands higher than did the Italians, so that Austria needs perish’ (ibid., 54–5). See also Vansittart, Lessons of My Life, 55.

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Braddick rejects Vansittart’s hypothesis (a hypothesis which the latter himself conceded appeared outlandish at first sight), that Laval had deliberately sought to sabotage the plan: he rejects the view that Laval had arranged for the plan to be prematurely exposed based on the calculation that the public reaction to it would be so furious that it would have to be torn up. Braddick suggests that if Laval did in fact arrange for the plan to be leaked to the press, it was for a set of reasons quite different to those by Vansittart. In regard to this last point, Braddick notes the following: Laval was perturbed and apparently surprised by the adverse reaction in Great Britain, and called Vansittart to the Quai d’Orsay in the middle of the night to explain the situation. If Laval was indeed responsible for the leak then it was probably because of the following considerations: he feared a settlement of the crisis without French participation. He knew that both governments were angry with him; he could hardly have been ignorant of the London-Rome exchange of views just a few days before. Therefore, he might have considered it expedient to have the proposal publicised as promptly as possible so that he could make the maximum capital in domestic and international politics of his successful role as mediator between Italy and England. In any case, a certain amount of Anglo-Italian animosity was probably desirable to Laval; it gave him an advantageous bargaining position with respect to both.320

Although disliking its terms, cabinet assented to the plan upon its presentation on 9 December, however it rejected outright Laval’s ‘impudent proposal that no full detail should be given to Abyssinia, and that Britain should permanently pledge herself against an oil sanction.’321 On the following day, a message was despatched to the Ethiopian capitol which urged the emperor ‘to give careful and favourable consideration to these proposals and no account to lightly reject them.’ Having urged this, the message then indicated that the proposals should be regarded as provisional in that the message noted that they afforded ‘the opportunity of negotiation’.322 Very soon after, the British government was shaken by a furious public backlash. Against this background, Neville Chamberlain observed that should an election have been held at that precise time the government

320 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 358. 321 Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, 274. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History

of International Affairs, 416. 322 Quoted in Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 416–7.

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would probably have been defeated.323 Meanwhile, the leader of the Labour Opposition, Clement Attlee, accused the government of rewarding the ‘declared aggressor at the expense of the victim,’ acting in defiance of the ‘expressed will’ of the nation, being disloyal to the League, destroying collective security and betraying a ‘weak, backward people who trusted them.’ Attlee stated in relation to this last accusation that it was ‘an affront to Britain’s good name.’324 Newly elected government backbenchers were also indignant given that they had ‘constantly and sincerely repudiated’ the predictions published by a group of students of international politics during the election campaign to the effect that the government would come to an arrangement with Mussolini.325 The same group had also predicted that the government would then launch out on the “new foreign policy” about which the Government Press have been hinting for some time. That policy in their view is to say that the League has failed altogether or that it needs drastic reform by dropping Articles 10 and 16 of the Covenant, and in either case to plunge with a vengeance into the game of alliances and power politics.326

In light of the stormy reception it received, the plan was declared dead and Hoare tended his resignation, his replacement being Eden.327 In the House of Commons at 3:45 p.m. on 19 December, the day after Hoare’s resignation, the former foreign secretary ‘rose from a corner seat, below the gangway’ and, against a background of loud cheers, apologised for the fact that his ‘bodily weariness, had laid him aside when he should have been explaining the position to his colleagues and the country.’ Hoare then observed that during his tenure at the Foreign Office, he had been ‘obsessed with the urgent necessity of doing everything within…[his]…power to

323 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 417, and Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, 274. 324 Sydney Morning Herald, December 21, 1935. 325 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 417. 326 Vigilantes, Inquest on Peace by ‘Vigilantes’: An Analysis of the National Government’s

Foreign Policy (London: Victor Gollancz, 1935), 281. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 417. 327 Sydney Morning Herald, December 21, 1935, and Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 417.

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prevent a European conflagration and the no less urgent duty of doing everything to prevent an isolated war between Great Britain and Italy’.328 He stated that daily, ever since the Italian onslaught commenced, the world situation had become increasingly grave and threatening, with ‘evil reactions everywhere—in the East, as well as in the West, in China, in Egypt, and in Europe.’ Hoare declared that against this background the government had ‘loyally’ continued with the sanctions policy while also seeking to negotiate a peaceful settlement. The government, he continued, was acutely aware that the imposition of an oil embargo would create an entirely new state of affairs: ‘on all sides we received reports that no responsible Government could disregard the fact that Italy would look upon an oil embargo as a military sanction, or an act against her, involving war.’329 Hoare pointed out that atmosphere surrounding the discussions at the Quai d’Orsay was one of in which the ‘majority, indeed, the totality of member States of the League, appeared to be opposed to military action.’ Referring to the ‘precautionary’ action taken in the Mediterranean, he added that while most members of the League had been willing to participate in economic sanctions, ‘not a single one, except ourselves, had moved a ship, aeroplane, or soldier to meet a possible emergency.’ Having noted that the French were ‘very nervous at the prospect of a breach with Italy,’ Hoare stated that it was an atmosphere in which it seemed that Anglo-French cooperation was of the essence if a peaceful settlement were to be reached and ‘indeed, if collective action was to continue’. In regard to the terms of the agreement, many aspects of which he admitted he did not like, Hoare stated that they were not as ‘favourable to Italy as some critics alleged’ and indeed, were ‘immensely less favourable’ than the terms demanded by Mussolini in the course of discussions with Eden in the summer. Hoare also pointed out that the terms were in conformity with the proposals adopted by the Committee of Five.330 In a further attempt to underline the government’s loyalty to the LON, Hoare stated the following: We had no fear as a nation of any Italian threats. If Italy attacked us, we should retaliate and, judging from our past history, we should retaliate with 328 Sydney Morning Herald, December 21, 1935. 329 Ibid. Braddick writes that the ‘burden’ of Baldwin’s instructions to Hoare before he left

for Paris was to ‘prevent war by whatever means.’ Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 361. 330 Sydney Morning Herald, December 21, 1935.

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success. What was in our mind was something very different — that isolated action of this kind, taken by one Power, without, it may be, the full support of the other Powers, would, it seemed to me, almost certainly lead to the dissolution of the League.331

Hoare concluded his speech in stating that he was not convinced that the situation was such that it had become ‘sufficiently clear that all attendant risks were to be fully shared by all members,’ reiterating the point that the LON would dissolve unless all members actively cooperated in the work of collective security and declaring that ‘we must have more than these general protestations of loyalty to the League’.332 Gathorne-Hardy contended that there is ‘no reason to doubt’ Hoare’s declaration that his intention in going to Paris was to uphold the credibility of the LON based on ‘a realistic desire to maintain an instrument vital to…[Great Britain’s]…traditional policy.’333 Interpreting Hoare’s claim regarding the potential dissolution of the LON, he stated that it was quite possible that in the event of Britain finding itself largely friendless in a trial by strength with Italy, for ‘its authority to be finally destroyed by situation which revealed unmistakably the pasteboard composition of the Don Quixote’s helmet of military sanctions.’334 Maintaining with entire confidence that Britain would have won any such trial of strength, Gathorne-Hardy went on to note that the consideration that ‘another enemy’ would seize ‘the opportunity of exposing the reduced and battered condition of our navy,’ although of central importance, was secondary to ‘the desire to preserve the League against the dangers now threatening it.’335 Madariaga, writing from the perspective of 1938, wondered as to whether had it not been for the ‘unfortunate leakage’ which saw the Hoare– Laval proposals ‘thrust on an astonished world’ and thereby caused them to quickly unravel, the whole sorry saga might have unfolded in a ‘less unfortunate’ way for both Ethiopia and the LON.336 As we have seen, based on the views expressed by Vansittart and Hoare, the British perspective seemed

331 Ibid. 332 Ibid. 333 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 412, 414–5. 334 Ibid., 415. 335 Ibid., 412, 415. 336 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 171.

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to be that some sort of compromise along the lines of the Hoare–Laval plan was the best outcome that could be achieved in the circumstances for both Ethiopia and the LON. Gathorne-Hardy suggested that the French too were mindful in the context of the Ethiopian crisis of the need to preserve the credibility of the LON, although in a way that would not jeopardise the recently realised friendship with Italy: not through a hardening of the sanctions regime. He explained that the French, who, as he noted, had more than any other power insisted on the absolute centrality of the security dimensions of the covenant, reasoned at the time as follows: [I]t was all to the good that the determination of the League to resort to sanctions should be demonstrated, but, now that the demonstration had been made, she wanted to save the face and keep the favour of new ally as well. Let there be a happy ending—a settlement by mutual consent. Let the husks of the sanctions regime induce just sufficient hunger in the prodigal to tempt him home to a liberal provision of someone else’s fatted calf. Thus a grateful and not altogether discredited Mussolini could restore his support to a League which would have established a useful precedent of at least partial victory to deter future and more dangerous aggressors.337

According to its critics, however, the Hoare–Laval plan rather than being a means of preserving the authority of the LON was an admission of its weakness: the plan was as much an admission of the ‘hollow pretence’ of collective security as would have been a situation culminating in a trial of strength between Britain and Italy alone.338 For example, in a lecture entitled ‘The Breakdown of the System of Collective Security’ given at the Geneva Institute of International Relations in 1937, George Peabody Gooch, a British journalist and historian, contended that the Hoare–Laval plan was but the ‘final humiliation’ of the LON in the context of the Ethiopian crisis. According to Gooch, the very hatching of this scheme was an acknowledgement that the LON had already been defeated by the Duce: although the scheme was ‘speedily buried amid the execration of the British people…the mischief was done, Mussolini had triumphed.’339

337 Ibid., 413. 338 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 414, and McKercher, ‘The

League of Nations and the Problem of Collective Security,’ 72. 339 Gooch, ‘The Breakdown of the System of Collective Security,’ 70.

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Was the main objective of the British government in endorsing the plan the preservation of the LON’s prestige and influence as Hoare claimed? As we saw Gathorne-Hardy thought so. By contrast, Braddick argues that from the British government’s perspective, strategic concerns were or had become paramount by the time the plan was negotiated. He writes that by late October and early November, the concern that Japan might take the opportunity to make further inroads into North China (which it did in the following year), and thereby threaten British interests in the region or that Germany might find it timely to renew its pressure on Austria against the background of a war between Britain and Italy, had become ‘decisive factors in policy formulation.’ In relation to the latter concern, Braddick notes that although Mussolini had taken a lone stand against Germany at the Brenner Pass in 1934, he now ‘threatened to deal with Hitler by making it clear that Italy, alone, would not undertake the preservation of Austrian independence’. He contends that British concerns in relation to North China and Austria greatly explains the import of Baldwin’s instructions to Hoare before the latter left for Paris: ‘prevent war by whatever means’. Like certain analysts at the time, he concludes that this was ‘not foreign policy’ but was rather ‘an acknowledgement of political bankruptcy.’340 Winding up the debate for the Opposition on December 19, a debate which had been accompanied by Opposition calls for the government to resign for what Sir Stafford Cripps described as its ‘double-dealing and deceit,’ Hugh Dalton declared the following: Italy, having been let out in the distribution of war spoils, would have had a case in Equity if she had kept the peace, but equity could not be claimed by Signor Mussolini coming into court with his hands dripping with a mixture of Abyssinian blood and British oil.341

After making this statement, which ‘brought Opposition cheers and Ministerial cries of “No,”’ Dalton then posed the following question: If assurances of support are obtainable from other countries than France, why are we hanging about instead of going ahead with oil sanctions and bringing this abominable war to a quick end?342 340 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan: A Study in International Politics,’ 361–3. 341 Sydney Morning Herald, December 21, 1935. 342 Ibid.

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In relation to this question, it should be recalled that British government had sought French assurances in regard to French naval support in the Mediterranean in order to ‘guard against the possibility of an Italian “mad dog” attack’ on its fleet.343 Gathorne-Hardy insisted that France, as the only other power able to offer Britain effective naval support in the Mediterranean, was the Power on whom Britain ‘primarily relied in the event of a trial of force.’ However, French policy was ambiguous in this regard and it was to French ‘defection or hesitation’ that Hoare was largely alluding in warning of the dangers of isolated action on the part of Britain without the full support of other Powers.344 That French policy was ambiguous because Paris was worried that mobilising its navy might lead to domestic unrest and, more importantly, because Laval wanted to maximise the possibility of a negotiated settlement in order to maintain France’s newfound friendship with Italy.345 In this context, one can somewhat appreciate Madariaga’s quip that ‘France was all for sanctions, but only when sanctions were all for France’.346 In response to Dalton’s question, Neville Chamberlain told Parliament that although the government had not asked ‘all the Powers which were members of the League,’ it had received from France and the powers it had asked, ‘the most complete and most loyal assurance that they would come to our aid if Italy attacked us in the Mediterranean where lies the danger if any.’347 In relation to the French assurance, which as we saw had been requested by Hoare, Madariaga noted that it was given based on the recognition that friendship with England outranked that with Italy, as important as Italy was as a ‘potential ally against an ever-threatening Germany,’ but only after obtaining ‘serious and concrete guarantees’ in regard to France’s own safety in case of war.348 Irrespective of the assurances received, Britain remained unwilling to accept the risk that Mussolini would carry out his threat to answer an oil sanction by war, a decisive consideration in this con-

343 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 356. 344 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 415. 345 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 356. 346 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 169. See also Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of Inter-

national Affairs, 411. 347 Sydney Morning Herald, December 21, 1935. 348 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 169, 179.

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text being Britain’s lack of military preparedness, the policy of rearmament having not advanced very far at this stage.349 Vansittart stressed the issue of Britain’s lack of military preparedness in restating in a book of memoirs the conclusion he reached at the time, touching also therein on the concern that Hoare raised in the House of Commons in respect to the damage that would be caused to the LON should Britain find itself acting in isolation. Vansittart stated: I conclude now as I concluded then: ‘We should all have liked to close the Canal at the very beginning of this wretched affair; but we debarred ourselves from doing so because for fifteen years we have prided ourselves on starving our fighting services. We cannot now suddenly behave as those fifteen years had never been.’ The observation applied to every Member of the League of Nations. It was clear that, if we could not carry the League with us into war, we should only be exposing the nakedness of the land by summoning it to action, which it would publicly funk or fumble. Germany’s rapidly growing audacity would be further accelerated, and I repeat that where there are no guns diplomacy must make not butter but time. If the cause of a premature conflagration could be laid at the door of the League, the exposure of our unpreparedness would result in fury against Geneva. All this I have not only thought but said and written often; and here is the final moral in my calendar of calamity: ‘If we had not let ourselves go into a decline, we should never have had any trouble at all either with the Italians or the French, there would have been no Abyssinian venture, and Austria and all Europe would not be in danger of Germany.’350

Weaknesses in the Sanctions Regime Having noted that the crucial factor in the application of sanctions to Italy was the determination of the British government to apply them, Madariaga contended that although Britain was not in the best position in regard to armaments, it was ‘easily within her power’ to triumph over Italy in a collective operation: if ‘active participation in sanctions, including military sanctions, had been full and generous on the part of other members of the

349 Braddick, ‘The Hoare-Laval Plan,’ 363. Braddick suggests that other forces may have played a supplementary role in determining policy: in late November and at the beginning of December, ‘industrial and commercial interests exerted strong pressure on the Cabinet to avoid a conflict and the oil sanction which might precipitate it’ (ibid., 364). 350 Vansittart, Lessons of My Life, 58.

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League, above all France, but also Spain, Holland, Sweden, Yugoslavia, Turkey and Greece at sea, and of the main continental European Powers on land.’351 Aside from smoothing the way to the defeat of Italy, Madariaga considered such participation essential in order that the ‘actual psychological result’ of any such defeat was a ‘triumph of the League’ rather than a ‘triumph of British imperialism.’352 Further to his quip concerning the French attitude to sanctions, it is worth noting the observation of Madariaga that the greater part of Article 16 had been ‘conceived by French minds to suit the French case’.353 Elaborating on this observation, Madariaga explained that French minds, with ‘their fine sense of generalisation,…had formulated in abstract terms a set of international laws in order to fasten the military and economic strength of the world community on to a would-be German aggressor.’354 With the covenant enshrined, France doggedly and with great acuity, directed much of its efforts in Geneva towards strengthening the LON’s security apparatus which, although ‘formidable on paper,’ had been weakened in the course of the assembly’s earlier retreat from sanctions.355 As Madariaga noted, the French efforts, which continued over a period of fourteen years, were without success in that France’s most crucial ally, namely, Great Britain, remained ‘averse to cut-and-dried commitments.’356 In any case, in light of these efforts it was rather ironic that the French government, who in Madariaga’s view ‘had incurred almost as much responsibility as the British in whittling down Article 16 in the Manchurian case, took upon itself the actual leadership of those forces which resisted its application in the Abyssinian conflict.’357 In the expectation that France’s resistance to the application of Article 16 in the Ethiopian case would come back to bite France, Cecil, as recorded by Pugh, advised Eden in a letter written in March 1936, that ‘what was sauce for the “Abyssinian goose” would be sauce for the “French gander”’.358 Cecil was right in his expectation 351 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 169, 176. 352 Ibid., 176. 353 Ibid., 178. 354 Ibid. 355 Ibid. 356 Ibid., 178–9. 357 Ibid., 179. 358 Robert Cecil, 1936, quoted in Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 111.

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in that the triumph of Italy in the context of the Ethiopian crisis would serve to greatly embolden an enemy who had vowed to bring France to its knees and that the effect of Laval’s double-dealing during the crisis would be renewed scepticism about French motives which, as it turned out, would be a factor that helped rescue ‘from his isolation’ this same enemy.359 Unlike others, Madariaga did not rush to criticise France. That French policy was based on the ‘merits of her own safety’ rather than on ‘merits of sanction’ he viewed as unsurprising: ‘man-made laws cannot override natural laws.’ Referring to the law of self-preservation, Mandariaga stated thatnatural laws ‘must prevail over ill-conceived, even if well meant, agreements which override them.’360 In looking to its own safety, Madariaga opined, France was doing no more than were all the other states involved in the crisis, even if, due their own particular circumstances, they were driven to ‘different and even opposed conclusions.’361 In respect to the caution exhibited by Britain, Madariaga cited several mitigating factors: the invigoration of the LON’s collective security machinery had created a situation that was ‘entirely new in history,’ that is, never before, had the world witnessed an ‘experiment in world cooperation of this gravity and magnitude’; Britain was ‘necessarily the leader of this experiment’; Britain’s principal partners among the great powers, namely, France and the United States, were ‘to say the least, enigmatic about the precise policy to be pursued’; British statesmen could not ignore the possibility that Japan and Germany might seize the opportunity presented by operations against Italy in order to undertake ‘some spirited action’ in the Far East in the case of Japan and in Europe in the case of Germany; and the fact that the British government could not ignore the ‘difficulties in which Great Britain might find herself if, when weakened by her League war, Germany tried to exploit the new state of affairs.’362 There is one other mitigating factor cited by Madariaga that deserves mention. Noting that the Duce’s unruly behaviour on the African continent represented a challenge to Britain’s imperial interests, Madariaga pointed out that in 1914, when Germany ‘simultaneously attacked Great

359 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 418. On the renewed distrust of France, see Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 111. 360 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 178–9. 361 Ibid., 179. 362 Ibid., 169–70.

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Britain’s might at sea and “poor Belgium” on land…the two great unemployed of British statesmanship, Mr. Winston Churchill and Lloyd George, exulted: they seemed unable to resist this magnificent combination of virtue and business.’363 Clearly there was no such exultation in relation to the Ethiopian crisis. Indeed, the fact that imperial business was one of the stakes involved posed a dilemma for the British government: ‘If Great Britain led the other nations, she was suspected of trying to mobilise the world in the interests of the British Empire; if she did not lead, the other nations, with a “why should we?” did nothing.’364 In other words, according to Madariaga, Britain was ‘bound to feel her moral authority sapped by the coincidence between the interests of the Covenant and the interests of Empire’.365 An opponent of the Hoare–Laval scheme, Austin Chamberlain touched on these points during the House of Commons debate of 19 December. Chamberlain stated that it was to be regretted that a ‘heavier burden had been put upon Britain than was compatible with the successful working of collective sanctions,’ as this had ‘given colour to pernicious allegations in the Italian press that there was an issue as between Great Britain and Italy’: the fact Great Britain had played ‘so prominent and so solitary’ a part in regard to sanctions made it ‘appear that this was really her quarrel’ rather than being a case of Britain ‘discharging her obligations under the Covenant’.366 As Hoare explained it, it was the ‘scurrilous anti-British campaign’ in the Italian press that caused the British government to send the British fleet to Gibraltar, an action which was greeted with enthusiasm by many LON partisans. However, in Madariaga’s view, this was an ‘impulsive and imperious gesture, prompted by motives entirely at variance with the spirit of the Covenant’.367 Here it should be recalled that Madariaga regarded the covenant as the negation of imperialism: the covenant condemned the use of force and therefore, by implication, the renunciation of that which had been obtained and was maintained by force. With this point in view, one can see why the existence of colonial empires was believed to weaken the moral 363 Ibid., 168–9. 364 Ibid., 170. 365 Ibid., 169–70. 366 Sydney Morning Herald, December 21, 1935. 367 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 177.

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force of the prohibition against aggression. More specifically, as Madariaga noted, colonial empires gave rise to ‘Empire Errantry,’ which Madariaga considered one of the most dangerous forces abroad at the time. Great Britain and France, he stated, ‘must realise that they are, indirectly yet quite definitely, the causes of it, and that, if they do mean business in this quest for peace…they must remove the cause of trouble, the jealousy and imitative spirit of Germany, Italy and Japan in the presence of their two splendid empires.’368 Madariaga considered that the persistence of imperialism was closely related to the persistence of neutrality. He agreed with those who argued that as a matter of principle, the covenant was the negation of neutrality. Nonetheless, as noted above, he contended that as long as colonial empires persisted, states such as Switzerland were entitled to shield their people behind it. Madariaga’s reasoning was as follows: imperialism conduced to war and the wars to which it conduced might rightly be suspected of being private quarrels growing out of selfish policies. Given such suspicions, members of the LON, when called upon to take risks in the context of a conflict with imperial associations on both sides, were likely to respond: ‘What do I know about the policy which brought about that aggression.’369 He pointed out that maintenance of colonial empires also weakened the system of sanctions in another way: the fact that nearly all the major powers, and a few lesser powers, were ‘just coming out of a period of colonial acquisitiveness’ made them ‘hesitate when cases identical—save for the Covenant—occur in our time.’ Madariaga thought this point was well illustrated by the brazenness of the acquisitive action of Japan and Italy: the expectation of hesitancy on the part of the major colonial powers was a factor in the calculations of Japan in respect to Manchuria and Italy in respect to Ethiopia.370 According to Madariaga, was of the view that the system of sanctions under the LON was ‘doomed to fail in all major cases’: sanctions required cooperation and in requiring this they were ‘in advance of the current political morality.’371 For there to be cooperation in regard to sanctions in times of crisis according to Madariaga, there had to be cooperation in regard to

368 Ibid., 260. 369 Ibid., 180–1, 183. 370 Ibid., 175. 371 Ibid., 181, 184.

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all phases of policy. Furthering his observations concerning imperialism, he stated that to pursue ‘a policy of anarchy’ and of private, bilateral negotiations without reference to LON and then, when trouble arose, ‘to rush to Geneva to seek the moral authority of the…[League]… and the material force of the remaining nations, till then forgotten, and ask them to take risks and redress the situation has no sense.’372 Madariaga also maintained that one could not expect there to be cooperation in respect to sanctions, let alone expect that they would be embraced as compulsory, until that time when a disarmament convention had been put in force and even into operation. The disarmament prescription in Article 8 of the covenant was the first element in the constitution of system of collective security: putting it into operation was a necessary prerequisite for the successful application of Article 16 and of all the other articles concerning collective security which followed it. Madariaga pointed out in this regard that it was ‘precisely because disarmament reduced both the probabilities of aggression and the risks involved in sanctions, that Article 16 was accepted by the small Powers.’373

The End of Collective Security On 5 May 1936, three days after the departure of Emperor Haile Selassie, Italian troops occupied the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, the swiftness of their victory, which came before the summer rains, defying the expectations of most of the experts.374 Against the background of the conquest and annexation of his country, the annexation of Ethiopia being announced by Rome on 9 May, Selassie went to the assembly. On 30 June, the first day of the second meeting of the assembly’s sixteenth session, Haile Selassie delivered a stirring speech in which he warned members of the high stakes involved in tolerating the Italian aggression. In an echo of Murray’s letter to the Times on the question, Selassie, having informed his audience of how the Italian forces had vaporised his country with a ‘fine, death-dealing rain’ in the form of mustard gas, pronounced the following: what is at stake ‘is collective security: it is the very existence of the League of Nations. It

372 Madariaga, The World’s Design, 181. 373 Ibid., 183. 374 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 417; Gooch, ‘The Breakdown of the System of Collective Security,’ 70; and Madariaga, The World’s Design, 171.

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is the confidence that each State is to place in international treaties. It is the value of promises made to small States that their integrity and their independence shall be respected and ensured.’375 Selassie’s plea was in vain. Already moves were afoot to terminate a sanctions regime which the Ethiopian emperor had condemned in his address as ‘intentionally inadequate.’ On 4 July, the last day of the second meeting of its sixteenth session, the assembly resolved that the coordination committee ‘should make all necessary proposals to the Governments in order to bring to an end the measures taken by them in execution of Article 16 of the Covenant.’376 Noting that ‘various circumstances’ prevented the full application of the covenant in relation to Italy and declaring that it was ‘convinced that it is necessary to strengthen the real effectiveness of the guarantees of security which the League affords its members,’ the assembly further resolved that the council should invite the governments of members to send proposals to the secretary-general in regard to the improved application of the principles of the covenant by 1 September.377 Two days after the assembly’s resolution on measures taken in execution of Article 16, the coordinating committee recommended that sanctions be brought to an end on 15 July.378 On 1 July, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, collectively known as the Oslo group of states, issued a joint declaration specifying that, ‘so long as conditions remained as at present they would not consider themselves bound by the provisions of Article 16 of the Covenant.’379 What better indication could there have been of an overwhelming loss of confidence in the League as an agent of collective security and the growing conviction that international anarchy was making its return, than the shift back to the traditional conception of neutrality that this statement represented? The expressed desire on the part of the assembly 375 Haile Selassi, ‘Appeal to the League of Nations,’ June 1936. https://www.mtholyoke. edu/acad/intrel/selassie.htm. 376 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 418; Haile Selassie, ‘Appeal to the League of Nations,’ June 1936; and ‘Appendix I (9): Resolution of the League of Nations Assembly, Terminating Sanctions Against Italy, 4 July 1936,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 222–3. 377 ‘Appendix I (9): Resolution of the League of Nations Assembly, Terminating Sanctions

Against Italy, 4 July 1936,’ in Wright, ed., Neutrality and Security, 222–3. 378 Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 418. 379 Ibid.

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on 4 July to strengthen the security guarantees the LON afforded its members would seem to have provided them little in the way of reassurance. Indeed, Gooch observed that ‘so complete was the humiliation’ of the LON in the summer of 1936 that many people who had previously supported Article 16 precisely because they saw its provisions as being fundamental to a collective security system, ‘now advocated its elimination and the transformation of the League into a purely consultative body.’380 On 9 May, shortly after the Italian troops marched into Addis Ababa, Mussolini boasted of Italy’s single-handed defiance of the LON, declaring that a great event had completed itself: ‘Italy finally has its own empire. A fascist empire….An empire of peace….An empire of civilisation and humanity for the population of Ethiopia.’381 Gooch observed that although Geneva was not responsible for the disaster, it appeared as though Italy’s ‘Fascist Empire had been founded on the ruins of the League’.382 In a report on the work of the ICO submitted to the Sixteenth Assembly, Herriot stated that in choosing the topic of peaceful change, the members of the ISC had given proof of their independence and autonomy and had displayed ‘courage and even boldness’.383 While something may be said for the former claim, not much may be said for the latter. That peaceful change would become something of a mantra over the next few years was substantially a function of hesitation and reluctance in the face of what Zimmern referred to in a lecture given in August at the annual session of the Geneva Institute of International Relations, as the ‘stern realities’ of treaty obligations.384

380 Gooch, ‘The Breakdown of the System of Collective Security,’ 70–71. 381 Edoardo Susmel and Duilio Susmel, eds., Opera omnia di Benito Mussolini, vol. 27

(Firenze: La Fenice 1952), 268–9. See also Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy, 367, and GathorneHardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 417. 382 Gooch, ‘The Breakdown of the System of Collective Security,’ 71. 383 League of Nations, ‘Extract from the Report of M. Edouard Herriot to the Sixteenth

Assembly of the League of Nations,’ Intellectual Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1935 (Paris: IIIC, 1936), 134. 384 Alfred Zimmern, ‘Liberty, Democracy, and the Movement Towards World Order,’ in Problems of Peace Tenth Series: Anarchy or World Order (London: Allen and Unwin, 1936), 146.

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As a seemingly happy alternative to these realities, the peaceful change bandwagon would gather pace over the next few years, winning adherents even from among those who lamented the lack of firm action against the Italian aggressor. It is telling, for example, that the final section of Gooch’s Geneva lecture tracing the breakdown of collective security, was entitled ‘Unwillingness for Peaceful Change.’ In that section, and after having acknowledged that neither Japan nor Italy had ‘a shadow of a legal or moral claim’ to those territories they had so recently annexed, Gooch asked the reader to consider what might be done in an instance where ‘an arguable request for territorial revision’ was made, in an instance where Germany, for example, ‘pleaded the unfairness of possessing no colonial empire.’385 Gooch noted that all the LON could do in such circumstances was appoint a committee to report on the matter and then, were it so inclined, issue a recommendation that the committee’s plan be adopted: the LON had no constitutional power to legislate territorial revision and thus any final decision in this regard would ‘remain with the country which was asked to make the sacrifice.’ Although Gooch acknowledged the complex nature of the question of territorial revision, he seemed to regard the fact that there was limited scope for League action in this area as unfortunate. He concluded in observing that it was now ‘a commonplace that the issue of peace or war turns on the question of the possibility of peaceful change in the next few years’ and that a system of collective security would only ‘become a living reality when all the Great Powers of the world are moderately contented with their lot.’386 The explanation for the growing chorus of voices calling for peaceful change largely concerns the fact that confidence in the LON as ‘guarantee of collective action…against lawless violence’ had been smashed and this was because, as Arnold-Forster put it in a lecture at the annual session of the Geneva Institute of International Relations in August 1935 in a clear anticipation of how events were soon to unfold, of the ‘shameful betrayal’ of Ethiopia.387 As was quickly recognised, because Britain and France had failed to stand by the LON and to ‘stand by it with force…for the execution of collective security’ against a background of American ‘desertion of the cause,’ the LON system had

385 Gooch, ‘The Breakdown of the System of Collective Security,’ 72. 386 Ibid., 73. 387 William Arnold-Forster, ‘The Elements of World Order,’ in Problems of Peace, Tenth Series: Anarchy or World Order (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1936), 35.

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been set on the road to breakdown.388 In light of this, one can perhaps understand the appeal of conjuring schemes for peaceful change: it was means of escape from the deep foreboding that plans for further violent change were afoot.

388 Pitman B. Potter, ‘League Publicity: Cause or Effect of League Failure?,’ Public Opinion Quarterly 2, no. 3 (1938): 399–12, 411.

Index

A Akami, Tomoko, 173 Aloisi, Pompeo, 276, 281, 290, 293, 299–304, 319, 505, 506, 531, 535–537, 539 Alteras, Isaac, 220, 241, 283, 315, 336, 338, 339, 342, 343, 346, 352 Amoroso, Luigi, 86–88, 110, 111 Angell, Norman, 131 Angus, Henry R., 175 Antonescu, Ion (Vladesco Racoassa, Georges), 485, 486 Antonsecu, Mihai A. (Michel A. Antonesco), 484–486 Apponyi, Albert, 29, 36, 39 Armstrong, Hamilton Fish, 194, 196, 510 Arnold-Forster, William, 378–380, 565 Ashby, Margery Corbett, 29, 69, 70, 74, 131 Astor, William Waldort, 466 Attlee, Clement, 551

Attolico, Bernardo, 80 Avenol, Joseph, 99, 119, 120

B Babcock, Earle B., 94, 99, 124 Bailey, Abraham, 107 Bailey, Stanley Hartnol, 96, 129 Baldwin, Stanley, 142, 192, 287, 552, 555 Balfour, Arthur, 409 Bankwitz, Philip Charles Farrell, 272, 273 Barthou, Louis, 397, 398, 442, 489 Bartlett, Vernon, 398 Bayón y Chacón, Gaspar, 421, 481 Beck, Józef, 316, 319, 323 Becker, Carl Heinrich, 44, 48–52, 60 Beckerath, Herbert von, 102, 117 Beckett, Eric, 534 Beneduce, Alberto, 204 Beneš, Edvard, 148, 297, 298, 317, 323, 334, 432

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 J. Pemberton, The Story of International Relations, Part Two, Palgrave Studies in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21824-9

567

568

INDEX

Bennett, Richard Bedford, 119, 120 Berber, Fritz (Friedrich), 459–463, 486–489, 491–494, 509, 510 Bergson, Henri, 13, 25, 112, 448, 449, 472 Bergstraesser, Arnold, 102, 111 Bernus, Pierre, 191, 192, 235, 236 Beveridge, William H., 105, 108, 164, 466 Birn, Donald S., 523, 524 Bismarck, Otto Christian Archibald von, 388 Blum, Léon, 143, 144 Boeckel, Richard M., 285, 312, 313, 364 Bonn, Moritz Julius, 84, 88, 130, 176 Bonnet, Henri, 6, 7, 28, 38, 40, 41, 50, 52, 58, 60, 61, 66–69, 71, 78, 81–83, 89, 92, 94, 106, 108, 118–120, 124, 157–159, 166– 171, 174, 389, 390, 393–398, 459–463, 466, 487, 522 Bono, Emilio de, 501 Borah, William Edgar, 16, 17, 147, 199, 233, 234, 243, 366, 381 ´¯ 391–393 Borel, Emile, Bouglé, Célestin, 87, 99, 111, 112 Bourgeois, Léon, 70, 141, 146 Bourquin, Maurice, 124, 262, 292, 293, 340, 347, 358, 393–400, 404, 407, 414, 439, 483, 494, 495, 521 Braddick, Henderson B., 504, 507, 528–530, 543, 545–547, 550, 555, 557 Bradley, Phillips, 540 Brière, François, 38 Brière, Yves-Marie Leroy de la, 403

Briand, Aristide, 2, 21, 236, 372 Brinkmann, Carl, 102, 110, 176 Brouckère, Louis de, 29, 372, 375 Brown, Philip Marshall, 366 Brownlie, Ian, 362, 363, 422–428, 430 Brüning, Heinrich, 20, 127, 149, 186–189, 206, 209, 236, 298 Bruns, Viktor, 460, 461 Brusa, Erminio, 83 Bryan, William Jennings, 424 Bülow, Bernhard von, 187 Butler, Nicholas Murray, 131, 133, 134, 365

C Cadogan, Andrew, 286, 287, 326 Cai Yuanpei (Tsai Yuan Pei), 65 Carr, E.H., 327 Carter, Edward C., 19, 89, 94, 173, 176 Carter, Edward C. Jr, 176 Carty, Anthony, 435, 436 Cassin, René, 12, 20, 32–34, 44, 71, 131, 472, 486 Castillejo, José, 46 Ceadel, Martin, 524 Cecil, Robert, 8, 11, 12, 16, 17, 19, 70, 131, 141, 155, 371, 372, 375, 412, 452, 454, 507, 524, 558 Cerruti, Vittorio, 318 Chalmers Wright, Fergus, 89, 94, 107, 108, 459, 487, 509, 510, 512, 513, 522 Chamberlain, Austen, 142, 155, 164, 369, 370, 372, 377, 466–468, 560 Chamberlain, Neville, 211, 214, 223, 224, 228, 234, 456, 530, 543, 544, 546, 548, 550, 556 Chappius, Charles W., 209, 210, 218, 220, 242, 244

INDEX

Charléty, Sébastien, 108, 121, 392 Charteris, Archibald Hamilton, 18, 311 Chen, Gideon, 175, 176 Churchill, Winston, 152, 231, 232, 234, 328, 331–333, 560 Cippico, Antonio, 78 Clark, Grover, 92 Clark, Ronald W., 157, 158, 164 Clavin, Patricia, 106 Cleeve, Margaret Elisabeth, 107, 397, 440 Clemenceau, Georges, 90, 458 Coatman, John, 118 Condliffe, John Bell, 19, 84, 116, 172, 173 Conze, Edward, 458 Coppola, Francesco, 399–402, 421, 462, 469–472, 482, 493–497, 509, 510, 523, 536 Cot, Pierre, 9, 99, 131, 153, 282–284, 387, 444, 456, 481 Coty, François, 12, 139, 140 Cripps, Stafford, 555 Cross, Oliver H., 199 Crozier, Andrew, 458 Cybichowski, Zygmunt, 122, 402 D Daladier, Édouard, 153, 288, 289, 291, 292, 303, 305–308, 316, 322–324, 326, 335, 385–387 Dalton, Hugh, 82, 84, 85, 88, 555, 556 Davies, David, 131, 133, 134, 145, 154, 155, 162, 285, 445, 446, 457, 480, 481, 524 Davies, Gwilym, 285 Davies, Thomas R., 188, 191, 193, 215, 268, 270 Davis, J. Merle, 173 Davis, Norman H., 187, 276, 339, 341, 346, 347, 353, 354, 356, 357, 380–382, 385–387

569

Davis, Thomas R., 387 de La Rocque, François, 17 Dennery, Étienne, 172 De Stefani, Alberto, 85–88 Destrée, Jules, 50, 51, 63 Dickinson, Willoughby, 12 Djuvara, Mircea, 472 Dovgalevsky, Valerian Salel’evich, 358 Drummond, Eric, 25, 89, 97, 99, 371, 427 Dufour-Feronce, Albert, 38, 78, 83, 89, 158, 163–165 Duggan, Stephen P., 55–57, 61 Dulles, Allan W., 123, 185, 276, 466, 468, 469, 480, 510 Durkheim, Émile, 87

E Eastman, S. Mack, 174 Eden, Anthony, 279–282, 285–287, 292, 296, 303, 305, 339–343, 369, 370, 385, 386, 506, 525, 551, 552, 558 Ehrlich, Ludwik, 484, 492, 514, 517 Einstein, Albert, 38, 60, 156–165 Eisenmann, Louis, 94, 122, 124, 440, 466, 468 Eisfeld, Rainer, 130 Emmanuel III (king), 78

F Fabry, Jean, 273 Falski, Marian, 48 Feiling, Keith, 546 Ferrari dalle Spade, Giannino, 99, 122, 124 Foch, Ferdinand, 252 Forges-Davazanti, Roberto, 472, 494 Freud, Sigmund, 156–161, 163

570

INDEX

G Gallavresi, Giuseppe, 94, 116 Garfield, Simon, 101 Gathorne-Hardy, G.M., 201, 202, 277, 326, 387, 410, 442, 453, 478, 479, 503, 526, 529, 530, 543, 548, 553–556 Gay, Edwin F., 110, 124 Gentile, Giovanni, 76, 77, 80, 81, 83, 99 George VI (king), 465 George, Lloyd, 242 Geouffre de La Pradelle, Albert de, 402, 403, 405, 406, 421, 439, 482, 486 Géraud, André (Pertinax), 139, 273, 315 Germain-Martin, Louis, 223, 224 Gheorge Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa, Gheorge (Vladesco Racoassa, Georges), 438 Gibson, Hugh L., 148–150, 187, 190, 214, 215, 282, 296, 316 Gidel, Gilbert, 124 Goebbels, Joseph, 100, 101, 129, 238 Goeppert, Otto, 71 Gooch, George Peabody, 554, 564, 565 Göring, Hermann, 288, 297 Graham, Ronald, 301, 302, 318, 333, 344 Grandi, Dino, 197, 290, 291, 302 Greene, Jerome D., 174 Grey, Edward, 412 Gross, Leo, 522 Grotius, Hugo, 414 Grundmann, Siegfried, 161, 163–165 H Haas, Robert, 45, 106 Haas, Wilhelm, 98–100, 124, 130, 440 Haile Selassie I (emperor), 562, 563

Hailsham, 1st Baron of (Douglas Hogg), 343, 348 Hallsten-Kallia, Anne, 93, 94, 124 Harrison, William Eric Craven, 518–520 Hauser, Henri, 109 Heath, Frank, 165 Hegel, Georg, 4 Henderson, Arthur, 8, 12, 25, 27–29, 33, 38, 74, 75, 148, 149, 151, 190, 322, 327, 334, 339, 384, 388 ´¯ Herriot, Edouard, 9, 10, 16, 17, 142, 143, 153, 154, 162, 193, 209– 211, 213–216, 218–224, 228, 235, 236, 238–241, 243–245, 248, 249, 251–254, 263, 273, 277, 298, 391, 392, 439, 564 Heywood, Thomas George Gordon, 348, 349 Hindenburg, Paul, 189 Hitler, Adolf, 101–103, 127, 129, 130, 149, 236, 280, 289, 291, 329, 333, 339, 345–353, 384, 457–459, 489–491, 501, 504, 546, 555 Hoare, Samuel, 525, 529, 530, 544, 547–549, 551–553, 555–557, 560 Hoetzsch, Otto, 3–8, 37–39, 84, 102, 103, 108, 122, 125, 126, 128, 389, 390, 459, 460, 463, 487 Holland, William L., 116, 178 Hoover, Herbert, 190, 233, 234, 243, 246, 247, 249, 263, 267 Horsfall Carter, William, 5, 146, 444, 448–452, 480, 481, 486 Houghton, Alanson Bigelow, 16, 17 House, Edward M., 70 Hudson, Manley O., 131 Hull, Cordell, 381, 382, 417 Hurst, Cecil, 412 Hymans, Paul, 70

INDEX

I Imlay, Talbut C., 141

J Jäckh, Ernst, 99, 101, 102, 124, 126–131, 158, 442, 444, 461, 487 Jackson, Oliver, 522 Jeans, James, 164 Jellinek, Georg, 485 Jessup, Philip C., 131, 406, 417–420, 510–512 Johnson, Hiram, 381 Johnston, G.A., 174 Joos, Joseph, 16–18 Jordan, Augustin Camille, 362, 363, 366, 370, 377, 378, 450, 451 Jouvenel, Henry de, 9–11, 301, 302, 317, 321 Joxe, Louis, 99, 124

K Kellogg, Frank B., 2, 4, 366, 379, 380 Kelsen, Hans, 131, 481, 485 King-Hall, Stephen, 122 Kolasa, Jan, 156 Komarnicki, Titus, 71–73, 363 Korab, Henry de, 222 Korenblat, Steven D., 101, 128–130, 487 Krüss, Hugo Andres, 7, 60, 163–165, 168, 388, 389 Kullmann, Gustave Gérard, 94

L Lammers, Hans Heinrich, 129, 130 Lange, Christian L., 19 Langevin, Paul, 44, 48, 51, 52, 57, 63, 64, 157, 158

571

La Pradelle, Paul de, 404, 406–408, 411, 413–417 Lasker, Bruno, 178 Lauterpacht, Hersch, 404, 405, 407, 412, 415, 416 Laval, Pierre, 21, 140, 148, 152, 196–198, 200, 201, 489, 501– 506, 525, 529, 530, 544, 545, 547–550, 556, 559 Layton, Walter, 204 Leeper, Allen, 353, 380–384 Leeuw, Jacobus Johannes van der, 447, 448 Le Fur, Louis, 403, 414, 439, 486 Léger, Alexis, 349, 350 Leith-Ross, Frederick, 337 Leland, Waldo G., 510, 519–522 Lemke, Ute, 7 Lévy, Roger, 172 Liddell Hart, Basil, 131, 457 Limburg, Joseph, 365, 403 Lin, Yutang, 46 Lippmann, Walter, 144, 145, 149, 150, 152, 189, 190, 194, 196, 197, 200, 201, 206, 244, 246, 247, 269 Litvinov, Maxim, 37, 152, 170, 191, 357, 442, 452, 539 Li Yu-ying (Li Shizeng), 61, 62 Lloyd George, David, 164, 249, 474, 560 Longare, Bonin, 527 Lorwin, Lewis L., 175, 176, 180–183 Lothian, 11th Marquess of (Philip Kerr), 459 Loveday, Alexander, 106 Luchaire, Julien, 6, 7 Lüders, Marie-Elisabeth, 12 Lytton, 2nd Earl of, 1–3, 45, 280, 471, 511, 542

572

INDEX

M Macadam, Ivison S., 89, 122 MacDonald, Ramsay, 142, 186–189, 207, 210, 211, 213, 214, 216–220, 222–233, 236, 238, 239, 242, 276, 279, 287–306, 308–310, 312, 313, 315–323, 325–333, 335, 337, 342, 392, 507 MacFadyean, Andrew, 8 Madariaga, Salvador de, 2, 17, 131, 152, 284, 292, 335, 495, 496, 501–506, 527–530, 532, 537, 542, 543, 553, 556–562 Malcolm, Neill, 108 Malkin, William, 287 Manion, Robert James, 120 Manning, Charles A.W., 97, 121, 396, 397, 508, 517 Mantoux, Paul, 90, 91, 99, 124, 131, 517, 518 Massigli, René, 280, 281, 339, 341 Matsuoka, Y¯ osuke, 498 Max, Alfred R., 522 McGeachy, Mary A. Craig, 174 McKellar, Kenneth, 233 McKercher, B.J.C., 543, 544 Meston, James Scorgie, 108, 395, 396, 465, 466, 494 Michelis, Giuseppe di, 500 Miller, David Hunter, 412 Millikan, Robert A., 69, 99 Mitrany, David, 131, 481–483, 486, 511 Montenach, Jean-Daniel de, 31, 40, 163 Moore, John Bassett, 420 Morley, Felix, 106 Mosconi, Antonio, 228 Motta, Giuseppe, 292, 430, 538 ´¯ Moyrand, Auguste-Edouard, 348, 349 Munch, Peter, 94

Murray, Gilbert, 25, 26, 28, 38, 60, 65, 66, 71, 72, 75, 89, 94, 106, 108, 131, 145, 155, 163, 165, 166, 169, 170, 388, 466, 495, 496, 506–509, 524, 562 Mussolini, Benito, 76–78, 236, 286, 289, 290, 300–304, 318, 320–323, 325–331, 333, 335, 344, 345, 496–500, 502–505, 507, 508, 523, 525, 526, 528, 543, 544, 546–549, 551, 552, 554–556, 564

N Nadolny, Rudolf, 281, 283, 284, 294–296, 299, 300, 316, 319, 338, 339, 341–343, 352, 383 Nathan, Otto, 158, 164 Neurath, Konstantin von, 209, 217, 218, 238, 239, 245, 246, 276, 295, 318, 342–345, 348, 388 Noel-Baker, Philip, 8, 12, 97, 192, 455, 480, 502 Norden, Heinz, 158, 164

O Oprescu, George, 79, 168 Orlando, Vittorio, 70

P Painlevé, Paul, 13–15, 17, 171, 391 Palmier, Jean-Michel, 112 Papen, Franz von, 189, 208, 209, 211–213, 216, 218–224, 226, 228, 229, 231, 236–238, 245, 346, 348, 350 Pascal, Blaise, 392 Pascazio, Nicola, 499 Paul-Boncour, Jean, 189

INDEX

Paul-Boncour, Joseph, 2, 15, 16, 87, 140–143, 154, 187, 189, 236, 248, 255–263, 271–273, 280, 288, 289, 292, 298, 299, 302–305, 314, 322–325, 383, 387 Paulucci di Calboli, Giacomo, 80 Pella, Vespasian V., 29, 31, 71, 74, 360, 361, 366, 438, 439, 455, 485 Pelliot, Paul, 171 Percy, Eustace, 105, 108, 109 Perrier, Ernest, 28, 29, 33, 38, 42–44, 64 Pétain, Philippe, 273 Phillimore, Walter, 412 Pichot, Henri, 17 Picht, Werner, 7, 76, 82, 89–91, 93, 94, 99, 101–103, 107, 388, 389 Pilotti, Massimo, 99, 100, 165 Plaunt, Alan B., 359, 473, 474 Plot, Jean, 139 Politis, Nikolaos, 12, 131, 148, 285, 295, 296, 357–359, 365, 366, 369, 370 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 87 Pugh, Michael, 133, 146, 155, 456, 467, 558 R Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli, 64 Rajchman, Ludwik, 44, 45 Rappard, William E., 90, 115, 119, 131 Ray, Jean, 410, 430 Renkin, Jules, 228 Reynold, Gonzague de, 46, 47, 50 Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 491 Richardson, John H., 111, 119, 176 Righetti, Giuseppe, 80, 81, 440 Rist, Charles, 205 Rocco, Alfredo, 49, 60, 76, 80–84, 86, 163–165, 168–170, 440, 523 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 337, 340, 346–350, 353, 357, 358, 379, 381, 382, 385, 452, 532, 545

573

Rosenberg, Alfred, 459 Rosso, Augusto, 276 Rothbarth, Margarete, 6, 7, 99 Rousseau, Jean-Jaccques, 451 Rumbold, Horace, 345, 351 Russell, Frank M., 154 Russell, William F., 57 Rutherford, Ernest, 164

S Saint Simon, Henri de, 87 Saint-Blancard, Louis de Saint-Victor de (Saint Brice), 222 Salter, James Arthur, 105, 106, 109, 118, 122, 128, 131, 395, 540 Sardi, Alexander, 49, 50 Sarraut, Albert, 171 Savoia-Genova, Adelberto di, 82 Scelle, Georges, 20, 112, 131, 402, 481 Schacht, Hjalmar, 340, 341 Schellberg, Wilhelm, 94 Schindler, Diedrich, 407 Schleicher, Kurt von, 20, 236 Schliephake, Hanfried, 250 Schmitt, Carl, 462, 463 Schwarzenberger, George, 481 Scialoja, Vittorio, 77, 78, 451 Shirer, William L., 489 Shotwell, James T., 33, 40, 41, 52, 60, 61, 66–69, 73, 75, 81, 89–93, 126, 166–172, 178, 510, 522 Simma, Bruno, 435 Simon, John, 23, 131, 145, 152, 192, 217, 223, 224, 229, 230, 239–243, 245, 247, 287, 288, 290–292, 295–305, 307, 308, 316, 317, 320–324, 326, 327, 333, 334, 338, 341, 344, 345, 351, 354–356, 380–382, 386, 388, 397, 398, 449, 506, 507 Smith, H.A., 99 Smuts, Jan Christian, 412, 473–478

574

INDEX

Soong, T.V., 44, 46, 108 Spaight, James M., 445–447 Stanley, Edward George Villiers, 474 Steed, Wickham, 131, 146 Steinig, Leon, 157–159 Stewart, Walter, 203 Stimson, Henry L., 179, 186–189, 201, 210, 247, 254, 256, 269, 274, 353, 418, 420 Stoppani, Pietro, 106 Strauss, Gaston, 38 Stresemann, Gustave, 21, 127, 236 Stronski, Stanislas, 14, 32 Sugimura, Yotaro, 99, 100 Susta, Josef, 168 Szumlakowski, Marjan, 27, 29

T Takaki, Yasaka, 178, 180, 499 Tanakadate, Aikichi, 48, 52, 66 Tardieu, André, 134, 138, 139, 146, 148–150, 152, 153, 186–189, 209, 273, 274, 298 Tawney, R.H., 48 Tchen, Hoshien, 58, 61, 62, 64, 66 Temperley, Arthur Cecil, 287 Temperley, Harold, 131, 146 Titulescu, Nicolae, 14, 371, 372, 375 Tollardo, Elisabetta, 80, 81, 100 Toynbee, Arnold J., 3, 25, 85, 87, 112, 113, 117, 300, 389, 390, 392, 393, 421, 459–463, 471, 482, 486, 487, 493, 511, 516, 518 Trommer, Aage, 289, 302 Tyrrell, William, 348–350, 380–383, 386, 387

U Uchida, Yasuya, 280 Undén, Oesten, 131

V Vacaresco, Hélène, 74 Vagts, Detlev F., 461, 463 Vaïsse, Maurice, 138, 139, 148, 149, 186–188 Valéry, Paul, 33 Van Sickle, John V., 122, 128 Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Charles, 187, 386 Vansittart, Robert, 333, 334, 337, 343, 353, 505, 525, 549, 550, 553, 557 Varey, David K., 189, 192, 353 Venizelos, Elefterios, 70 Verdross, Alfred, 131, 421–423, 425, 426, 431–438, 481 Verzijl, Jan Hendrik Willem, 365, 403 Vesni´c, Milenko Radomar, 70 Vignol, René, 450, 451 Visconti di Modrone, Marcello, 82 Vitoria, Francisco de, 516 Viviani, René, 137 Vl˘adescu-R˘acoasa, Gheorge (Vladesco Racoasa, Georges), 438, 439, 455 Vranek, Jiri F., 397, 517, 518, 522

W Walters, Frank P., 48, 100, 371, 373, 375, 376 Ware, Edith E., 93, 167, 173, 174 Webster, Charles K., 131, 488, 489, 512, 518 Weiss, Louise, 8 Weiszaecker, Ernst von, 276 Weitz, Eric D., 100 Wells, H.G., 146 Weygand, Maxime, 138, 272, 273, 387 Wheeler-Bennett, John W., 128, 129, 209, 225, 457, 458 Whitton, John B., 405, 406, 417–420 Widmer, Pierre, 78

INDEX

Wilberg, Helmuth, 250 Wilbur, Ray Lyman, 68 Wilhelm-Wessels, Jens, 106 Wilson, Hugh R., 294 Wilson, Woodrow, 70, 454 Wolfers, Arnold, 102, 103, 114, 122, 130, 174 Woolley, Mary E., 68 Wright, Quincy, 406, 428, 430 Wu, Zhihui, 46, 64 Y Yen, Weiching Williams, 57

575

Yen, Y.C. James, 49, 57 Yokota, Kisabur¯ o, 178, 180 Yoshizawa, Kenichi, 45

Z Zaidi, Waqar H., 155, 446, 447 Zaleski, Auguste, 23, 25 Zimmern, Alfred E., 6, 75, 107, 124, 126, 128, 131, 134, 146, 375, 376, 401, 402, 411, 493, 514–517, 519, 534 Zimmern, Lucie, 128