The Disarmament Saga (1932- 1934)

THE DISARMAMENT SAGA (1932- 1934)

The Disarmament conference was one of the many conferences organized by the League of Nations to disarm Nations for the purpose of peace. Others were the Washington Naval conference of 1922, and the London Naval Conference of 1930. These various conferences all had their imperfections in a way and for a conference to take two years and no result could be regarded as a failureÐ'ÐŽÐ'­ or was it?.

On February, 1932, the conference had begun in Geneva with a speech by the United States delegate, Ambassador Hugh Gibson. He said that the worldÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs civilization was under threat because of the huge machinery and warfare that was being maintained; he also reminded everyone that they all swore not to wage war on each other so why would a massive amount of arms be needed in the first place?. According to a source, among the points he mentioned, he proposed: effective measures to protect civilian populations against aerial bombings; abolition of lethal gases and bacteriological warfare; prolonging the existing naval agreements that were concluded at Washington and London; and proportional reduction from the figures laid down in the Washington and London Naval agreements*. On May, 1933, it appeared that the conference had done a lot of struggling concerning certain issues, but without any substantial progress. Getting tired of the conferenceÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs Ð'ÐŽÐ'oslow motionÐ'ÐŽÐ'±, the American President, President Roosevelt, decided to liven it up a bit by sending a message on the 16th of May which was addressed to the 54 government heads, he defined the primary objective of the conference as Ð'ÐŽÐ'o complete elimination of all offensive weaponsÐ'ÐŽÐ'±*/ and believing Germany to be the Ð'ÐŽÐ'o only possible obstacleÐ'ÐŽÐ'±*. Roosevelt passed his views to Dr. Schalt, President of the Reichsbank, one of GermanyÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs central banks, who was in Washington, ten days earlier and hoped he would pass them to Hitler.

On May, 1933, France refused to comply with the demands of the conference. They refused to reduce their arms, but would only if the United States and Great Britain would join them and other countries to form some sort of organized security group in order to make sure Germany would also give up arms. The U.S. only stated that they would take part in any measures that the League of Nations would take in to bringing peace and Frances proposal was rejected by the senate committee of foreign relations. The conference was in adjournment from June to October and by then; Hitler was in power and ready to rearm. Germany seemed to have no intention of disarming because they believed they were being cheated. France proposed that the steps of disarmament should not be taken immediately, but wanted a period to see whether Germany humble and trustworthy, and no longer as stubborn as before. Germany declined immediately and on October 14, 1933, withdrew from the conference and gave notice of their withdrawal from the League of Nations and it was their intention to rearm.

Twenty seven months had passed, yet no progress. The reason this conference was Ð'ÐŽÐ'oanotherÐ'ÐŽÐ'± failure of the League of Nations was because there were various disagreements and rivalries among the countries. Germany was the primary target of this conference, in my opinion and I say this because of the Paris peace settlement in 1919, treaty of Versailles, which reduced GermanyÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs arms among other things. It was GermanyÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs plan to make sure that every other country