Disarmament as a weapon: Anglo-French relations and the problems of enforcing German disarmament, 1919–28

Abstract

This article examines the conflicting French and British definitions and policies towards the enforced disarmament of Germany that was agreed upon by the Allies at Versailles. It contrasts the French definition of disarmament, ‘moral disarmament’, which required convincing controls over Germany's material capability for war and the country's desire to use force, with the much narrower British view, which sought the rapid dismantling of Berlin's physical armaments. These irreconcilable views further divided the two countries and fostered differences over intelligence estimates of German power and the role of the League of Nations in German disarmament.

Key words:

• disarmament
• Versailles
• Treaty
• League of Nations

Notes

¹IMCC studies have tended to focus on Germany. See, for example, Michael Salewski, Entwaffnung und Militärkontrolle in Deutschland, 1918–1927 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag 1966).

²See Carolyn J. Kitching, Britain and the Problem of International Disarmament, 1919–1934 (London: Routledge 1999), 14, 16; and her Britain and the Geneva Disarmament Conference (London: Palgrave MacMillan 2003), 13.

³SHAT [Service historique de l'armée de terre, Vincennes], 2N5, no.3, ‘Résumé de la situation Allemande’, 13 Dec. 1920; 7N2610, ‘Note du 2ème Bureau’, Dec. 1920; 7N2614, no.5, ‘Note sur la situation militaire de l'Allemagne’, 29 May 1924.

⁴SHAT, 7N3530, no.1, ‘Note sur la réduction des armements’, 9 Nov. 1920; AN [Archives nationales, Paris], C/14632, Assemblée Nationale, CAE [Commission des Affaires Étrangères], 12 Feb. 1920.

⁶AMAE [Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris], Série Z, Allemagne, Vol.56, ‘Note sur l'Armée Allemande’, EMA, 2e Bureau A, 31 July 1919.

⁵SHAT, 1N21, Procès-verbal, Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre, 30 Mar. 1925; 2N5, no.2, procès-verbal, Conseil Supérieur de la Défense Nationale, 22 Oct. 1920; 2N5, no.3, ‘Résumé de la situation Allemande’, 13 Dec. 1920; 1K129, Fond Foch, Cahier E, Foch diary, 2 June 1920; and AAN [archives of the Assemblée Nationale now on deposit at the AN], Assemblée Nationale, CAE, 17 Feb. 1920 and 9 Mar. 1923. On the comparison, see Andrew Barros, ‘France and the German Menace, 1919–1928’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge 2001) Ch.1; and Mona L. Siegel, The Moral Disarmament of France (Cambridge: CUP 2004).

⁷SHAT, 7N2610, ‘Rapport du Commandant de Castellan de l'Etat-Major de l'Armée envoyé en mission à Berlin’, 25 Nov. 1920. On 1806, see SHAT, 4N96, no.1, Nollet to Foch, 21 Oct. 1919.

⁸Barros, ‘France and the German Menace’, Ch.1; and Peter Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace, 1933–1939 (Oxford: OUP 2000), 388–9, 391.

⁹AMAE, Massigli Papers, Vol.98, Massigli to Hesnard (Berlin), 16 Apr. 1920.

¹⁰Ulrich Heinemann, Die verdrängte Niederlage: Politische Offentlichkeit und Kriegschuldfrage in Der Weimarer Republik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1983).

¹¹SHAT, 7N2614, no.2, ‘Attitude des divers partis Allemands à l'égard de la France’, 29 Feb. [1924].

¹²Contrast this experience with post-1945 Japan and the American occupation regime. See John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W.W. Norton 1999).

¹³SHAT, 2N5, no.3, ‘Résumé de la situation Allemande’, 13 Dec. 1920; and 7N2611, no.2, ‘Evolution militaire de l'Allemagne depuis l'armistice’, 6 Feb. 1921. On the Freikorps, see SHAT, 2N8, no.4, Annex I, ‘Etude des conditions dans lesquelles des traités de garantie mutuelle pourraient permettre une réduction des armaments’, No.140 D.M.I., 6 Mar. 1923.

¹⁴‘Rapport du Commandant de Castellan’, 25 Nov. 1920 (see note 7).

¹⁵SHAT, 7N2614, no.1, ‘Note pour la Section du Renseignements’, 15 Jan. 1924; 7N2613, no.4, ‘Note sur la situation militaire de l'Allemagne’, 6 Dec. 1923; 7N2610, ‘Résumé de la situation Allemande’, 13 Dec. 1920; and Francis L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics, 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: OUP 1966), 221. Stülpnagel cited in Wilhelm Deist, The Wehrmacht and German Rearmament (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1981), 5; Wilhelm Deist, ‘The Rearmament of the Wehrmacht’, in Wilhelm Deist, Manfred Messerschmidt, Hans-Erich Volkmann and Wolfram Wette eds., Germany and the Second World War. Vol. I: The Buildup of German Aggression (Oxford: OUP 1990), 377–8, 404–7; and [Kew, The National Archives], FO[reign Office records]/371/9864, C13551/11642/18, Phipps (Paris) to MacDonald, No. 1847, 24 Aug. 1924.

¹⁶Assemblée Nationale, Commission de l'Armée, 11 Feb. 1920; CAE, 4, 10, 12 and 17 Feb. 1920.

¹⁷AMAE, Millerand Papers, Vol.4, ‘Résumé d'un entretien de Sir Arthur Steel Maitland Bart Délegué de la Nouvelle-Zélande avec le Lt-Colonel Réquin’, [n.d. but internal evidence strongly suggests Sept. 1922]; SHAT, 7N3530, no.4, ‘Note sur la réduction des armements’, 9 Nov. 1920.

¹⁸See, for example, Briand's early analysis in AAN, Assemblée Nationale, CAE, 17 Feb. 1920.

¹⁹Cited in John R. Ferris, Men, Money, and Diplomacy: The Evolution of British Strategic Foreign Policy, 1919–1926 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1989), 40.

²⁰LG [Lloyd George papers, House of Lords Record Office], F/24/4/39, Hankey to PM [Prime Minister], 19 Mar. 1919 (emphasis in original); see also David Stevenson's article in this collection.

²¹Cited in Lorna S. Jaffe, The Decision to Disarm Germany (Boston: Allen and Unwin 1985), 200; LG, F/33/2/13, Long to PM, 16 Feb. 1919.

²²Philip Towle, Enforced Disarmament. From the Napoleonic Campaigns to the Gulf War (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1997), 66–92; Ferris, Men, Money, and Diplomacy, 38–52, 54–63, 92–102; Jaffe, The Decision to Disarm, 70, 85, 87, 195, 200–1.

²³LG, F/6/6/17, Robert Cecil to PM, 10 Mar. 1919.

²⁴See, for example, SHAT, 7N2614, no.5, ‘Note sur les possibilités aéronautiques de l'Allemagne’, SAE 2/11, 25 May 1924; Towle, Enforced Disarmament, 73–92; John P. Fox, ‘Britain and the Inter-Allied Military Commission of Control, 1925–1926’, Journal of Contemporary History 4/2 (1969), 143–64; and Richard J. Shuster, ‘The Diplomacy of Disarmament: Allied Military Control in Germany, 1920–1931’ (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University 2000), a revised version of which is shortly to be published as German Disarmament after World War I: The Diplomacy of International Arms Inspection, 1920–31 (London: Routledge 2006).

²⁵Fabrice Auger, ‘Le Comité Olympique face aux rivalités franco-allemandes (1918–1928)’, Relations internationales 112 (2002), 428.

²⁶SHAT, 7N2614, no.1, ‘Les Commissions Interalliées de Contrôle’, 24 Jan. 1924.

²⁷SHAT, 7N3615, Poincaré to M. le Min[istre] de la Guerre, No.2497, 13 Nov. 1923. For the IMCC's problems in Germany, see ibid., carton 4N94.

²⁸SHAT, 7N2614, no.1, ‘Note sur les possibilités aéronautiques de l'allemagne’, SAE 2/11, 21 Dec. 1923 (updated 25 Jan. 1924); SHAA [Service historique de l'armée de l'air, Vincennes], 2B60, 2e Bureau, ‘Les Aéronautiques Etrangères, Allemagne, période du 1er janvier 1925 au 15 avril 1926’.

²⁹Klaus Tenfelde, ‘Disarmament and Big Business: The Case of Krupp, 1918–1925’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 16/3 (September 2005), 544–6.

³⁰Andrew Barros, ‘Les dangers du sport et de l'éducation physique. Une évaluation des forces allemandes par le Deuxième Bureau français (1919–1928)’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 210 (2003), 113–23.

³¹AN [Archives Nationales, Paris], AJ/9/6178, no. 1323 IRC/5 A.T.R.P., [Tirard] to Minister of Public Instruction.

³²SHAT, 7N2614, no.7, ‘Compte-rendu’, SAE 2/11, 27 July 1924.

³³[Kew, The National Archives], ADM[iralty papers]/116/3445, CID Paper 280-B.

³⁴Ibid.

³⁵See John R. Ferris, ‘The Theory of a “French Air Menace”: Anglo-French Relations and the British Home Defence Air Force Programmes of 1921–1925’, Journal of Strategic Studies 10/1 (1987), 62–7; and id., Men, Money, and Diplomacy, 106–9, 126–33, 170–1.

³⁶Zara Steiner, The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919–1933 (Oxford: OUP 2005).

³⁷SHAT, 2N33, ‘Étude sur l'organisation du droit d'investigation de la Société des Nations’, no. 641/D.N.I., 25 July 1924 (emphasis in original).

³⁸AMAE, Série Z, Allemagne, Vol.142, Lacaze to Président du Conseil (Georges Leygues), 25 Oct. 1920.

³⁹‘Note du Maréchal Foch’, 25 Mar. 1922, ibid; Foch to Poincaré, no.76/1, 18 Feb. 1924, ibid.

⁴⁰Poincaré to Serrigny, 8 Feb. 1924; Réquin, ‘Exercice du droit d'investigation reconnu par les Traités de Paix à la Société des Nations’, 15 Feb. 1924, ibid.

⁴¹Réquin, ‘Exercice du droit d'investigation’ (see note 40).

⁴²Note, 5 June 1924; Foch to Poincaré, no.76/1, 18 Feb. 1924; Poincaré to Serrigny, 8 Feb. 1924, ibid.; and Salewski, Entwaffnung und Militärkontrolle in Deutschland, 268–70.

⁴³SHAT, 7N3576, ‘Principales questions exposées par le Général Nollet le 23 juin 1923’; and Gen. Charles Nollet, Une expérience de désarmement. Cinq ans de contrôle militaire en Allemagne (Paris: Gallimard 1932).

⁴⁴SHAT, 7N3576, ‘Note au sujet de l'exercice du droit d'investigation de la Société des Nations’, no.652/DNI, 28 June 1924.

⁴⁵SHAT, 2N226, ‘Etude sur le droit d'investigation de la Société des Nations’, no.271 DNI, 26 Mar. 1924.

⁴⁶[Kew, The National Archives], WO [War Office]/32/5799, General Staff, War Office, ‘Memorandum on the Present and Future Military Situation in Germany’, Dec. 1924; and WO/190/68, ‘The Situation in Europe’, June 1929.

⁴⁷FO/371/9820, C16913/2048/18, jacket minutes, Lampson, 5 Nov. 1924; C9313/2072/18, Lampson to D'Abernon, 23 June 1924; and BL [British Library, London], Curzon Papers, MSS Eur F 112/247, Memorandum by Lampson, 11 Jan. 1924 (emphasis in original).

⁴⁸SHAT, 2N226, ‘Etude sur le droit d'investigation de la Société des Nations’, no.271 DNI, 26 Mar. 1924.

⁴⁹Fox, ‘Britain and the Inter-Allied Military Commission of Control’, 163–4; Steiner, The Lights that Failed, 426–7, 430; Brig-Gen. Sir James Edmonds, The Occupation of the Rhineland, 1918–1929 (London: HMSO 1987 1944), 267–70, 283.

⁵⁰[Kew, The National Archives], CAB[inet papers]/23/32, Cab. 64 (22), 1 Nov. 1922.

⁵¹LG, F/212/1/5, ‘Memorandum by Arthur Balfour’, 15 Sept. 1922.

⁵²FO/371/5462, W 3391/254/17, Derby (Paris) to Curzon, no.3755, 18 Dec. 1920; W 3436/254/17, Sackville-West (Paris) to Hardinge, 18 Dec. 1920; and BL, Curzon Papers, MSS Eur 112/200A, Hardinge (Paris) to Curzon, 21 Apr. 1921.

⁵³AAN, Assemblée Nationale, Commission de l'Armée, 9, 10, 16 Feb. and 2, 25 Mar. 1927. On the Maginot line, see Martin S. Alexander, ‘In Defence of the Maginot Line: Security Policy, Domestic Politics and the Economic Depression in France’, in Robert Boyce ed., French Foreign and Defence Policy, 1918–1940 (London: LSE/Routledge 1998), 164–94.

⁵⁴Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction (London 2004) [Butler Report]; Towle, Enforced Disarmament, 193–201; and Kenneth M. Pollack, The Threatening Storm. The United States and Iraq: The Crisis, the Strategy and the Prospects after Saddam (New York: Random House 2002), 55–108, 211–42.