Gas disarmament in the 1920s: Hopes confounded

Abstract

Following the extensive use of chemical weapons in the First World War, which contravened pre-war agreements, gas disarmament was a prime candidate for interwar consideration. Although the issue remained on the international agenda until the ill-fated World Disarmament Conference, this paper argues that it failed on account of military, economic and political difficulties. These included the continuing interest of the military in the potential of chemical weaponry, doubts about the practicality of gas disarmament at a time when states were trying to revive their chemical industries, and profound political differences over security issues between Britain and France and France and Germany.

Key words:

• chemical warfare
• gas disarmament

Notes

¹ The Times, 29 April 1915, 9.

²On propaganda, see Horace C. Peterson, Propaganda for War (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press 1968), 63; and James M. Read, Atrocity Propaganda 1914–1919 (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 1941), 195–9. On the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Wilfred Owen and John Singer Sergeant, see Edward M. Spiers, ‘Chemical Warfare in the First World War’, in British Commission for Military History (ed.), ‘Look to Your Front’: Studies in the First World War (Staplehurst: Spellmount 1999), 163–78.

³[Kew, The National Archives], CAB[inet papers] 4/15, CID [Committee of Imperial Defence] paper 732-B, ‘International Condemnations of Gas’, 21 Oct. 1926.

⁴Ibid.

⁵Ibid.; Anne Orde, Great Britain and International Security 1920–1926 (London: Royal Historical Society 1978), 2; Dick Richardson, The Evolution of British Disarmament Policy in the 1920s (London: St Martin's Press 1989), 3; Lorna S. Jaffe, The Decision to Disarm Germany: British Policy towards Postwar German Disarmament, 1914–1919 (London: Allen and Unwin 1985), 159–60; and John J. Underwood, ‘The Roots and Reality of British Disarmament Policy 1932–34’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Leeds 1977), 22.

⁶[Kew, The National Archives], WO 32/5190, Sir A. Lynden Bell to Sir C.H. Harington, 25 Mar. 1919, including ‘Note by the General Staff on the Use of Gas’.

⁸PP [Parliamentary Papers], ‘Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany, Signed at Versailles, 28th June 1919’, Cmd 153 (1919), LIII, 221, 225.

⁷Jaffe, Decision to Disarm Germany, 159–64, 169–73, 185–8, 202–3, 214–8.

¹⁰WO 33/987B, ‘First Report of…the CWC [Chemical Warfare Committee] for the period ending 31 March 1921’, 24–5.

⁹David J. Shorney, ‘Britain and Disarmament 1916–1931’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Durham 1980), 13.

¹¹Edward M. Spiers, ‘Gas and the North-West Frontier’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 6/4(1983), 94–112; CAB 24/106, W.S. Churchill, ‘Mesopotamian Expenditure’, 1 May 1920, C.P. 1320.

¹²WO 33/987B, ‘First report of the CWC’, 8; and WO 106/1148, Major-General E. Ironside to General Rawlinson, 16 Sept. 1919, enclosing reports on the ‘M’ bombs.

¹³CAB 23/12, Cabinet conclusions, 16 Oct. 1919.

¹⁶CAB 24/106, H. Fisher, ‘Gas Warfare: memorandum by the President of the Board of Education’, 17 May 1920, C.P. 1301.

¹⁴CAB 24/105, H. Wilson, memorandum, 16 April 1920, enclosed in W.S. Churchill, ‘Gas Warfare’, 3 May 1920, C.P. 1211; see also Earl Beatty, ‘Gas Warfare’, 7 May 1920, C.P. 1246.

¹⁵CAB 24/105, E.S. Montague, memorandum, 12 May 1920, C.P. 1278.

¹⁷George Scott, The Rise and Fall of the League of Nations (London: Hutchinson 1973), 410.

¹⁸CAB 23/20 and CAB 23/21, Cabinet conclusions, 4 Mar. 1920 and 12 May 1920; see also CAB 24/105, M.P.A. Hankey, ‘Gas Warfare’, 4 May 1920, C.P. 1218.

¹⁹CAB 24/115, ‘Report of the Permanent Advisory Commission for Military Naval and Air Questions to the Council of the League of Nations’, 22 Oct. 1920, C.P. 2177.

²⁰Ibid.

²¹Erik Goldstein and John Maurer (eds), The Washington Conference, 1921–22: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and the Road to Pearl Harbor (London: Frank Cass 1994), 23.

²²CAB 4/7, CID Paper 280-B, Standing Sub-Committee, ‘The Washington Conference on Limitation of Armaments’, 24 Oct. 1921.

²³CAB 23/27, Cabinet conclusions, 1 Nov. 1921.

²⁴Goldstein and Maurer, Washington Conference, 27.

²⁵[Kew, The National Archives], FO[reign Office records] 371/7245, A.J. Balfour to D. Lloyd George, 22 Dec. 1921; and WO 188/144, British Empire Delegation, ‘Report of Committee with Respect to Poison Gas’, 22 Dec. 1921.

²⁶ Conference on the Limitation of Armament, Washington November 12, 1921–February 6, 1922 report of American Delegation (Washington DC 1922), 730, 732, 734, 736.

²⁷FO 371/7245, Balfour to Lloyd George, 7 Jan. 1922, telegram no.233.

²⁹ FRUS [Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States] (Washington: US Government Printing Office 1992) Vol.1, 269.

²⁸FO 371/7245, Balfour to Lloyd George, 7 Jan. 1922, telegram no.235.

³⁰Edward M. Spiers, Chemical Warfare (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1986), 43.

³¹CAB 24/137, ‘Gas Warfare: Memorandum by the Chancellor of the Exchequer’, 22 June 1922, C.P. 4054.

³²[Kew, The National Archives], ADM[iralty papers] 1/8621/40, Rear Admiral A.E. Chatfield, minute, 28 June 1922.

³³CAB 4/8, CID Paper 355-B, ‘Gas Warfare. Memorandum by the Naval Staff’, 17 July 1922; and CID Paper 361-B, ‘Gas Warfare. Memorandum by the Secretary of State for War’, 27 July 1922.

³⁴WO 188/212, ‘A Summary of Important Notes and Papers in connection with the policy of gas warfare in order of dates from 1899’; and CAB 2/3, 161st meeting of the CID, 28 July 1922.

³⁵FO 371/7062, ‘Verbatim Record of the 6th Plenary Meeting of the Second League Assembly’, 8 Sept. 1921.

³⁶ADM 116/2142, ‘Report of the TMC [Temporary Mixed Commission]’, 7 Sept. 1922.

³⁷WO 188/144, ‘Report of the TMC’, 30 July 1924.

³⁸WO 33/1028, ‘Third Report…of the CWC’, 1923, 15.

³⁹WO 33/1049, ‘Fourth Report of the CWC’, 1924, 16.

⁴⁰CAB 4/11, CID Paper 483-B, ‘Chemical Warfare Policy’, 23 Feb. 1924.

⁴¹CAB 23/49, Cabinet conclusions, 18 Feb. 1925.

⁴²Major Victor Lefebure, The Riddle of the Rhine: Chemical Strategy in Peace and War (New York: The Chemical Foundation 1920), 244–5, 260–3; id., ‘Chemical Warfare: The Possibility of its Control’, Transactions of the Grotius Society, Vol.7: Problems of Peace and War Papers Read Before the Society in the Year 1921, 153–66; and id., ‘Chemical Disarmament’, National Review 78 (September 1921–February 1922), 51–9. For an endorsement of Lefebure's vision, see Philip J. Noel Baker, Disarmament (London: Hogarth Press 1926) Ch.14.

⁴³FO 371/11033, Lord Onslow, 7 May 1925, telegram no.93.

⁴⁴FO 371/11033, League of Nations, ‘Conference for the Control of the International Trade in Arms, Munitions and Implements of War. Verbatim Report of First Meeting of the General Committee (7 May 1925)’, 7–9.

⁴⁵FO 371/11033, Western department minutes, 20 May 1925.

⁴⁶FO 371/11033, H. Fountain to Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 13 May 1926.

⁴⁷FO 371/11033, Admiralty minute, 21 May 1925.

⁴⁸FO 371/11033, Foreign Office to Fountain, 22 May 1925 and Lord Onslow, 26 May 1925, telegram no. 146. See also ‘Arms Conference for Outlawing Gas’, New York Times, 6 June 1925, 1.

⁴⁹CAB 4/15, CID Paper 732-B, ‘International Condemnations of Gas’, 21 Oct. 1926.

⁵⁰United States Senate, Congressional Record, 69th Congress, 2nd Session, 9 Dec. 1926 (LCVIII), 140–55, 226–9, 363–8.

⁵¹WO 33/1128, ‘Sixth Annual Report of the CWC’, 31 Mar. 1926, 19.

⁵²CAB 4/15, CID Paper 707-B, ‘Letter from the Admiralty to the Secretary, Committee of Imperial Defence’, 20 July 1926; CID Papers 709-B and 723-B, ‘Chemical Warfare Policy’ memoranda by the Secretary of State for War, 29 July 1926 and 8 Oct. 1926; and CID Paper 726-B, ‘Chemical Warfare Policy: Note by the Air Staff’, 15 Oct. 1926.

⁵³CAB 2/4, 217th meeting of the CID, 11 Nov. 1926; CAB 4/16, CID Paper 754-B, ‘Chemical Warfare Activities in U.S.S.R’, 20 Dec. 1926; and CAB 2/5, 226th meeting of the CID, 5 May 1927.

⁵⁴CAB 2/4, 217th meeting of the CID, 11 Nov. 1926; CAB 2/5, 221st meeting of the CID, 25 Feb. 1927; and CAB 23/54, Cabinet conclusions, 3 Mar. 1927.

⁵⁵US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Arms Control and Disarmament Agreements: Texts and History of Negotiations (Washington, DC 1977), 9–17.

⁵⁶CAB 24/185, R. Cecil, ‘Reduction and Limitation of Armaments’, 7 Mar. 1927. See also Viscount Cecil, The Great Experiment: An Autobiography (London: Jonathan Cape 1941), 183; and Richardson, Evolution of British Disarmament Policy, 24–5.

⁵⁷CAB 2/4, 217th meeting of the CID, 11 Nov. 1926. See also P. Towle, ‘British Security and Disarmament Policy in Europe in the 1920s’, in R. Ahmann, A.M. Birke and M. Howard (eds), The Quest for Stability: Problems of West European Security 1918–1957 (London: The German Historical Institute and Oxford UP 1993), 127–53, especially 143.

⁵⁸Andrew Webster, ‘An Argument without End: Britain, France and the Disarmament Process, 1925–34’, in Martin S. Alexander and William J. Philpott (eds), Anglo-French Defence Relations between the Wars (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2002), 49–71; and Maurice Vaïsse, ‘Security and Disarmament: Problems in the Development of the Disarmament Debates 1919–1934’, in Ahmann et al., Quest for Stability, 173–200, especially 179–81.

⁵⁹Jaffe, Decision to Disarm Germany, 216–7; Towle, ‘British Security and Disarmament Policy’; and Vaïsse, ‘Security and Disarmament’, 145, 189.

⁶⁰Hans W. Gatzke, ‘Russo-German Military Collaboration During the Weimar Republic’, The American Historical Review 63/3 (1958), 565–97.

⁶¹ House of Lords, Fifth Series, Vol.71 (11 July 1928), cols.980–2; Parliamentary Debates, Fifth Series, Vol.229 (9 July 1929), col.683.

⁶²Vaïsse, ‘Security and Disarmament’, 183–7; Philip Noel-Baker, The First World Disarmament Conference 1932–33 and Why it Failed (Oxford: Pergamon Press 1979), 72, 74–8, 81–2; FO 411/15 no.6, ‘Sir J. Simon's Speech at the Disarmament Conference’, 8 Feb. 1932; and FRUS (1932) Vol.1, H. Hoover, ‘Disarmament Plan’, 22 June 1932, 179–82.

⁶⁴ FRUS (1932) Vol.1, Stimson to Wilson, 12 Nov. 1932, 376–7.

⁶³ FRUS (1932) Vol.1, H. Gibson, telegram, 10 May 1932, Wilson to Stimson, 21 Sept. 1932 and Stimson to Wilson, 8 Nov. 1932, 120–1, 333, 366–7; and Vaïsse, ‘Security and Disarmament’, 188–9.

⁶⁵CAB 24/239, ‘Draft Disarmament Convention submitted to Geneva’, 16 Mar. 1933, 16–19.

⁶⁶ The Times, 20 April 1936, 8.