Abstract
German acceptance of the Armistice on 11 November 1918 occasioned immense relief from war-weary peoples and widespread hope that peace could now be secured on a lasting basis. President Woodrow Wilson, having led the United States into a ‘war to end war’, cherished the expectation of realising a permanent peace. Once the war had ended he envisaged the creation of a new international order, rooted in a League of Nations, which would be able to guarantee the rights and peace of all nations, whether large or small. At the peace conference in Versailles (1919), he gained the endorsement of the concept, with some modifications, by the other victorious powers and the approval of a Covenant which committed the League to see ‘the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety’ (Article 8). This initiative, coupled with the drastic reduction of the German war machine, including its chemical capability (Versailles Treaty, Article 171), seemed to portend a new era in international relations. At the very least, it required each of the major nations to reassess its policy on chemical warfare.
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Notes and References
Maj-Gen. Sir A. Lynden-Bell to Maj-Gen. C. H. Harington, 25 March 1919, enclosing ‘Note by the General Staff on the Use of Gas’, PRO, WO 32/5180.
W. S. Churchill to Maj-Gen. C. H. Harington, 28 March 1919, PRO, WO 32/5180.
The Times, 21 June 1922, p. 12. See also Papers Relating to the F(oreign) R(elations of the) U(nited) S(tates), The Paris Peace Conference 1919, vol. 4 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1943) p. 362.
Ibid., vol. 4, pp. 561–2.
Maj. V. Lefebure, ‘Chemical Warfare’, The Times, 13 September 1921, p. 6; ‘Chemical Disarmament’, The National Review, vol. LXXVIII (Sept. 1921–Feb. 1922) pp. 51–9; ‘Chemical Warfare: the possibility of its control’, Transactions of the Grotius Society, vol. VII (1921) pp. 153–166.
‘Draft of the report of the Committee on Chemical Warfare Organisation’, Foulkes Mss, J 18.
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F. J. Brown, Chemical Warfare: A Study in Restraints (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968) p. 159.
Gen. P. C. March, The Nation at War (New York: Doubleday, 1932) pp. 333–5.
F. J. Brown, Chemical Warfare, pp. 73–82.
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Sir E. Montagu to Lord Chelmsford, 14 May 1919, Foulkes Mss, J 62.
Lord Fisher, ‘Gas Warfare’, 17 May 1920, PRO, CAB 24/106.
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E. M. Spiers, ‘Gas and the North-West Frontier’, pp. 99–102.
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Ibid., and League of Nations, Official Journal, 102 and 103 sessions, 19 September and 30 November 1938, pp. 863–65 and 878–81.
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T. H. O’Brien, Civil Defence., pp. 58–9, 67–71, 76–82, 100–1, 230–3.
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Enclosure 62A, 13 April 1937; Minutes 64, 73 and 121, 7 May and 9 July 1937, 2 November 1938; Enclosure 91A, 7 January 1938, PRO, WO 32/3663.
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Seventeenth report of the CDRD, 31 March 1937, PRO, WO 33/1484. See also Brown, Chemical Warfare, pp. 149–56.
H. L. Stimson, memorandum, 25 May 1932, FRUS (1932) vol. 1, p. 182.
‘The Manufacture of Toxic gas for Use in War’, CID Paper 1465-B, 26 July 1938, PRO, CAB 4/28.
A. Chayes, ‘An Inquiry into the Workings of Arms Control Agreements’, Harvard Law Review, vol. 85, no. 5 (March 1972) p. 907; and J. P. Perry Robinson, ‘Chemical Arms Control and the Assimilation of Chemical Weapons’, International Journal, vol. XXXVI, no. 3 (Summer 1981) p. 520.
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© 1986 Edward M. Spiers
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Spiers, E.M. (1986). The Failure of Disarmament. In: Chemical Warfare. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10505-2_3
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