After the failure that was the Manchurian crisis, the league finally realised the urgency of the problem in hand; disarmament. In February 1932 the long awaited disarmament conference took place. By July of 1932 the league had come up with new rules for disarmament:
- Bombing of civilian populations prohibited
- Size of artillery limited
- Chemical warfare prohibited
The thing about these new rules though was the fact that there was no way to show how these limits would be achieved. For instance, the bombing of civilian populations was band but they would not then ban the making of planes which could house/carry these bombs. The ban of abolishing chemical weapons was defeated as well.
The league was not doing very well. But this was only a mild issue. The bigger problem was Germany. They had been a member of the league for six years now. People believed that they should be treated fairly or at least more than the treaty of Versailles claimed anyway. The question however was what shall all the other countries do about disarmament? Would they disarm to the diminished size of what the Germans now had, or would they allow Germany to increase the size of their arms to the size of other countries? Going by previous experiences i.e. the 1920’s, disarming to the level of Germany was an idea not much liked. The idea of letting Germany rebuild their army was also not liked as they feared that once they were strong enough they would seek revenge, in a form of war.
After the conference and the following year and a half a series of events involving Germany occurred.
- In July 1932, Germany walked out of the League of Nations when the conference disagreed to do something about their countries disarmament.
- In September 1932, the British sent a note to the Germans which went some way to agreeing equality, but the superior tone of this note made the Germans angrier still.
- In December 1932, an agreement that would treat Germany equally was reached.
- In January 1933, Germany announced that they were re-joining the League of Nations.
- In February 1933, Hitler became the chancellor of Germany and started to secretly re-arm.
- In may 1933, Hitler promised not to rearm (even though he was already doing it)
- In june 1933, brirtain produced an ‘ambitious’ disarmament plan
- And finally in October 1933, (a year and a half after the first conference) Hitler took Germany out of the disarmament conference as well as the League of Nations all together.
Of course by this time though, all the main countries; Britain, France, Italy, Japan knew that Hitler was rearming. They started to rebuild their arms too. The disarmament conference came to a close in 1934.
The conference failed for many reasons although some people say that it was ‘doomed’ from the very start. No one really cared about disarmament, or at least cared for it seriously. British people were starting to feel sorry for the treatment of germany after the first world war and sighned an agreement in 1935 with germany saying that it could build up it’s navy, as long as it stayed under a limit of 35 percent of the british navy. France did not like this at all, nor did the other countries of the league of nations as it went against the treaty of Versailles. War was coming.
