They called for the reduction of all deadly weapon systems, especially bombers, which were soon to display their lethal effect in the Japanese assault against Shanghai in early 1932, and later in the German attack against Guernica during the Spanish civil war. Pacifists continued to campaign for a general disarmament conference under the authority of the League of Nations. They wanted to strengthen the League and build support for international cooperation and collective security to replace competing international alliances. While lobbying to encourage progress at the Washington and London conferences, therefore, peace groups kept up a steady drumbeat of support for a world disarmament conference.
Much more so than the naval disarmament conferences, the World Disarmament Conference that opened under League of Nations auspices in Geneva in February 1932 was a gathering that peace advocates welcomed with enthusiasm, and which they considered a result of their effort. Lynch described the campaign for the World Disarmament Conference as the “largest, best organized, and most intense transnational effort by peace movements to voice their demands during the interwar period.”
Women’s groups played an especially significant role in building support for the conference, but churches, university groups, trade unions, and many other organizations also participated. In Britain the WILPF took the lead in gathering more than 2 million signatures on a disarmament petition. Similar petition drives took place in other countries. The conference chair was former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson, a disarmament advocate who agreed to convene a special opening ceremony that would display the depth and intensity of public support for disarmament and the League of Nations. During the ceremony “a procession of peace groups” presented “with great fanfare a total of twelve million petitions in favor of disarmament in front of League officials and government delegations.” It was a crowning moment for the attempt of peace groups to build support for disarmament and strengthen the role of the League of Nations.
In preparation for the conference the International Federation of League of Nations Societies developed a set of principles for disarmament known as the “Budapest proposals.” These called for a general prohibition against the categories of aggressive weapons that were denied to Germany: tanks, heavy mobile guns, bombers, submarines, and chemical weapons. They also included a call for a 25 percent across the board cut in arms expenditures worldwide and a parallel “proportionate reduction” of all categories of weapons. Many peace and internationalist groups supported these proposals and also urged the abolition of bombers and aerial weapons. The LNU in London encouraged the British government to “lead by example” through unilateral arms reduction.
Britain, France, and other major powers were skeptical of such proposals and were reluctant to engage in a general disarmament process that might limit their military capabilities. They saw disarmament not as a universal process to eliminate weapons and the threat of war, but as a means of regulating the competition in arms and protecting their special status as major powers. The pressure of public opinion forced them to take action toward arms limitation, but they were determined to avoid the kind of universal disarmament that was demanded by peace advocates and envisioned in the League Covenant. On the eve of the Geneva conference the British government claimed that it should be exempted from further reductions because of its “responsibilities” in maintaining the empire. London advocated arms cuts by other governments but claimed that it was “unable to offer further reductions” itself.
Despite the reluctance of governments, political momentum for the World Disarmament Conference was overwhelming. A senior official in London complained that the cabinet was being “dragged unwillingly along” by the weight of public opinion. The British government responded to these pressures by agreeing to a set of proposals for the Geneva conference that included a ban on submarines and bombers, but that allowed the use of bombers for “police” purposes in the colonies. British peace groups were outraged by this claim of imperial privilege. A delegation of religious leaders told government officials that “there is much unrest in church circles that nothing adequate is being done”to reflect the widespread public support for disarmament.31 The government subsequently modified its position slightly, but it continued to insist on the right to build and use bombers in the colonies.
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