1. Disarmament
Its all about trust!

2. Lesson Agenda
O By the end of today’s lesson you would be able
to:
O Appreciate the principles behind disarmament
O Why did disarmament fail?
O Practice inference skills

3. Why Disarmament?
O Disarmament arose out of the strong desire
among the Western powers to stop the
ability of states to wage war.
O What is Disarmament?
O It is the dismantling of armed forces and the
breaking up of weapons. It is also the placing
of a nation in a position where war is not
possible.

4. Principles of Disarmament
O It was the key part of collective security.
O The leaders at the Paris Peace
Conference felt that Disarmament was the
only way to create a safer world.
O Unfortunately it was very difficult to
achieve

5. Disarmament among nations
O German Disarmament:
O The treaty of Versailles ordered Germany to be
disarmed.
O Germany disarmed slowly and took advantage
of the loopholes in the treaty of Versailles.
O It did not make sense to have an army that
consisted mainly of officers.
O Hence the Nazi government in power was
secretively training people to be ordinary
soldiers.

6. Disarmament and the rest of
the world
O The League of Nations sort to reduce arms
and weapons around the world as well.
O They did this through concluding several
treaties and arranging for regular disarmament
conferences. These were:
O Washington Naval Conference – 1921-1922
O Treaty of Locarno – 1925
O Kellogg-Briand Pact -1928

7. Reasons why Disarmament
failed
O Despite the best intentions, disarmament failed.
This was because:
O Though nations thought about collective security yet
their main focus was individual security.
O The big problem was trust, as we have seen that
the lack of trust was the long term cause to WWI.
O Governments felt that, as individual nations they
needed a level of arms. They all provided various,
reasons why they needed armaments.
O Thus there prevailed the lack of trust and hostility

8. Background to Disarmament talks
O Following the end of World War I, the United
States, Great Britain, and Japan all commenced
capital ship construction.
O In the United States, this took the form of five new
battleships and four battle cruisers,
O The Royal Navy was preparing to build its series of
G3 Battle cruisers and N3 Battleships.
O For the Japanese, the post-war naval construction
began with a program calling for eight new
battleships and eight new battle cruisers.

9. Background to
Disarmament Talks
O This building spree led to concern that a new
naval arms race, similar to the pre-war Anglo-
German competition, was about to begin.

10. Disarmament around the
world
O Washington Naval Conference: 1921 – 1922
O The aim of this conference was to get the major
naval powers to disarm.
O The rivalry among the great powers had resulted in
an expensive naval arms race that could not be
sustained.
O The USA invited Britain, France, Italy and Japan.
Here they agreed to reduce the size of their navies.
The most important of the treaties was the Five
Power Naval Limitation Treaty.

11. Disarmament around the
world
O Accordingly the countries agreed to maintain
a balance in their respective fleets.
O Though there were some objections from the
Japanese pertaining to the ratio 1:3.
O Britain and the USA agreed not to improve
their facilities in the Pacific and to set up their
bases at away from the striking distance of
Japan, Japan agreed to it.

12. Disarmament around the
world
O Japan also agreed not to:
O develop bases on Formosa and;
O the Pacific Islands which had been
received as mandates from The League of
Nations.

13. Disarmament around the
world
O The Locarno Pact 1925:-
O Germany had proposed this pact and signed by the
former allied powers. Germany agreed to respect its
new Western boundaries.
O However, no guarantee was offered for the Eastern
borders with Poland.
O Germany agreed not to remilitarise Rhineland, which
improved Germany’s relations with her former
enemies.
O This also enabled Germany, membership in the
League of Nations – improved hopes for a peaceful
Europe.

14. Disarmament around the
World
O The Kellogg Briand Pact 1928:
O This Pact was jointly initiated by the French and
the US leaders.
O signed in August 1928 by 15 nations.
O This included all the major powers of the day
Soon, more than 60 countries joined.
O They agreed not to resort to war to achieve their
political and economic ambitions.

15. Lesson Recall
O What was the key principles of
disarmament?
O What were the main agreements of the
Washington Conference of 1921-22

16. Essay Practice
O Was military reduction the main reason why the
Germans found it difficult to accept the treaty of
Versailles?

17. Outline
O Introduction: Make a general point to
introduce the essay…
O Germany found it difficult to accept the
terms of the Treaty of Versailles which
called for a reduction of its armaments,
however there were other reasons, namely
the loss of territories and the heavy war
reparations.

18. Outline
O Para 1 – Given factor: (Military reduction/
disarmament)
O Had negative effect on Germany…why? (F)
O Germany has a small army. The armed forces do not
have any artillery and limited submarines. They do not
have the capacity to defend themselves. (E)
O These restrictions were imposed on Germany by the
Western powers so that could not compete with Britain
and France (Eg.)
O Link: Germans could not accept this because
O Their defenses vulnerable to attack from the Western
powers.
O Although disarmament was for all countries at Paris
Peace Conference, only Germany was forced to disarm.
This made it difficult for the Germans to accept the
Treaty terms.

19. Outline – Lets work it out
together
O Para 2: Heavy war reparations
O Germany was forced to accept Article 231 of the
treaty which was called the “war guilt” clause. This
clause meant that they had to bear the full
responsibility for the cost of the war.
O As a result Germany was forced to repay a debt of
6.6 billion pounds to the Western powers that were
involved in the war.
O Another requirement of the treaty was that Germany
can only repay using physical assets as well as
natural resources such as coal.
O This had an equally adverse effect on Germany as
these reparations caused economic problems in
Germany. Such as inflation and high unemployment.

20. Outline – Let’s work it out
together
O Para 3: Loss of Territories
O Resulting from the treaty, Germany was split into 2 halves in
the north. The portion which was in the middle was known as
the Polish Corridor and it contained many German citizens.
These citizens were now under the control of Poland. They felt
unsafe and vulnerable in this region.
O These citizens pressurised the government to return to German
control. Additionally, Germany loss territories which contained
natural resources. These resources were used to build up its
economy.
O Therefore, it was difficult for the Germans to accept the treaty
of Versailles as it meant a loss of national pride. It also meant
that there was a loss of important sources of natural resources
which could been used to support the German economy.

21. Outline – Weigh and Link
O Which do you think is the main reason?
O Military reduction
O Territorial reduction
O Heavy war reparations
O Clue: analyze using which factor and the
most impact…

22. Outline
O Model conclusion:
O The main reason why the Germans found the
Treaty of Versailles difficult to accept was the
heavy reparations it had to pay. Although they
were angered by territorial loss and military
reductions, these only affected the nation’s pride.
O Reparations on the other hand affected Germans
daily lives adversely. The devastation of the
economy meant high levels of unemployment and
inflation which the German government was not
able to rectify as they were forced to pay war
debts.