Edward M. Spiers

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.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons have been elevated as a major issue of international concern in the post-Cold War era. As early as 9 February 1989, President George Bush claimed that the spread and ‘even use of sophisticated weaponry threatens global security as never before. Chemical weapons must be banned from the face of the earth, never to be used again.…And, the spread of nuclear weapons must be stopped.’1 US Intelligence and Pentagon officials amplified these concerns in their Congressional testimony; Judge William Webster, then Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), warned that ‘the odds on use [of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles] are growing as more countries develop the technologies to settle old scores’.2 These anxieties were compounded by the Gulf War (1991), the belated admission by President Boris Yeltsin of the covert biological warfare programme of the former Soviet Union (February 1992), and the subsequent revelations about the extent of the Iraqi NBC programmes.3 The Clinton administration sustained this concern. It described nonproliferation as ‘one of our nation’s highest priorities’,4 and a succession of CIA directors – Robert Gates, R. James Woolsey and Dr John Deutch – testified to ‘a steady and worrisome growth in the proliferation of advanced weapons’; to the ‘recent’ emergence of the proliferation issue with its ‘serious and far-reaching implications for global and regional security’; and to ‘the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and advanced conventional weapon systems’ as posing ‘the gravest threat to national security and to world stability’.5

Chemical and Biological Arms Control

Opened for signature in Paris on 13 January 1993, the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) will enter into force when 65 states ratify their signatures, but no earlier than 13 January 1995. The 174-page document includes a preamble, 24 articles and three annexes, comprising some 50,000 words in the English version. The product of 24 years’ negotiation, it bans the development, production, use, transfer, retention or stockpiling of chemical weapons, precludes assisting, encouraging or inducing any state to engage in activity prohibited by the treaty, and requires the destruction of production facilities and chemical weapons within a period of ten years (allowing an extension of five years for any country claiming technical difficulties). It fulfils a formal commitment to follow up the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) of 1972 and enhances the case for improving the BTWC by the provision of a verification regime. Various commentators have described the CWC as a ‘truly remarkable’ achievement, an ‘effective instrument for the elimination of chemical weapons once and for all’, and an ‘end to a tragic chapter in world history’.1

List of maps

ii The Present and the Past General Editors: Michael Crowder and Juliet Gardiner This new series aims to provide the historical background necessary for a proper understanding of the major nations and regions of the contemporary world. Each contributor will illuminate the present political, social, cultural and economic structures of his nation or region through the study of its past. The books, which are fully illustrated with maps and photographs, are written for students, teachers and general readers; and will appeal not only to historians but also to political scientists, economists and sociologists who seek to set their own studies of a particular nation or region in historical perspective. Australia John Rickard *Modern China Edwin E. Moise France Jolyon Howorth Ireland J. J. Lee Japan Janet E. Hunter Mexico A. S. Knight *Russia Edward Acton Southeast Asia David P. Chandler Southern Africa Neil Parsons *Already published The Present and the Past iii

The Gas War, 1915–1918: If not a War Winner, Hardly a Failure

Contemporary claims that gas warfare proved “a failure” during the First World War would have baffled wartime adversaries, who invested heavily in the research, development, and production of gas warfare. If poison gas, like other conventional weapons, never broke the stalemate of the trenches, it evolved into a weapon of harassment that compounded the effects of conventional weapons and degraded the effectiveness of enemy forces compelled to wear gas masks for protracted periods of time. The introduction of mustard gas in July 1917 greatly increased the number of gas casualties, and set the scene for a steady increase in the use of chemical weapons during the later stages of the war. Like the tank and aircraft, gas was not strategically decisive, but continuing investment in this form of warfare underscored its potential utility.

Yorkshire and the First Day of the Somme

ThE firSt day of the Battle of the Somme (1 July 1916) has become etched in the British national consciousness and ‘memory’ of the First World War. Vera Brittain, in writing her autobiography, Testament of Youth (1933), as an elegy for a ‘lost generation’, set the tone for subsequent commentary by describing the First Day as ‘that singularly wasteful and ineffective orgy of slaughter’.1 After three generations, this depiction of the trauma has become so pervasive that Bill Philpott, in his prize-winning study of the battle, admits that the First Day is now ‘a metaphor for futility and slaughter, a national trope and tragedy that defies understanding’.2 The scale of tragedy, as calculated in the Official History of the Great War, amounted to 57,470 casualties, of whom 19,240 were killed and 35,493 wounded, with the remainder either missing or taken prisoner. For this ‘disastrous loss’, it continues, ‘there was only a small gain of ground ... some 31⁄2 miles and averaging a mile in depth’.3 The First Day has already been the subject of a major study,4 and it forms a pivotal part of studies of the Anglo-French offensive that was sustained over 142 days before petering out on 19 November 1916.5 Given all the debates over the strategy, significance and effects of the battle,6 it is timely to consider how contemporaries coped with news of the disaster, especially in Yorkshire, a county that shouldered a peculiarly heavy burden of anxiety and grief after the First Day. Local historians have readily testified to the burdens borne within the county, not least by families of the “Pals” battalions. Once raised by local authorities, industrialists and groups of concerned citizens, and approved by the War Office, these battalions became iconic symbols of the wartime volunteering spirit, especially within the industrialised towns of northern England. Their unofficial titles, like the Sheffield City Battalion (12th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment), Barnsley Pals (13th and 14th Battalions, York and Lancaster Regiment), Leeds Pals (15th West Yorkshire Regiment), Bradford Pals (16th and 18th West Yorkshire

VOLUNTARY RECRUITING IN YORKSHIRE, 1914–15

This is a study of how Yorkshire responded to the challenge of voluntary enlistment during the Great War, 1914-15.

The Politics of the British Army

The winner of the 1998 Westminster Medal for military literature is Professor Hew Strachans The Politics of the British Army. In his presentation on the occasion of the award, Professor Strachan surveys the historical background, pointing out that while the Army likes to see itself as apolitical, that is without a direct role in power, it has in fact always behaved politically regarding its own interests. A long sense of professionalism, fostered through service in the Empire and in Ireland, contributed, by the First World War, to the active politicking of leading military figures. But, argues, Professor Strachan, that clear Army identity broke down, after 1945, as the emphasis on regiment and inter‐service rivalry came to the fore. Highlighting the issues of the representation of the forces in parliament and government, the organisation of the Ministry of Defence and the dichotomy between the lack of publicity on the important issue of the Strategic Defence Review, and the high profile publicity surroun...

Rabta: A Case Study in International Action

The allegations concerning the development of a Libyan facility at Rabta for the production of chemical warfare agents, and for the filling of chemical munitions, have already been examined in detail by several authors.1 There is no need to repeat their work, but the Rabta allegations and the response which they generated remain highly instructive; they shed light upon critical questions involved in any study of chemical weapons proliferation, including the difficulties of using intelligence information, the task of co-ordinating action, both nationally and internationally, the relative merits of quiet diplomacy and public disclosure, the achievements of multilateral export controls after several years of endeavour by the Australia Group, and the process of developing a clandestine programme. The controversy exposed the differing priorities of allied governments, aroused tensions between them, and provoked mutual recriminations. In brief, it revealed the many and varied problems involved in trying to curb the spread of chemical weaponry.

Bush’s Chemical Weapons Policy

The administration of President George Bush (1989–93) accorded an unprecedented priority to the attainment of a Chemical Weapons Convention. The cause was by no means new; indeed, several previous US administrations had espoused the cause of chemical disarmament, particularly in the inter-war years, and the United States had participated in the whole chequered history of the Geneva-based talks since 1968. The commitment of President Bush, though, was deep and lasting; it helped to sustain an objective that was rarely a prime concern on a foreign policy agenda dominated by questions of European security, nuclear and conventional arms control, the handling of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and the Middle East peace process. In four years, his administration would introduce and adapt a wide range of proposals and eventually sacrifice military options to achieve its goal.