ABSTRACT
The contest for imperial and economic advantage could only be met by a great increase in military strength. Cadogan might well have spoken for all the powers when he told Chamberlain that ‘re-armament is a vitally necessary first step’ without which ‘it is difficult to have or to pursue a foreign policy’ (Newman, 1976: 58). The level of armed strength crucially determined the willingness of the powers to risk war, and eventually the timing of war itself. During the 1920s limited disarmament was adopted by the major powers, not on grounds of international morality alone, but because no immediate military threat appeared on the international horizon. A higher level of military preparedness – especially for Britain and France, still the most heavily armed powers in the 1920s – would have been an unnecessary expenditure of industrial and human effort. During the depression military spending continued to fall. The Disarmament Conference, in session at Geneva between 1932 and 1934, called for serious efforts at multilateral reduction of arms as a prelude to the dawn of a new age of peace and plenty. The conference was soon overtaken by events. Growing international instability provoked the onset of worldwide rearmament (Maiolo, 2010).
