In February 1922, the five naval powers: United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan signed the Washington Naval Treaty, which restricted construction of the larger classes of warships. In April 1930, these countries signed the London Naval Treaty, which modified a number of clauses in the Washington treaty but also regulated naval construction. A further attempt at naval regulation was made in March 1936, which was signed only by the United States, Britain, and France, since by this time, the previous other signatories, Italy and Japan, were pursuing expansionist policies that required greater naval power.
An effort by the League of Nations and non-League member United States to achieve general disarmament in the international community led to the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva in 1932-1934, attended by sixty countries. The talks bogged down from a number of issues, the most dominant relating to the disagreement between Germany and France, with the Germans insisting on being allowed weapons equality with the great powers (or that they disarm to the level of the Treaty of Versailles, i.e. to Germany’s current military strength), and the French resisting increased German power for fear of a resurgent Germany and a repeat of World War I, which had caused heavy French losses. Germany, now led by Adolf Hitler (starting in January 1933), pulled out of the World Disarmament Conference, and in October 1933, withdrew from the League of Nations. The Geneva disarmament conference thus ended in failure.
(Taken from Events leading up to World War II in Europe – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 6)
Rise of Military States: Italy In World War I, Italy had joined the Allies under a secret agreement (the 1915 Treaty of London) in that it would be rewarded with the coastal regions of Austria-Hungary after victory was achieved. But after the war, in the peace treaties with Austria-Hungary and Germany, the victorious Allies reneged on this treaty, and Italy was awarded much less territory than promised. Indignation swept across Italy, and the feeling of the so-called “mutilated victory” relating to Italy’s heavy losses in the war (1.2 million casualties and steep financial cost) led to the rise in popularity of ultra-nationalist, right-wing, and irredentist ideas. Italian anger over the war paved the way for the coming to power of the Fascist Party, whose leader Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister in October 1922. The Fascist government implemented major infrastructure and social programs that made Mussolini extremely popular. In a few years, Mussolini ruled with near absolute powers in a virtual dictatorship, with the legislature abolished, political dissent suppressed, and his party the sole legal political party. Mussolini also made gains in foreign affairs: in the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923) that ended World War II between the Allies and Ottoman Empire, Italy gained Libya and the Dodecanese Islands. In August 1923, Italian forces occupied Greece’s Corfu Island, but later withdrew after League of Nations mediation and the Greek government’s promise to pay reparations.
In the late 1920s onward, Mussolini advocated grandiose expansionism to establish a modern-day Italian Empire, which would include plans to annex Balkan territories that had formed part of the ancient Roman Empire, gaining a sphere of influence in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, achieving mastery over the Mediterranean Sea, and gaining control of North Africa and the Middle East which would include territories stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Indian Ocean in the east.
With the Nazis coming to power in Germany in 1933, Hitler and Mussolini, with similar political ideologies, initially did not get along well, and in July 1934, they came into conflict over Austria. There, Austrian Nazis attempted a coup d’état, assassinating Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss and demanding unification with Germany. Mussolini, who saw Austria as falling inside his sphere of influence, sent troops, tanks, and planes to the Austrian-Italian border, poised to enter Austria if Germany invaded. Hitler, at this time still unprepared for war, backed down from his plan to annex Austria. Then in April 1935, Italy banded together with Britain and France to form the Stresa Front (signed in Stresa, Italy), aimed as a united stand against Germany’s violations of the Versailles and Locarno treaties; one month earlier (March 1935), Hitler had announced his plan to build an air force, raise German infantry strength to 550,000 troops, and introduce military conscription, all violations of the Versailles treaty.
However, the Stresa Front quickly ended
in fiasco, as the three parties were far apart in their plans to deal with
Hitler. Mussolini pressed for aggressive
action; the British, swayed by anti-war public sentiments at home, preferred to
negotiate with Hitler; and France,
fearful of a resurgent Germany,
simply wanted an alliance with the others.
Then in June 1935, just two months after the Stresa Front was formed,
Britain and Germany signed a naval treaty (the Anglo-German Naval Agreement), which
allowed Germany to build a navy 35% (by tonnage) the size of the British
navy. Italy
(as well as France) was
outraged, as Britain was
openly allowing Hitler to ignore the Versailles
provision that restricted German naval size.
Mussolini, whose quest for colonial expansion was only restrained by the
reactions from both the British and French, saw the naval agreement as British
betrayal to the Stresa Front. To
Mussolini, it was a green light for him to launch his long desired conquest of Ethiopia[1]
(then also known as Abyssinia). In October 1935, Italy
invaded Ethiopia, overrunning
the country by May 1936 and incorporating it into newly formed Italian East Africa. In November 1935, the League of Nations,
acting on a motion by Britain
that was reluctantly supported by France,
imposed economic sanctions on Italy,
which angered Mussolini, worsening Italy’s
relations with its Stresa Front partners, especially Britain. At the same time, since Hitler gave his
support to Italy’s invasion
of Ethiopia, Mussolini was
drawn to the side of Germany. In December 1937, Mussolini ended Italy’s membership in the League
of Nations, citing the sanctions, despite the League’s already
lifting the sanctions in July 1936.
[1] Also encouraging Mussolini to invade was the recently signed Italian-French agreement (January 1935), where France, hoping to keep Italy from siding with Germany, ceded to Italy some colonial areas in Africa, and promised not to interfere if Italy invaded Ethiopia.