U.S. Ratification Failure
Led by the aforementioned Gen. Amos Fries, who in 1920 became the chief of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service, the domestic chemical industry, various veterans groups, and the American Chemical Society, chemical warfare advocates lobbied Congress in opposition to the Geneva Protocol. Most surprising about the opposition to the Geneva Protocol was the involvement of veterans organizations. Many individuals who had actually experienced chemical warfare opposed the treaty. The American Legion, for instance, officially opposed ratification of the protocol. In one article, the American Legion legislative committee claimed “it was the experience of hundreds of thousands engaged in the last war that gas was one of the most humane weapons of warfare and also the most effective in bringing any war to an end.”
And yet the debate raged on. The mood for disarmament in general grew through much of the 1920s. Some peace advocates called for a general armament holiday, to include chemical weapons, in order to alleviate the economic costs of a large military for the United States and Europe. The period 1925–26 proved to be the pivotal time for the opposition to the Geneva Protocol. Various speeches and articles appeared in the popular press urging against ratification of the treaty. The majority of the pro-chemical warfare propaganda emphasized the humaneness of chemical weapons, the ability of gas to shorten wars by their increased use in battle, the detriment to national security and preparedness a ban would produce, and the uselessness of any treaty attempting to regulate a known weapon. In the end, opposition to the treaty was successful. Even with the backing of the White House, the Geneva Protocol remained marooned in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and never came up for a vote before the full Senate.
Through much of the 1930s, the controversy over chemical weapons continued. Proponents and opponents continued their campaigns through the media. Advocates used many arguments, claiming a ban on chemical weapons did not represent the conviction of the public, stating that much of the terror associated with gas was sensationalized and overblown, arguing that any attempt at abolition would be unenforceable and provide advantage to nefarious regimes that clandestinely develop weapons, and the oft-used “humaneness” claim. Some activists even claimed that gas was being singled out only because it was the newest form of warfare and the public feared the novel and unknown. Despite the efforts of those endorsing chemical weapons, the political momentum for worldwide armament reduction resulted in one final pre–World War II effort by the League of Nations to address modern warfare—the 1932 Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. While chemical weapons were discussed, no agreements were reached and the overall conference ended in failure due to various issues between the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union.
After the failure of the 1932 conference, both sides of the chemical warfare issue continued their advocacy. The arguments were the same, but as the 1930s progressed the international climate began to change. Japan continued military expansion in East Asia and left the League of Nations in 1933. In the same year, Germany inaugurated Adolph Hitler as chancellor and joined Japan in leaving the League. In addition, the 1930s saw the first breaches of the Geneva Protocol when Italy used poison gas during its 1935–36 invasion of Ethiopia, and Japan employed chemical weapons in Manchuria starting in 1937. Although both Italy and Japan were widely condemned for their actions, the looming specter of a larger war soon overshadowed these events.