of insecurity will remain.... It is also felt that the inability of the League to guarantee the
collective system by means of force, if necessary, is discrediting it and leading to its
decay.... I cannot visualize the League as a military machine. It was not conceived or
built for that purpose, it is not equipped for such functions. And if ever the attempt were
made to transform it into a military machine, into a system to carry on war for the
purpose of preventing war, I think its fate is sealed.... Defection of the United States has
largely defeated its main objects. And the joining up of the United States must continue
to be the ultimate goal of all true friends of the League and of the cause of peace. A
conference of the nations the United States can, and eventually will, join; it can never
join an international War Office. Remembering the debates on this point in the League of
Nations Commission which drafted the Covenant, I say quite definitely that the very idea
of a league of force was negatived there; and the League would be quite false to its
fundamental idea and to its great mission . . . if it allowed itself to be turned into
something quite different, something just the opposite of its original idea—into a league
of force.... To endeavor to cast out the Satan of fear by calling in the Beelzebub of
militarism, and militarizing the League itself, would be a senseless and indeed fatal
proceeding.... The removal of the inferiority complex from Germany is just as essential to
future peace as the removal of fear from the mind of France; and both are essential to an
effective disarmament policy. How can the inferiority complex which is obsessing and, I
fear, poisoning the mind and indeed the soul of Germany be removed? There is only one
way, and that is to recognize her complete equality of status with her fellows, and to do
so frankly, freely, and unreservedly. That is the only medicine for her disease.... While
one understands and sympathizes with French fears, one cannot but feel for Germany in
the position of inferiority in which she still remains sixteen years after the conclusion of
the War. The continuance of her Versailles status is becoming an offense to the
conscience of Europe and a danger to future peace.... There is no place in international
law for second-rate nations, and least of all should Germany be kept in that position....
Fair play, sportsmanship— indeed, every standard of private and public life—calls for
frank revision of the position. Indeed, ordinary prudence makes it imperative. Let us
break those bonds and set the captive, obsessed, soul free in a decent human way. And
Europe will reap a rich reward in tranquillity, security, and returning prosperity.... I
would say that to me the future policy and association of our great British
Commonwealth lie more with the United States than with any other group in the world. If
ever there comes a parting of the ways, if ever in the crisis of the future we are called
upon to make a choice, that, it seems to me, should be the company we should prefer to
walk with and march with to the unknown future.... Nobody can forecast the outcome of
the stormy era of history on which we are probably entering.”
At the time that Smuts made this significant speech, the Milner Group had already
indicated to Hitler officially that Britain was prepared to give Germany arms equality.
France had greeted the arrival to power of Hitler by desperate efforts to form an "Eastern
Locarno" against Germany. Sir John Simon, who was Foreign Secretary from September
1931 to June 1935, repudiated these efforts on 13 July 1934 in a speech which was
approved by The Times the following day. He warned the French that Britain would not
approve any effort "to build up one combination against another," would refuse to assume
any new obligations herself, would insist that Russia join the League of Nations before
she become a party to any multilateral settlement, and insisted on arms equality for
Germany. On the same day, Austen Chamberlain laid the groundwork for the German
remilitarization of the Rhineland by a speech in which he insisted that the Locarno
agreements did not bind Britain to use troops. He clearly indicated how Britain, by her
veto power in the Council of the League, could prevent a League request to provide
troops to enforce Locarno, and added that such a request would not be binding on Britain,
even if voted, since "there was no automatic obligation under the Government to send our
Army to any frontier."
In a debate in the House of Lords on 5 December 1934, Lord Cecil contradicted
Smuts's statement that "the idea of a League of force was negatived" in 1918 and restated
his own views that force should be available to compel the observance of the three
months' moratorium between the settlement of a question by the Council and the outbreak
of war. He said: "The thing which we were most anxious to secure against a renewal of a
great war was that there should be collective action to prevent a sudden outbreak of war.