Peaceful Change or War?

Abstract

The Italian conquest of Ethiopia was a devastating blow to confidence in the international organisation of peace and saw increasing calls for the appeasement of dissatisfied states. Proposals for the sharing of imperial resources and even the redistribution of colonies and mandates were aired under the general heading of peaceful change. Critics maintained that blackmail was not an acceptable alternative to law enforcement, that appeasement of unruly states would only whet their appetite and that it was essential to consider at whose expense appeasement would come. Peaceful change was addressed at a study meeting held by the International Studies Conference (ISC), an association linked to the League of Nations, in May 1936 in Madrid. At Yosemite later that year, a conference on peaceful change in the Pacific area was held by the Institute of Pacific Relations. Discussion of recent changes in the Pacific was overshadowed at Yosemite by discussion of the successful Italian aggression and that other devastating blow to the League’s security system in 1936: the remilitarisation of the Rhineland. A large European presence and an understanding that it would be naive to think that the security situation in the Pacific was unaffected by these events ensured this focus.