Geneva Protocol is Signed

Overview

Going into the 1920s, the world had been shocked by the horrors of World War I due to the gruesome and horrifying nature of the weapons used. This includes the use of chemicals such as chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gases, all of which were used heavily by both sides during the war and were responsible for an estimated 100,000 deaths and 1.3 million injuries.¹ In response, many countries were looking for a solution to prevent further suffering in conflicts. On June 17, 1925, the Geneva Protocol was signed, prohibiting the use of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, Bacteriological, and other dangerous gases. ²The Geneva Protocol and its effects on the 1920s and future decades, while seldom studied, provides a look into how the impact of the “Great War” was felt in the years following it. The Geneva Protocol as a response to World War I also provides an insight into how those at the forefront of the war, both diplomatically and physically, were able to shape its creation and set a standard for anti-war sentiment in the 1920s. This article analyzes the contents of the Geneva Protocol, as well as its effect on the 1920s and its importance in the future Geneva Convention.

Background of Chemical Weapons Used in World War I

The context of the time period that led to the creation of the Geneva Protocol is a reaction to the damage caused by World War I as a whole and specifically the use of chemical weapons. World War I differed from any war that had arose before it, partially due to new inventions. While new vehicles such as tanks and planes were being implemented in war for the first time, one of the most dangerous weapons for a soldier on the battlefield was the many new chemical weapons, such as the infamous mustard gas, which would quickly and efficiently put an end to a soldier’s life, given they did not have a gas mask. These gases would seep into the soldier’s lungs and burn them until they were unable to breathe, all the while causing immense pain the moment, they breathed in even a small amount of it.³

History Prior to the Geneva Protocol

After World War I and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, many countries began to turn their attention to other aspects of the war that made it so horrifying. In the case of the U.S., the Conference on the Limitation of Armament was held in Washington D.C., which confirmed many of the sentiments that the U.S. government felt came out of the war. The conference showed that most of the American people were strongly against the use of poisonous gases in war, with 385,170 of Americans voting in favor of gas warfare abolition, and only 169 in favor of allowing it. The voices of the people were so prominent that the U.S. decided to ignore the advice of a chairman representing the country in the Subcommittee of Chemical Warfare and ratified the treaty⁵. While the U.S. had ratified the In the United States, France, who also had two members in the committee, declined to ratify the treaty due to its provisions on submarine use.⁶ The idea of ratifying a treaty that banned chemical weapons would lay dormant for three years until 1925. Prior to this, the League of Nations would classify chemical agents into three categories: toxic agents, asphyxiating gases, and irritant gases, and would also study their effects on plant life, but no talk of ratifying anything yet.⁷ In 1925, there were talks about implementing a treaty that would ban the use of chemical weapons in war. At the Conference for the Supervision of International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and in Implements of War, the Geneva Protocol was first drafted. The first draft would not include certain details, like the control of exports of chemical weapons, but these details would be added into future iterations.⁸

Contents of the Geneva Protocol

The Geneva Protocol, officially known as the “Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare”, contains simple yet important declarations and demands for the world. ¹⁰The Geneva Protocol calls for the prohibition of asphyxiating and poisonous gases, as well as any other gas or liquid that “has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world.¹¹ Also written in the Geneva Protocol is a request for its demands to become accepted as international law, and to be upheld as such in the future.¹² The implementation of the Geneva Protocol as “International Law” is very interesting, as the idea of international programs such as the League of Nations was new, making this one of the earliest attempts at trying to enforce something internationally. The Geneva Protocol could have been a landmark event in the history of international law, had it had been followed in World War II. An important point to note is that the prohibition of all chemical weapons only applies during war, and the use of chemical weapons outside of war is allowed by the Geneva Protocol. The Geneva Protocol also outlined how it would deal with international conflict come a situation where two or more countries were to wage war, if there were signs of conflict. Article 12 of the Geneva Protocol states that countries in a dispute that may lead to a war “will submit the matter either to arbitration or judicial settlement or to enquiry by the Council” and are only allowed to fight each other as long as they have an award from the arbitrators or from the council that allows them to fight.¹³ In Article 15 of the Geneva Protocol, it states that two countries that do not reach out to arbitration who are on the verge of a war will have a full investigation of their situation performed.¹⁴ The Geneva Protocol extended past a simple ban of chemical weapons and also acted as a system to prevent wars between countries that signed off on the Geneva Protocol, all of which were also in the League of Nations.

While there were many fewer countries that ratified the Geneva Protocol in the 1920s, the ones that did were at the center of global conflict at the time. Countries who signed the Geneva Protocol had to meet a few requirements before they were able to sign it. Firstly, any country that wanted to sign the Geneva Protocol had to be a member of the League of Nations, as it would be impossible for a country not to agree with and be a member of the League of Nations while also agreeing with the Geneva Protocol. If the Geneva Protocol were to pass, then countries would be split into three groups: members of the League of Nations who signed the Geneva Protocol, members of the League of Nations who have not signed it, and countries who are not members of the League of Nations.¹⁵ The majority of the ratifications come from Europe, with major countries such as Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Finland, Italy, Russia, and Turkey ratifying during the 1920s. There are also a few ratifications from countries outside of Europe, such as the U.S., Egypt, Liberia, and Venezuela. () There was a collective consensus from countries across the world to set some limit on the weapons that are used during war to prevent the suffering of soldiers to some degree, though the restrictions that came along with said agreement may have been too much for some countries at first, as it took a while for many countries to be in agreement with the terms of the Geneva Protocol.

The Importance of the “Lost Generation” to the Geneva Protocol

The Lost Generation is the youth that had to fight in World War I. The way of life of the Lost Generation was completely altered after World War I, and this can be seen through the writings and ideas that began to gain traction among the new generation. One example of this among the Lost Generation is the interest that they took in the writings of Sigmund Freud, an author whose ideas on concepts such as the unconscious brought him to popularity to the point where he became a household name.¹⁷ There was also an increase of popularity in certain forms of psychology, one of which being behaviorism, or the study of human behavior, which claimed that humans were shells that were molded from their environment.¹⁸ The connection between a generation that was torn apart by chemical weapons in warfare and ideas of humans being formed by their environment is very sound, though these ideas were unpopular among the older generations. Lastly, the acceptance of science by this generation was at an all-time high, with Einstein’s theory of relativity being published and positively received, even though it was a reality-changing theory that would reshape the way humans looked at the world around them.¹⁹ This new “Lost Generation” was very interested in ideas that were seen as troubling to previous generations due to the horrific circumstances that World War I brought about.

Not only was the Lost Generation more interested in sciences and psychology more than any generation before them, but they were also very vocal against the implementation of chemical weapons in war. Both those from the Lost Generation and those from other generations gave their thoughts on chemical weapons in warfare during the previously mentioned Washington Conference, which was a big motivator for the creation of the Geneva Protocol. The people also reacted very positively to announcements on the creation of the Geneva Protocol, with multiple newspaper issues being published with articles stressing the importance of the Geneva Protocol and giving updates on the countries that wanted to sign it.²¹ While the lack of proper implementation of the Geneva Protocol itself makes gathering reactions from people hard, it can be assumed that the those affected by the chemical weapons of World War I would have reacted positively, had the Geneva Protocol been put into action, it would have definitely been received positively.

Significance

The Geneva Protocol served not only as the first attempt at implementing a ban on weapons of war but also served as one of the first forms of international law. The Geneva Protocol represents the initial response to the shock that World War I brought to the world, and even though the Geneva Protocol did not hold up, it acted as a steppingstone to future implementations of international law. The Geneva Protocol also contains many declarations hidden in the lines of its many articles that justify its standing as one of the earliest attempts at international law. While the Geneva Protocol acted as a treaty to ban the use of asphyxiating, poisonous, and bacteriological gases, it also contained many restrictions on those who signed that resemble modern forms of international governing systems such as the United Nations (UN). Ideas such as having a council to deal with conflicts being written into a treaty on the banning of chemical weapons in war is very interesting, as it is a form of international law that was, and still is, ahead of its time. While these ideas were ahead of their time, they would have proved to be unsustainable if there was any attempt to implement the Geneva Protocol, especially during World War II.

               The existence of the Geneva Protocol itself stands as a signifier of just how much the times had changed from the previous century, as the concept of something like the Geneva Protocol would have been very fringe in the late 19^th century, and non-existent at any time before that. The change from weapons that were meant to kill, to weapons that were meant to efficiently incapacitate and kill soldiers in the most painful way imaginable was one that the entire world was not ready for. While the finer details of the Geneva Protocol may have seemed extreme for a treaty meant to ban chemical weapons, it was an attempt by international law to ensure a better future for the next generation.

Timeline

Bibliography

Footnotes

1. Moore, John Norton. “Ratification of the Geneva Protocol on Gas and Bacteriological Warfare: A Legal and Political Analysis.” Virginia Law Review 58, no. 3 (1972): p. 430. ↩︎
2. Baxter, R. R., and Thomas Buergenthal. “Legal Aspects of the Geneva Protocol of 1925.” The American Journal of International Law 64, no. 5 (1970): p. 2. ↩︎
3. “Gas Warfare.” The British Medical Journal 1, no. 3828 (1934): p. 903 ↩︎
4. “Types of Gas Masks Used by the Various Armies During the World War.” Bulletin of the United States Chemical Warfare Association, April 15, 1925, No. 10. ↩︎
5. Jones, Daniel P. “American Chemists and the Geneva Protocol.” Isis 71, no. 3 (1980): p. 428 ↩︎
6. Jones, Daniel P. “American Chemists and the Geneva Protocol.” Isis 71, no. 3 (1980): p. 429 ↩︎
7. Moore, John Norton. “Ratification of the Geneva Protocol on Gas and Bacteriological Warfare” Virginia Law Review 58, no. 3 (1972): p. 456, 465 ↩︎
8. Baxter, R. R., and Thomas Buergenthal. “Legal Aspects of the Geneva Protocol of 1925.” The American Journal of International Law 64, no. 5 (1970): p. 2 ↩︎
9. Ewing, Harris &. “[The Conference on Limitation of Armaments, Washington, D.C.].” Library of Congress, January 1, 1970. ↩︎
10. U.S. Department of State. Accessed March 26, 2025. https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/4784.htm. ↩︎
11. U.S. Department of State. Accessed March 26, 2025. https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/4784.htm. ↩︎
12. U.S. Department of State. Accessed March 26, 2025. https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/4784.htm. ↩︎
13. Miller, David Hunter. The Geneva Protocol. Miami, FL: Hardpress Publishing, 2016. p. 18 ↩︎
14. Miller, David Hunter. The Geneva Protocol. Miami, FL: Hardpress Publishing, 2016. p. 19 ↩︎
15. Miller, David Hunter. The Geneva Protocol. Miami, FL: Hardpress Publishing, 2016. p. 13 ↩︎
16. Associated Press. “Geneva Protocol Issue Is Raised.” The Evening Star. February 17, 1925. ↩︎
17. Dumenil, Lynn. The modern temper: American culture and society in the 1920s. United States: Hill and Wang, 2024. p. 146 ↩︎
18. Dumenil, Lynn. The modern temper: American culture and society in the 1920s. United States: Hill and Wang, 2024. p. 146 ↩︎
19. Dumenil, Lynn. The modern temper: American culture and society in the 1920s. United States: Hill and Wang, 2024. p. 147 ↩︎
20. Martin, William. “Geneva Protocol Success Declared in Hands of U.S.” The Evening Star. March 10, 1928. ↩︎
21. Associated Press. “Geneva Protocol Issue Is Raised.” The Evening Star. February 17, 1925. ↩︎