The system of collective security has been the subject of much dispute. In this matter involving the world’s conscience, which is of fundamental importance in this very Trial, it cannot be a matter of indifference that the system, rightly or wrongly, appeared in 1938 to such a prominent specialist on international law as the American, Edwin Borchard, to be absolutely inimical to peace and the offspring of the hysteria of our age.[[10]] The collapse may have had various causes; it is certain that the above-mentioned three world powers testified at the beginning of September 1939 to the collapse—the complete collapse—and that they did not, in fact, do so as a consequence of the German-Polish war.
To begin with, on 7 September 1939 the British Foreign Office told the Secretary General of the League of Nations[[11]] that the British Government had assumed the obligation, on 5 February 1930, to answer before the Permanent International Court of Justice at The Hague whenever a complaint was filed against Great Britain, which would include all cases of complaints which other states might lodge on account of conduct whereby Great Britain in a war had, in the opinion of the plaintiff, violated international law. The British Government had accepted this regulation because they had relied on the functioning of the machinery of collective security created by the League of Nations Covenant and the Pact of Paris—because, if it did function properly, and since Britain would certainly not conduct any forbidden wars, her opponent on the contrary being the aggressor, no collision between Britain and those states that were faithful to the security machinery could possibly be caused by any action of Britain as a seapower.[[12]] However, the British Government had been disappointed in this confidence: Ever since the League Assembly of 1938 it had no longer been possible to doubt that the security machinery would not function; on the contrary it had, in fact, collapsed completely. A number of members of the League had already declared their strict neutrality before the outbreak of war:
“The entire machinery intended to maintain peace has broken down.”[[13]]
I will proceed to show how right the British Government were in the conclusions they drew. It should not be forgotten that the British Premier, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, had already proclaimed, on 22 February 1938 in the House of Commons, that is, before the so-called Austrian Anschluss, the complete inefficiency of the system of collective security. He said:[[14]]
“At the last election it was still possible to hope that the League might afford collective security. I believed it myself. I do not believe it now. I would say more: If I am right, as I am confident I am, in saying that the League as constituted today is unable to provide collective security for anybody, then I say we must not delude ourselves, and, still more, we must not try to delude small weak nations into thinking that they will be protected by the League against aggression and acting accordingly, when we know that nothing of the kind can be expected.”
The Geneva League of Nations was “neutralized,” as Noel Baker politely expressed it later in the House of Commons.[[15]]
Secondly, in view of the correct conclusions drawn by the British Government and expressed in their note of 7 September 1939 to the League of Nations, it is no wonder that the Soviet Union treated the German-Polish conflict in accordance with the old rules of power politics. In the German-Russian Frontier and Friendship Pact of 28 September 1939 and in the declaration made on the same day in common with the Reich Government,[[15a]] the Moscow Government bases its stand on the conception of the debellatio of Poland, that is, the liquidation of Poland’s government and armed forces; no mention is made of the Pact of Paris or the League of Nations Covenant. The Soviet Union takes note of the liquidation of the Polish state machinery by means of war, and from this fact draws the conclusions which it deems right, agreeing with the Reich Government that the new order of things is exclusively a matter for the two powers.
It was therefore only logical that in the Finnish conflict, during the winter of 1939-1940, the Soviet Union should have taken its stand on classical international law. It disregarded the reactions of the League of Nations when, without even considering the application of the machinery of sanctions and merely pretending to apply an article of the Covenant referring to quite different matters, that body resolved that the Soviet Union had, as an aggressor, placed itself outside the League.[[16]] The report of the Swiss Federal Council of 30 January 1940 to the Federal Assembly endeavored to save the face of the League which was excluded from all political realities.
Thirdly, the President of the United States stated on 5 September 1939 that there existed a state of war between several states with whom the United States lived in peace and friendship, namely, Germany on the one hand, and Great Britain, France, Poland, India, and two of the British dominions on the other. Everyone in the United States was required to conform with neutrality regulations in the strictest manner.
Since the time of the preliminary negotiations, it was a well-known fact in the United States that Europe, and particularly Great Britain and France, saw the main value of the Pact to Outlaw War in the fact that the United States would take action in case of a breach of the pact. The British Foreign Secretary stated this on 30 July 1928, that is, 4 weeks previous to the signing of the pact. During the deliberations of the American Senate on the ratification of the pact, Senator Moses drew particular attention to this.[[17]] Senator Borah affirmed at the time that it was utterly impossible to imagine that the United States would calmly stand by.[[18]] After the discredit resulting from the failure of the policy of collective security in the case of Manchuria and Abyssinia the world had come to understand the now famous “quarantine” speech of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 5 October 1937 and his “Stop Hitler!” warnings before and after Munich to mean that the United States would act on the next occasion. The declaration of neutrality of 5 September 1939 could therefore only mean: Like Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the United States accepts as a fact the collapse of the system of collective security.