2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 93The feeling of the broader peace movement in France on the war in Spain
was made clear in a letter written on behalf of the French National Peace
Council (Conseil national de la paix), the leadership of which was com-
posed of a range of political, military, legal and scholarly figures, to Bonnet
in October 1936. In this letter, the council complained bitterly of LON
inaction despite the ‘aerial terror’ to which Spain was then subject and the
clear evidence that had been submitted to the LON Assembly in September
1936 by the Spanish delegate, Alvarez del Vayo (a member of the Spanish
National Committee of the RUP), of the complicity of Rome, Berlin and
Lisbon in the actions of the anti-Republican forces in violation of Article 10
of the covenant.^24
The council contended that given that foreign powers were ‘exercis-
ing a decisive influence’ in the conflict and in light of the atrocities being
visited on the civilian population, the League’s position of neutrality in
relation to the war in Spain really amounted to a ‘regime of blind partial-
ity...to the profit of the [anti-Republican] agitators’. It warned that the
events in Spain demonstrated that Europe now ‘found itself in the pres-
ence of an international dictatorship of Fascist allies,’ adding that peace
would continue to be imperilled as long as the democracies remained
paralysed through their lack of ‘solidarity and courage’. It called on the
LON to consider coercive sanctions if necessary to uphold the law and
the principle of humanity.^25 In light of the expression of such feelings in
France, it is not surprising that the French RUP would come out openly
on the side of the Republicans.^26
Although its influence would decline as the prospect of war intensi-
fied, at the end of September 1937 when the French national congress
of the IPC/RUP was held in Paris, the movement was laying claim to
(^24) Conseil national de la paix to Bonnet, 8 October 1936, AG 1-IICI-B-V-4, UA. The
Conseil national de la paix condemned the Japanese invasion of China and the Italian inva-
sion of Ethiopia. See Conseil national de la paix to IIIC, 18 May 1936, AG 1-IICI-B-V-4,
UA, and RUP to the secretary general of the IICI, 3 March 1936, AG 1-IICI-B-V-4, UA.
(^25) Conseil national de la paix to Bonnet, 8 October 1936. AG 1-IICI-B-V-4, UA. See
also RUP to the secretary general of the IICI, 3 March 1936, AG 1-IICI-B-V-4, UA.
(^26) Mazuy, ‘Le Rassemblement Universal pour la Paix,’ 40–41. See also Birn, ‘The League
of Nations and Collective Security,’ 152. Birn points out that members of the League of
Nations Union (LNU) became increasingly outraged at their leadership’s conservative
responses to their demands that the LNU publicly call for all foreign troops to withdraw
from Spain.