1 PEACEFUL CHANGE OR WAR? 15As suggested above, Hoare’s speech made a deep impression and
this was in almost all quarters. The New York Times, which published
the full text of Hoare’s speech on September 12, featured on its front
page on that same day a report by its Geneva correspondent Frederick
T. Birchall, in which it was recorded that the speech was listened to with
‘rapt attention’ in the assembly and that enthusiastic applause followed
its peroration.^45 Birchall noted that the speech had brought joy to the
hearts League enthusiasts ‘because of its whole-hearted endorsement of
the League’ and that ‘[l]iberal elements in the delegations, and especially
those representing the smaller nations, saw it as the most notable and
most outspoken utterance’ on the part of a British statesman since the
foundation of the LON.^46
Amidst all the applause, however, one figure ‘sat motionless’: the Italian
foreign minister Pompeo Aloisi. The Italian foreign minister’s behaviour
would have caused little surprise given the speech’s implicit naming of
Italy as an aggressor. More interesting, however, was the fact that Laval’s
reaction to the speech, according to close observers, was ‘decidedly less
enthusiastic’ that that of two of his compatriots, namely, Ḗdouard Herriot
and Joseph Paul-Boncour. Herriot, the French minister of state who had
served on three occasions as prime minister, and Paul-Boncour, perma-
nent delegate to the LON from 1932 to 1936, minister of war in the
Herriot cabinet of 1932, prime minister from December 1932 to January
1933 and foreign minister from December 1932 to January 1934, were
League loyalists of long-standing. Birchall suggested that Laval’s response
to the speech was informed by its final sentence: that Britain’s attitude to
the LON would not change so long as the League remained an effective
body and the main bridge between the United Kingdom and the Continent
remains intact. With these words, Birchall stated, Hoare issued a ‘distinct
warning’ to France. The Geneva correspondent of the New York Times
added that this warning served to reinforce the messages conveyed by
other ‘less obvious references’ made earlier in the speech.^47 Among these
references was doubtless Hoare’s insistence that as the LON was not a
(^45) Birchall, ‘Britain Demands League Act Against Aggression and Pledges Her Support,’
1, 3. See also ‘Text of Sir Samuel Hoare’s Address to League Assembly,’ New York Times,
September 12, 1935.
(^46) Birchall, ‘Britain Demands League Act Against Aggression and Pledges Her Support,’ 3.
(^47) Ibid., 1.