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German Disarmament after World War I: The Diplomacy of International Arms Inspection, 1920-1931. By Richard J. Shuster. London: Routledge, 2006. ISBN 0-415-35808-6. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 259. £70.00.
In 1919 the Allied Powers hoped that the Versailles Treaty would form the foundation for a permanent settlement of the European order. By disarming Germany and carefully limiting her military potential, the Versailles Treaty was intended to forestall any military action by Germany and to ensure France's position as Europe's primary military power.
A critical part of the peace process was the creation of the Interallied Military Control Commission, known as the IAMCC, as a military/diplomatic organization designed to ensure Germany's disarmament. Beginning its work in 1920 the IAMCC initially included British, French, Belgian, Italian, and Japanese officers and at its peak consisted of more than 1,200 personnel. The IAMCC officers were spread across Germany inspecting factories and fortresses, searching for military depots, and overseeing destruction of material.
While beginning as a multinational operation, the IAMCC was soon dominated by the British and French as other participating nations lost interest in the work. Basing his research on the British and French documents, the author starts with a detailed look at the apparatus of the IAMCC, the work of its various committees and boards, and their procedures for reporting German compliance, or lack of it, to their national governments.