Liverpool, les docks [arrivée du paquebot Galatea], Agence Rol, 1927. Source: gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Research areas
GlobArms explores how the circulation of small arms transformed ideas of security, policing, and state power in Europe between 1890 and 1939. Through three main research areas – Port Policing, Arms Trade, and Law Enforcement – the project examines how European ports became gateways for global arms flows and laboratories for new forms of security governance.
Each section below offers a closer look at these interconnected dimensions of the project.
Port Policing
In April 1914, the Ulster Volunteer Force smuggled thousands of Italian Vetterli-Vitali rifles through the Irish port of Larne – an operation that laid bare how firearms, circulating through European commercial routes, could undermine national stability. This episode highlights the core question of GlobArms: how did major European ports become gateways for global arms flows between 1890 and 1939?
Focusing on Marseille, Le Havre, London, Liverpool, Naples and Venice – strategic hubs in France, England and Italy – GlobArms explores how public and private policing bodies struggled to monitor and control the circulation of firearms.
As industrial production made weapons cheaper, smaller and more lethal, ports became crucial arenas where state security imperatives clashed with commercial interests and illicit trafficking. These sites were not only channels for global trade, but laboratories where new security cultures, policing practices and legal frameworks emerged. By examining archival sources across national and local levels, the project reveals how port policing shaped European responses to rising levels of violence in an age of expanding global arms markets.
[Les policiers anglais à Paris: à la Préfecture de Police, 1929. Source: gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Arms Trade
Starting from the early twentieth century, the European small arms trade expanded rapidly, driven by industrial advances that made firearms cheaper, more concealable, and more lethal. Pistols, rifles, and revolvers circulated across national borders with increasing ease, yet no comprehensive international legal framework existed to monitor or restrict their movement. The result was a fragmented and ambiguous system, in which weapons moved through formal markets and illicit channels alike.
This fluidity was not peripheral but structural. Arms were powerful political and economic commodities – tools of state-building, repression, resistance, and profit. Dealers like Marcel Seytres, based in France, but active across all of Europe since the beginning of the twentieth century, thrived in this environment, legally supplying firearms across the continent, while also engaging in covert transactions beyond official oversight.
His activity, far from exceptional, exemplifies a broader entanglement of private entrepreneurship, grey-area regulations, and political ambivalence. GlobArms investigates how this entangled arms trade shaped European ideas and practices of security, sovereignty, and violence, as well as their implications for the perception, actual levels and potential of violence in twentieth century Europe.
Law enforcement
Between 1890 and 1939, the consolidation of national police systems across Europe coincided with the emergence of new challenges linked to the circulation of small arms. During this period, public police forces expanded their presence, while private actors – ranging from commercial security services to corporate private corps – took on increasingly visible roles in urban and port environments. This diversification of law enforcement reflected a broader redefinition of security, as European states grappled with the implications of a rapidly globalising arms market.
The control of firearm flows became a key concern not only for national governments, but also for local policing authorities operating in strategic maritime hubs. Law enforcement agencies developed new surveillance methods, legal instruments, and inter-institutional collaborations in response to both the licit and illicit circulation of weapons. These processes contributed to the emergence of shared security cultures across national boundaries, as similar policing concerns and strategies began to circulate among European states.
A telling example comes from the late 1930s Marseille, where the existing port police – part of the national force – developed a specialised branch tasked with monitoring arms smuggling and other transnational criminal activities. This unit operated in close cooperation with private policing actors paid by the local Chamber of Commerce, reflecting a hybrid model of policing shaped by the overlapping imperatives of security and trade. This development illustrates how firearm circulation – embedded in broader dynamics of commerce, mobility, and governance – contributed to reshaping the institutional and functional architecture of law enforcement in Europe. GlobArms investigates these transformations to understand how the everyday work of gun-policing was related to and helped shape European notions of violence, risk, and state authority.
