Société des Nations (French) Sociedad de Naciones (Spanish) League of Nations (English) International organization 1919 – 1946 → 1939–1941 semi-official emblem Anachronous world map in 1920–1945, showing the League of Nations and the world Capital Not applicable¹ Language(s) English, French and Spanish Political structure International organization Secretary-general  - 1920–1933 Sir James Eric Drummond  - 1933–1940 Joseph Avenol  - 1940–1946 Seán Lester Historical era Interwar period  - Treaty of Versailles 28 June 1919  - First meeting 16 January 1920  - Liquidation 19 April 1946 ¹ The headquarters were based at the Palais des Nations, Geneva  Switzerland

The League of Nations was an international organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. The League's goals included disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation, diplomacy and improving global quality of life. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift in thought from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked its own armed force and so depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to economic sanctions which the League ordered, or provide an army, when needed, for the League to use. However, they were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could also hurt the League members imposing the sanctions and given the pacifist attitude following World War I, countries were reluctant to do so. Benito Mussolini stated that "The League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."

After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis Powers in the 1930s. The onset of the Second World War suggested that the League had failed in its primary purpose, which was to avoid any future world war. The United Nations replaced it after the end of the war and inherited a number of agencies and organizations founded by the League.

Origins

A commemorative card depicting American President Wilson and the "Origin of the League of Nations"

The concept of a peaceful community of nations had been outlined as far back as 1795, in Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch.^[1] One attempt to put such a concept into practice were the international Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. The "Hague Confederation of States", as the Neo-Kantian pacifist Walther Schücking called this initiative, was to have been a universal alliance aiming at disarmament and the peaceful settlement of disputes through arbitration.^[2] Following the failure of the Hague Peace Conferences, a third conference had been planned for 1915.

The idea for the League of Nations itself appears to have originated with the British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey, and it was enthusiastically adopted by the United States President Woodrow Wilson and his advisor Colonel Edward M. House as a means of avoiding any repetition of the bloodshed seen in World War I. The League's creation was a centerpiece of Wilson's Fourteen Points for Peace,^[3] specifically the final point: "A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike."^[4]

The Paris Peace Conference accepted the proposal to create the League of Nations (French: Société des Nations, German: Völkerbund) on January 25, 1919.^[5] The Covenant of the League of Nations was drafted by a special commission, and the League was established by Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on June 28, 1919.^{[6] [7]} Initially, the Charter was signed by 44 states, including 31 states which had taken part in the war on the side of the Triple Entente or joined it during the conflict. Despite Wilson's efforts to establish and promote the League, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919,^[8] the United States neither ratified the Charter nor joined the League due to opposition in the U.S. Senate, especially influential Republicans Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts and William E. Borah of Idaho, together with Wilson's refusal to compromise.

The League held its first council meeting in Paris on January 16, 1920 six days after the Versailles Treaty came into force.^[9] In November, the headquarters of the League moved to Geneva, where the first general assembly of the League was held on November 15, 1920^[10] with representatives from 41 nations in attendance.

David Kennedy, a professor at Harvard Law School, examined the League through the scholarly texts surrounding it, the establishing treaties, and voting sessions of the plenary. Kennedy suggests the League is a unique moment when international affairs was "institutionalized" as opposed to the pre-World War I methods of law and politics.^[11]

Symbols

The League of Nations had neither an official flag nor logo. Proposals for adopting an official symbol were made during the League's beginning in 1920, but the member states never reached agreement. However, League of Nations organization used varying logos and flags (or none at all) in their own operations. An international contest was held in 1929 to find a design, which again failed to produce a symbol.^[12] One of the reasons for this failure may have been the fear by the member states that the power of the supranational organization might supersede them.

Finally, in 1939, a semi-official emblem emerged: two five-pointed stars within a blue pentagon. The pentagon and the five-pointed stars were supposed to symbolize the five continents and the five races of mankind. In a bow on top and at the bottom, the flag had the names in English (League of Nations) and French (Société des Nations). This flag was used on the building of the New York World's Fair in 1939 and 1940.^[12]

Languages

The official languages of the League of Nations were French, English^[13] and Spanish (from 1920). The League seriously considered adopting Esperanto as their working language and actively encouraging its use but neither option was ever adopted.^[14] In 1921, there was a proposal by Lord Robert Cecil to introduce Esperanto into state schools of member nations and a report was commissioned to investigate this.^[15] When the report was presented two years later it recommended the teaching of Esperanto in schools, a proposal that 11 delegates accepted.^[14] The strongest opposition came from the French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux, partially in order to protect the French Language which he argued was already the international language.^[16] The opposition meant the report was accepted apart from the part that approved Esperanto in schools.^[17]

Principal organs

Palace of Nations, Geneva, the League's headquarters

See also Leaders of the League of Nations

The League had four principal organs, a secretariat, headed by the General Secretary and based in Geneva), a Council, an Assembly and a Permanent Court of International Justice.^[18] The League also had numerous Agencies and Commissions. Authorization for any action required both a unanimous vote by the Council and a majority vote in the Assembly.

Secretariat and Assembly

The staff of the League's secretariat was responsible for preparing the agenda for the Council and Assembly and publishing reports of the meetings and other routine matters, effectively acting as the civil service for the League. Each member was represented and had one vote in the League Assembly. Individual member states did not always have representatives in Geneva. The Assembly held its sessions once a year in September.

Council

The League Council acted as a type of executive body directing the Assemblies business.^[19] The Council began with four permanent members (the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan) and four non-permanent members,^[20] which were elected by the Assembly for a three year period. The first four non-permanent members were Belgium, Brazil, Greece and Spain. The United States was meant to be the fifth permanent member, but the United States Senate voted on March 19, 1920 against the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, thus preventing American participation in the League. This prompted the United States to go back to policies of isolationism.

The initial composition of the Council was subsequently changed a number of times. The number of non-permanent members was first increased to six on September 22, 1922, and then to nine on September 8, 1926. Germany also joined the League and became a fifth permanent member of the Council on the latter date, taking the Council to a total of fifteen members. When Germany and Japan later both left the League, the number of non-permanent seats was eventually increased from nine to eleven. The Council met on average five times a year, and in extraordinary sessions when required. In total, 107 public sessions were held between 1920 and 1939.

Other bodies

The League oversaw the Permanent Court of International Justice and several other agencies and commissions created to deal with pressing international problems.These were the Disarmament Commission, the Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, the Mandates Commission, the International Commission on Intellectual Cooperation (ancestor of the UNESCO), the Permanent Central Opium Board, the Commission for Refugees, and the Slavery Commission. Several of these institutions were transferred to the United Nations after the Second World War. In addition to the International Labour Organization, the Permanent Court of International Justice became a UN institution as the International Court of Justice, and the Health Organization was restructured as the World Health Organization.

The League's health organization had three bodies, a Health Bureau, containing permanent officials of the League, an executive section the General Advisory Council or Conference consisting of medical experts, and a Health Committee. The Committee's purpose was to conduct inquiries, oversee the operation of the League's health work, and get work ready to be presented to the Council.^[21] This body focused on ending leprosy, malaria and yellow fever, the latter two by starting an international campaign to exterminate mosquitoes. The Health Organization also worked successfully with the government of the Soviet Union to prevent typhus epidemics including organising a large education campaign about the disease.^[22]

Child Labour in Kamerun during 1919

In 1919 the International Labour Organization was created as part of the Versailles Treaty and became part of the League's operations.^[23] This body's first director was Albert Thomas.^[24] It successfully restricted the addition of lead to paint,^[25] and convinced several countries to adopt an eight-hour work day and forty-eight hour working week. It also worked to end child labour, increase the rights of women in the workplace, and make shipowners liable for accidents involving seamen.^[26] The organization continued to exist after the end of the League, becoming an agency of the United Nations in 1946.^[27]

The League wanted to regulate the drugs trade and established the Permanent Central Opium Board to supervise the statistical control system introduced by the second International Opium Convention that mediated the production, manufacture, trade and retail of opium and its by-products. The Board also established a system of import certificates and export authorizations for the legal international trade in narcotics.^[28]

A sample Nansen passport

The Slavery Commission sought to eradicate slavery and slave trading across the world, and fought forced prostitution.^[29] Its main success was through pressing the countries who administered mandated countries to end tackle slavery in those countries. The League also secured a commitment from Ethiopia, as a condition of joining the League in 1926, to end slavery and worked with Liberia to abolish forced labour and inter-tribal slavery.^[30] It succeeded in gaining the emancipation of 200,000 slaves in Sierra Leone and organized raids against slave traders in its efforts to stop the practice of forced labour in Africa.^{citation needed} It also succeeded in reducing the death rate of workers constructing the Tanganyika railway from 55% to 4%. Records were kept to control slavery, prostitution, and the trafficking women and children.^[31] Led by Fridtjof Nansen the Commission for Refugees looked after the interests of refugees including overseeing their repatriation and, when necessary resettlement.^[32] At the end of the First World War there were two to three million ex-prisoners of war dispersed throughout Russia^[33], within two years of the commission's foundation, in 1920, it had helped 425,000 of them return home.^[34] It established camps in Turkey in 1922 to deal with a refugee crisis in that country and to help prevent disease and hunger. It also established the Nansen passport as a means of identification for stateless peoples.^[35]

The Committee for the Study of the Legal Status of Women sought to make an inquiry into the status of women all over the world. Formed in April 1938, dissolved in early 1939. Committee members included Mme. P. Bastid (France), M. de Ruelle (Belgium), Mme. Anka Godjevac (Yugoslavia), Mr. HC Gutteridge (United Kingdom), Mlle. Kerstin Hesselgren (Sweden),^[36] Ms. Dorothy Kenyon (United States), M. Paul Sebastyen (Hungary) and Secretariat Mr. McKinnon Wood (Great Britain).

Members

An anachronous map of the world in the years 1920–1945, which shows the League of Nations and the world.

See main article on League of Nations members

Of the 42 founder members, 23 (or 24, counting Free France) remained members until the League of Nations was dissolved in 1946. In the founding year six other states joined, only two of which remained members throughout its existence. An additional 15 countries joined in later years.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was the only (founding) member to leave the league but return to it later.^{citation needed}

The Soviet Union was expelled from the league on December 14, 1939 five years after it joined on September 18, 1934.^[37]

Egypt was the last state to join, in 1937.

Iraq, which joined in 1932, was the only member of the league which had previously been a League of Nations Mandate.^{citation needed}

Mandates

Main article: League of Nations Mandate

League of Nations Mandates were established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. These territories were former colonies of the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire that were placed under the supervision of the League following World War I. The Permanent Mandates Commission supervised League of Nations Mandates, and also organised plebiscites in disputed territories so that residents could decide which country they would join. There were three Mandate classifications, A Mandates were mainly applied to parts of the old Ottoman Empire territorys which had:

reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.^[38]

– Article 22, The Covenant of the League of Nations

The B Mandates were applied to the former German Colonies that the League took responsibility for after the First World War. This was a territory that the League said was:

at such a stage that the Mandatory must be responsible for the administration of the territory under conditions which will guarantee freedom of conscience and religion, subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, the prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, the arms traffic and the liquor traffic, and the prevention of the establishment of fortifications or military and naval bases and of military training of the natives for other than police purposes and the defence of territory, and will also secure equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of other Members of the League.^[38]

– Article 22, The Covenant of the League of Nations

Areas in South-West Africa and certain of the South Pacific Islands were administrated by League members under a C Mandate. Classified as territory:

which, owing to the sparseness of their population, or their small size, or their remoteness from the centres of civilisation, or their geographical contiguity to the territory of the Mandatory, and other circumstances, can be best administered under the laws of the Mandatory as integral portions of its territory, subject to the safeguards above mentioned in the interests of the indigenous population."^[38]

– Article 22, The Covenant of the League of Nations

The territories were governed by "Mandatory Powers", such as the United Kingdom in the case of the Mandate of Palestine and the Union of South Africa in the case of South-West Africa, until the territories were deemed capable of self-government. There were fourteen mandate territories divided up among the six Mandatory Powers of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia and Japan. In practice, the Mandatory Territories were treated as colonies and were regarded by critics as spoils of war. With the exception of Iraq, which joined the League on October 3, 1932, these territories did not begin to gain their independence until after the Second World War, a process that did not end until 1990. Following the demise of the League, most of the remaining mandates became United Nations Trust Territories.

In addition to the Mandates, the League itself governed the Saarland for 15 years, before it was returned to Germany following a plebiscite, and the free city of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) from 15 November 1920 to 1 September 1939.

Peace and security

1920s

The aftermath of World War One left many issues to be settled between nations, including the exact position of national boundaries and which country a particular region would become part of. Most of these questions were handled by the victorious Allied Powers in bodies such as the Allied Supreme Council. The Allies only tended to refer matters they did not want to deal with to the League. This meant during the first three years of the 1920s the League played little part in resolving the turmoil that resulted from the war. The questions the League considered in its early years included those designated by the Paris Peace treaties.^[39]

The frontiers of Albania had not been set during the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, being left to the League to be decided, but had not yet been determined by September 1921. This created an unstable situation with Greek troops repeatedly crossing into Albanian territory on military operations in the south and Yugoslavian forces engaged, after clashes with Albanian tribesmen, far into the northern part of the country. The League sent a commission of representatives from various powers to the region and in November 1921 the League decided that the frontiers of Albania should be the same as they had been in 1913 with three minor changes that favoured Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav forces withdrew a few weeks later, albeit under protest. War was again prevented.^[40]

Cieszyn

Main article: Border conflicts between Poland and Czechoslovakia

Cieszyn Silesia (German: Teschener Schlesien, Czech: Těšínské Slezsko, Slovak: Tešínske Sliezsko, Polish: Śląsk Cieszyński) is a region between Poland and Czechoslovakia, important for its coal mines. Czechoslovak troops moved to the region in 1919 to take over control of it while Poland was defending itself from invasion of Bolshevik Russia. The League intervened, deciding that Poland should take control of most of the region, but that Czechoslovakia should take part of the region, which contained the most valuable coal mines and the only railroad connecting Czech lands and Slovakia. The city was divided into Polish Cieszyn and Czech Český Těšín. Poland refused to accept this decision; although there was no further violence, the diplomatic dispute continued for another 20 years. Ultimately, the situation resulted in Polish military annexation of Český Těšín in 1938.

Åland Islands

Main article: Åland crisis

Åland is a collection of around 6,500 islands midway between Sweden and Finland. The islands are exclusively Swedish speaking, but in 1809 Sweden had lost both Finland and the Åland islands to Imperial Russia. When Finland in December 1917, during the turmoil of the Russian October Revolution, declared independence, most of the Ålanders wished the islands to become part of Sweden again;^[41] Finland, however, felt that the islands were part of their new nation, as the Russians had included them in the Grand Duchy of Finland formed in 1809. By 1920 the dispute had raised to the level that meant there was a danger of war between them. The British government referred the problem with the Leagues' Council, but Finland did not let the League intervene as they viewed it was an internal matter. The League created a small panel to decide if the League should investigate the matter and, once it was decided it should be, a neutral commission was created.^[42] In June 1921 the League announced its decision, that the islands should remain a part of Finland, but with protection of the islanders guaranteed, including demilitarization. With Sweden's reluctant agreement, this became the first European international agreement concluded directly through the League^[43]

Upper Silesia

After the First World War Poland laid claim to Upper Silesia that had been part of Prussia. The Treaty of Versailles had recommended a plebiscite in Upper Silesia to determine whether the territory should be part of Germany or Poland. Complaints about the attitude of the German authorities led to rioting and eventually to the first two Silesian Uprisings (1919 and 1920). A plebiscite took place on 20 March 1921 with 59.6% (around 500,000) of the votes were cast for joining Germany, but Poland claimed the conditions surrounding it had been unfair. This result led to the Third Silesian Uprising in 1921.^[44] The League was asked to settle the matter. In 1922, a six-week investigation found that the land should be split; the decision was accepted by both countries and by the majority of Upper Silesians.

Memel

The port city of Memel (now Klaipėda) and the surrounding area was placed under League control after the end of the World War I and was governed by a French general for three years. Although the population was mostly German, the Lithuanian government placed a claim to the territory, with Lithuanian forces invading in 1923. The League chose to cede the land around Memel to Lithuania, but declared the port should remain an international zone; Lithuania agreed. While the decision could be seen as a failure (in that the League reacted passively to the use of force), the settlement of the issue without significant bloodshed was a point in the League's favour.

Greece and Bulgaria

Main article: War of the Stray Dog

After an incident between sentries on the border between Greece and Bulgaria in 1925, Greek troops invaded their neighbour. Bulgaria ordered its troops to provide only token resistance, trusting the League to settle the dispute. The League did indeed condemn the Greek invasion, and called for both Greek withdrawal and compensation to Bulgaria. Greece complied, but complained about the disparity between their treatment and that of Italy (see Corfu, below).

Mosul

The League resolved a dispute between Iraq and Turkey over the control of the former Ottoman province of Mosul in 1926. According to the UK, which was awarded a League of Nations A-mandate over Iraq in 1920 and therefore represented Iraq in its foreign affairs, Mosul belonged to Iraq; on the other hand, the new Turkish republic claimed the province as part of its historic heartland. A three person League of Nations committee was sent to the region in 1924 to study the case and in 1925 recommended the region to be connected to Iraq, under the condition that the UK would hold the mandate over Iraq for another 25 years, to assure the autonomous rights of the Kurdish population. The League Council adopted the recommendation and it decided on 16 December 1925 to award Mosul to Iraq. Although Turkey had accepted the League of Nations arbitration in the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, it rejected the League's decision. Nonetheless, Britain, Iraq and Turkey made a treaty on 5 June 1926, that mostly followed the decision of the League Council and also assigned Mosul to Iraq.

Vilna

Main article: Polish-Lithuanian War

After World War I, Poland and Lithuania both regained the independence that they had lost during the partitions of Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth in 1795. Though both countries shared centuries of common history in the Polish-Lithuanian Union and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, rising Lithuanian nationalism prevented the recreation of the former federated state. The city of Vilna (Lithuanian Vilnius, Polish Wilno) was made the capital of Lithuania. Although Vilnius had been the cultural and political center of Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1323, it happened that the majority of the population of the interwar era was Polish.

During the Polish-Soviet War in 1920, the Polish army took control of the city. Despite the Poles' claim to the city, the League chose to ask Poland to withdraw: the Poles did not. The city and its surroundings were proclaimed a separate state of Central Lithuania and on 20 February 1922 the local parliament passed the Unification Act and the city was incorporated into Poland as the capital of the Wilno Voivodship. Theoretically, British and French troops could have been asked to enforce the League's decision; however, France did not wish to antagonise Poland, which was seen as a possible ally in a future war against Germany or the Soviet Union, while Britain was not prepared to act alone. Both Britain and France also wished to have Poland as a 'buffer zone' between Europe and the possible threat from Communist Russia. Eventually, the League accepted Wilno as a Polish town on March 15, 1923. Thus the Poles were able to keep it until the Soviet invasion in 1939.

Lithuanian authorities declined to accept the Polish authority over Vilna and treated it as a constitutional capital. It was not until the 1938 Polish ultimatum that Lithuania resolved diplomatic relations with Poland and thus de facto accepted the borders of its neighbour.

Corfu

Main article: Corfu incident

One major boundary settlement that remained to be made after World War I was that between Greece and Albania. The Conference of Ambassadors, a de facto body of the League, was asked to settle the issue. The Council appointed Italian general Enrico Tellini to oversee this. On 27 August 1923, while examining the Greek side of the border, Tellini and his staff were murdered. Italian leader Benito Mussolini was incensed, and demanded that the Greeks pay reparations and execute the murderers. The Greeks refused.

On 31 August, Italian forces occupied the island of Corfu, part of Greece, with fifteen people being killed. Initially, the League condemned Mussolini's invasion, but also recommended Greece pay compensation, to be held by the League until Tellini's killers were found. Mussolini, though he initially agreed to the League's terms, set about trying to change them. By working with the Council of Ambassadors, he managed to make the League change its decision. Greece was forced to apologize and compensation was to be paid directly and immediately. Mussolini was able to leave Corfu in triumph. By bowing to the pressure of a large country, the League again set a dangerous and damaging example. This was one of the League's major failures.

1930s

Liberia

Following rumours of forced labor in the independent African country of Liberia, the League launched an investigation into the matter, particularly the alleged use of forced labor on the massive Firestone rubber plantation in that country. In 1930, a report by the League implicated many government officials in the selling of contract labor, leading to the resignation of President Charles D.B. King, his vice-president and numerous other government officials. The League followed with a threat to establish a trusteeship over Liberia unless reforms were carried out, which became the central focus of President Edwin Barclay.

Colombia and Peru

Main article: Colombia-Peru War

After several border conflicts between Colombia and Peru in the early part of the 20th century, a Peruvian takeover of the Colombian border town Leticia on 1 September 1932, resulted in an armed conflict between the two nations. After months of diplomatic wrangling, the two nations accepted mediation by the League of Nations. A provisional peace agreement, signed by both parties in May 1933, provided for the League to assume control of the disputed territory while bilateral negotiations proceeded. In May 1934, a final peace agreement was signed, resulting in the return of Leticia to Colombia, a formal apology from Peru for the 1932 invasion, demilitarization of the area around Leticia, free navigation on the Amazon River and Río Putumayo, and a pledge of nonaggression.

Saar

Saar was a province formed from parts of Prussia and the Rhenish Palatinate that was established and placed under League control after the Treaty of Versailles. A plebiscite was to be held after fifteen years of League rule, to determine whether the region should belong to Germany or France. 90.3% of votes cast were in favour of becoming part of Germany in that 1935 referendum, and it became part of Germany again.

Mukden Incident

The Mukden Incident, also known as the "Manchurian Incident" or the "Far Eastern Crisis", was one of the League's major setbacks and acted as the catalyst for Japan's withdrawal from the organization. Japan had the right to station troops in the area around the South Manchurian Railway, in the Chinese region of Manchuria, under the terms of its lease to them.^[45] In the Mukden Incident the Japanese Army in this area claimed that Chinese soldiers had sabotaged the railway, which was a major trade route between the two countries, on September 18, 1931. In fact, it is thought that the sabotage had been contrived by officers of the Japanese Kwantung Army without the knowledge of government in Japan, in order to catalyse a full invasion of Manchuria. In retaliation, the Japanese army, acting contrary to the civilian government's orders, occupied the entire region of Manchuria, which they renamed Manchukuo and set up a puppet government there. This new country was recognised internationally by only Italy and Germany, the rest of the world still saw Manchuria as legally a region of China. In 1932, Japanese air and sea forces bombarded the Chinese city of Shanghai and the short war of the January 28 Incident broke out.

The Chinese government asked the League of Nations for help, but the long voyage around the world by sailing ship for League officials to investigate the matter themselves delayed matters. When they arrived, the officials were confronted with Chinese assertions that the Japanese had invaded unlawfully, while the Japanese claimed they were acting to keep peace in the area. Despite Japan's high standing in the League, the Lytton Report declared Japan to be in the wrong and demanded Manchuria be returned to the Chinese. However, before the report was voted upon by the Assembly, Japan announced intentions to invade more of China. When the report passed 42-1 in the Assembly in 1933 (only Japan voted against), Japan withdrew from the League.

According to the Covenant of the League of Nations, the League should have now placed economic sanctions against Japan, or gathered an army together and declared war against it. However, neither happened. Economic sanctions had been rendered almost useless due to the United States Congress voting against being part of the League, despite Woodrow Wilson's keen involvement in the drawing up of the Treaty of Versailles and his wish for America to join the League. Any economic sanctions the League now placed on its member states would be fairly pointless, as the state barred from trading with other member states could simply turn and trade with America. An army was not assembled by the League due to the self-interest of many of its member states. This meant that countries like Britain and France did not want to gather together an army for the League to use as they were too interested and busy with their own affairs, such as, keeping control of their extensive colonial lands, especially after the turmoil of World War I. Japan was therefore left to keep control of Manchuria, until the Red Army of the Soviet Union took over the area and returned it to China at the end of World War II in 1945.

Chaco War

The League failed to prevent the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay in 1932 over the arid Gran Chaco region of South America. Although the region was sparsely populated, it gave control of the Paraguay River which would have given one of the two landlocked countries access to the Atlantic Ocean, and there was also speculation, later proved incorrect, that the Chaco would be a rich source of petroleum. Border skirmishes throughout the late 1920s culminated in an all-out war in 1932, when the Bolivian army, following the orders of President Daniel Salamanca Urey, attacked a Paraguayan garrison at Vanguardia. Paraguay appealed to the League of Nations, but the League did not take action when the Pan-American conference offered to mediate instead. The war was a disaster for both sides, causing 100,000 casualties and bringing both countries to the brink of economic disaster. By the time a ceasefire was negotiated on 12 June 1935, Paraguay had seized control over most of the region. This was recognized in a 1938 truce by which Paraguay was awarded three-quarters of the Chaco Boreal.

Italian invasion of Abyssinia, 1935–1936

Main article: Abyssinia Crisis

Italian troops during the invasion of Abyssinia

In October 1935, Benito Mussolini sent 400,000 troops to invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia).^[46] General Pietro Badoglio led the campaign from November 1935, ordering the bombing and use of chemical weapons, for example, (mustard gas) and poisoning of water supplies, against targets including undefended villages and medical facilities.^{[47] [48]} The modern Italian Army defeated the poorly armed Abyssinians, and captured Addis Ababa in May 1936, forcing Emperor Haile Selassie to flee.^[49]

The League of Nations condemned Italy's aggression and imposed economic sanctions in November 1935, but the sanctions were largely ineffective since they did not ban oil or close the Suez Canal which was owned by Britain and France. As Stanley Baldwin, the British Prime Minister, later observed, this was ultimately because no one had the military forces on hand to withstand an Italian attack. On 9 October 1935, the United States (a non-League member) refused to cooperate with any League action. It had embargoed exports of arms and war material to neither combatant (in accordance with its new Neutrality Act) on 5 October and later (29 February 1936) endeavoured (with uncertain success) to limit exports of oil and other materials to normal peacetime levels. The League sanctions were lifted on 4 July 1936, but by that point they were a dead letter in any event.

In December 1935, the Hoare-Laval Pact was an attempt by the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Hoare and the French Prime Minister Laval to end the conflict in Abyssinia by drawing up a plan to partition Abyssinia into two parts, an Italian sector and an Abyssinian sector. Mussolini was prepared to agree to the Pact; however, news of the Pact was leaked and both the British and French public venomously protested against the Pact, describing it as a sell-out of Abyssinia. Hoare and Laval were forced to resign their positions, and both the British and French government disassociated with them respectively.

As was the case with Japan, the vigour of the major powers in responding to the crisis in Abyssinia was tempered by their perception that the fate of this poor and far-off country, inhabited by non-Europeans, was not a central interest of theirs. In addition, it showed how the League could be influenced by the self-interest of its members.^{citation needed} One of the reasons why the sanctions were not very harsh was because both Britain and France did not want to anger Mussolini. This was because Mussolini was then seen as a possible ally against Hitler.

Spanish Civil War

Main article: Spanish Civil War

On 17 July 1936, armed conflict broke out between Spanish Republicans (the left-wing government of Spain) and Nationalists (the right-wing rebels, including most officers of the Spanish Army). Alvarez del Vayo, the Spanish minister of foreign affairs, appealed to the League in September 1936 for arms to defend its territorial integrity and political independence. However, the League could not itself intervene in the Spanish Civil War nor prevent foreign intervention in the conflict. Hitler and Mussolini continued to aid General Franco’s Nationalist insurrectionists, and the Soviet Union aided the Spanish loyalists. The League did attempt to ban the intervention of foreign national volunteers.

Disarmament

The Disarmament Commission obtained initial agreement by France, Italy, Japan, and Britain to limit the size of their navies. However, the United Kingdom refused to sign a 1923 disarmament treaty, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact, facilitated by the commission in 1928, failed in its objective of outlawing war. Ultimately, the Commission failed to halt the military buildup during the 1930s by Germany, Italy and Japan.

The League was powerless and mostly silent in the face of major events leading to World War II such as Hitler's remilitarisation of the Rhineland, occupation of the Sudetenland and Anschluss of Austria, which had been forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. In fact, League members themselves rearmed. As with Japan, both Germany in 1933 – using the failure of the World Disarmament Conference to agree to arms parity between France and Germany as a pretext – and Italy in 1937 simply withdrew from the League rather than submit to its judgment. The League commissioner in Danzig was unable to deal with German claims on the city, a significant contributing factor in the outbreak of World War II in 1939. The final significant act of the League was to expel the Soviet Union in December 1939 after it invaded Finland.

Other successes

The League also worked to combat the international trade in opium and sexual slavery and helped alleviate the plight of refugees, particularly in Turkey in the period to 1926. One of its innovations in this area was its 1922 introduction of the Nansen passport, which was the first internationally recognized identity card for stateless refugees. Many of the League's successes were accomplished by its various Agencies and Commissions.

General weaknesses

Moral Suasion.
The Rabbit. "My offensive equipment being practically nil, it remains for me to fascinate him with the power of my eye."

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Cartoon from Punch magazine, July 28 1920, satirising the perceived weakness of the League.

The League did not, in the long term, succeed in its aim to prevent another world war. The outbreak of World War II was the immediate cause of the League's demise, but there was also a variety of other, more fundamental, flaws.

The League, like the modern United Nations, lacked an armed force of its own and depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, which they were very reluctant to do. Economic sanctions, which were the most severe measure the League could implement short of military action, were difficult to enforce and had no great impact on the target country, because they could simply trade with those outside the League. The problem is exemplified in the following passage, taken from The Essential Facts About the League of Nations, a handbook published in Geneva in 1939:

"As regards the military sanctions provided for in paragraph 2 of Article 16, there is no legal obligation to apply them… there may be a political and moral duty incumbent on states… but, once again, there is no obligation on them."

The League's two most important members, Britain and France, were reluctant to use sanctions and even more reluctant to resort to military action on behalf of the League. So soon after World War I, the populations and governments of the two countries were pacifist. The British Conservatives were especially tepid on the League and preferred, when in government, to negotiate treaties without the involvement of the organization. Ultimately, Britain and France both abandoned the concept of collective security in favour of appeasement in the face of growing German militarism under Adolf Hitler.

Representation at the League was often a problem. Though it was intended to encompass all nations, many never joined, or their time as part of the League was short. In January 1920 when the League began, Germany was not permitted to join, due to strong dislike to the country after World War I. Soviet Russia was also banned from the League, as their communist views were not welcomed by the victors of World War I. One key weakness of the League was that the United States never joined, which took away much of the League's potential power. Even though US President Woodrow Wilson had been a driving force behind the League's formation, the United States Senate voted on November 19, 1919 not to join the League.

The League also further weakened when some of the main powers left in the 1930s. Japan began as a permanent member of the Council, but withdrew in 1933 after the League voiced opposition to its invasion of the Chinese territory of Manchuria. Italy also began as a permanent member of the Council but withdrew in 1937. The League had accepted Germany as a member in 1926, deeming it a "peace-loving country," but Adolf Hitler pulled Germany out when he came to power in 1933.

Another major power, the Soviet Union, was a member only from 1934, when it joined to antagonise Germany (which had left the year before), to December 14, 1939, when it was expelled for aggression against Finland. In expelling the Soviet Union, the League broke its own norms. Only 7 out of 15 members of the Council voted for the expelling (Great Britain, France, Belgium, Bolivia, Egypt, South African Union and the Dominican Republic), which was not a majority of votes as was required by the Charter to do so. Three of these members were chosen as members of the Council the day before the voting (South African Union, Bolivia and Egypt).^[50] The League of Nations practically ceased functioning after that and was formally dismissed in 1946.^[51]

The League's neutrality tended to manifest itself as indecision. The League required a unanimous vote of its nine (later fifteen) member Council to enact a resolution, so conclusive and effective action was difficult, if not impossible. It was also slow in coming to its decisions. Some decisions also required unanimous consent of the Assembly; that is, agreement by every member of the League.

Another important weakness of the League was that it tried to represent all nations, but most members protected their own national interests and were not committed to the League or its goals. The reluctance of all League members to use the option of military action showed this to the full. If the League had shown more resolve initially, countries, governments and dictators may have been more wary of risking its wrath in later years. These failings were, in part, among the reasons for the outbreak of World War II.

When the British Cabinet discussed the concept of the League during the Great War, Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretary, circulated a memorandum on the subject. He started by saying: "Generally it appears to me that any such scheme is dangerous to us, because it will create a sense of security which is wholly fictitious".^[52] He attacked the British pre-war faith in the sanctity of treaties as delusional and concluded by claiming:

"It [a League of Nations] will only result in failure and the longer that failure is postponed the more certain it is that this country will have been lulled to sleep. It will put a very strong lever into the hands of the well-meaning idealists who are to be found in almost every Government, who deprecate expenditure on armaments, and, in the course of time, it will almost certainly result in this country being caught at a disadvantage".^[53]

The Foreign Office minister Sir Eyre Crowe also wrote a memorandum to the British Cabinet claiming that "a solemn league and covenant" would just be "a treaty, like other treaties": "What is there to ensure that it will not, like other treaties, be broken?". Crowe went on to express scepticism of the planned "pledge of common action" against aggressors because he believed the actions of individual states would still be determined by national interests and the balance of power. He also criticised the proposal for League economic sanctions because it would ineffectual and that "It is all a question of real military preponderance". Universal disarmament was a practical impossibility, Crowe warned.^[54]

Moreover, the League's advocacy of disarmament for Britain and France (and other members) whilst at the same time advocating collective security meant that the League was unwittingly depriving itself of the only forceful means by which its authority would be upheld. This was because if the League was to force countries to abide by international law it would primarily be the Royal Navy and the French Army which would do the fighting. Furthermore, Britain and France were not powerful enough to enforce international law across the globe, even if they wished to do so. For its members, League obligations meant there was a danger that states would get drawn into international disputes which did not directly affect their respective national interests.

On 23 June 1936, in the wake of the collapse of League efforts to restrain Italy's war of conquest against Abyssinia, British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin told the House of Commons that collective security "failed ultimately because of the reluctance of nearly all the nations in Europe to proceed to what I might call military sanctions... [T]he real reason, or the main reason, was that we discovered in the process of weeks that there was no country except the aggressor country which was ready for war... [I]f collective action is to be a reality and not merely a thing to be talked about, it means not only that every country is to be ready for war; but must be ready to go to war at once. That is a terrible thing, but it is an essential part of collective security."

Demise and legacy

The League of Nations' Assembly building in Geneva

As the situation in Europe deteriorated into war the Assembly transferred, on 30 September 1938 and 14 December 1939, enough power to the Secretary General to allow the League to continue to legally exist and continue with operations on a reduced scale.^[55] After this was completed the headquarters of the League, the Palace of Peace, remained unoccupied for nearly six years until the Second World War had ended.^[56] The final meeting of the League of Nations was held in April in Geneva. Delegates from 34 nations attended the assembly where their first act was the closure the twentieth meeting, adjourned on 14 December 1939, and opened the twenty-first. This session concerned itself with liquidating the League, the Palace of Peace was given to the UN, reserve funds were returned to the nations that had supplied them and the debts of the League were settled.^[57] Robert CecilI is said to have summed up the feeling of the gathering^[57] during a speech to the final assembly when he said:

aggression where it occurs and however it may be defended, is an international crime, that it is the duty of every peace-loving state to resent it and employ whatever force is necessary to crush it ... that every well-disposed citizen of every state should be ready to undergo any sacrifice in order to maintain peace ... I venture to impress upon my hearers that the great work of peace is resting not only on the narrow interests of our own nations, but even more on those great principles of right and wrong which nations, like individuals, depend.

– Robert Cecil

The motion that dissolved the League, stating that "The League of Nations shall cease to exist except for the purpose of the liquidation of its affairs"^[58] passed unanimously. The motion also set the date for the end of the League as the day after the session was closed. On the 18 April 1939 the President of the Assembly, Carl J. Hambro of Norway, declared "the twenty-first and last session of the General Assembly of the League of Nations closed." ^[59] As a result the League of Nations ceased to exist on 19 April 1939.

With the onset of World War II, it had been clear that the League had failed in its purpose – to avoid any future world war. During the war, neither the League's Assembly nor Council had been able or willing to meet, and its secretariat in Geneva had been reduced to a skeleton staff, with many offices moving to North America. At the 1943 Tehran Conference, the Allied Powers agreed to create a new body to replace the League. This body was to be the United Nations. Many League bodies, such as the International Labour Organization, continued to function and eventually became affiliated with the UN.^[27] The League's assets of $22,000,000 were then assigned to the U.N. ^[60]

The structure of the United Nations was intended to make it more effective than the League. The principal Allies in World War II (UK, USSR, France, U.S., and China) became permanent members of the UN Security Council, giving the new "Great Powers" significant international influence, mirroring the League Council. Decisions of the UN Security Council are binding on all members of the UN; however, unanimous decisions are not required, unlike the League Council. Permanent members of the UN Security Council were given a shield to protect their vital interests, which has prevented the UN acting decisively in many cases. Similarly, the UN does not have its own standing armed forces, but the UN has been more successful than the League in calling for its members to contribute to armed interventions, such as the Korean War, and peacekeeping in the former Yugoslavia. However, the UN has in some cases been forced to rely on economic sanctions. The UN has also been more successful than the League in attracting members from the nations of the world, making it more representative.

See also

United Nations Portal

World War I Portal

• Article X of the Covenant of the League of Nations
• Atlantic Charter
• Interwar period
• Minority Treaties
• Neutrality Acts
• Palais des Nations, built as the League's headquarters.

Notes

References

• The Essential Facts About the League of Nations, published in Geneva, with ten editions between 1933 and 1940
• Bassett, John Spencer. The League of Nations: A Chapter in World Politics 1930
• Baumslag, Naomi, (2005), Murderous Medicine: Nazi Doctors, Human Experimentation, and Typhus, Greenwood Publishing, ISBN 0275983129
• Burkman, Thomas W., (Summer 1995) Japan and the League of Nations: an Asian power encounters the European Club, World Affairs 158.n1
• Egerton, George W. ; Great Britain and the Creation of the League of Nations: Strategy, Politics, and International Organization, 1914–1919 University of North Carolina Press, 1978
• Frowein, Jochen A. and Wolfrum, Rüdiger (2000) Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, ISBN 9041114033
• Gill, George, (1996) The League of Nations from 1929 to 1946: From 1929 to 1946 . Avery Publishing Group. ISBN 0-89529-637-3
• Glover Forster, Peter, (1982), The Esperanto Movement, Mouton, ISBN 9027933995
• Hill, Robert and Garvey, Marcus and Universal Negro Improvement Association, (1995) The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, University of California Press, ISBN 0520247329
• Kawamura, Noriko, Turbulence in the Pacific: Japanese-U.S. Relations During World War I, Greenwood Publishing Group , 2000 edition, ISBN 0275968537
• Kelly, Nigel and Lacey, Greg (2001) "Modern World History" Heinemann Educational Publishers, Oxford
• Kennedy, David "The Move to Institutions" 8 Cardozo Law Review, 841 (1987). Reprinted in Klabbers, J. (ed.) International Organization Ashgate Publishing Limited (2006). online
• Kennedy, Paul. The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations (2006)
• Kontra, Miklós, Phillipson, Robert, Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove and Varady, Tibor, (1999), Language, a Right and a Resource: Approaching Linguistic Human Rights, Central European University Press, ISBN 9639116645
• Kuehl, Warren F. and Lynne K. Dunn; Keeping the Covenant: American Internationalists and the League of Nations, 1920–1939 1997