The league of nations
League of Nations, an organization for international cooperation established on January 10, 1920, at the initiative of the victorious Allied powers at the end of World War I.
The terrible losses of World War I produced, as years went by and peace seemed no nearer, an ever-growing public demand that some method be found to prevent the renewal of the suffering and destruction which were now seen to be an inescapable part of modern war. So great was the force of this demand that within a few weeks after the opening of the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919, unanimous agreement had been reached on the text of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Although the League was unable to fulfill the hopes of its founders, its creation was an event of decisive importance in the history of international relations. The League was formally disbanded on April 19, 1946; its powers and functions had been transferred to the nascent United Nations.
Origins of the League of Nations
The central, basic idea of the movement was that aggressive war is a crime not only against the immediate victim but against the whole human community. Accordingly it is the right and duty of all states to join in preventing it; if it is certain that they will so act, no aggression is likely to take place. Such affirmations might be found in the writings of philosophers or moralists but had never before emerged onto the plane of practical politics. Statesmen and lawyers alike held and acted on the view that there was no natural or supreme law by which the rights of sovereign states, including that of making war as and when they chose, could be judged or limited. Many of the attributes of the League of Nations were developed from existing institutions or from time-honoured proposals for the reform of previous diplomatic methods. However, the premise of collective security was, for practical purposes, a new concept engendered by the unprecedented pressures of World War I.
When the peace conference met, it was generally agreed that its task should include the establishment of a League of Nations capable of ensuring future peace. U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson insisted that this should be among the first questions to be dealt with by the conference. The work proceeded with far greater speed than that of territorial and military settlement, chiefly because the subject had been exhaustively studied during the war years. Unofficial societies in the United States, Great Britain, France, and some neutral countries had drawn up many plans and proposals, and in doing so they in turn had availed themselves of the efforts of earlier thinkers.
Over many years lawyers had worked out plans for the settlement of disputes between states by legal means or, failing these, by third-party arbitration, and the Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907 had held long debates on these subjects. The results had been unimpressive; the 1907 conference tried in vain to set up an international court, and though many arbitration treaties were signed between individual states, they all contained reservations which precluded their application in more dangerous disputes. However, though the diplomatists thus kept the free hand as long as possible, the general principle of arbitration—which in popular language included juridical settlement and also settlement through mediation—had become widely accepted by public opinion and was embodied as a matter of course in the Covenant.
Another 19th-century development which had influenced the plan makers was the growth of international bureaus, such as the Universal Postal Union, the International Institute of Agriculture, and numerous others, set up to deal with particular fields of work in which international cooperation was plainly essential. They had no political function or influence, but within their very narrow limits they worked efficiently. It was concluded that wider fields of social and economic life, in which each passing year made international cooperation more and more necessary, might with advantage be entrusted to similar international administrative institutions. Such ideas were strengthened by the fact that, during the war, joint Allied commissions controlling trade, shipping, and procurement of raw materials had gradually developed into powerful and effective administrative bodies. Planners questioned whether these entities, admitting first the neutrals and later the enemy states into their councils, could become worldwide centres of cooperation in their respective fields
Other lessons of the war concerned the problems of armaments on the one hand and of diplomacy on the other. It was widely believed that the enormous increase in armaments undertaken by the great powers of Europe during the immediate prewar period had been not only a consequence, but also in itself a cause, of tension, hostility, and finally war. The naval arms race between the United Kingdom and Germany was an especially obvious manifestation of this phenomenon. Equally strong was the belief that “secret diplomacy,” that is, the existence, under secret treaty, of commitments for reciprocal diplomatic or military support, had enabled statesmen and generals to run risks which public opinion would never have countenanced had they been known
These general propositions—collective security, arbitration, economic and social cooperation, reduction of armaments, and open diplomacy—inspired in various degrees the plans drawn up during the war. It was urged from the first that they could become effective only through the creation of a great international organization charged with the duty of applying them and invested with the powers necessary to that end. Already in spring 1915 the name “League of Nations” was in general use among the small groups which were discussing the future organization of peace. Their ideas, encouraged by statesmen such as former Pres. William H. Taft in the United States and Sir Edward Grey and Lord Robert Cecil in Great Britain, gradually became known and supported. The League to Enforce Peace in the United States and the League of Nations societies in Britain acted as centres of discussion. In the presidential election of 1916 both parties advocated U.S. membership in a future league. A few months later the United States was a belligerent, and Wilson, entering on his second term, became, by right both of his personality and of his position as leader of the greatest world power, the chief spokesman of the Allied coalition. In January 1918, in the historic Fourteen Points in which he summed up U.S. war aims, he called for the formation of “a general association of nations…affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small States alike.” The Fourteen Points were in due course accepted by all the Allies as an authentic statement of their war aims also. Thus what had seemed hardly more than a utopian hope was transmuted in a few months into the formal and official purpose of the soon-to-be-victorious Allies.
Meanwhile, both the British and French governments had appointed special committees to draw up plans for the new organization, and their reports were transmitted to Washington, where Wilson and his confidential adviser Edward M. House were drafting proposals in their turn. A further contribution of great importance was made by South African statesman Jan Smuts, who published in December 1918 The League of Nations: A Practical Suggestion. Smuts declared that the League must not be a mere diplomatic defense against war but “a great organ of the ordinary peaceful life of civilisation…woven into the very texture of our political system,” and that in the long run its power to prevent war would depend upon the extent of its action in peace. To many of his contemporaries, this was a new vision of the real nature of an effective League of Nations
The Covenant
With the ground thus well prepared, and under Wilson’s resolute leadership, the conference was able to draw up, in a few days of intensive committee work, a document which it called the Covenant of the League of Nations. This text was published, as a draft, on February 14, 1919. It was subjected to various criticisms, especially in the United States, where Wilson’s star was already on the decline, and also by the European neutrals, who had had no official share in the work. In general, however, it was well received. Although the first great impulse had already weakened and Allied unity had been impaired, a final amended text was adopted on April 28, 1919, by the unanimous decision of the conference. The Covenant was a short and concise document of 26 articles. The first seven articles established the constitutional basis of the new system. Article 1 defined the League’s original members, which consisted of all the Allied signatories of the peace treaties and those 13 countries which had been neutral in the war, if the latter chose to join without reservation. Others could be admitted by a two-thirds majority of the Assembly, and any member could withdraw after giving two years’
Articles 2–5 created the directing organs of the League: an Assembly composed of representatives of all members and a Council composed of representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan as permanent members, with four others elected by the Assembly. Articles 6 and 7 created a permanent Secretariat, provided for the expenses of the League, and named Geneva as its headquarters. Articles 8 and 9 dealt with armaments. All members undertook to reduce their armaments to the lowest possible level, to suppress the “evil effects” of the private manufacture of arms, and to exchange full information as to their existing armaments and their programs for the future. A permanent commission was provided to advise the Council on all military, naval, and air questions. Articles 10–17 embodied what may be called the central and basic idea of the League: collective security, together with the various procedures for peaceful settlement of disputes. Each member undertook (Article 10) to respect the integrity and independence of all the others and to join in preserving them against aggression. Article 11 declared that any war or threat of war was a matter of concern to all members, whether directly affected or not; every member had the right to demand that the question be considered by the Council and, if necessary, to insist on an immediate meeting. By Article 12, all bound themselves to submit all serious disputes to peaceful settlement or to inquiry by the Council and in no case to resort to war until these procedures had had time to lead to a settlement. Even then, if no settlement were reached, they promised to wait a further three months before going to war. The various methods of settlement—arbitration, legal procedure, or action by the Council or the Assembly—were then set out in some detail (Articles 13–15), and these provisions included the establishment of a permanent international court. Under Article 16 all members promised to join in common action against any other which made war in violation of the Covenant. This action was to take in all cases the form of economic sanctions as its primary coercive mechanism and, if this were not enough, of military intervention. This article also empowered the Council to expel a member which violated the Covenant. Article 17 extended the system so as to provide protection against, and in certain conditions for, nonmember states.
Article 18 was designed to meet the demand for open diplomacy. It required that all future treaties be registered with, and published by, the Secretariat. Article 19 empowered the Assembly to propose changes in existing treaties or situations which might be a danger to peace. By Article 20 all members agreed that any treaty inconsistent with the Covenant was automatically abrogated and undertook not to enter into any such engagement in the future
Article 22 declared that the Covenant did not affect the validity of the Monroe Doctrine. Article 22 established the mandates system. Articles 23 and 24 corresponded to the proposals for worldwide economic and social cooperation under the authority of the League. Members undertook to act together in such matters as transport and communications, commercial relations, health, and supervision of the international arms trade and to bring existing international agencies, such as the Universal Postal Union, under the direction of the League. They agreed also to set up an International Labour Organization in order to “secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labour.” Article 25 promised support for the Red Cross. Finally, Article 26 defined the procedure for amending the Covenant; an amendment, to be effective, must be ratified by a majority of the members, including all those represented on the Council
The Covenant purported to cover each of the main proposals which had emerged during the preparatory period—collective security; arbitration and judicial settlement, including the creation of an international court; international cooperation or control in economic and social affairs; disarmament; and open diplomacy. It did not satisfy extreme pacifists, who rejected any use of force (even to resist aggression), or extreme internationalists, who wished the League to have its own military forces and to impose all its decisions by its own political and military authority. In the main the Covenant fully realized the plans made during the war, and in one essential respect, the creation of efficient working institutions, it went much beyond
For the next 20 years the Covenant continued to be, in theory, not only the guide and authority for all the activities of the League, but also the criterion by which liberal opinion in many developed countries judged the conduct of their own and other governments. In consequence, its text was minutely and repeatedly studied, scrutinized, and debated by professors, lawyers, and statesmen. This test it bore, on the whole, very successfully. A few minor problems of interpretation were unearthed, chiefly due to the fact that its English and French texts were equally authentic. In the actual working of the League it never failed to provide both the principles and the methods required by each successive question.
This of course is not to say that its principles were always respected or that its provisions were not capable of improvement. Nevertheless, the Covenant system was much more complete and well planned than might appear from the fact of the various failures and final defeat of the League. Before it even started to function, however, it would receive a blow so severe that it was never possible to apply the system as its founders had intended
The Covenant was in its nature an entirely separate instrument to which neutral states could accede even if they objected to other parts of the peace treaties. It was in form a part of these, however, and when its text was finally settled in April 1919, it could only come into force at the same time as the Versailles Treaty as a whole, on January 10, 1920. Meanwhile, in the United States Senate, the leaders of the Republican opposition, by then implacably hostile to Wilson and all his works, had resolved to return to the policy of isolationism. While they did not formally propose the rejection of the Covenant, they put forward a number of reservations which Wilson was certain to refuse
For his part, Wilson was convinced that most Americans were in favour of the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations, and there was ample evidence for his conclusion. Thirty-two state legislatures and 33 governors had gone on record in support of the League. Nevertheless, in response to increasing congressional opposition, Wilson undertook an 8,000-mile (12,900-km) speaking tour to solicit public support in an attempt to compel Congress to follow his lead. The trip across the continental U.S., on which the president gave 37 addresses, took a mighty toll on Wilson’s health, permanently impairing him and virtually removing him from the fight for the League. By the end of September 1919, Wilson was so exhausted that he had to cancel the remaining scheduled speaking engagements
In November 1919 U.S. Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, a Republican from Massachusetts, presented the Senate with a set of reservations to the treaty that would effectively circumscribe U.S. participation in the League. On November 18 Wilson wrote to U.S. Sen. Gilbert Hitchcock of Nebraska, urging loyal Democrats to vote against Lodge’s reservations. The next day, loyal Democrats joined those who were irreconcilably opposed to the treaty to defeat ratification of it with Lodge’s reservations. For the next vote, on the question of ratification without reservations, however, the main bulk of senators changed sides. The irreconcilables again voted against the treaty, but this time they were joined by those, such as Lodge, who opposed an unqualified U.S. commitment. The total of those in favour of the treaty fell short of the two-thirds majority required by the U.S. Constitution for such decisions. In a March 1920 vote, ratification was defeated again in the Senate, and the hope of U.S. membership disappeared, as it proved, forever.
The effect of this event upon the future of the League was, in one sense, decisive, since it ruled out all possibility of collective security as embodied in the Covenant. There was no certainty of a complete economic boycott which, it was confidently expected, would suffice to make even the most aggressive government prefer to settle its disputes by negotiation rather than by armed attack. The other component parts of the system could still function, and did in fact function, though with less effectiveness than if the United States had fully participated therein. The knowledge that the world’s greatest economic power would stand aside from sanctions robbed that part of the Covenant of its main threat for the aggressor and destroyed, in consequence, the confidence that other members could place in it. However, the League was closely interwoven with the fabric of the peace treaties, and there was hope that the Senate’s decision might someday be reversed. Public opinion in many countries would have strongly resisted any proposal to abandon the League. So, in spite of the absence of the United States, the first meeting of the League Council was held immediately after the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. Thus the League entered on the very active, if not always very successful, existence which ended in fact with the outbreak of World War II in 1939, though its formal demise did not take place until April 1946.
Structure of the League of Nations
The League quickly became a large and complex structure. The Assembly and the Council—acting either under the direct terms of the Covenant or on their own initiative—decided the nature, membership, and competence of the rest of the League’s principal organs and institutions, directed their work, and provided their budget. The Assembly consisted of one to three delegates from each member nation, and many countries also sent a large body of substitutes and experts. The makers of the Covenant had expected that the Assembly would meet perhaps every third or fourth year, but at its first session in 1920 it decided to meet every September. Each session opened with a general discussion on the work done during the past year or planned for the next. This discussion often ranged over problems which the speaker considered ought to be dealt with by the members of the League instead of outside it. It then typically settled down to two or three weeks of committee meetings. Since every delegation was represented on each committee, and these groups held their meetings in public, the conclusions reached in committee were usually adopted with no more than a few formal speeches in the plenary Assembly. The Assembly decisions required unanimity among those who voted. Thus, in theory, any member could veto any decision. In practice, such a contingency was exceedingly rare. It became customary for those who disagreed with the proposals of the majority to vote against them in committee, and, having thus put their views on record, to abstain from voting in the Assembly.
Except that it usually refrained from discussing political issues that were being dealt with by the Council, the Assembly’s debates covered every part of the activities of the League. A few matters, such as the admission of new members or the revision of obsolete treaties, were specifically reserved to the Assembly, and from the beginning it insisted on being the sole authority in regard to the budget. It showed much zeal for disarmament, on which the smaller powers, who could there make their voice effectively heard, were dissatisfied with the policy of the great powers and of the Council.
The Assembly was, by general consent, the most successful as well as the most original of the many innovations of the League. It was original in its constitutional nature as a worldwide conference meeting to discuss not some special question but any and all questions of international relations. It was still more original in its spirit, since it gave equal rights and opportunities to be heard to all powers, whether great or small, and sought deliberately to follow the open and direct methods of a parliament rather than the formalities of a diplomatic gathering.
The Council was originally intended to consist of five great powers—the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan—as permanent members, together with four others elected by the Assembly for limited periods. It was expected that Germany and the U.S.S.R. someday might become permanent members and that the nonpermanent membership might be correspondingly increased. However, the United States seat was never occupied, and the number of elected members was increased to six in 1922 and to nine in 1926, so that the intended majority of great powers was never realized.
After the first year, when it met almost every month, the Council held three or four regular sessions a year, though it was not until 1923 that it formally decided to meet at fixed dates in March, June, September, and December of each year. It also met in special session when necessary. In the early years, its members were usually represented either by elder statesmen who had withdrawn from active politics, such as Arthur Balfour or Léon Bourgeois, or by professional diplomats. In 1923 the European members began to send their foreign ministers to each meeting, a change which greatly enhanced the authority and importance of the Council. This continued to be the normal practice until the last days of the League.
The main business of the Council was political. It dealt not only with the major disputes which might endanger peace but with countless small problems arising out of the peace treaties or submitted to it by the states concerned: problems of frontier adjustment; disputes arising from frontier incidents or accusations of wrongs done to minorities; problems concerning particular areas of constant tension, such as Danzig (now Gdańsk) or the Saar territory, where treaty settlements entrusted administrative or arbitral decisions to the council; and reports from committees, such as those dealing with disarmament or with the mandated territories. In any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, the votes of the parties concerned did not count. With this exception, all decisions of substance required unanimity, and all League members concerned in the question under discussion had, for the occasion, the rights of Council membership. Actual cases of veto or deadlock were very few, but without doubt the Council tended, in consequence, toward compromise or delay rather than clear-cut decisions
In organizing the Secretariat, Sir Eric James Drummond, the first secretary-general (1919–33), struck out on a completely new path. He and his French and U.S. deputies built up a strictly international institution in which it was understood from the first that all officials were to act independently from their own national authorities. If this ideal was not always realized, it is still true to say that it governed the attitude of the Secretariat as a whole and that the latter was rarely if ever accused of partiality on national grounds. As regards its efficiency, the Secretariat early reached a high standard and maintained it. In spite of predictions to the contrary, officials from many different countries were able to work together with zeal and cordiality, and the Secretariat was as proud of its corporate spirit as any national service could be. Its work, however, and that of the League in general, was throughout hampered by poverty. At each Assembly the League members, especially the richest ones, made devoted efforts to cut down its expenditure to the bone. The average annual budget for the League, the International Labour Organization, and the permanent court combined was less than $5,500,00. This covered not only running costs but also capital expenditure, including the great Palais des Nations, which was completed in 1937. Nevertheless, the opponents of the League were able to establish the legend that it was an expensive and extravagant institution.
The Assembly, Council, and Secretariat were the central organs of an extensive structure of auxiliary institutions. These fell into two main categories: those of a legal or political character, set up to assist the League in its duty of preventing tension and settling disputes; and those of a social or economic character, whose advice was often sought in connection with political disputes but whose main function was to organize and enhance international cooperation in social and economic affairs.
The principal organs of the first category were the Permanent Court of International Justice; the Permanent Mandates Commission; the minorities committees of the Council; and the commissions concerned with military affairs and with the problems of disarmament. Of these, the court and the mandates commission were by general consensus highly efficient bodies which rendered valuable service to the League and to peace. The minorities committees were bitterly criticized, as indeed was all the Council’s work on the protection of minorities, on exactly opposite grounds, by the minorities and by the governments concerned. In truth, not a few injustices were redressed, but the Council’s responsibilities in this field were completely disproportionate to its powers.
In the second category, the most important organs were—besides the International Labour Organization, administratively a part of the League but otherwise autonomous—the Economic and Financial Organization, the Organization for Communications and Transit, the Health Organization, and the Intellectual Cooperation Organization. To these must be added those dealing with more strictly humanitarian affairs: the curtailing of the international drug trade, the protection of women, child welfare, the abolition of slavery, and the refugee problem. Several of these were in themselves complex organizations, comprising regular conferences, a standing committee, and numerous subcommittees for special subjects. These bodies undertook a massive amount of work, whether in the form of general agreements and treaties, of advice and assistance to particular countries or regions, or of consultation and exchange of ideas and methods.
This work formed a continuous, often inconspicuous, background to the political action of the League. Though often frustrated by political realities, it represented in total a great contribution to human welfare. It was done without payment; the organizations’ members, usually eminent experts in their own fields, received nothing beyond their expenses.
Political history
The 20 years of the League’s active existence fell into four periods: (1) 1920–23, a period of growth, during which the League increased its membership and established its machinery but had little concern with the chief political problems of the time; (2) 1924–31, from the beginnings of reconciliation in Europe to the Japanese aggression in Manchuria, a period of relative stability; (3) 1931–36, from the Manchurian war to Benito Mussolini’s victory in Ethiopia and the formation of the Rome-Berlin Axis, a period of conflict during which the League was the main centre of international affairs; and (4) 1936–39, a period of defeat for the League, during which the Covenant was virtually abandoned.
First period (1920–23)
During the first period all the main organs of the League’s working structure were created. All the neutral states invited to accede to the Covenant had done so, and three of the countries defeated in the war, as well as several of those created by the peace treaties, had been admitted, thus enlarging the membership from 42 to 54. While the League was establishing itself as a fairly efficient working institution, it was far indeed from exercising the powerful influence on world affairs which its founders had planned. While the United States remained aloof, the so-called Supreme Council of the victorious powers clung to the responsibility for dealing with the more serious problems. The only important political achievements of the League in this period were the settlement of the Polish-German frontier in Upper Silesia and the rescue of Austria from financial catastrophe. In each case the Council, invited to solve the problem after the Supreme Council had tried and failed, did so by what was essentially a new technique in such matters—an interlocked complex of political and economic dispositions, based on the advice of its technical organizations. The Austrian model was soon followed by League plans for Hungary, Bulgaria, and Greece and also, in great part, by the Dawes Plan for restoring the collapsed economy of Germany. Notably, this last initiative was not effected by the League.
The climax of discord and disorder in the postwar period was reached in 1923, when the French occupied the Ruhr in order to force the payment of reparations, and Mussolini occupied Corfu in order to force the Greek government to pay compensation for the murder of a group of Italian officers on Greek soil. The Corfu dispute was the first sharp conflict between League members in which the principle of collective security might have been invoked. Some expected that it would spell the end of the League, as Mussolini had gotten his way by methods which plainly violated the Covenant. However, under intense pressure in the Council and Assembly, he was reduced to achieving his ends by trickery rather than by defying the League and was obliged to evacuate Corfu much sooner than he had intended. The event showed that the League, even if unable to enforce swift decisions, was able to make the way of the aggressor difficult and unpleasant.
Second period (1924–31)
The following months produced a notable reversal of the situation, and the League was now to enter upon the second period of its life. New governments in London and Paris set themselves to create better relations with Germany and the U.S.S.R., and both declared that their policy would henceforth be based on the League. The Supreme Council had ceased to function, the system of hasty conferences was abandoned, and for the next 12 years Geneva became the main working centre of international affairs. During the first seven of these, the globe was free from any serious armed conflict; the minor quarrels with which the Council had to deal, though often unpleasant and difficult, usually ended in compromise and did not threaten the stability of the League or the peace of the world.
In the reconstruction of Europe, the question of Germany’s admission to the League assumed great importance. Germany demanded it as a symbol of its restoration to equality with other great powers, and admission would enable Germany to share in the general management of international affairs, including those arising from the peace treaties. The proposal to admit Germany to the League was supported by the former neutrals as well as those among the belligerents who had hoped to achieve a new beginning through reconciliation. The latter group also called for the execution without further delay of the Covenant provisions for disarmament. In France, Poland, and other countries which were neighbours of Germany, these sentiments were not absent but were accompanied by deep anxiety lest the military ambitions of the German empire might again become uppermost in the Weimar Republic. Indeed, the attitude of the powerful right-wing parties in Germany gave substance to these fears. Germany’s neighbours maintained that the security provided by the Covenant was inadequate and that disarmament could only be undertaken after they had received guarantees of prompt and effective support in case a new aggression should take place. (German armaments had been drastically cut down by the treaty, but it was believed that Germany was evading these obligations.)
Many other League members, including those of the British Commonwealth, considered the Covenant not as inadequate but as the utmost limit of what they could safely promise. They believed also that disarmament would ensure peace and prosperity, and that if this were achieved they could afford to reaffirm and even strengthen the League’s obligations. Thus it became accepted League doctrine that increased security was a necessary condition for disarmament and that general disarmament was a necessary condition of security. This double thesis was embodied by the Assembly of 1923 in a draft treaty of mutual security, which was promptly rejected by all the principal countries except France.
In rejecting this treaty, many governments observed that League action in a crisis might often be slowed or even blocked because of disagreement over which of the conflicting states was the aggressor and which the victim. The answer seemed to be that the aggressor was evidently that state which refused to submit the dispute to arbitration or other peaceful settlement. When, therefore, the Assembly of 1924 resumed the effort to reach the combined goals of disarmament and security, it added arbitration as a third component which should make the whole plan workable and complete. From this formula, and from the long studies of earlier assemblies and committees, it drew up what was in effect a treaty of arbitration, mutual security, and disarmament. To show that its purpose was not to replace the Covenant but to reinforce it, the new plan was called the Geneva Protocol. It constituted, on paper, the most complete system of collective security ever formulated at that time, and it was enthusiastically approved by the Assembly. Ten countries, including France, signed it, and others, including Italy and Japan, seemed ready to do so. A change of government in London, and the fears felt by Commonwealth countries lest they find themselves in conflict with the United States, led to its rejection by Great Britain.
Further negotiation might well have removed these difficulties, but at this point the German foreign minister, Gustav Stresemann, made a new proposal for calming the reciprocal fears of France and Germany. Stresemann suggested that France, Germany, Britain, and Italy should jointly guarantee the inviolability of the existing Franco-German frontier and also the demilitarization of the Rhineland. After long negotiation, this plan was elaborated (October 1925) into the group of treaties known as the Locarno Pact.
The Locarno Pact was interwoven at every point with the institutions of Geneva, and its entry into force was made conditional on Germany’s admission to the League. Stresemann indeed had already been making cautious approaches to the Council on the subject and had received a friendly reply. All members of the League were now strongly in favour of German membership, and a special meeting of the Assembly was held in March 1926 to pass the necessary resolutions. Unexpected difficulties then arose. All agreed that Germany should become a permanent member of the Council, and the fellow signatories of Locarno had promised to support this. Now, however, Spain, Brazil, and Poland demanded the same privilege, and Stresemann justifiably declared that this was contrary to the spirit of the Locarno agreement. The Assembly had to be adjourned, and six months later a compromise was effected. The Assembly created only one permanent seat—that of Germany—but it increased the elected members from six to nine, three of which might, at the end of their three-year period, be reelected for further periods. These semipermanent seats were intended to meet the claims of Spain, Poland, and Brazil. Brazil, however, preferred to withdraw from the League altogether.
For the next three years the foreign ministers of France, Great Britain, and Germany (Aristide Briand, Austen Chamberlain, and Stresemann) kept a directing hand upon the activities of the League. Their regular participation three or four times a year gave fresh authority to the council’s meetings. At the same time, the smaller powers felt that their interests were treated as of little importance and that the Locarno group was indifferent, even unfriendly, toward the general development of the League. Still more serious was the Council’s preoccupation with European problems; Latin American and Asian members felt, and in fact were, neglected. The Council’s authority had never been so high, but its activities had never been so limited.
Two dangerous disputes—the first between Great Britain and Turkey over the question of whether Mosul and its environs should belong to Turkey or Iraq, the second arising from a frontier fight between Greek and Bulgarian forces—had been settled successfully just before the entry of Germany. Thereafter the Council had to cope with nothing more grave than frequent quarrels—such as those between Poles and Germans—which were bitter enough but did not seem dangerous until the terrible economic depression which struck the world at the end of 1929. In Germany, from then on, mass poverty and unemployment revived old resentments and gave a new impulsion to the Nazi Party and the demands for rearmament and revenge. The other powers, each struggling with its own economic difficulties, had little interest to spare for international affairs.
Throughout these years, laborious efforts were being made at Geneva to reach an effective agreement on disarmament. In approving the protocol, the Assembly had expected it to be speedily followed by a world disarmament conference. After Locarno, it seemed once more that the road to disarmament was clear. The Council therefore appointed (December 1925) a commission to prepare the way for the conference. Germany, the United States, and the U.S.S.R. agreed to send delegates to this preparatory commission, which for the next five years held many long, difficult, and sometimes stormy meetings. At first, progress was slowed chiefly by disagreements among the victorious powers, but, as the years passed without definite result, the question of German armaments rose more and more into the foreground. The Treaty of Versailles stated that the restrictions it imposed on German armaments were “intended to render possible the initiation of a general limitation.” Stresemann’s own demands, at least in public, were for equality of status based on reduction by the victorious powers, but the alternative—to reach equality by rebuilding Germany’s armed forces—was deeply appealing to the German nation. Stresemann’s death in 1929 and the spectacular advance of the Nazi Party led to a still more complete deadlock. The German demand for rearmament became more threatening. The powers who feared a German attack were the more resolved to keep their superiority in weapons.
When at last the World Disarmament Conference did meet in February 1932, the preparatory work of the commission was neglected, and the question of German equality dominated all others. The German delegation was withdrawn in July 1932 and only returned in December after receiving assurances that in the future convention Germany would possess the same rights as all the other signatories. In the next months Adolf Hitler became master of Germany, and, in the atmosphere of fear and mistrust created by this event, the conference could make no progress. In October 1933 Hitler, finding that the Entente powers had proposed to maintain the restrictions of the peace treaty for another four years, seized the occasion to make a spectacular withdrawal from the conference and from the League. From then on Germany was openly rearming, and all prospects of disarmament disappeared.
Third period (1931–36)
The third period of League history, the period of conflict, opened with the Mukden Incident, a sudden attack made on September 18, 1931, by the Japanese army on the Chinese authorities in Manchuria. This was clearly an act of war in violation of the Covenant. Japan declared at first that the troops would be withdrawn but later (February 1932) created a puppet state of Manchukuo, claiming that this removed any legal ground for League intervention. This was the first major test of the Covenant system, and no more difficult circumstances could be imagined. Many of the smaller members of the League, and League supporters everywhere, called for the strict application of the Covenant and an economic boycott of Japan. The chief Council members were themselves in the grip of economic crisis, however, and the cooperation of the United States and the U.S.S.R. was certain to be refused. Economic sanctions were never seriously envisaged. After long negotiations, in which the United States did give its support, even permitting a U.S. delegate to sit with the Council through one session, a commission of inquiry was appointed. Reaching Manchuria in April 1932, the commission found the new state of Manchukuo already established. Nevertheless, the commission drew up a full report, concluding that Manchuria should be returned to Chinese sovereignty, with various safeguards for the rights and needs of Japan. The conclusions of this report were unanimously adopted by the Assembly (February 1933). Japan rejected them and a month later withdrew from the League.
Thus the year 1933 saw the League’s failure to protect China against aggression, the breakdown of the disarmament conference, and the withdrawal of Japan and Germany. It saw also the collapse of another great enterprise, the World Economic Conference of June 1933. From the beginning the League had attached high importance to the work of its economic and financial organization. Its first major conference on the subject (Brussels, June 1920) had indeed preceded the first Assembly. Thereafter it had for several years followed an ascending curve. After taking a great share in restoring some stability to the European currencies, it had turned to the deeper economic problems. The first World Economic Conference, held in 1927, ended in a unanimous report describing the need for a freer and fuller flow of international commerce, the obstacles which impeded it, and the measures needed to achieve it. In the next two years much progress was made toward carrying out its recommendations. All this, however, foundered in the economic storm, as each country sought to protect its own economy by tariffs, quotas, and prohibitions. The plans and conventions drawn up in Geneva, including Briand’s plan for a United States of Europe, were swept away. The conference ended in speedy and almost total failure.
Nevertheless, the normal activities of the League were neither interrupted nor reduced. The United States was now taking part in most of its work. The Soviet Union, which had obstructed and ridiculed the political work of the League, changed its attitude in 1934, as a result of fear of Germany and Japan. Its demand for admission met with some opposition and much misgiving, but the great majority of members refused to throw back into isolation a great power which now formally undertook to carry out all the obligations of the Covenant. In truth, the U.S.S.R. did give steady support to the League until shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Meanwhile, the admission of Mexico and Ecuador and the return of Argentina (absent since 1920, though it had not formally withdrawn) completed the Latin American membership. The League’s presence in the Middle East and Southwest Asia was extended by the entry of Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In Europe a dangerous crisis following the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia (October 9, 1934) was settled by the good offices of the Council. Another critical moment, that of the Saar plebiscite (January 13, 1935), gave rise to the formation, for perhaps the first time in history, of a genuine international peacekeeping force—3,300 men from the armies of Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden—whose presence ensured that the plebiscite would take place without disorder. In South America the Council, though it could not settle the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay (1932–35), was successful in ending hostilities between Colombia and Peru (1934) and accepted responsibility for administering for a time the disputed territory of Leticia.
On October 3, 1935, Mussoliniinvaded Ethiopia, after rejecting all efforts to dissuade him from the aggression which he was openly planning. By the following summer he had occupied and annexed the whole country, in spite of the economic sanctions enforced against him in execution of the Covenant. From this defeat the League was not destined to recover. Italy’s fascist government was at first surprised by the League’s prompt action. Under British leadership the members, with only three exceptions, agreed to stop the export of arms and raw materials to Italy, to halt the extension of financial credit to Italy, and to cease all imports from Italian sources. By December the effect of these measures was beginning to be seriously felt, and the League members were about to consider imposing an embargo on oil, which, it seemed, would quickly force Mussolini to retreat from Ethiopia.
Mussolini was saved, and all further sanctions were arrested, by the sudden action of the British and French governments. Without consulting their fellow members, they proposed to Italy and Ethiopia a settlement calculated to give the maximum satisfaction to the invader. Though existing sanctions dragged on for several months, they could not prevent the Italian victory. In May 1936 Italy annexed Ethiopia, and in July the Assembly put an end to sanctions, though it continued to treat Ethiopia as an independent member of the League.
Fourth period (1936–45)
In March 1936 Hitler denounced the Locarno Pact. That October Italy and Germany formed what was known as the Rome-Berlin Axis, and they were soon joined by Japan. All three were violently hostile to the League. Among the League’s members, only those such as France, the U.S.S.R., or Czechoslovakia, who were looking everywhere for possible support against German aggression, continued to affirm their belief in collective security. While the U.S. Congress was passing a succession of Neutrality Acts, the majority of League members were declaring that they no longer considered themselves bound by the obligations of the Covenant.
Although in this last period of its history the organs of the League continued to meet as before and performed some useful tasks, the main international problems were, as in the first period, dealt with outside Geneva. In the swift succession of crises—the Spanish Civil War, Japan’s invasion of China, the annexations of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Albania—reference to the League was either a mere formality or simply omitted. When World War II broke out in September 1939, no appeal of any sort was made to Geneva. In December 1939 Finland did petition for assistance against Soviet aggression, and the Assembly organized such help for Finland as it could. The Council declared the exclusion of the U.S.S.R. from the League.
No further meetings of the Council or Assembly took place during the war. Thanks to U.S. and Canadian efforts, the economic and social work of the League was continued on a limited scale, but its political activity was at an end.
This occasion could not but be melancholy to all who had believed in the principles of the Covenant, but their regrets concerned past mistakes and misfortunes. In regard to the future, they could still hope that the United Nations would pursue the same aims with better success. The provisions of the Charter were intended to correct and complete what seemed to be the imperfections of the Covenant. It remained true that in its purposes and principles, its institutions and its methods, the new organization followed, in nearly every point, the precedents of the old.
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