League of Nations

League of Nations,

former international organization, established by the peace treaties that ended World War I. Like its successor, the United NationsUnited Nations
(UN), international organization established immediately after World War II. It replaced the League of Nations. In 1945, when the UN was founded, there were 51 members; 193 nations are now members of the organization (see table entitled United Nations Members).
..... Click the link for more information. , its purpose was the promotion of international peace and security. The League was a product of World War IWorld War I,
1914–18, also known as the Great War, conflict, chiefly in Europe, among most of the great Western powers. It was the largest war the world had yet seen.
..... Click the link for more information. in the sense that that conflict convinced most persons of the necessity of averting another such cataclysm. But its background lay in the visions of men like the duc de Sully and Immanuel Kant and in the later growth of formal international organizations like the International Telegraphic Union (1865) and the Universal Postal Union (1874). The Red Cross, the Hague Conferences, and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (Hague Tribunal) were also important stepping-stones toward international cooperation.

The Covenant: The Basis of the League

At the close of World War I, such prominent figures as Jan Smuts, Lord Robert Cecil, and Léon Bourgeois advocated a society of nations. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson incorporated the proposal into the Fourteen PointsFourteen Points,
formulation of a peace program, presented at the end of World War I by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in an address before both houses of Congress on Jan. 8, 1918.
..... Click the link for more information. and was the chief figure in the establishment of the League at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The basis of the League was the Covenant, which was included in the Treaty of Versailles and the other peace treaties.

The Covenant consisted of 26 articles. Articles 1 through 7 concerned organization, providing for an assembly, composed of all member nations; a council, composed of the great powers (originally Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, later also Germany and the USSR) and of four other, nonpermanent members; and a secretariat. Both the assembly and the council were empowered to discuss "any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world." In both the assembly and the council unanimous decisions were required.

Articles 8 and 9 recognized the need for disarmament and set up military commissions. Article 10 was an attempt to guarantee the territorial integrity and political independence of member states against aggression. Articles 11 through 17 provided for the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice (see World CourtWorld Court,
popular name of the Permanent Court of International Justice, established pursuant to Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. The protocol establishing it was adopted by the Assembly of the League in 1920 and ratified by the requisite number of states
..... Click the link for more information. ), for arbitration and conciliation, and for sanctions against aggressors. The rest of the articles dealt with treaties, colonial mandates, international cooperation in humanitarian enterprises, and amendments to the Covenant.

Members

The original membership of the League included the victorious Allies of World War I (with the exception of the United States, whose Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles) and most of the neutral nations. Among later admissions to membership were Bulgaria (1920), Austria (1920), Hungary (1922), Germany (1926), Mexico (1931), Turkey (1932), and the USSR (1934). Through the efforts of Sir Eric Drummond, the first secretary-general of the League, a truly international secretariat was created. Geneva, Switzerland, was chosen as the League headquarters.

Successes and Failures

The League quickly proved its value by settling the Swedish-Finnish dispute over the Åland IslandsÅland Islands
or Ahvenanmaa Islands
, Swed. Ålandsöerna , archipelago (1996 pop. 25,257), 581 sq mi (1,505 sq km), in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland, at the entrance of the Gulf of Bothnia.
..... Click the link for more information. (1920–21), guaranteeing the security of Albania (1921), rescuing Austria from economic disaster, settling the division of Upper SilesiaSilesia
, Czech Slezsko, Ger. Schlesien, Pol. Śląsk, region of E central Europe, extending along both banks of the Oder River and bounded in the south by the mountain ranges of the Sudetes—particularly the Krkonoše (Ger.
..... Click the link for more information. (1922), and preventing the outbreak of war in the Balkans between Greece and Bulgaria (1925). In addition, the League extended considerable aid to refugees; it helped to suppress white slave and opium traffic; it did pioneering work in surveys of health; it extended financial aid to needy states; and it furthered international cooperation in labor relations and many other fields.

The problem of bringing its political influence to bear, especially on the great powers, soon made itself felt. Poland refused to abide by the League decision in the VilniusVilnius
, Rus. Vilna, Pol. Wilno, city (1993 pop. 590,100), capital of Lithuania, on the Neris River. It is a rail and highway junction, a commercial and industrial city, and a center of education and the arts.
..... Click the link for more information. dispute, and the League was forced to stand by powerlessly in the face of the French occupation of the Ruhr (1923) and Italy's occupation of Kérkira (1923). Failure to take action over the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1931) was a blow to the League's prestige, especially when followed by Japan's withdrawal from the League (1933). Another serious failure was the inability of the League to stop the Chaco War (1932–35; see under Gran ChacoGran Chaco
or Chaco,
c.250,000 sq mi (647,500 sq km), extensive lowland plain, central South America. It is sparsely populated and is divided among Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina. Some of the highest temperatures in the southern continent are reached there.
..... Click the link for more information. ) between Bolivia and Paraguay.

In 1935 the League completed its successful 15-year administration of the Saar territory (see SaarlandSaarland
, state (1994 pop. 1,080,000), 991 sq mi (2,567 sq km), SW Germany; formerly called the Saar or the Saar Territory. Saarbrücken is the capital; other cities include Völklingen, Saarlouis, and Sankt Ingbert.
..... Click the link for more information. ) by conducting a plebiscite under the supervision of an international military force. But even this success was not sufficient to offset the failure of the Disarmament ConferenceDisarmament Conference,
1932–37, meeting for the discussion of general disarmament. The first systematic efforts to limit armaments on an international scale, in either a quantitative or a qualitative sense, occurred at the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907.
..... Click the link for more information. , Germany's withdrawal from the League (1933), and Italy's successful attack on Ethiopia in defiance of the League's economic sanctions (1935). In 1936, Adolf Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland and denounced the Treaty of Versailles; in 1938 he seized Austria.

Faced by threats to international peace from all sides—the Spanish civil war, Japan's resumption of war against China (1937), and finally the appeasement of Hitler at Munich (1938)—the League collapsed. German claims on Danzig (see GdańskGdańsk
, formerly Danzig
, city (1993 est. pop. 466,700), capital of Pomorskie prov., N Poland, on a branch of the Vistula and on the Gulf of Gdańsk. One of the chief Polish ports on the Baltic Sea, it is a leading industrial and communications center.
..... Click the link for more information. ), where the League commissioner had been reduced to impotence, led to the outbreak of World War II. The last important act of the League came in Dec., 1939, when it expelled the USSR for its attack on Finland.

In 1940 the League secretariat in Geneva was reduced to a skeleton staff; some of the technical services were removed to the United States and Canada. The allied International Labor OrganizationInternational Labor Organization
(ILO), specialized agency of the United Nations, with headquarters in Geneva. It was created in 1919 by the Versailles Treaty and affiliated with the League of Nations until 1945, when it voted to sever ties with the League.
..... Click the link for more information. continued to function and eventually became affiliated with the United Nations. In 1946 the League dissolved itself, and its services and real estate (notably the Palais des Nations in Geneva) were transferred to the United Nations. The League's chief success lay in providing the first pattern of permanent international organization, a pattern on which much of the United Nations was modeled. Its failures were due as much to the indifference of the great powers, which preferred to reserve important matters for their own decisions, as to weaknesses of organization.

Bibliography

See F. P. Walters, A History of the League of Nations (2 vol., 1952; repr. 1960); W. Schiffer, Legal Community of Mankind (1954, repr. 1972); G. Scott, The Rise and Fall of the League of Nations (1974); F. S. Northedge, The League of Nations (1986); H. F. Margulies, The Mild Reservationists and the League of Nations (1989).

League of Nations

an international organization whose purpose, as stated in its Covenant, was “to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security.” In fact, however, the League of Nations was a political instrument of the imperialist powers, particularly Great Britain and France. It functioned from 1919 to 1939.

The Covenant of the League of Nations was drawn up by a special commission formed at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–20 and was included in the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 and the other peace treaties that brought an end to World War I. Initially, it was signed by 44 states, including 31 that had participated in the war on the side of the Entente or that had been allied with the Entente (Great Britain, France, the USA, Italy, Japan, Canada, Australia, the Union of South Africa, New Zealand, India, China, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Greece, Haiti, Hejaz, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Siam, Czechoslovakia, and Uruguay). The remaining 13 states had maintained neutrality throughout the war (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Paraguay, the Netherlands, Iran, El Salvador, Switzerland, Sweden, and Venezuela). The USA did not ratify the Covenant of the League of Nations and did not become a member of the organization.

The principal bodies of the League of Nations included the Assembly, in which all members participated and which met annually in September. The Council initially consisted of four permanent members—the representatives of Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan—and four rotating members, but later its composition and the number of its members were changed. There was also a permanent Secretariat headed by a secretary-general. All decisions of the Assembly and Council, with the exception of decisions on procedural matters, had to be accepted by a unanimous vote. The Permanent Court of International Justice, the International Labor Organization, and other organizations were established as autonomous organizations under the League of Nations. The headquarters of the chief bodies of the League of Nations were located in Geneva.

During the first years of its existence the League of Nations was one of the organizational centers of the struggle against the Soviet state. The Soviet government fought against the League’s attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of the young Soviet republic. Nevertheless, the Soviet government participated actively in disarmament conferences and sessions held under the aegis of the League of Nations. The Soviet republic introduced proposals aimed at genuine resolution of this most important international problem and denounced the political speculations of the imperialist states.

In the early 1920’s the states that had won the world war divided up the colonies of the Axis powers, using the League as a cover for this operation by distributing mandates. The League of Nations made many attempts to smooth over sharp contradictions between its chief members by encouraging collusion against the Soviet Union (for example, the Locarno treaties of 1925) and by concluding the reparations agreements (for example, the Dawes and Young plans). Germany, which was admitted to the League of Nations in 1926, withdrew from the League in 1933, as did Japan, in order to gain full freedom of action for the preparation of a new war. (In 1931, Japan attacked China and encountered no genuine resistance from the League of Nations, which limited itself to futile “recommendations.”)

Reacting to growing threats from fascist Germany, fascist Italy, and militarist Japan in the 1930’s, the governments of certain states began to seek cooperation with the USSR both within and outside of the League of Nations. On Sept. 15, 1934, acting on the initiative of French diplomacy (specifically, the proposal of J. L. Barthou), 30 member states of the League of Nations proposed that the USSR join the League. On Sept. 18, 1934, the USSR became a member of the League of Nations and took a permanent seat in the Council. (The Netherlands, Portugal, and Switzerland voted against membership for the USSR.) In accepting the proposal to join the League of Nations, the Soviet government believed that under the new conditions that had developed after the departure of the most aggressive states from the League of Nations, the League might at least, to some degree, help to prevent the unleashing of another world war. The Soviet government warned all members of the League that it would not take responsibility for decisions and treaties that had been concluded by the League without the participation of the USSR. During its five-year stay in the League of Nations (1934–39), the Soviet Union firmly and consistently defended the cause of peace and the security of nations faced by fascist agression.

The most important issues discussed in the League of Nations from 1934 to 1939 were Italian aggression against Ethiopia (1935–36), Germany’s violation of the Versailles (1919) and Locarno (1925) treaties (Germany’s remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936), the Italo-German intervention in Spain (1936–39), and Germany’s annexation of Austria (1938). During this period the position of the Western powers, who attempted to direct fascist aggression against the USSR, made the League of Nations an impotent body incapable of carrying out a single effective measure against the aggressors.

The Soviet Union’s persistent battle for peace and collective security and its activities directed at exposing the fascist aggressors as well as the political games played by the ruling circles of Great Britain, France, and the USA, made its participation in the League of Nations undesirable for the governments of the Western powers. Using the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939–40 as a pretext, the governments of Great Britain and France won acceptance of a resolution for the expulsion of the USSR from the League of Nations by the Council of the League on Dec. 14, 1939. In essence, all activities of the League of Nations ceased at this time. The League of Nations was formally dissolved in April 1946 by a decision of a specially convened Assembly.

REFERENCES

Istoriia diplomatii, 2nd ed., vol. 3. Moscow, 1965.
Ivanov, L. N. Liga natsii. Moscow, 1929.
Kol’skii, A. Liga natsii (Ee organizatsiia i deiatel’nos’). Moscow, 1934.
Afanas’eva, O. Kratkii ocherk istorii Ligi natsii [Moscow] 1945.
Notovich, F. Razoruzhenie imperialistov, Liga natsii i SSSR. Moscow-Leningrad, 1929.
Istoriia mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii i vneshnei politiki SSSR, vol. 1. Moscow, 1961.

D. ASANOV

League of Nations

world organization for international cooperation. [World Hist.: EB, 6: 102]See: Cooperation

League of Nations

The League of Nations is an international confederation of countries, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, that existed from 1920 to 1946, its creation following World War I and its dissolution following World War II. Though the League of Nations was a flawed and generally ineffective organization, many of its functions and offices were transferred to the United Nations, which has benefited from the hard lessons the league learned.

President woodrow wilson, of the United States, was the architect of the League of Nations. When the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917, Wilson sought to end a war that had raged for three years and to begin constructing a new framework for international cooperation. On January 8, 1918, he delivered an address to Congress that named fourteen points to be used as the guide for a peace settlement. The fourteenth point called for a general association of nations that would guarantee political independence and territorial integrity for all countries.

Following the November 9, 1918, Armistice that ended the war, President Wilson led the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. Wilson was the only representative of the Great Powers—which included Great Britain, France, and Italy—who truly wanted an international organization. His power and influence were instrumental in establishing the League of Nations.

Although Wilson was the architect of the league, he was unable to secure U.S. Senate ratification of the peace treaty that included it. He was opposed by isolationists of both major political parties who argued that the United States should not interfere with European affairs, and by Republicans who did not want to commit the United States to supporting the league financially. The treaty was modified several times, but was nevertheless voted down for the last time in March 1920.

Despite the absence of the United States, the League of Nations held its first meeting on November 15, 1920, with forty-two nations represented. The constitution of the league was called a Covenant. It contained twenty-six articles that served as operating rules for the league.

The league was organized into three main branches. The council was the main peacekeeping agency, with a membership that varied from eight to fourteen members during its existence. France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the Soviet Union held permanent seats during the years they were members of the league. The remainder of the seats were held by smaller countries on a rotating basis. Peacekeeping recommendations had to be made by a unanimous vote.

The assembly was composed of all members of the league, and each member country had one vote. The assembly controlled the league's budget, elected the temporary council members, and made amendments to the covenant. A two-thirds majority vote was required on most matters. When a threat to peace was the issue, a majority vote plus the unanimous consent of the council was needed to recommend action.

The secretariat was the administrative branch of the league. It was headed by a secretary general, who was nominated by the council and approved by the assembly. The secretariat consisted of over six hundred officials, who aided peacekeeping work and served as staff to special study commissions and to numerous international organizations established by the league to improve trade, finance, transportation, communication, health, and science.

President Wilson and others who had sought the establishment of the league had hoped to end the system of interlocking foreign alliances that had drawn the European powers into World War I. The league was to promote collective security, in which the security of each league member was guaranteed by the entire league membership. This goal was undermined by the covenant because the council and the assembly lacked the power to order members to help an attacked nation. It was left up to each country to decide whether a threat to peace warranted its intervention. Because of this voluntary process, the league lacked the authority to quickly and decisively resolve armed conflict.

This defect was revealed in the 1930s. When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1933, the League of Nations could only issue condemnations. Then, in 1935, Italy, under Benito Mussolini, invaded Ethiopia. Ethiopia appeared before the assembly and asked for assistance. Britain and France, unwilling to risk war, refused to employ an oil embargo that would have hurt the Italian war effort. In May 1936 Italy conquered the African country.

The league also lost key member states in the 1930s. Japan left in 1933, following the Manchurian invasion. Germany, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, also left in 1933, following the league's refusal to end arms limitations imposed on Germany after World War I. Italy withdrew in 1937, and the Soviet Union was expelled in 1939 for invading Finland.

The beginning of World War II, on September 1, 1939, marked the beginning of the end for the League of Nations. Collective security had failed. During the war the secretariat was reduced to a skeleton staff in Geneva, and some functions were transferred to the United States and Canada. With the creation of the United Nations on October 24, 1945, the League of Nations became superfluous. In 1946 the league voted to dissolve and transferred much of its property and organization to the United Nations.

The United Nations followed the general structure of the league, establishing a security council, a general assembly, and a secretariat. It had the benefit of U.S. membership and U.S. financial support, two vital elements denied the League of Nations.

League of Nations

League of Nations

League of Nations

League of Nations

League of Nations,

The Covenant: The Basis of the League

Members

Successes and Failures

Bibliography

League of Nations

REFERENCES

League of Nations

League of Nations

League of Nations

Further readings

League of Nations

Words related to League of Nations

noun an international organization formed in 1920 to promote cooperation and peace among nations

Related Words