League of Nations was an international association of countries created to maintain peace after World War I (1914-1918). The victors of the war, including France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, drew up a covenant (agreement) for the League during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The League Assembly met for the first time in November 1920 in Geneva, Switzerland. The League ceased to function with the outbreak of World War II in 1939. It was formally dissolved in 1946, when the United Nations took over its property and records.
United States President Woodrow Wilson was the League’s chief supporter and planner. He believed that secret alliances and a build-up of arms had caused World War I. The purpose of the League was to promote disarmament and open diplomacy; prevent aggression among member states; mediate international disputes; and defend the independence and territory of all members through collective security. Under the principle of collective security, the security of each member nation was the responsibility of the entire League.
Initially, 42 countries joined the League, including France, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The United States, the world’s strongest power at the time, did not join, because the U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, which provided for the creation of the League. Germany did not join until 1926, and the Communist Soviet Union (now Russia and other eastern European and central Asian republics) did not join until 1934.
Powers and organization
The League Covenant
contained 26 articles that aimed to promote the League’s goals. Members agreed to submit any disputes that might lead to war to settlement or investigation by the League Council, or to judgment by the League’s International Court of Justice. They promised not to go to war with any member that agreed to the recommendations of these bodies. If any member went to war in violation of these articles, member nations agreed they would apply economic sanctions (penalties), such as stopping trade with the offending nation. The League Council also could make recommendations about the use of military force against that nation.
The League Council
was the League’s chief executive body. Its function lay in the settlement of disputes and the promotion of disarmament. It typically held four sessions each year, plus extra sessions as needed. The Council’s original permanent members were France, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Germany and the Soviet Union became permanent Council members when they joined the League. The Council also included nonpermanent members—less powerful nations chosen by the League Assembly. By 1939, Council membership had grown to 14. Each Council member had one vote, and Council decisions had to be unanimous. Council decisions regarding the use of military force were not binding, but only advisory in nature. The Council could invite representatives from countries that were not Council members to discussions that affected them. These representatives could not vote.
The League Assembly
consisted of representatives from all member nations. It met annually, and each member nation received one vote. The Assembly had authority to discuss issues concerning world peace and pass resolutions as needed, and to create committees to address and investigate international problems. It could also approve new permanent and nonpermanent Council members with a simple majority vote and admit new League members with a two-thirds majority vote.
The Secretariat
provided a permanent administrative staff that carried out the daily work of the League, even when the Council and Assembly were not in session. A secretary-general, nominated by the Council and approved by the Assembly, served as the Secretariat’s chief official. The Covenant authorized the secretary-general to provide the required staff for studies and international organizations created by the League.
The League in action
For the League to be effective, member states had to place the goal of world peace above their own interests. However, in the aftermath of World War I, many member nations were more worried about their own particular aims than about the larger world. The League Covenant, though somewhat revolutionary in nature, bound its members to few definite obligations. Except in the case of automatic economic sanctions against aggressors, the Covenant never replaced the right of national governments to act for their own interests.
The pursuit of national interests,
along with differing ideas about the League’s purpose, undermined the League from the start. The United Kingdom, in an economic slump following World War I, was mostly concerned with reviving its prewar trade patterns. French leaders viewed the League mainly as an instrument by which to maintain the postwar peace settlement against Germany. After 1919, France pursued traditional security arrangements against Germany, including military defense pacts with Poland, in 1921, and with Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), in 1924.
Germany resented the League because it had not been invited to join in 1919. Germany also felt that it had been treated especially harshly in the postwar peace settlement, by which it was disarmed and lost territory. The Soviet Union resented the League for some of the same reasons, and also because it viewed the League as a group of anti-Communist nations. Italy, led by Benito Mussolini, felt it had received less than it deserved in the territorial settlement that followed World War I. Despite joining the league in 1926, Germany pursued its territorial aims through secret rearmament and private arrangements with France and the United Kingdom.
Even new or expanded states such as Poland and Romania, which had much to gain from League membership, were protective of their independence and reluctant to compromise their national interests. In addition, European members of the League did not view its significance as extending beyond Europe. The League Disarmament Conference, which opened in 1932, could not remove suspicions among member nations.
The League had some success with smaller nations. For example, it ended a conflict between Greece and Bulgaria in 1925. However, it had little success keeping larger states from pursuing traditional diplomatic relations outside the structure of the League.
The League’s shortcomings
became most apparent in the 1930’s, when a worldwide economic depression made democratic nations less willing to invest in collective security. In September 1931, Japan attacked Manchuria, China. The Council faulted Japan and would not recognize its conquest of Manchuria. Japan responded by leaving the League in February 1933. None of the remaining members were willing to send troops to China.
In October 1933, the dictator Adolf Hitler removed Germany from the League so as to rearm German forces more effectively. The arms build-up by Germany led the Soviet Union to join the League in 1934.
The League’s greatest failure
occurred in October 1935, when Italy attacked Ethiopia, a member nation. The Council declared that the attack had violated the Covenant. But the Council did not effectively carry out the required economic sanctions against Italy. Oil was not included on the sanctions list, because League members thought nonmember countries would sell oil to Italy if they did not. The British and French wished to avoid a conflict with Italy. They also did not want to drive Italy into an alliance with Germany. Thus, Council members worked to satisfy Italy by letting Mussolini take control of Ethiopian territory. Italy completed its conquest of Ethiopia in May 1936. In July, the League ended its ineffective economic sanctions against Italy. In 1937, Italy withdrew from the League to join Japan and Germany in an alliance against the Soviet Union.
The League was never taken seriously again, even though it expelled the Soviet Union in 1939 for attacking Finland. As World War II approached, France and the United Kingdom returned to traditional methods of handling threats to peace. For example, they tried to prevent war by allowing Germany to take over Austria and part of Czechoslovakia in 1938. They also hoped to stem German aggression by pledging to help Poland if Germany attacked it. Despite its failures, the League became the blueprint for the United Nations, whose charter and powerful membership aimed to correct the problems of the League.
