League of Nations

The League of Nations was an international diplomatic group developed after

World War I as a way to solve disputes between countries before they erupted
into open warfare. A precursor to the United Nations, the League achieved some
victories but had a mixed record of success, sometimes putting self-interest
before becoming involved with conflict resolution, while also contending with
governments that did not recognize its authority. The League effectively ceased
operations during World War II.
What was the League of Nations?
The League of Nations has its origins in the Fourteen Points 1 speech of President
Woodrow Wilson2, part of a presentation given in January 1918 outlining of his
ideas for peace after the carnage of World War I 3. Wilson envisioned an
organization that was charged with resolving conflicts before they exploded into
bloodshed and warfare.

1
The Fourteen Points speech of President Woodrow Wilson was an address delivered before a joint meeting of
Congress on January 8, 1918, during which Wilson outlined his vision for a stable, long-lasting peace in Europe, the
Americas and the rest of the world following World War I.

Wilson’s proposal called for the victorious Allies to set unselfish peace terms with the vanquished Central Powers
of World War I, including freedom of the seas, the restoration of territories conquered during the war and the right
to national self-determination in such contentious regions as the Balkans.

The devastation and carnage of the First World War grimly illustrated to Wilson the unavoidable relationship
between international stability and American national security.

At the same time, he sought to placate American isolationists by stating that the world must “be made fit and safe
to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its
own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as
against force and selfish aggression.”
2
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), the 28th U.S. president, served in office from 1913 to 1921 and led America
through World War I (1914-1918). An advocate for democracy and world peace, Wilson is often ranked by
historians as one of the nation’s greatest presidents. Wilson was a college professor, university president and
Democratic governor of New Jersey before winning the White House in 1912. Once in office, he pursued an
ambitious agenda of progressive reform that included the establishment of the Federal Reserve and Federal Trade
Commission. Wilson tried to keep the United States neutral during World War I but ultimately called on Congress
to declare war on Germany in 1917. After the war, he helped negotiate a peace treaty that included a plan for the
League of Nations. Although the Senate rejected U.S. membership in the League, Wilson received the Nobel Prize
for his peacemaking efforts.
3
World War I pitted Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire against Great Britain, the United States,
France, Russia, Italy and Japan. New military technology resulted in unprecedented carnage. By the time the war
was over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million people—soldiers and civilians alike—were
dead.

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By December of the same year, Wilson left for Paris to transform his 14 Points
into what would become the Treaty of Versailles. 4 Seven months later, he
returned to the United States with a treaty that included the idea for what
became the League of Nations.
Republican Congressman from Massachusetts Henry Cabot Lodge led a battle
against the treaty. Lodge believed both the treaty and the League undercut U.S.
autonomy in international matters.
In response, Wilson took the debate to the American people, embarking on a 27-
day train journey to sell the treaty to live audiences but cut his tour short due to
exhaustion and sickness. Upon arriving back in Washington, D.C., Wilson had a
stroke.
Congress did not ratify the treaty, and the United States refused to take part in
the League of Nations.
Paris Peace Conference
In other countries, the League of Nations was a more popular idea.

Under the leadership of Lord Cecil, the British Parliament created the Phillimore
Committee as an exploratory body and announced support of it. French liberals
followed, with the leaders of Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece,
Czechoslovakia and other smaller nations responding in kind.

In 1919 the structure and process of the League were laid out in a covenant
developed by all the countries taking part in the Paris Peace Conference. The

4
At the end of World War I, during a peace conference held in Paris, France, the victorious Allies concluded a series
of peace treaties that would be imposed on the defeated Central Powers. The most important of these was the
Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919 at the Palace of Versailles in Paris. The treaty, which codified peace terms
between the Allies and Germany, held Germany responsible for starting the war, and imposed harsh penalties in
terms of loss of territory, massive reparations payments and demilitarization.

Far from the “peace without victory” that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had outlined in his famous Fourteen
Points in early 1918, the Treaty of Versailles humiliated Germany while failing to resolve the underlying issues that
had led to war in the first place. Economic distress and resentment of the treaty within Germany helped fuel the
ultra-nationalist sentiment that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party, as well as the coming of a second
World War just two decades later.

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League began organizational work in the fall of 1919, spending its first 10 months
with a headquarters in London before moving to Geneva.

By 1920, 48 countries had joined the League of Nations.

League of Nations Plays it Safe
The League struggled for the right opportunity to assert its authority. Secretary-
general Sir Eric Drummond believed that failure was likely to damage the
burgeoning organization, so it was best not to insinuate itself into just any
dispute.

When Russia, which was not a member of the League, attacked a port in Persia in
1920, Persia appealed to the League for help. The League refused to take part,
believing that Russia would not acknowledge their jurisdiction and that would
damage the League’s authority.

Adding to the growing pains, some European countries had a hard time handing
over autonomy when seeking help with disputes.

There were situations in which the League had no choice but to get involved.
From 1919 to 1935, the League acted as a trustee of a tiny region between France
and Germany called the Saar. The League became the 15-year custodian of the
coal-rich area to allow it time to determine on its own which of the two countries
it wished to join, with Germany being the eventual choice.

A similar situation happened in Danzig, which was set-up as a free city by the
Treaty of Versailles and became the center of a dispute between Germany and
Poland. The League administered Danzig for several years before it fell back under
German rule.

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Disputes Solved by the League of Nations
Poland was in frequent distress, fearing for its independence against threats from
neighboring Russia, which in 1920 occupied the city of Vilna and handed it over to
Lithuanian allies. Following a demand that Poland recognize Lithuanian
independence, the League became involved.

Vilna was returned to Poland, but hostilities with Lithuania continued. The League
was also brought in as Poland grappled with Germany about Upper Silesia and
with Czechoslovakia over the town of Teschen.

Other areas of dispute that the League got involved in included the squabble
between Finland and Sweden over the Aaland Islands, disputes between Hungary
and Rumania, Finland’s separate quarrels with Russia, Yugoslavia and Austria, a
border argument between Albania and Greece, and the tussle between France
and England over Morocco.

In 1923, following the murder of Italian General Enrico Tellini and his staff within
the borders of Greece, Benito Mussolini retaliated by bombing and invading the
Greek island Corfu. Greece requested the League’s help, but Mussolini refused to
work with it.

The League was left on the sidelines watching as the dispute was solved instead
by the Conference of Ambassadors, an Allied group that was later made part of
the League.

The Incident at Petrich followed two years later. It’s unclear precisely how the
debacle in the border town of Petrich in Bulgaria started, but it resulted in the
deaths of a Greek captain and retaliation from Greece in the form of invasion.

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Bulgaria apologized and begged the League for help. The League decreed a
settlement that was accepted by both countries.

Larger Efforts by the League of Nations

Other League efforts include the Geneva Protocol, devised in the 1920s to limit
what is now understood as chemical and biological weaponry, and the World
Disarmament Conference in the 1930s, which was meant to make disarmament a
reality but failed after Adolf Hitler broke away from the conference and the
League in 1933.

In 1920 the League created its Mandates Commission, charged with protecting
minorities. Its suggestions about Africa were treated seriously by France and
Belgium but ignored by South Africa. In 1929, the Mandates Commission helped
Iraq join the League.

The Mandates Commission also got involved in tensions in Palestine between the
incoming Jewish population and Palestinian Arabs, though any hopes of sustaining
peace there was further complicated by Nazi persecution of the Jews, which lead
to a rise in immigration to Palestine.

The League was also involved in the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which sought to
outlaw war. It was successfully adapted by over 60 countries. Put to the test when
Japan invaded Mongolia in 1931, the League proved incapable of enforcing the
pact.

Why Did the League of Nations Fail?

When World War II broke out, most members of the League were not involved
and claimed neutrality, but members France and Germany were.

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In 1940, League members Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the
Netherlands and France all fell to Hitler. Switzerland became nervous about
hosting an organization perceived as an Allied one, and the League began to
dismantle its offices.

Soon the Allies endorsed the idea of the United Nations, which held its first
planning conference in San Francisco in 1944, effectively ending any need for the
League of Nations to make a post-war return.

SOURCES
The Guardians. Susan Pederson.
The League of Nations: From 1919 to 1929. Gary B. Ostrower.
The League of Nations, 1920. U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian.
The League of Nations and the United Nations. BBC.

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