The league of nations: An international

relations perspective
☺ The League of Nations was the first attempt at institutionalized multilateral
cooperation of a universal and democratic kind.

☺ Its work was dominated by the Great Powers that had won the war,
especially by the USA, the UK, and France.

☺ The Italian expectation, nurtured especially by the Italian prime minister,

Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, was that of bartering the Italian support to the
League for Wilson’s support to the integral implementation of the London
Pact, but this proved to be a groundless hope.

☺ French security concerns clashed with the British and American less rigid
visions of international security.

☺ The activities of the commission were highly influenced by a growing

American criticism of Wilson’s stance on the League.

☺ Wishes about the League’s universality, too, were never fulfilled since, from
the very beginning, some States refused to take part in the initiative, while
others dropped out over the following years.

☺ The US refusal to participate in the League implied a serious loss of credibility

at both the ideal and practical levels by depriving the organization of its main
source of inspiration as well as of the support of the American’s power.

☺ Major problems at that time included unsolved minority problems, serious

economic strains, the substantial marginalization of the Soviet Union, and the
humiliation imposed on Germany, which was con demned for having started
the war and, therefore, excluded from the new international
community.

☺ The League’s members were of different kinds. Original members were

those, winner or neutral during the war, who participated since the birth of
the organization: 32 among them signed the founding treaty, while 13 were
invited afterward.
☺ The League was open to new adhesions as long as new members satisfied
certain requirements. The defeated countries were excluded: Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria.

☺ In 1926, after the signing of the Locarno Pacts, Germany too was let in, as
well as the Soviet Union in 1934, which was concerned by the sudden rise
of Hitler.

☺ The League’s goals were the preservation of peace and collective security,
especially the guarantee of territorial integrity and the political independence
of its Member States.

☺ Aggression and threats against one of its members were considered to be

an aggression against all of them and would provoke a collective reaction.
Each member of the League was indeed allowed to summon the Assembly
in case a threat was addressed against whichever member.

☺ In order to settle their controversies, the Member States were allowed to

resort to legal and political tools. Legal tools of conflict resolution included
arbitration and the appealing of international judges in case of controversies
related to treaty interpretation. To this aim, the Permanent Court of
International Justice was created, whose authority was effective only for
those States who recognized its mandatory jurisdiction.

☺ Any war would have been considered to be a war against all of the Member
States, who were committed to retaliation by interrupting their commercial
and financial relations with the aggressor.

☺ The League was excluded from the great international conferences that took
place in the immediate post-war period, from 1919 to 1922, such as the
Cannes and Genoa Conferences.

☺ At the beginning of its activities, the League of Nations was excluded from
the negotiations related to the most significant post-war issues, such as the
elaboration of the post-war agreements and the restructuring of the
international economic system, but it was also charged to deal with some
minor problems, mainly related to territorial controversies deriving from the
implementation of the peace treaties.

☺ After Hitler’s rise in 1939, Memel was occupied by the Germans.

☺ During its initial years, disarmament and security were debated side by side
on the basis of a comparison between the French and British proposals. The
UK maintained that security could only be gradually reached through a
disarmament process, as it believed that the armaments were the first
reason for war; France, on the other hand, stressed that it was first necessary
to guarantee security and, later, to pursue dis armament since States
equipped themselves with armaments exactly because they felt unsafe. The
French vision was therefore opposite to the British one, the latter wishing a
treaties revision because it was persuaded that disarmament was a possible
way to put an end to the dangerous gap between the winners and the
defeated.

☺ In 1933, following Hitler’s rise to power, before the substantial refusal of the
allied powers to grant it an equal military status, Germany abandoned both
the Disarmament Conference and the League, sanctioning in practice the
failure of the Conference itself and the end of the disarmament negotiations,
then reaffirming this by the wide re-armament program implemented by
Berlin.

☺ During the1930s, the Soviet Union had started to perceive the League as a
useful instrument against aggressions. Nonetheless, during this period, the
League had already become the target of Hitler’s and Mussolini’s attacks,
who were both encouraged to challenge the multilateral organization due to
its numerous failures.

☺ On 5 December 1934, Mussolini started to invade Ethiopia with the goal of

conquering the last independent African State. Ethiopia turned to the League
in order to obtain an arbitration.

☺ Both London and Paris were indeed interested in keeping friendly relations
with Italy, wishing to obtain its support in containing the Nazi aggressiveness.
Moreover, in January 1935, France conceded a green light to the Italian
invasion of Ethiopia in exchange for Mussolini’s renouncing of his interests
in Tunisia.

☺ It was the Nazi revisionism that eventually brought death to the League of
Nations.
☺ In July 1936, before the outbreak of the Spanish civil war, France and the UK
proposed a non-intervention agreement. Though aimed at opposing the
countries, such as Germany and Italy, that had moved in Francisco Franco’s
support, this agreement was in contrast with both the principles and the
goals of the League, which would have had to defend the legitimate Spanish
government from Franco’s aggression. The League Council, convened for
the last time in November 1936 on the request of the Spanish government,
supported the non-intervention line, and, after that, it was not summoned
again until the beginning of the Second World War.

☺ Nonetheless, the League of Nations had pointed out an available alter

Native to the power politics in the international relations, and, most
importantly, it had launched a series of innovative experiences in international
cooperation, especially in the fields of minorities’ and refugees’ rights and in
economic and cultural cooperation.