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Historical Committee: Correcting the Wrongs of the League of Nations

Rules of Procedure

This special Historical Committee is theoretically set in the time period of the League of
Nations’ creation (post-World War I). Delegates will examine how the League of Nations was
founded and develop interventions aimed at resolving the problems faced by the League before
its ultimate failure to control the aggression of the Axis powers leading up to World War II.

General Background: What was the League of Nations?

The League of Nations has its origins in President Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points Speech”
of January 1918, outlining his ambitions and ideals for the achievement of peace following
World War I. Wilson envisioned a multinational organisation which would resolve conflicts
between states before they resulted in warfare. By December 1918, Wilson left for Paris to
transform his ideals into what would become the Treaty of Versailles. Seven months later, he
returned to the United States with a treaty that included the idea for the League of Nations.
Wilson, aiming to debate the treaty before the American people, embarked on a cross-country
train journey but cut his tour short when he experienced a stroke. Wilson’s campaign having
failed, isolationist members of the United States Congress succeeded in preventing the treaty’s
ratification. The U.S. thus refused to become a member of the League of Nations.

In 1919 the internal structure of the League was laid out in a Covenant developed during the
Paris Peace Conference. The League's primary goals were stated in this Covenant. They included
preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes
through negotiation and arbitration, alongside the broad, over-arching aim of advancing
humanitarian principles.1 The Covenant of the League of Nations was signed on 28 June 1919 as
Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, and it became effective together with the rest of the Treaty on
10 January 1920. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift
away from the previous century. The League lacked its own armed force and depended instead
on the victorious First World War Allies to enforce its resolutions and sanctions. Britain, France,
Italy and Japan were permanent members of its Executive Council. Yet the Great Powers were
often reluctant to enforce the League’ resolutions, as sanctions usually implied deleterious
economic and political consequences at home.

Despite his failure to encourage the United States to become a member of the League, in 1919
President Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in its establishment. At its greatest
extent, in 1935, the League of Nations had 58 members. After some notable successes and early
failures, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in
the 1930s. The credibility of the organisation was weakened by the fact that the United States
never joined, and, although the Soviet Union joined late, it was soon expelled after invading
Finland.2 Germany also withdrew from the League, alongside Japan, Italy, Spain and other Axis-
aligned powers in the buildup to World War II. The onset of the Second World War in 1939
showed that the League had failed in its primary purpose. It was then inactive until its official

1 Leland M. Goodrich, “From League of Nations to United Nations,” International Organization 1, no. 1
(February 1947): 3–21, https://doi.org/10.1017/S002081830000655X.
2 Dell G. Hitchner, “The Failure of the League: Lesson in Public Relations,” The Public Opinion
Quarterly 8, no. 1 (1944): 61–71.
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abolition — 26 years after its foundation. The United Nations replaced the League of Nations in
1946 and inherited several of its agencies and associations.

Questions for the Historical Committee:

Why did the League of Nations fail?

1. Tepid Successes

The League demonstrated some willingness to intervene in minor European disputes: from 1919
to 1935, the League of Nations acted as trustee of a coal-rich region between France and
Germany called the Saar. The League became the custodian of this area to allow it time to
determine which of the two countries it wished to join, with Germany being its eventual choice.
Similarly, as Poland feared for its independence against threats from neighboring Russia, the
League became involved in a dispute over whether Poland ought to recognise Lithuanian
independence: Vilna was returned to Poland, but hostilities with Lithuania continued. Other
geographical disputes involving minor successes for the League included the contest between
Finland and Sweden over the Aaland Islands, disputes between Hungary and Romania, Finland’s
quarrels with Russia, a border argument between Albania and Greece, and the tussle between
France and England over Morocco. Other partially sucessful League of Nations efforts include
the Geneva Protocol, devised in the 1920s to limit chemical and biological weaponry, and the
World Disarmament Conference in the 1930s, which aimed at total disarmament but had clearly
failed in its aims when Adolf Hitler broke away from the Conference and the League in 1933.

2. Early Failures

In the inter-war period, the League of Nations exhibited early signs of failure in its aims of
achieving dispute resolution and preventing the breakout of war. 3 The League sought largely
unsuccessfully to be more than a purely European body, joined at the outset by newly
independent China, Liberia, Persia and Siam. Secretary-general Sir Eric Drummond was fearful
of the symbolic impact of any failure to resolve disputes, and this fear fomented inaction. When
Russia, not a member, 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 its jurisdiction and
that this would damage the League’s authority and image. A key early failure by the League took
shape in the dispute in 1923, following the murder of Italian General Enrico Tellini in Greece.
Italy’s fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, retaliated by bombing and invading the Greek island of
Corfu. Greece requested the League’s help, but Mussolini refused to recognise its authority. The
League was left on the sidelines as the dispute was solved instead by the Conference of
Ambassadors, an Allied multinational group.

In 1920 the League created its Mandates Commission, charged with protecting minorities. Yet
the Commission’s suggestions about colonialism in Africa were largely ignored by European
Imperial powers. The Mandates Commission also intervened largely unsuccessfully in tensions in
Palestine between the newly arrived Jewish population and Palestinian Arabs. The League was
also involved in the creation of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which sought to outlaw war,
and was successfully adopted by over 60 countries. Yet, put to the test when Japan invaded
Manchuria in 1931, the League proved incapable of enforcing this pact. Taken together, the early
failures of the League to protect minorities and prevent war reveal the paradoxical and
conflicting nature of its dual commitments to state-building and sovereignty. On the one hand,

3 J. P. DUNBABIN, “The League of Nations’ Place in the International System,” History 78, no. 254
(1993): 421–42.
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the League aimed to promote emerging norms related to trusteeship and human rights, yet it
could not effectively do so without undermining its commitment to state sovereignty. 4

As mentioned above, the League largely failed to encourage the Great Powers to recognise its
resolutions and abide by its sanctions. During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, when the League
accused the Italian army of targeting Red Cross and Red Crescent medical sites, Benito Mussolini
responded that "the League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall
out." When Italy invaded Abyssinia in 1935, France and Britain were caught making a secret
agreement to give Abyssinia to Italy, undermining the League’s authority and capacity to control
the diplomatic actions of its own members. Indeed, by the end of the 1930s, the League had
proved itself to be incapable of dealing effectively with larger powers who contested its
prerogatives. This caused valid concern among many small powers, destroying any little
remaining collective faith in the institution. In 1920 it had been unable to check Poland’s seizure
of Vilna; in 1923 It had not halted the Italian occupation of Corfu; and even more damning were
its failures to take a stand against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and against Italy’s actions
in Ethiopia.

3. World War II

These early crises destroyed the authority of the League, and it was powerless to stop Germany
after 1935. By the time of the Sudeten crisis of 1938, Britain and France had resorted to
appeasement in their interactions with Germany, largely ignoring the role of the League of
Nations.5 When World War II broke out, many League members attempted to claim neutrality.
In 1940, however, League members Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands
and France all fell to Hitler. Switzerland grew increasingly fearful of hosting an organisation
perceived as Allied in its Geneva headquarters, and the League began to dismantle its offices. By
the end of World War II, 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.

What is the continuing legacy of the League of Nations?

The history of the League of Nations provides enduring lessons on the difficulties of
international cooperation and the inexorable aim of achieving global peace. Its foundation
marked a monumental commitment to rejecting the discredited great-power politics of the
preceding era.6 As Field Marshal Jan Smuts declared in Oxford in 1929, “we are witnessing one
of the great miracles of history . . . The League may be a difficult scheme to work, but the
significant thing is that the Great Powers have pledged themselves to work it, that they have
agreed to renounce their free choice of action and bound themselves to what amounts in effect
to a consultative parliament of the world. By the side of that . . . enormous step . . ., any small
failures to live up to the great decision . . . are trifling indeed. The great choice is made, the great
renunciation is over, and mankind has, as it were at one bound and in the short space of ten
years, jumped from the old order to the new.”7

What should have been done differently to prevent the failure of the League of Nations?

4 Pedersen.
5 Pedersen.
6 Pedersen, “Back to the League of Nations.”
7 Susan Pedersen, “Back to the League of Nations,” The American Historical Review 112, no. 4
(2007): 1091–1117.
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This is the primary question to be answered by Delegates. The scope of this debate is broad,
including both historical, empirical, and theoretical arguments.

Bibliography

Curry, George. “Woodrow Wilson, Jan Smuts, and the Versailles Settlement.” The American
Historical Review 66, no. 4 (1961): 968–86. https://doi.org/10.2307/1845866.
DUNBABIN, J. P. “The League of Nations’ Place in the International System.” History 78, no.
254 (1993): 421–42.
Fenwick, C. G. “The ‘Failure’ of the League of Nations.” American Journal of International Law
30, no. 3 (July 1936): 506–9. https://doi.org/10.2307/2191024.
Goodrich, Leland M. “From League of Nations to United Nations.” International Organization
1, no. 1 (February 1947): 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002081830000655X.
Hitchner, Dell G. “The Failure of the League: Lesson in Public Relations.” The Public Opinion
Quarterly 8, no. 1 (1944): 61–71.
Hunt, Byron Walfred. “The League of Nations and the Italo-Ethiopian Conflict,” n.d., 155.
BBC Bitesize. “Opinions on the Treaty of Versailles - Paris Peace Treaties and the League of
Nations.” Accessed August 18, 2022.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zbg4t39/revision/5.
Pedersen, Susan. “Back to the League of Nations.” The American Historical Review 112, no. 4
(2007): 1091–1117.