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League of Nations

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Politics and government

   The League of Nations was a international organization founded after
   the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. The League's goals included
   disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling
   disputes between countries through negotiation diplomacy and improving
   global welfare. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented
   a fundamental shift in thought from the preceding hundred years. The
   League lacked an armed force of its own and so depended on the Great
   Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to economic sanctions which the
   League ordered, or provide an Army, when needed, for the League to use.
   However, it was often very reluctant to do so.

   After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the
   1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression
   by the Axis Powers in the 1930s. The onset of the Second World War made
   it clear that the League had failed in its primary purpose—to avoid any
   future world war. The United Nations Organization replaced it after
   World War II and inherited a number of agencies and organizations
   founded by the League.

Origins

   A commemorative card depicting American President Wilson and the
   "Origin of the League of Nations"
   Enlarge
   A commemorative card depicting American President Wilson and the
   "Origin of the League of Nations"

   The concept of a peaceful community of nations had previously been
   described in Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch (
   1795). The idea of the actual League of Nations appears to have
   originated with British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey, and it was
   enthusiastically adopted by the Democratic U.S. President Woodrow
   Wilson and his advisor Colonel Edward M. House as a means of avoiding
   bloodshed like that of World War I. The creation of the League was a
   centrepiece of Wilson's Fourteen Points for Peace, specifically the
   final point: "A general association of nations must be formed under
   specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of
   political independence and territorial integrity to great and small
   states alike."

   The Paris Peace Conference accepted the proposal to create the League
   of Nations (French: Société des Nations, German: Völkerbund) on January
   25, 1919. The Covenant of the League of Nations was drafted by a
   special commission, and the League was established by Part I of the
   Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on June 28, 1919. Initially, the
   Charter was signed by 44 states, including 31 states which had taken
   part in the war on the side of the Triple Entente or joined it during
   the conflict. Despite Wilson's efforts to establish and promote the
   League, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, the
   United States neither ratified the Charter nor joined the League due to
   opposition from isolationists in the U.S. Senate, especially
   influential Republicans Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts and William
   E. Borah of Idaho, together with Wilson's refusal to compromise.

   The League held its first meeting in London on 10 January 1920. Its
   first action was to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending
   World War I. The headquarters of the League moved to Geneva on November
   1, 1920, where the first general assembly of the League was held on
   November 15, 1920 with representatives from 41 nations in attendance.

Symbols

   The League of Nations had neither an official flag nor logo. Proposals
   for adopting an official symbol were made during the League's beginning
   in 1920, but the member states never reached agreement. However, League
   of Nations organizations used varying logos and flags (or none at all)
   in their own operations. An international contest was held in 1929 to
   find a design, which again failed to produce a symbol. One of the
   reasons for this failure may have been the fear by the member states
   that the power of the supranational organization might supercede them.
   Finally, in 1939, a semi-official emblem emerged: two five-pointed
   stars within a blue pentagon. The pentagon and the five-pointed stars
   were supposed to symbolise the five continents and the five races of
   mankind. In a bow on top and at the bottom, the flag had the names in
   English (League of Nations) and French (Société des Nations). This flag
   was used on the building of the New York World's Fair in 1939 and 1940.

Languages

   The official languages of the League of Nations were French, English
   and Spanish (from 1920). In the early 1920s, there was a proposal for
   the League to accept Esperanto as their working language. Ten delegates
   accepted the proposal with only one voice against, the French delegate,
   Gabriel Hanotaux. Hanotaux did not like how the French language was
   losing its position as the international language of diplomacy and saw
   Esperanto as a threat. Two years later the League recommended that its
   member states include Esperanto in their educational curricula.

Structure

   The League had three principal organs: a secretariat (headed by the
   General Secretary and based in Geneva), a Council, and an Assembly. The
   League also had numerous Agencies and Commissions. Authorization for
   any action required both a unanimous vote by the Council and a majority
   vote in the Assembly.

Secretariat

   The staff of the League's secretariat was responsible for preparing the
   agenda for the Council and Assembly and publishing reports of the
   meetings and other routine matters, effectively acting as the civil
   service for the League.

   Over the life of the League from 1920–1946, the three Secretaries
   General were:
     * Sir James Eric Drummond, 7th Earl of Perth (UK) (1920-1933)
     * Joseph Avenol (France) (1933-1940)
     * Seán Lester (Ireland) (1940-1946)

   The first president was Paul Hymans, a well-known Belgian politician.
   The General Secretary wrote annual reports on the work of the League.

Council

   The League Council had the authority to deal with any matter affecting
   world peace. The Council began with four permanent members (the United
   Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan) and four non-permanent members, which
   were elected by the Assembly for a three-year period. The first four
   non-permanent members were Belgium, Brazil, Greece and Spain. The
   United States was meant to be the fifth permanent member, but the
   United States Senate was dominated by the Republican Party after the
   1918 election and voted on March 19, 1920 against the ratification of
   the Treaty of Versailles.

   The initial composition of the Council was subsequently changed a
   number of times. The number of non-permanent members was first
   increased to six on September 22, 1922, and then to nine on September
   8, 1926. Germany also joined the League and became a fifth permanent
   member of the Council on the latter date, taking the Council to a total
   of fifteen members. When Germany and Japan later both left the League,
   their places were taken by new, non-permanent, members.

   The Council met on average five times a year, and in extraordinary
   sessions when required. In total, 107 public sessions were held between
   1920 and 1939.

Assembly

   Each member was represented and had one vote in the League Assembly.
   Individual member states did not always have representatives in Geneva.
   The Assembly held its sessions once a year in September.

   Éamon de Valera was the President of the Council of the League of
   Nations at its 68th and Special Sessions in September and October 1932,
   and President of the Assembly of the League of Nations in 1938. Carl
   Joachim Hambro was President in 1939 and 1946. Nicolae Titulescu served
   as president of the League of Nations for two terms, in 1930 and 1931.

Other bodies

   The League oversaw the Permanent Court of International Justice and
   several other agencies and commissions created to deal with pressing
   international problems. These were the Disarmament Commission, the
   Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, the
   Mandates Commission, the Permanent Central Opium Board, the Commission
   for Refugees, and the Slavery Commission. While the League itself is
   generally branded a failure, several of its Agencies and Commissions
   had successes within their respective mandates.

   Disarmament Commission
          The Commission obtained initial agreement by France, Italy,
          Japan, and Britain to limit the size of their navies. However,
          the United Kingdom refused to sign a 1923 disarmament treaty,
          and the Kellogg-Briand Pact, facilitated by the commission in
          1928, failed in its objective of outlawing war. Ultimately, the
          Commission failed to halt the military buildup during the 1930s
          by Germany, Italy and Japan.

   Health Committee
          This body focused on ending leprosy, malaria and yellow fever,
          the latter two by starting an international campaign to
          exterminate mosquitoes. The Health Organization also succeeded
          in preventing an epidemic of typhus from spreading throughout
          Europe due to its early intervention in the Soviet Union.

   Mandates Commission
          The Commission supervised League of Nations Mandates, and also
          organised plebiscites in disputed territories so that residents
          could decide which country they would join, most notably the
          plebiscite in Saarland in 1935.

   International Labour Organization
          This body was led by Albert Thomas. It successfully banned the
          addition of lead to paint, and convinced several countries to
          adopt an eight-hour work day and forty-eight-hour working week.
          It also worked to end child labour, increase the rights of women
          in the workplace, and make shipowners liable for accidents
          involving seamen.

   Permanent Central Opium Board
          The Board was established to supervise the statistical control
          system introduced by the second International Opium Convention
          that mediated the production, manufacture, trade and retail of
          opium and its by-products. The Board also established a system
          of import certificates and export authorizations for the legal
          international trade in narcotics.

   Commission for Refugees
          Led by Fridtjof Nansen, the Commission oversaw the repatriation
          and, when necessary the resettlement, of 400,000 refugees and
          ex- prisoners of war, most of whom were stranded in Russia at
          the end of World War I. It established camps in Turkey in 1922
          to deal with a refugee crisis in that country and to help
          prevent disease and hunger. It also established the Nansen
          passport as a means of identification for stateless peoples.

   Slavery Commission
          The Commission sought to eradicate slavery and slave trading
          across the world, and fought forced prostitution and drug
          trafficking, particularly in opium. It succeeded in gaining the
          emancipation of 200,000 slaves in Sierra Leone and organized
          raids against slave traders in its efforts to stop the practice
          of forced labour in Africa. It also succeeded in reducing the
          death rate of workers constructing the Tanganyika railway from
          55% to 4%. In other parts of the world, the Commission kept
          records on slavery, prostitution and drug trafficking in an
          attempt to monitor those issues.

   Several of these institutions were transferred to the United Nations
   after the Second World War. In addition to the International Labour
   Organisation, the Permanent Court of International Justice became a UN
   institution as the International Court of Justice, and the Health
   Organization was restructured as the World Health Organization.

Members

   An anachronous map of the world in the years 1920-1945, which shows the
   League of Nations and the world.
   Enlarge
   An anachronous map of the world in the years 1920-1945, which shows the
   League of Nations and the world.

   The League of Nations had 42 founding members with the notable
   exception of the United States of America, 16 of them left or withdrew
   from the international organization. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was the
   only (founding) member to leave the league and return to it later and
   remained so a member until the end. France was a member for the
   duration of league, although Vichy France withdrew from the league. In
   the founding year six other nations joined, only two of them would have
   a membership that lasted until the end. In later years 15 more
   countries joined, three memberships would not last until the end. Egypt
   was the last nation to join in 1937. The Union of Soviet Socialist
   Republics was expelled from the league five years after it joined. Iraq
   was the only member of the league that at one time was a League of
   Nations Mandate. Iraq became a member in 1932.

Mandates

   League of Nations Mandates were established under Article 22 of the
   Covenant of the League of Nations. These territories were former
   colonies of the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire that were placed
   under the supervision of the League following World War I. There were
   three Mandate classifications:

   "A" Mandate
          This was a territory which "had reached a stage of development
          where their existence as independent nations can be
          provisionally recognised, subject to the rendering of
          administrative advice and assistance by a "Mandatory" until such
          time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these
          communities must be a principal consideration in the selection
          of the Mandatory." These were mainly parts of the old Ottoman
          Empire.

   "B" Mandate
          This was a territory which "was at such a stage that the
          Mandatory must be responsible for the administration of the
          territory under conditions which will guarantee:

          + Freedom of conscience and religion
          + The maintenance of public order and morals
          + Prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, the arms
            traffic and the liquor traffic
          + The prevention of the establishment of fortifications or
            military and naval bases and of military training of the
            natives for other than political purposes and the defence of
            territory
          + Equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of other
            Members of the League."

   "C" Mandate
          This was a territory "which, owing to the sparseness of their
          population, or their small size, or their remoteness from the
          centres of civilisation, or their geographical contiguity to the
          territory of the Mandatory, and other circumstances, can be best
          administered under the laws of the Mandatory."

   (Quotations taken from The Essential Facts About the League of Nations,
   a handbook published in Geneva in 1939).

   The territories were governed by "Mandatory Powers", such as the United
   Kingdom in the case of the Mandate of Palestine and the Union of South
   Africa in the case of South-West Africa, until the territories were
   deemed capable of self-government. There were fourteen mandate
   territories divided up among the six Mandatory Powers of the United
   Kingdom, France, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia and Japan. In
   practice, the Mandatory Territories were treated as colonies and were
   regarded by critics as spoils of war. With the exception of Iraq, which
   joined the League on October 3, 1932, these territories did not begin
   to gain their independence until after the Second World War, a process
   that did not end until 1990. Following the demise of the League, most
   of the remaining mandates became United Nations Trust Territories.

   In addition to the Mandates, the League itself governed the Saarland
   for 15 years, before it was returned to Germany following a plebiscite,
   and the free city of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) from 15 November 1920
   to 1 September 1939.

Successes

   The League is generally considered to have failed in its mission to
   achieve disarmament, prevent war, settle disputes through diplomacy,
   and improve global welfare. However, it achieved significant successes
   in a number of areas.

Åland Islands

   Åland is a collection of around 6,500 islands mid-way between Sweden
   and Finland. The islands are exclusively Swedish-speaking, but Finland
   had sovereignty in the early 1900s. During the period from 1917
   onwards, most residents wished the islands to become part of Sweden;
   Finland, however, did not wish to cede the islands. The Swedish
   government raised the issue with the League in 1921. After close
   consideration, the League determined that the islands should remain a
   part of Finland, but be governed autonomously, averting a potential war
   between the two countries.

Upper Silesia

   The Treaty of Versailles had ordered a plebiscite in Upper Silesia to
   determine whether the territory should be part of Germany or Poland. In
   the background, strong-arm tactics and discrimination against Poles led
   to rioting and eventually to the first two Silesian Uprisings (1919 and
   1920). In the plebiscite, roughly 59.6% (around 500,000) of the votes
   were cast for joining Germany, and this result led to the Third
   Silesian Uprising in 1921. The League was asked to settle the matter.
   In 1922, a six-week investigation found that the land should be split;
   the decision was accepted by both countries and by the majority of
   Upper Silesians.

Memel

   The port city of Memel (now Klaipėda) and the surrounding area was
   placed under League control after the end of the World War I and was
   governed by a French general for three years. However, the population
   was mostly Lithuanian, and the Lithuanian government placed a claim to
   the territory, with Lithuanian forces invading in 1923. The League
   chose to cede the land around Memel to Lithuania, but declared the port
   should remain an international zone; Lithuania agreed. While the
   decision could be seen as a failure (in that the League reacted
   passively to the use of force), the settlement of the issue without
   significant bloodshed was a point in the League's favour.

Greece and Bulgaria

   After an incident between sentries on the border between Greece and
   Bulgaria in 1925, Greek troops invaded their neighbour. Bulgaria
   ordered its troops to provide only token resistance, trusting the
   League to settle the dispute. The League did indeed condemn the Greek
   invasion, and called for both Greek withdrawal and compensation to
   Bulgaria. Greece complied, but complained about the disparity between
   their treatment and that of Italy (see Corfu, below).

Saar

   Saar was a province formed from parts of Prussia and the Rhenish
   Palatinate that was established and placed under League control after
   the Treaty of Versailles. A plebiscite was to be held after fifteen
   years of League rule, to determine whether the region should belong to
   Germany or France. 90.3% of votes cast were in favour of becoming part
   of Germany in that 1935 referendum, and it became part of Germany
   again.

Mosul

   The League resolved a dispute between Iraq and Turkey over the control
   of the former Ottoman province of Mosul in 1926. According to the UK,
   which was awarded a League of Nations A-mandate over Iraq in 1920 and
   therefore represented Iraq in its foreign affairs, Mosul belonged to
   Iraq; on the other hand, the new Turkish republic claimed the province
   as part of its historic heartland. A three person League of Nations
   committee was sent to the region in 1924 to study the case and in 1925
   recommended the region to be connected to Iraq, under the condition
   that the UK would hold the mandate over Iraq for another 25 years, to
   assure the autonomous rights of the Kurdish population. The League
   Council adopted the recommendation and it decided on 16 December 1925
   to award Mosul to Iraq. Although Turkey had accepted the League of
   Nations arbitration in the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, it rejected the
   League's decision. Nonetheless, Britain, Iraq and Turkey made a treaty
   on 5 June 1926, that mostly followed the decision of the League Council
   and also assigned Mosul to Iraq.

Liberia

   Following rumours of forced labor in the independent African country of
   Liberia, the League launched an investigation into the matter,
   particularly the alleged use of forced labor on the massive Firestone
   rubber plantation in that country. In 1930, a report by the League
   implicated many government officials in the selling of contract labor,
   leading to the resignation of President Charles D.B. King, his
   vice-president and numerous other government officials. The League
   followed with a threat to establish a trusteeship over Liberia unless
   reforms were carried out, which became the central focus of President
   Edwin Barclay.

Other successes

   The League also worked to combat the international trade in opium and
   sexual slavery and helped alleviate the plight of refugees,
   particularly in Turkey in the period to 1926. One of its innovations in
   this area was its 1922 introduction of the Nansen passport, which was
   the first internationally recognised identity card for stateless
   refugees. Many of the League's successes were accomplished by its
   various Agencies and Commissions.
   Moral Suasion.The Rabbit. "My offensive equipment being practically
   nil, it remains for me to fascinate him with the power of my eye."
   Cartoon from Punch magazine, July 28th 1920, satirising the perceived
   weakness of the League.
   Enlarge
   Moral Suasion.
   The Rabbit. "My offensive equipment being practically nil, it remains
   for me to fascinate him with the power of my eye."
     __________________________________________________________________

   Cartoon from Punch magazine, July 28th 1920, satirising the perceived
   weakness of the League.

General weaknesses

   The League did not, in the long term, succeed. The outbreak of World
   War II was the immediate cause of the League's demise, but there was
   also a variety of other, more fundamental, flaws.

   The League, like the modern United Nations, lacked an armed force of
   its own and depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions,
   which they were very reluctant to do. Economic sanctions, which were
   the most severe measure the League could implement short of military
   action, were difficult to enforce and had no great impact on the target
   country, because they could simply trade with those outside the League.
   The problem is exemplified in the following passage, taken from The
   Essential Facts About the League of Nations, a handbook published in
   Geneva in 1939:

          "As regards the military sanctions provided for in paragraph 2
          of Article 16, there is no legal obligation to apply them… there
          may be a political and moral duty incumbent on states… but, once
          again, there is no obligation on them."

   The League's two most important members, Britain and France, were
   reluctant to use sanctions and even more reluctant to resort to
   military action on behalf of the League. So soon after World War I, the
   populations and governments of the two countries were pacifist. The
   British Conservatives were especially tepid on the League and
   preferred, when in government, to negotiate treaties without the
   involvement of the organization. Ultimately, Britain and France both
   abandoned the concept of collective security in favour of appeasement
   in the face of growing German militarism under Adolf Hitler.

   Representation at the League was often a problem. Though it was
   intended to encompass all nations, many never joined, or their time as
   part of the League was short. One key weakness of the League was that
   the United States never joined, which took away much of the League's
   potential power. Even though US President Woodrow Wilson had been a
   driving force behind the League's formation, the United States Senate
   voted on November 19, 1919 not to join the League.

   The League also further weakened when some of the main powers left in
   the 1930s. Japan began as a permanent member of the Council, but
   withdrew in 1933 after the League voiced opposition to its invasion of
   the Chinese territory of Manchuria. Italy also began as a permanent
   member of the Council but withdrew in 1937. The League had accepted
   Germany as a member in 1926, deeming it a "peace-loving country", but
   Adolf Hitler pulled Germany out when he came to power in 1933. Another
   major power, the Bolshevik Soviet Union, was only a member from 1934,
   when it joined to antagonise Germany (which had left the year before),
   to December 14, 1939, when it was expelled for aggression against
   Finland.

   The League's neutrality tended to manifest itself as indecision. The
   League required a unanimous vote of its nine (later fifteen) member
   Council to enact a resolution, so conclusive and effective action was
   difficult, if not impossible. It was also slow in coming to its
   decisions. Some decisions also required unanimous consent of the
   Assembly; that is, agreement by every member of the League.

   Another important weakness of the League was that it tried to represent
   all nations, but most members protected their own national interests
   and were not committed to the League or its goals. The reluctance of
   all League members to use the option of military action showed this to
   the full. If the League had shown more resolve initially, countries,
   governments and dictators may have been more wary of risking its wrath
   in later years. These failings were, in part, among the reasons for the
   outbreak of World War II.

   Moreover, the League's advocacy of disarmament for Britain and France
   (and other members) whilst at the same time advocating collective
   security meant that the League was unwittingly depriving itself of the
   only forceful means by which its authority would be upheld. This was
   because if the League was to force countries to abide by international
   law it would primarily be the Royal Navy and the French Army which
   would do the fighting. Furthermore, Britain and France were not
   powerful enough to enforce international law across the globe, even if
   they wished to do so. For its members League obligations meant there
   was a danger that states would get drawn into international disputes
   which did not directly affect their respective national interests.

   On 23 June 1936, in the wake of the collapse of League efforts to
   restrain Italy's war of conquest against Abyssinia, British Prime
   Minister Stanley Baldwin told the House of Commons that collective
   security "failed ultimately because of the reluctance of nearly all the
   nations in Europe to proceed to what I might call military
   sanctions.... [T]he real reason, or the main reason, was that we
   discovered in the process of weeks that there was no country except the
   aggressor country which was ready for war.... [I]f collective action is
   to be a reality and not merely a thing to be talked about, it means not
   only that every country is to be ready for war; but must be ready to go
   to war at once. That is a terrible thing, but it is an essential part
   of collective security." It was an accurate assessment and a lesson
   which clearly was applied in the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty
   Organisation, which stood as the League's successor insofar as its role
   as guarantor of the security of Western Europe was concerned.

Specific failures

   The general weaknesses of the League are illustrated by its specific
   failures.
   In 1935, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia condemns the Italian
   invasion of Abyssinia in his address to the League.
   In 1935, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia condemns the Italian
   invasion of Abyssinia in his address to the League.

Cieszyn

   Cieszyn (German Teschen, Czech Těšín) is a region between Poland and
   today's Czech Republic, important for its coal mines. Czechoslovakian
   troops moved to Cieszyn in 1919 to take over control of the region
   while Poland was defending itself from invasion of Bolshevik Russia.
   The League intervened, deciding that Poland should take control of most
   of the town, but that Czechoslovakia should take one of the town's
   suburbs, which contained the most valuable coal mines and the only
   railroad connecting Czech lands and Slovakia. The city was divided into
   Polish Cieszyn and Czech Český Těšín. Poland refused to accept this
   decision; although there was no further violence, the diplomatic
   dispute continued for another 20 years.

Vilna

   After World War I, Poland and Lithuania both regained the independence
   that they had lost during the partitions of Poland in 1795. Though both
   countries shared centuries of common history in the Polish-Lithuanian
   Union and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, rising Lithuanian nationalism
   prevented the recreation of the former federated state. The city of
   Vilna ( Lithuanian Vilnius, Polish Wilno) was made the capital of
   Lithuania, despite being mainly Polish in ethnicity.

   During the Polish-Soviet War in 1920, a Polish army took control of the
   city. Despite the Poles' claim to the city, the League chose to ask
   Poland to withdraw: the Poles did not. The city and its surroundings
   were proclaimed a separate state of Central Lithuania and on 20
   February 1922 the local parliament passed the Unification Act and the
   city was incorporated into Poland as the capital of the Wilno
   Voivodship. Theoretically, British and French troops could have been
   asked to enforce the League's decision; however, France did not wish to
   antagonise Poland, which was seen as a possible ally in a future war
   against Germany or the Soviet Union, while Britain was not prepared to
   act alone. Both Britain and France also wished to have Poland as a
   'buffer zone' between Europe and the possible threat from Communist
   Russia. Eventually, the League accepted Wilno as a Polish town on March
   15, 1923. Thus the Poles were able to keep it until Soviet invasion in
   1939.

   Lithuanian authorities declined to accept the Polish authority over
   Vilna and treated it as a constitutional capital. It was not until the
   1938 ultimatum, when Lithuania resolved diplomatic relations with
   Poland and thus de facto accepted the borders of its neighbour.

Ruhr

   Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had to pay reparations. They
   could pay in money or in goods at a set value; however, in 1922 Germany
   was not able to make its payment. The next year, France and Belgium
   chose to act upon this, and invaded the industrial heartland of
   Germany, the Ruhr, despite this being in direct contravention of the
   League's rules. With France being a major League member, and Britain
   hesitant to oppose its close ally, nothing was done in the League. This
   set a significant precedent – the League rarely acted against major
   powers, and occasionally broke its own rules.

Corfu

   One major boundary settlement that remained to be made after World War
   I was that between Greece and Albania. The Conference of Ambassadors, a
   de facto body of the League, was asked to settle the issue. The Council
   appointed Italian general Enrico Tellini to oversee this. On 27 August
   1923, while examining the Greek side of the border, Tellini and his
   staff were murdered. Italian leader Benito Mussolini was incensed, and
   demanded the Greeks pay reparations and execute the murderers. The
   Greeks, however, did not actually know who the murderers were.

   On 31 August, Italian forces occupied the island of Corfu, part of
   Greece, with fifteen people being killed. Initially, the League
   condemned Mussolini's invasion, but also recommended Greece pay
   compensation, to be held by the League until Tellini's killers were
   found. Mussolini, though he initially agreed to the League's terms, set
   about trying to change them. By working on the Conference of
   Ambassadors, he managed to make the League change its decision. Greece
   was forced to apologize and compensation was to be paid directly and
   immediately. Mussolini was able to leave Corfu in triumph. By bowing to
   the pressure of a large country, the League again set a dangerous and
   damaging example. This was one of the League's major failures.

Mukden Incident

   The Mukden Incident was one of the League's major setbacks and acted as
   the catalyst for Japan's withdrawal from the organisation. In the
   Mukden Incident, also known as the "Manchurian Incident", the Japanese
   held control of the South Manchurian Railway in the Chinese region of
   Manchuria. They claimed that Chinese soldiers had sabotaged the
   railway, which was a major trade route between the two countries, on
   September 18, 1931. In fact, it is thought that the sabotage had been
   contrived by officers of the Japanese Kwantung Army without the
   knowledge of government in Japan, in order to catalyse a full invasion
   of Manchuria. In retaliation, the Japanese army, acting contrary to the
   civilian government's orders, occupied the entire region of Manchuria,
   which they renamed Manchukuo. This new country was only recognised
   internationally by Italy and Germany - the rest of the world still saw
   Manchuria as legally a region of China. In 1932, Japanese air and sea
   forces bombarded the Chinese city of Shanghai and the short war of
   January 28 Incident broke out.

   The Chinese government asked the League of Nations for help, but the
   long voyage around the world by sailing ship for League officials to
   investigate the matter themselves delayed matters. When they arrived,
   the officials were confronted with Chinese assertions that the Japanese
   had invaded unlawfully, while the Japanese claimed they were acting to
   keep peace in the area. Despite Japan's high standing in the League,
   the Lytton Report declared Japan to be in the wrong and demanded
   Manchuria be returned to the Chinese. However, before the report was
   voted upon by the Assembly, Japan announced intentions to invade more
   of China. When the report passed 42-1 in the Assembly in 1933 (only
   Japan voted against), Japan withdrew from the League.

   According to the Covenant of the League of Nations, the League should
   have now placed economic sanctions against Japan, or gathered an army
   together and declared war against it. However, neither happened.
   Economic sanctions had been rendered almost useless due to the United
   States Congress voting against being part of the League, despite
   Woodrow Wilson's keen involvement in the drawing up of the Treaty of
   Versailles, and his wish for America to join the League. Any economic
   sanctions the League now placed on its member states would be fairly
   pointless, as the state barred from trading with other member states
   could simply turn and trade with America. An army was not assembled by
   the League due to the self-interest of many of its member states. This
   meant that countries like Britain and France did not want to gather
   together an army for the League to use, as they were too interested and
   busy with their own affairs - such as keeping control of their
   extensive colonial lands, especially after the turmoil of World War I.
   Japan was therefore left to keep control of Manchuria, until the Red
   Army of the Soviet Union took over the area and returned it to China at
   the end of World War II in 1945.

Chaco War

   The League failed to prevent the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay
   in 1932 over the arid Chaco Boreal region of South America. Although
   the region was sparsely populated, it gave control of the Paraguay
   River which would have given one of the two landlocked countries access
   to the Atlantic Ocean, and there was also speculation, later proved
   incorrect, that the Chaco would be a rich source of petroleum. Border
   skirmishes throughout the late 1920s culminated in an all-out war in
   1932, when the Bolivian army, following the orders of President Daniel
   Salamanca Urey, attacked a Paraguayan garrison at Vanguardia. Paraguay
   appealed to the League of Nations, but the League did not take action
   when the Pan-American conference offered to mediate instead.

   The war was a disaster for both sides, causing 100,000 casualties and
   bringing both countries to the brink of economic disaster. By the time
   a ceasefire was negotiated on 12 June 1935, Paraguay had seized control
   over most of the region. This was recognized in a 1938 truce by which
   Paraguay was awarded three-quarters of the Chaco Boreal.

Spanish Civil War

   On 17 July 1936, armed conflict broke out between Spanish Republicans
   (the left-wing government of Spain) and Nationalists (the right-wing
   rebels, including most officers of the Spanish Army). Alvarez del Vayo,
   the Spanish minister of foreign affairs, appealed to the League in
   September 1936 for arms to defend its territorial integrity and
   political independence. However, the League could not itself intervene
   in the Spanish Civil War nor prevent foreign intervention in the
   conflict. Hitler and Mussolini continued to aid General Franco’s
   Nationalist insurrectionists, and the Soviet Union aided the Spanish
   loyalists. The League did attempt to ban the intervention of foreign
   national volunteers.

Italian invasion of Abyssinia

   Perhaps most famously, in October 1935, Benito Mussolini sent General
   Pietro Badoglio and 400,000 troops to invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia). The
   modern Italian Army easily defeated the poorly armed Abyssinians, and
   captured Addis Ababa in May 1936, forcing Emperor Haile Selassie to
   flee. The Italians used chemical weapons ( mustard gas) and flame
   throwers against the Abyssinians.

   The League of Nations condemned Italy's aggression and imposed economic
   sanctions in November 1935, but the sanctions were largely ineffective.
   As Stanley Baldwin, the British Prime Minister, later observed, this
   was ultimately because no one had the military forces on hand to
   withstand an Italian attack. On 9 October 1935, the United States (a
   non-League member) refused to cooperate with any League action. It had
   embargoed exports of arms and war material to either combatant (in
   accordance with its new Neutrality Act) on 5 October and later ( 29
   February 1936) endeavored (with uncertain success) to limit exports of
   oil and other materials to normal peacetime levels. The League
   sanctions were lifted on 4 July 1936, but by that point they were a
   dead letter in any event.

   As was the case with Manchuria, the vigor of the major powers in
   responding to the crisis in Abyssinia was tempered by their perception
   that the fate of this poor and far-off country, inhabited by
   non-Europeans, was not a central interest of theirs.

Axis re-armament

   The League was powerless and mostly silent in the face of major events
   leading to World War II such as Hitler's remilitarisation of the
   Rhineland, occupation of the Sudetenland and Anschluss with Austria,
   which had been forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. As with Japan,
   both Germany in 1933 – using the failure of the World Disarmament
   Conference to agree to arms parity between France and Germany as a
   pretext – and Italy in 1937 simply withdrew from the League rather than
   submit to its judgment. The League commissioner in Danzig was unable to
   deal with German claims on the city, a significant contributing factor
   in the outbreak of World War II in 1939. The final significant act of
   the League was to expel the Soviet Union in December 1939 after it
   invaded Finland.

Demise and legacy

   With the onset of World War II, it was clear that the League had failed
   in its purpose – to avoid any future world war. During the war, neither
   the League's Assembly nor Council was able or willing to meet, and its
   secretariat in Geneva was reduced to a skeleton staff, with many
   offices moving to North America.

   After its failure to prevent one war, it was decided in 1945 at the
   Yalta Conference, to create a new body to supplant the League's role.
   This body was to be the United Nations. Many League bodies, for
   instance the International Labour Organization, continued to function
   and eventually became affiliated with the UN. At a meeting of the
   Assembly in 1946, the League dissolved itself and its services,
   mandates, and property were transferred to the UN.

   The structure of the United Nations was intended to make it more
   effective than the League. The principal Allies in World War II (UK,
   USSR, France, U.S., and China) became permanent members of the UN
   Security Council, giving the new "Great Powers" significant
   international influence, mirroring the League Council. Decisions of the
   UN Security Council are binding on all members of the UN; however,
   unanimous decisions are not required, unlike the League Council.
   Permanent members of the UN Security Council were given a shield to
   protect their vital interests, which has prevented the UN acting
   decisively in many cases. Similarly, the UN does not have its own
   standing armed forces, but the UN has been more successful than the
   League in calling for its members to contribute to armed interventions,
   such as the Korean War, and peacekeeping in the former Yugoslavia.
   However, the UN has in some cases been forced to rely on economic
   sanctions. The UN has also been more successful than the League in
   attracting members from the nations of the world, making it more
   representative.

Trivia

     * The Swedish Communist leader Fredrik Ström used to refer to the
       League of Nations as the Imperialist International.

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