League of Nations

2018/2019
1. Explain the establishment of the League of Nations and,
2. Identify the reasons for the failure of the League of Nations.
Answer
The first Great War of the 20th century ended with international relations and global
diplomacy in a state of turmoil. The new world is mainly characterized by an attempt
to preserve global peace through collective security through an organization called the
League of Nations. Hence, the first part of this essay will focus on the establishment
of the LON, discussing the formation, structure, and merits of the League. The latter
part will discuss the failure of the LON and how it led to the Second World War.
1.

In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, the Americans and the Europeans
gathered in Paris to discuss a far-reaching change in patterns in international relations.
The League of Nations was seen as the epitome of the new world order, which was
based on mutual corporations and peaceful resolutions towards conflict prevention.
This ideology was based on the American President Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen-
point statement, in which he gave the objective of "affording mutual guarantees of
political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike." Later
on, this speech was transformed into the Versailles Treaty, which also included the
idea of forming the LONs.

The official inauguration of the LON was on the 10th of January 1920 and was
considered the first multinational organization. The headquarters were situated in
Geneva, Switzerland, and the original 32 members who were the signatories of the
Versailles Treaty and an additional 13 states were invited to form the covenant. The
LON was open to all states, provided they gained a 2/3 majority vote in the Assembly.
Even though the League did not thrive as expected, its contribution to the world
allowed the world to be free of war for nearly 30 years.

This consisted of a General Assembly where all the member states met in September
each year to deal with issues such as the budget, admission of new members, matters
which affected world peace and many more. Furthermore, the Council consisted of the
four permanent members; France, Italy, Japan, and the UK; and up to 10 non-
permanent members were elected from the Assembly every three years’ time to settle
international disputes. The Permanent Secretariat was appointed by the Secretary
General and was given the task of working out the methodology of international
cooperation and also the general administration of the League. The Permanent Court
of International Justice was established in The Hague and consists of 11 judges and
four deputy judges. The main purpose of it was to "hear and determine any dispute of
an international character which the parties thereto submit to it".

The main objectives of the League were to keep world peace by discouraging
aggression from any nation; encourage cooperation between countries to boost trade
and commerce; enhance living and working conditions; persuade nations to disarm;
and uphold the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. When a state has acted illegally, the
League has the power to condemn (tell the country that it has done something wrong),
to offer arbitration (to mediate between the two conflicting countries), and to impose
sanctions. It was also capable of offering a nation aid by sending supplies, expertise,
and volunteers. Furthermore, the small nations were given the opportunity to voice
their opinions in the assembly.

The main aim of stopping war was gained through "collective security". Here, the
member states promised to defend the territory and independence of the members of
the League and to take charge of any case of danger. This attempt was successful
during the 1920’s, i.e., the dispute between Finland and Sweden over Aaland Island,
Hungary and Romania, the Mosul oil crisis, and the dispute regarding Silesia were
resolved.

Furthermore, one of the LON's greatest assets was the direct actions it took to improve
health, welfare, education, and labor issues. This was mainly tackled with the
formation of new institutions such as the International Labour Organization (which
provided new decent opportunities and promoted rights and welfare mechanisms), the
World Health Organization (took steps to kill mosquitoes to prevent malaria, leprosy
and minimize malnutrition), the Mandate Commission, Slavery Commission,
Disarmament Commission, and many more. These institutions enabled the repatriation
of 400,000 World War I prisoners, helped the refugees in Turkish camps, and were
also keen on addressing slave issues. The banning of illegal drugs and addressing
issues such as "abolition of slavery", which was highly manured by William
Wilberforce, are some additional work that was done through the League.

Thus, what could be understood is that the establishment of the LON has done an
imminent amount of work to gain social, political, and economic welfare in the lives
of human beings for almost 20 years.

2.
The LON, in the end, failed to preserve collective security, which eventually led to the
outbreak of the 2nd World War.

It was unfortunate that the LON was made a part and parcel of the peace agreement. It
would have been more long-lasting if it was kept separate from the Versailles Treaty.
The absence of the great powers was a main reason for the fallback of the LON. The
first main hurdle was the absence of the USA in the league. Even though the LON was
built according to Woodrow Wilson’s ideology, Congress denied the idea of joining
such a multinational organization. Similarly, the Soviet Union also didn’t take part
due to the rise of socialism in Russia during those days. Furthermore, the majority of
the states saw the treaty of Versailles as a treaty of revenge and thus were not willing
to ratify it. Thus, this led the above countries to refuse to become members. Japan,
Germany, and Italy eventually left the league, paving the way for the league's demise.

Additionally, the domination of France and the UK also led towards the collapse of
the league. As the winners of the first world war, the domination of the UK and
France within the league made the other states lose faith and confidence in the
organization. For example, during the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the UK and
France would have stopped the invasion by closing the Suez Canal and blocking the
Italian ships. Instead, they agreed with the rest to impose sanctions on Italy. These had
little effect, and this was criticized by the historian, A.J.P. Taylor. He stated that this
was the real death of the league.

This also symbolises how weak the LON was, as it was not powerful enough to force
states to act in a certain manner. It could only request the states to act in a particular
manner, and it was up to that state to decide whether to act according to the League’s
recommendations or not.

Besides, the rise of dictatorships in Japan, Italy, and Germany also weakened the
chances of the success of the LON. i.e., not taking actions regarding Japan’s invasion
of Manchuria and Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia. The only result was that the league
due to these circumstances lost members. And as for the member countries, leaving
the league was not even considered a sacrifice.

Apart from that, even though the League of Nations consisted of a fair structure, the
constitutional structure had certain defects. This was ironic, as an organization set up
to prevent war, encourages war to settle disputes. When a dispute is brought to the
Council, under Article 11, the decision of the Council has to be agreed by all. If the
decision is not agreed upon by all, under Article 15, the disputing parties are given the
freedom to resume hostilities after a period of 3 months. This was considered a normal
solution to international disputes. Moreover, when countries started to attack others in
order to try and expand, the League didn’t have any power to stop them.

The lack of mutual co-operation led to the failure of the cornerstone principle of
collective security. While nations were busy fulfilling their hidden agendas, they
forgot to promote the objectives of the league. For France, the league was used as a
shield to protect them from Germany. On the other hand, the Brits were busy
protecting imperialistic ideas, and Hitler was using the LON’s as a great sword for the
rise of Germany. The lack of unity within the league led to the Second World War.

Furthermore, one must understand that the league was the result of a union of two
opposing ideologies, with the United States emphasizing peace and the United
Kingdom emphasizing war. These two inconsistent principles were incorporated into
the fabric of the league, and no wonder it failed. The rise of nationalism in Germany
(Nazism) and Italy (Fascism) also weakened the power of the league. The Wall Street
Crash also occurred during this period, and the nationalist ideas that flourished in
countries also paved the way towards the rise of nationalistic ideas.

In such a situation, the UK and France also used the approach of policy appeasement
to avoid conflict with Germany and Italy. This was used as a diplomatic technique as
the UK and France were in no position to wage war against these nations.
Nonetheless, Germany was never satisfied with such mechanisms and continued to
seize territories throughout Europe. In such a background, the first step towards the
Second World War was considered the invasion of Manchuria by Japan. The failure of
the league to enforce sanctions unquestionably led to the failure.

The lacunas within the structure of LON and the problems surrounding it paved the
way towards the collapse of the league. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the
LON did not take any steps to mitigate the issue. This led Britain to declare war
against Germany, symbolising the start of the 2nd world war. Thus, the league, which
was built upon many hopes, collapsed, leading the world to fight the most brutish war
that was ever seen by mankind.