The 

League of Nations (French: Société des Nations [sɔsjete de nɑsjɔ̃]) was the first

worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.
[1]
 It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World
War. The main organization ceased operations on 20 April 1946 but many of its components
were relocated into the new United Nations.

The League's primary goals were stated in its Covenant. They included preventing wars
through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through
negotiation and arbitration.[2] Its other concerns included labour conditions, just treatment of
native inhabitants, human and drug trafficking, the arms trade, global health, prisoners of war,
and protection of minorities in Europe.[3] 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 first meeting of the Council of the League took place on
16 January 1920, and the first meeting of Assembly of the League took place on 15 November
1920. In 1919 U.S. president Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role as the
leading architect of the League.

he 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. Fourteen mandate territories were
divided up among seven mandatory powers: the United Kingdom, the Union of South Africa,
France, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia and Japan.[118] With the exception of the Kingdom of
Iraq, which joined the League on 3 October 1932,[119] these territories did not begin to gain their
independence until after the Second World War, in a process that did not end until 1990.
Following the demise of the League, most of the remaining mandates became United Nations
Trust Territories.[120]
In addition to the mandates, the League itself governed the Territory of the Saar Basin 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.[12

The main aims of the organisation included disarmament, preventing war through

collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation and
diplomacy, and improving global welfare. The League lacked an armed force of its own to
enforce any actions to achieve these aims.

The declaration of World War II was not even referred to by the then-virtually defunct
League. In 1946, the League of Nations was officially dissolved with the establishment of
the United Nations.