The League of Nations

 The Role of the League of Nations.

 The Structure of the League of Nations.

 The Powers of the League of Nations.

 The Japanese Invasion of Manchuria (1931).

 The Italian invasion of Abyssinia (1935).

introduction

The League of Nations, born of the destruction and

disillusionment arising from World War One, was
the most ambitious attempt that had ever been
made to construct a peaceful global order. It was
rooted in a comprehensive liberal critique of the
pre-war international system, which was widely
believed to have been the cause of the carnage of
1914-18.

The idea of the League was to eliminate four fatal

flaws of the old European states: in place of
competing monarchical empires - of which the
Hapsburg Empire was perhaps the most notorious -
the principle of national self-determination would
create a world of independent nation states, free of
outside interference; the secret diplomacy of the old
order would be replaced by the open discussion and
resolution of disputes; the military alliance blocs
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would be replaced by a system of collective

guarantees of security; and agreed disarmament
would prevent the recurrence of the kind of arms
race that had racked up international tensions in the
pre-war decade.

Before this, the closest approach to an international political structure had been
the Congress System, in which the European great powers held occasional
summit meetings to discuss issues they found urgent. (To his credit, the much-
maligned Tsar Nicholas II of Russia had sponsored international efforts to ban
'inhumane' weapons such as expanding or exploding bullets; but these efforts
were only partially successful.)

The surviving victorious great powers at the end of the Great War - Britain and
France - would have preferred to go no further than regularising the old Congress
System. The spirit of the times, however, which was overbearingly personified in
the president of the USA, Woodrow Wilson, pushed towards the creation of
a more comprehensive global organisation, which would include all independent
states, and in which even the smallest state would have a voice.

Significance
And yet its work in some areas was groundbreaking and increasingly
effective. The Permanent Court of International Justice, established under
Article 14 of the League Covenant, started work in 1922 and was kept
busy from the outset, giving advisory opinions to the League Council or
deciding cases submitted to it by individual governments. By 1939 it had
heard 66 cases and its success showed that a standing international court
had a role to play ‘in the gradual acceptance by states that rules had a
place in international politics’. The International Court of
Justice established after theSecond World War by the United Nations
reproduced in almost identical form the League’s Permanent Court and
has continued to extend its international authority to the present day.

The International Labour Organisation was another body operating under

the aegis of the League to ensure just and humane conditions of labour in
member countries and to promote the physical, moral and intellectual
well-being of industrial wage-earners. It flourished in the
interwar period and pursued its objectives vigorously through
conferences and the adoption of labour conventions. After 1945 it

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became a specialist agency under the United Nations and has continued
with its mission, operating virtually unchanged to the present day. Many
other specialist United Nations bodies, such as the Economic and Social
Council, the World Health Organisation, the International Refugee
Organisation and UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Science and
Cultural Organisation), were built on the foundations of the pioneering
work carried out by League agencies before 1939.

One of the most innovative aspects of the League’s operation was the
establishment of its secretariat, organised along the lines of an
international civil service, with members drawn from over 30 countries
including the United States. The League’s secretariat became
internationally respected for the quality of its officials and as a unique
repository of information and experience relating to international
organisation and administration. Moreover, the role of secretary-general
carried increasing importance. Again, its structure and working methods
were adopted by the United Nations and also by the European Economic
Community in the late 1950s, one of whose strongest advocates was
former League official Jean Monnet.

There can be no doubt that the creation of an international body in 1920,

powered by the leading states of the world and able to pre-empt conflict
by bringing to the table for settlement disputes which threatened to
disturb international peace, was a dynamic step forward in international
diplomacy. So was the establishment of an annual League Assembly at
which small and medium powers could raise issues, give their views on
world developments and put pressure on the great powers.

Such gatherings promoted international collaboration and compromise

and helped to bring into existence what historian Susan Pedersen refers
to as a ‘different dynamic of international co-operation’, when those who
worked on its behalf began to craft the ‘norms and agreements by which
our world is [now] regulated, if not quite governed’. It wasindeed the
world’s ‘first sustained and consequential experiment in
internationalism’, a significant and exploratory first phase which paved
the way for a second, more effective and lasting period of international
collaboration under the United Nations. Rather than dwell on its
weaknesses or condemn its failures, we should applaud the League’s
successes, while continuing to learn important lessons from its history.

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The Role of the League of Nations

The role of the League of Nations was:

 It was based on the Fourteen Points of the US President Woodrow Wilson.

 It was created to ensure that there would be no repeat of the First World War.
 It was suppose to keep the peace by encouraging nations to negotiate (talk)
over disputes rather than resorting to war.
 Members of the League agreed to 26 Articles in a Covenant (list of rules).
 Article 10 promised collective security whereby members agreed that if one
member were attacked all other members would come to their protection.
 Initially 42 members joined which later grew to 59 members by the 1930s.
 The defeated countries like Germany were not allowed to join.
 The Soviet Union (Russia) was not allowed to join because it was Communist.
 The USA despite the fact Wilson’s had founded it refused to join the League.

The reasons the US did not join the League were:

 Many Americans wanted a return to isolationism after the end of the First
World War.
 Some did not want the US to enter the First World War in the first place.
 They did not want to get involved in other countries problems.
 They did not want more American soldiers to be killed abroad keeping world
peace.
 They did not want to have to pay, as the richest country, for keeping world
peace.
 President Woodrow Wilson’s party the Democrats did not control Congress.
 The Republican, Warren Harding, won the 1920 election under the campaign
slogan “America First” and a return to “normalcy”.

The Structure of the League of Nations

The Structure of the League of Nations included:

 The Assembly.
 The Council.
 The Secretariat.
 The Permanent Court of International Justice.

The Assembly:

 It met once a year at the League’s headquarters in Switzerland.

 Each member of the League sent a representative to the Assembly.
 Its decisions had to be unanimous (agreed by all members).
 It could recommend action to the Council, vote on the budget and agree to
admit new members.

The Council:

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 It met several times a year and for emergencies.

 It included Britain, France, Italy and Japan as permanent members.
 It also included non-permanent members elected by the assembly for 3-year
periods.
 Each permanent member had the power of Veto (the power to block any
action by voting against it.)

The Secretariat:

This was the League’s administrative civil service responsible for keeping records of
meetings and preparing reports.

The Permanent Court of International Justice:

This was intended to help settle disputes between countries peacefully but it had no
way of enforcing its rulings.

The Powers of the League of Nations

To settle disputes between countries the League could:

 Start an inquiry by the Council.

 Provide a hearing by an impartial neutral country.
 Ask for a ruling by the Permanent Court of International Justice.

The enforcement powers of the League of Nations included:

1. Moral Pressure (Turn world opinion against a guilty country).

2. Economic Sanctions (Stop countries trading with a guilty country).
3. Military Force (Go to war against a guilty country).

The Strengths of the League were:

 It had the goodwill of governments and ordinary people towards it.

 Most of the major countries had joined the League.
 Defeated countries were later allowed to join the League.
 It provided a forum to end disputes peacefully.

The Weaknesses of the League were:

 The USA did not join it.

 The Soviet Union (Russia) did not join until 1934.
 It had very little power and no permanent army.
 It failed to encourage disarmament.
 International suspicions and rivalries between countries continued.
 Countries left the League when they disagreed with its decisions.
 Economic sanctions especially without US support proved very ineffective.

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 It had to uphold the Treaty of Versailles, which was increasingly viewed as

unfair.
 It failed to stop Japan (Manchuria), Italy (Abyssinia) or Germany (Hitler’s
breaking of the Treaty of Versailles).

The Japanese Invasion of Manchuria (1931)

The causes of the invasion of Manchuria were:

 Japan wanted an Empire like the other European powers.

 Japan’s economy was suffering as a result of the worldwide depression.
 Japan had no natural resources of its own and had to import them from abroad.
 Japan wanted to be self-sufficient in natural resources like coal and iron.
 Manchuria, a province of China, was rich in natural resources like coal and
iron.
 After claiming the Chinese attacked a Japanese owned railway in Manchuria
the Japanese army invaded and took over the whole province.

The reaction of the League to the invasion of Manchuria was:

 China appealed to the League of Nations for help.

 The League set up a Commission of Inquiry under Lord Lytton.
 It took over a year for Lord Lytton to produce a report on the incident.
 The Lytton Report supported China and declared that Japan had acted
unlawfully.
 All the countries in the League accepted the report except Japan.
 Japan’s response was simply to ignore the report and leave the League in
March 1933.
 Japan then went on to invade other parts of China.

The League did not stop Japan because:

 None of the member states wanted to go to war with Japan.

 Britain did not want to disrupt trade in Asia by taking action against Japan.
 Economic sanctions would not have worked because Japan’s main trading
partner was the USA, which was not a member of the League.

The Italian invasion of Abyssinia (1935)

The causes of the invasion of Abyssinia were:

 The Italian dictator Mussolini wanted to expand Italy’s empire in Africa.

 Abyssinia (Ethiopia) was one of the few countries not under European rule.
 After a clash between Italian and Abyssinian troops Italy invaded the country.
 The Italians quickly conquered the country using their modern weapons.
 The Abyssinian Emperor, Haile Selassie, appealed to the League for help.

The reaction of the League to the invasion of Abyssinia was:

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 They declared Italy’s actions unprovoked aggression (wrong).

 They imposed economic sanctions on Italy.
 They banned the sale of weapons, some goods and loans to Italy.
 They banned all imports from Italy.
 The sanctions failed to stop Italy conquering the whole of Abyssinia.

The League did not stop Italy because:

 Britain and France viewed Italy as an ally against Germany.

 The economic sanctions did not include oil for fear the US would not co-
operate (NB: oil is vital fuel for a country’s war machines).
 The economic sanctions did not include coal to protect the British mining
industry.
 The British and French did not close the Suez Canal, which was important to
Italian military supply lines for fear of full-scale war with Italy.
 The British and French agreed to the Hoare-Laval Pact.

The Hoare-Laval Pact:

 Britain and France secretly offered to divide Abyssinia giving Italy its best
mineral and agricultural land without informing the Abyssinian government.
 The secret plan was leaked to the press and the popular outcry that followed
led to it being abandoned.
 The Hoare-Laval Pact showed that Britain and France were willing to appease
dictators to avoid war when it was in their interests at the expense of the
League.
 Italy by 1936 had successfully conquered Abyssinia and formed a pact with
Hitler’s Germany called the Rome-Berlin Axis.

Conclusions about the League:

 The League failed to prevent the Japanese invasion of Manchuria

 The League failed to prevent the Italian invasion of Abyssinia.
 The idea of collective-security failed to protect either China or Abyssinia.
 The League lost its credibility as a peacekeeping organisation.
 Hitler saw the weaknesses of the League, which encouraged him to ignore the
terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and led to his appeasement by Britain and
France.

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GLOSSARY

Abyssinia (The old name for Ethiopia.)

Collective Security (The principle that if one member of the League of Nations were
attacked all other members would come to their protection.)
Disarmament (Getting rid of countries weapons.)
Economic Sanctions (To stop trading with a country to punish it for its actions.)
Isolationism (The idea the US should not get involved in the problems of the world.)
League of Nations (The organisation set up after WW1 to keep world peace.)
Manchuria (A province of China.)
Negotiate (To reach a mutually agreeable compromise between countries.)
Neutral (Not taking sides in disputes between countries.)
Treaty (An agreement between countries.)
Treaty of Versailles (The treaty forced on Germany after WW1.)
Veto (The power to block any action by voting against it.)

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The League of Nations. No Unsure Yes?

The Role of the League of Nations.

- The role of the League of Nations.
- The reasons the US did not join the League.
The Structure of the League of Nations.
- The Assembly.
- Council.
- The Secretariat.
- The Permanent Court of International Justice.
The Powers of the League of Nations.
- How the League could settle disputes.
- The enforcement powers of the League of Nations.
- The Strengths of the League.
- The Weaknesses of the League.
The Japanese Invasion of Manchuria (1931).
- The causes of the invasion of Manchuria.
- The reaction of the league to the invasion of Manchuria.
The Italian invasion of Abyssinia (1935).
- The causes of the invasion of Abyssinia.
- The reaction of the league to the invasion of Abyssinia.
- The Hoare-Laval Pact.

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