League of s

7/31/2019 League of s

1/4

LEAGUE OF NATIONSM. AAMIR SULTAN

After a chaotic and drastic war among nations which left a fear in the hearts and the minds of the

people. This quest of survival and protection lead to the formation of the league of nation after

the World War 1 in 1919

The League of Nations (LoN) was founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 19191920. International co-operation to promote collective security originated in the Concert of

Europe that developed after the Napoleonic Wars in the nineteenth century in an attempt to

maintain the status quo between European states and so avoid war. This period also saw the

development of international law with the first Geneva conventions establishing laws about

humanitarian relief during war and the international Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. The

forerunner of the League of Nations, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), was formed by peace

activists William Randal Cremer and Frederic Passy in 1889. The organization was international

in scope with a third of the members of parliament, in the 24 countries with parliaments, serving

as members of the IPU by 1913. Its aims were to encourage governments to solve internationaldisputes by peaceful means and arbitration

The results of the First World War in 1914were unprecedented casualty level with eight and a

half million members of armed services dead, an estimated 21 million wounded, and

approximately 10 million civilian deaths. By the time the fighting ended in November 1918, the

war had a profound impact, affecting the social, political and economic systems of Europe and

inflicting psychological and physical damage on the continent. Anti-war sentiment rose across

the world; the First World War was described as "the war to end all wars", and its possible

causes were vigorously investigated. The perceived remedies to these were seen as the

creation of an international organization whose aim was to prevent future war throughdisarmament, open diplomacy, international co-operation, restrictions on the right to

wage wars, and penalties that made war unattractive to nations.

While the First World War was still underway, a number of governments and groups had already

started developing plans to change the way international relations were carried out in order to

prevent a repetition of the war. The idea for the League of Nations itself appears to have

originated with the British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey, United States President Woodrow

Wilson and his advisor Colonel Edward M. House. The creation of the League was a centerpiece

of Wilson's Fourteen Points for Peace.

The Paris Peace Conference, convened to build a lasting peace after World War I, approved the

proposal to create the League of Nations (French: Socit des Nations, German: Vlkerbund) on

25 January 1919. On 28 June 1919, 44 states signed the Covenant. Despite Wilson's efforts to

establish and promote the League, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October

1919, the United States did not join the League.

The League held its first council meeting in Paris on 16 January 1920, six days after the

Versailles Treaty came into force. In November, the headquarters of the League moved to


2/4

Geneva, where the first General Assembly was held on 15 November 1920 with representatives

from 41 nations in attendance.

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 suggested that the League had failed in its primary purpose, which was to

avoid any future world war. The United Nations replaced it after the end of the war and inherited

a number of agencies and organizations founded by the League.

WEAKNESSES&FAILURES

The onset of the Second World War suggested that the League had failed in its primary purpose,

which was to avoid any future world war. There were a variety of reasons for this failure, many

connected to general weaknesses within the organization.

The origins of the League as an organization created by the Allied Powers as part of the peace

settlement to end the First World War led to it being viewed as a "League of Victors". It also tied

the League to the Treaty of Versailles, so that when the Treaty became discredited and

unpopular, this reflected on the League of Nations.

The League's supposed neutrality tended to manifest itself as indecision. It required a unanimous

vote of its nine-, later fifteen-, member Council to enact a resolution; hence, conclusive and

effective action was difficult, if not impossible. It was also slow in coming to its decisions as

certain decisions required the unanimous consent of the entire Assembly. Also the Assembly met

only once in a year which proved to be a real hurdle in the progress.

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. Most notably missing

was the position that the United States of America was supposed to play in the League, not only

in terms of helping to ensure world peace and security but also in financing the League.

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 the United Kingdom hesitant to oppose its close ally, nothing

was done in the League despite the clear breach of League rules. This set a significant precedent,the League rarely acted against major powers, and occasionally broke its own rules.

The Manchuria Crisis was one of the League's major setbacks and acted as the catalyst for

Japan's withdrawal from the organization. In the Mukden 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 in

September 1931. (In fact, the sabotage had been committed by Japanese Army personnel bent on

establishing a pretext for conquest.) In retaliation, the Japanese army, acting contrary to the

civilian government's orders, occupied the entire province of Manchuria, which they named
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World_Warhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_of_World_War_Ihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Americahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Americahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_of_World_War_Ihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World_War


3/4

Manchukuo. In 1932, Japanese air and sea forces bombarded the Chinese city of Shanghai and a

short war broke out.

The Chinese government asked the League for help, but the long voyage around the world 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 demandedManchuria is 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 (only Japan voted against), Japan left the League. Economic sanctions were

powerless, since Japan's major trading partner was the U.S., which was not a member of the

League and declined to cooperate with it out of fear of war. The United Kingdom, concerned

about the security of its large commercial interests in China as well as its Asian colonies, was

reluctant to anger Japan over a region that was not central to its own interests. Once again, the

League bowed to the more powerful, and showed its weakness.

The League was powerless and mostly silent in the face of major events leading to World War II

such as Hitler's re-militarization of the Rhineland, occupation of the Sudetenland and annexation

of Austria. 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.

The League lacked the force or presence to stop aggression. They usually worked in a way where

they looked for peaceful solutions but the fact that the aggressor was always ready for war meant

that the diplomatic process was made meaningless. Though the league had the right to use the

force it did not have any. It depended on the forces being contributed by the Great Powers and

they were not always ready for this course of action as was evident through the Abyssinia

conflict.

DEMISE&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. The headquarters of the League, the Palace of Peace, remained

unoccupied for nearly six years until the Second World War ended.

At the 1943 Tehran Conference, the Allied Powers agreed to create a new body to replace the

League: the United Nations. Many League bodies, such as the International Labor Organization,

continued to function and eventually became affiliated with the UN The structure of the United

Nations was intended to make it more effective than the League.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_des_Nationshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Conferencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nationshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Labour_Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Labour_Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nationshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Conferencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_des_Nations


4/4

The final meeting of the League of Nations was held in 19 April 1946 in Geneva. Delegates from

34 nations attended the assembly. This session concerned itself with liquidating the League:

assets worth approximately $22,000,000 in 1946, including the Palace of Peace and the League's

archives, were given to the UN, reserve funds were returned to the nations that had supplied

them, and the debts of the League were settled.

Robert Cecil is said to have summed up the feeling of the gathering during a speech to the final

assembly when he said:

Let us boldly state that aggression wherever it occurs and however it may be defended, is an

international crime, that it is the duty of every peace-loving state to resent it and employ

whatever force is necessary to crush it, that the machinery of the Charter, no less than the

machinery of the Covenant, is sufficient for this purpose if properly used, and that every well-

disposed citizen of every state should be ready to undergo any sacrifice in order to maintain

peace ... I venture to impress upon my hearers that the great work of peace is resting not only on

the narrow interests of our own nations, but even more on those great principles of right and

wrong which nations, like individuals, depend.

The League is dead. Long live the United Nations

The motion that dissolved the League passed unanimously. The President of the Assembly, Carl

J. Hambro of Norway, declared "the twenty-first and last session of the General Assembly of the

League of Nations is closed. As a result, the League of Nations ceased to exist on 20 April

1946.

Professor David Kennedy has suggested that the League was a unique moment when

international affairs were institutionalized as opposed to the pre-World War I methods of law

and politics. The principal Allies in World War II (the UK, the USSR, France, the U.S., and

China) became permanent members of the UN Security Council; these new Great Powersgained 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 are also

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 during the Korean War and the peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia. The UN has

in some cases been forced to rely on economic sanctions. The UN has also been more successfulthan the League in attracting members from the nations of the world, making it more

representative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kennedyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Unionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Chinahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Councilhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Councilhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Warhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacekeepinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Federal_Republic_of_Yugoslaviahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Federal_Republic_of_Yugoslaviahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacekeepinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Warhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Councilhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Chinahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Unionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kennedy

Documents

League of s