The League of Nations

Introduction
 The last of President Woodrow Wilson’ s Fourteen Points called for the creation
of a general association of nations to protect the political independence and
territorial integrity of all nations.
 This idea resulted in the formation of the League of Nations.
 It marked the first attempt to establish an international organisation with
permanent institutions to promote world peace and security.
 The system of international cooperation had existed long before the First World
War but it was the experience of this war that provided the push for the
establishment of the League of Nations.
 In 1917, the British and French as well as President Wilson produced reports in
preparation for the formation of the League.
 These were followed by the pamphlet produced by the South African General
Jan Smuts which made popular the idea of the League.
 The Paris Peace Conference began its work by setting up a committee chaired
by Wilson to draft a document for the League of Nations.
 The committee produced a draft of the Covenant of the League of Nations within
11 days.
 The Peace Conference accepted the draft on 28 April 1919 and decided to
include it in the peace treaties signed with the defeated powers of Germany,
Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.
 The League of Nations held its first meeting in London on 10 January 1920.
 Its first action was to ratify the Treaty of Versailles.
 The headquarters of the League moved to Geneva in Switzerland on 1
November 1920.
 The first General Assembly of the League of Nations was held in Geneva by 41
countries on 15 November 1920.
  The official languages of the League of Nations were French, English and
Spanish.

Aims
 To prevent future wars and promote international peace and security for all
nations
 To respect and preserve the territorial integrity and political independence of
member states
 To encourage disarmament and discourage production of weapons of mass
destruction
 To settle disputes by peaceful means through mediation, arbitration and
conciliation
 To impose sanctions against aggressors
 To promote respect for international law
 To encourage open negotiations between nations
 To supervise the administration of former German colonies and former parts of
the Ottoman Empire
 To improve living and working conditions worldwide
 To abolish forced labour, slavery and slave trade
 To improve cooperation in transport and communication
 To encourage international cooperation especially in trade
 To resettle refugees and prisoners of war
 To promote good health standards
 To control traffic in dangerous drugs
 To improve the status of women

Organs of the League of Nations

Organs
 General
The Council
Assembly

Main
Organs

Permanent
The Court of
Secretariat International
Justice
International
Labour
Organisation

The General Assembly

 The General Assembly consisted of representatives of all the member states of

the League of Nations.
 Each member state was represented and had one vote in the General Assembly.
This promoted equality between big and small nations as all countries had equal
voting rights.
 All major decisions required the support of all members. This was called the
principle of unanimity.
 The General Assembly held its meetings in Geneva, Switzerland.
 The meetings were held once in a year usually in September.
 The General Assembly could also hold special meetings at the request of a
member state provided the majority of the members agreed.
 The General Assembly had several functions.
 It admitted new members to the League of Nations by a two-thirds majority vote.
  The General Assembly elected non-permanent members of the Council and
approved of any expansion of the League Council.
 It also approved the appointment of the Secretary-General and elected judges of
the Permanent Court of Justice.
 It also advised league members to revise matters that had become irrelevant due
to lapse of time and changed circumstances.
 It also called upon members to consider any conditions that threatened
international peace and security.
 The General Assembly was also responsible for approving the League budget
and decided on the policy and activities of the organisation.
 It also had a duty to supervise the work of the League Council.

The Council

 The Council was the executive body of the League of Nations.

 The Council began with four permanent members and four non-permanent
members which were elected by the General Assembly for a three-year period.
 The four permanent members were Britain, France, Italy and Japan.
 The United States of America (USA) was meant to be the fifth member but
America refused to join the League.
 The first four non-permanent members were Belgium, Brazil, Greece and Spain.
 The total number of the Council was changed several times over the years. The
number of non-permanent members was first increased to six on 22 September
1922 and then to nine on 8 September 1926.
 Germany joined the League and became the fifth permanent member.
 The Council held meetings about four times in a year but they could hold
extraordinary meetings at any time when need arose.
 The unanimity rule was also applied in making decisions in the Council.
 The main function of the Council was to maintain international peace and
security.
 It carried out several functions to achieve this objective.
  It drew plans for the member states to reduce their armaments and suggested
ways to prevent the manufacture of dangerous weapons by private enterprises.
 It was also responsible for suggesting methods by which the territorial integrity of
member states could be ensured.
 It had a duty to investigate a dispute and submit a report within six months after
receiving submission of a complaint.
 It also had power to impose sanctions or recommend to member countries to
raise an army to protect a member state when attacked.
 The Council was also responsible for electing the judges of the Permanent Court
of International Justice.

The Secretariat

The Secretariat was based at the League headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. It was
made up of a body of experts in various fields under the direction of the Secretary-
General. The first Secretary-General of the League was Sir Eric Drummond from Britain
who served between 1919 and 1933. He was succeeded by Joseph Avenol from France
(1933-1940) and Sean Lester from Ireland (1940-1946).

The Secretariat carried out the day-to-day work of the League. It registered and
published international treaties and prepared the agenda of both the General Assembly
and the Council. It prepared and kept documents of the League’s work. It also
interpreted, wrote minutes and reports of the League’s debates. It also collected and
recorded information on issues under investigation.

The Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ)

 The Permanent Court of International Justice held its inaugural sitting in 1922
and was dissolved in 1946.
 It was made up of eleven judges and four deputy judges elected for nine years.
 Its judges were elected by the Council and General Assembly, and its budget
was provided by the Assembly.
 The function of the court was to hear and to determine any international dispute
submitted to it by the concerned parties.
  The Court also gave advice on any dispute or question referred to it by the
Council or General Assembly.
 The Court was also open to deal with any questions of law involving all nations of
the world.

International Labour Organisation (ILO)

 The International Labour Organisation (ILO) was established at the Paris Peace
Conference in 1919.
 Although the United States of America (USA) was not a member of the League of
Nations, it joined the International Labour Organisation on 20 August 1934.
 The International Labour Organisation consisted of all of the member states of
the League of Nations.
 Each member state sent four representatives, two representing the government,
one representing the employers and one representing the workers.
 These representatives met annually to share information and promote new laws
for improving the living and working conditions of the workers.
 The International Labour Organisation wanted to maintain fair and humane
conditions of labour for men, women and children.
 It provided the annual conference with all the information it needed to make
decisions.

Other agencies and commissions

 Disarmament Commission
 Health Organisation
 Mandates Commission
 International Commission on International Cooperation
 Permanent Central Opium Board
 Commission for Refugees
 Slavery Commission
The work of the League of Nations
 The work of the League of Nations was concerned with political, economic and
social matters.
 Most of its political work was successful in the 1920s but found it difficult to
prevent aggression by the big powers such as Germany, Italy and Japan in the
1930s.
 The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 proved that the League of
Nations failed in its main political work of maintaining world peace and security.
 However, the League of Nations scored many successes in its non-political
activities.

Political work of the League

The Aaland Islands Dispute (1921)

 One of the earliest political works of the League of Nations involved the Aaland
Islands dispute.
 The Aaland Islands were a collection of islands between Sweden and Finland.
 The islands were largely Swedish-speaking but had come under the control of
Finland in the early 1900s.
 From 1917 the islands wished to join Sweden but Finland did not wish to
surrender the territory.
 In 1921, Sweden appealed to the League of Nations to intervene in the dispute.
 The League determined that the islands should remain part of Finland.
 Sweden accepted the decision avoiding a potential war between the two
countries.

Conflict over Upper Silesia (1921)

 The League of Nations was also successful in resolving the conflict over Upper
Silesia in 1921.
  The Treaty of Versailles had ordered a plebiscite in Upper Silesia to determine
whether it should join Germany or Poland.
 In the plebiscite about 59.6% (around 500,000) voted to join Germany.
 This resulted in an uprising in 1921. The League of Nations was asked to settle
the matter. In 1922, after six weeks of investigation, the League decided to divide
Upper Silesia between Germany and Poland but the whole area was to be
administered by the League for 15 years.
 Both countries accepted the decision made by the League in May 1922.

Occupation of the Ruhr (1923)

 Germany was forced to pay reparations under the Treaty of Versailles.

 They could pay in money or goods but in 1922 Germany was not able to make its
payments.
 In 1923, France and Belgium invaded the German industrial area of the Ruhr in
response to German failure to pay.
 This was a great violation of the principles of the League of Nations.
 The League did nothing to oppose the invasion.
 France was a major League member and Britain was not prepared to oppose its
close ally.
 The incident showed that the League of Nations was reluctant to act against
major powers and often broke its own rules.

Vilna dispute (1920-23)

 Another failure of the League of Nations was over the invasion of Vilna by
Poland.
 After the First World War, Poland and Lithuania gained their independence as
separate territories.
 The city of Vilna was made the capital of Lithuania despite being inhabited mainly
by Poles.
 In 1920, Poland invaded Vilna.
  The League of Nations ordered Poland to withdraw.
 Poland refused and incorporated Vilna.
 Both Britain and France were not keen to enforce the League decision because
Poland was a potential ally in the event of a war against Russia.
 The British and the French were also reluctant to antagonize Poland because it
acted as a buffer zone between Europe and the spread of communism from
Russia.
 The matter was settled by the Conference of Ambassadors, a body set up in
Paris to deal with any matters not settled by the peace treaties.
 The Conference of Ambassadors handed Vilna to Poland.
 The League finally accepted the Polish occupation of Vilna on 15 March 1923.
 Poland was able to keep Vilna until the Russian invasion in 1939.
 On the other hand, Lithuania refused to accept Polish rule over Vilna.
 Thus Poland succeeded in using force which was against the principles of the
League of Nations.

Dispute over Memel (1923)

 The port city of Memel and the surrounding area was placed under the control of
the League of Nations after the end of the First World War and was governed by
a French general for three years.
 The population was largely Lithuanian and Lithuania invaded the area in 1923.
 The League intervened and ceded the land around Memel to Lithuania but
declared that the port should remain an independent zone.
 Lithuania agreed to the decision.
 The incident could be seen as a failure in that the League did not take action
against the use of force by Lithuania.
 At the same time the settlement of the dispute was a success in that the League
prevented much bloodshed

Corfu Incident (1923)

  A border dispute broke out between Greece and Albania in 1923.
 On 27 August 1923, the Italian general Enrico Tellini and his men were killed on
the Greco-Albanian border.
 The Italian leader, Benito Mussolini was incensed and demanded the Greeks to
pay reparations and execute the murderers.
 On 31 August 1923, Italian forces occupied the Greek island of Corfu with fifteen
people being killed.
 The League of Nations condemned Italy but at the same time demanded that
Greece should pay the indemnity.
 Mussolini appealed to the Conference of Ambassadors and managed to make
the League change its decision.
 Greece was forced to apologise and to pay compensation to Italy immediately.
 Mussolini was able to leave Corfu in victory.
 The League showed that it had given in to pressure from a large country. This
was one of the League’s major failures.

Dispute between Greece and Bulgaria, 1925

 In 1925, Greece invaded Bulgaria after a border incident between the two
countries.
 The League of Nations intervened.
 It condemned the Greek invasion, called for Greek withdrawal and payment of
compensation to Bulgaria.
 Greece accepted the League’s demands but complained about the different
treatment given to Italy over the Corfu incident.

Mosul Boundary Dispute (1924-26)

 In 1926, the League of Nations resolved the dispute between Britain and Turkey
over the control of the former Ottoman province of Mosul.
 Britain wanted the oil-rich Mosul frontier region to be part of its mandate of Iraq.
 Turkey claimed the province because it had been part of its historic lands.
  The League sent a team to the region in 1924 to study the case and in 1925
recommended that Mosul should be given to Iraq.
 The League Council accepted the recommendation and awarded Mosul to Iraq
on 16 December 1925.
 Turkey rejected the League decision.
 However, on 5 June 1926, Turkey signed a treaty with Britain and Iraq and,
agreed that Mosul should go to Iraq.

Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1932)

 The Manchuria Incident also known as the Mukden Incident was one of the major
failures of the League of Nations which led to Japan’s withdrawal from the
organisation.
 Japan controlled the South Manchurian Railway in the Chinese province of
Manchuria.
 On 18 September 1931, Japan claimed that Chinese soldiers had sabotaged the
railway which was a major trade route between China and Japan.
 Japan responded by occupying the whole of Manchuria and renamed it
Manchukuo.
 Germany and Italy recognised the new state of Manchukuo but the rest of the
world still saw Manchuria as a region of China.
 In 1932, Japan air and sea forces bombarded the Chinese city of Shanghai.
 China appealed to the League of Nations for help.
 The League sent the Lytton Commission to investigate but the arrival of the
officials was delayed by the long voyage by ship.
 When the officials arrived they were confronted by two opposing views.
 The Chinese claimed that the Japanese invasion was unlawful while the
Japanese claimed that they had invaded to keep peace in the area.
 It took a year for the Lytton Report to be presented and voted upon by the
League of Nations.
 The report condemned Japan and demanded that Manchuria should be returned
to China.
  Before the General Assembly voted on the report, Japan announced its intention
to invade more of China.
 The General Assembly voted in favour of the report in 1933 and Japan withdrew
from the League in protest.
 The most the League did was condemn Japan.
 The League did not impose economic sanctions or declare war against Japan.
 Economic sanctions would have been ineffective because Japan could simply
have turned and traded with the USA which was not a member of the League.
 The League did not raise an army to attack Japan due to self-interests of its
member states.
 This meant that countries like Britain and France were more interested in their
own affairs than provide an army to the League.
 Japan was able to maintain control of Manchuria until Russia took over the area
and returned it to China after the Second World War in 1945.

War between Bolivia and Paraguay (1932)

 The League of Nations also failed to prevent the Chaco War between Bolivia and
Paraguay in 1932.
 The arid Chaco region of South America was of strategic importance.
 It gave control of the Paraguay River which could have given access to the
Atlantic Ocean for the landlocked countries of Bolivia and Paraguay.
 War broke out in 1932 when Bolivia attacked Paraguay.
 Paraguay appealed to the League of Nations but the League did not take any
action.
 The war continued between Bolivia and Paraguay.
 An agreement for negotiating peace was signed on 12 June 1935 as a result of
efforts by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and the USA.
 By then Paraguay had taken control over most of the Chaco region.
 In July 1938 a Peace Treaty was finally signed by which Paraguay gained control
of three-quarters of the Chaco region.
  Thus the League of Nations had not succeeded in the dispute between Bolivia
and Paraguay.

Failure of Disarmament (1923-1933)

 The Disarmament Commission was established to limit armaments as a way of

maintain peace.
 The arms race had been one of the causes of the First World War.
 The major powers had committed themselves to disarmament in both the Treaty
of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations.
 Disarmament, which was one of the main aims of the League of Nations
completely failed.
 The Commission initially got an agreement from France, Italy, Japan, and Britain
that they would limit the size of their navies.
 However, Britain refused to sign a 1923 disarmament treaty.
 Also, the Briand-Kellogg Pact facilitated by the Commission in 1928 failed to
outlaw war.
 In 1933, the Disarmament Conference failed as all nations refused to reduce
their armaments.
 Germany which had become a permanent member of the Council withdrew from
the League.
 The Commission ultimately failed to stop the military buildup by Germany, Italy
and Japan in the 1930s.

The Saar plebiscite (1935)

 The Saar was a province formed from parts of Germany that was established
and placed under the League of Nations under the Treaty of Versailles.
 A plebiscite was to be held after 15 years to decide whether the Saar should join
Germany or France.
 In 1935, a plebiscite was held and 90.3% of the people voted in favour of union
with Germany.
 After the referendum, the Saar became part of Germany once again.
Italian invasion of Abyssinia (1935-6)

 In December 1934, a skirmish occurred on the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) border

between Italian and Abyssinian troops.
 Benito Mussolini, the Italian leader, demanded compensation for 30 Italians killed
in the incident.
 The Abyssinian Emperor, Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations and
was told to negotiate with the Italians.
 In October 1935, Benito Mussolini organised a full-scale invasion of Abyssinia
when he sent General Pietro Badoglio and 400,000 troops to attack the country.
 The League acted quickly. Within a week they condemned the Italian invasion
and imposed economic sanctions on Italy.
 Economic sanctions were ineffective as Britain and France were reluctant to
impose sanctions on Italy.
 They did not want to antagonize Mussolini and Italy continued to have oil, coal
and steel which were important resources in its war against Abyssinia.
 They even left the Suez Canal open to ensure continued supply of war materials.
 Austria, Hungary and Germany also refused to apply sanctions against Italy.
 The USA had also announced on 9 October that it would not support any League
action against Italy.
 Thus the better equipped Italian army continued with its conquest of Abyssinia.
 The Italian army used mustard gas and flame throwers against the Abyssinians.
 The Italian army continued its advance and captured the Abyssinian capital city
of Addis Ababa in May 1936.
 Emperor Haile Selassie was forced to flee into exile. Abyssinia was declared part
of the Italian East African Empire.
 The League sanctions were lifted on 4 July 1936 but it was now pointless.
 Italy soon resigned from the League of Nations in 1937.
 The response of the major powers to the Abyssinian crisis showed that they were
not much concerned with the plight of small countries inhabited by non-
Europeans which were not important to their interests.
Spanish Civil War (1936)

 In May 1936, civil war broke out in Spain between the republican government
and right-wing nationalists.
 The Spanish government appealed to the League of Nations in September 1936
for arms to defend its independence.
 However, the League of Nations did not intervene itself or prevent foreign
intervention in the conflict.
 Germany and Italy continued to give military aid to nationalist rebels under
General Franco while Russia supported the Republican government.

German and Italian aggression

 The League of Nations was mostly silent in the events leading to the outbreak of
the Second World War in 1939.
 Germany occupied the Rhineland, the Sudetenland, and united with Austria all of
which had been forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles.
 As with Japan, Germany in 1933 and Italy in 1937 withdrew from the League
than accept its judgement.
 German demand for the City of Danzig was a significant factor in the outbreak of
the Second World War in 1939.
 The last action of the League of Nations was to expel Russia in December 1939
after it had invaded Finland.

Mandate territories

 After the end of the First World War, the Allied Powers were faced with the
problem of former German colonies in Africa and the Pacific, and the several
Arab-speaking provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
 The Paris Peace Conference agreed that these territories should be administered
by certain powers on behalf of the League of Nations.
  These territories came to be known as Mandates. Fourteen mandate territories
were divided among seven mandatory powers of Britain, South Africa, France,
Belgium, New Zealand, Australia and Japan.
 These countries were expected to rule mandate territories in the interest of the
local people and prepare them for future independence.
 The Permanent Mandates Commission was established to supervise these
powers which were required to submit reports of their progress.
 In practice, the Mandate territories were treated as colonies.
 They did not achieve independence until the collapse of the League of Nations
except Iraq which joined the League on 3 October 1932.
 The Commission also organised plebiscites in disputed territories so that the
people could decide which country they wanted to join.

Economic and Social Work of the League

The Health Organisation

 The Health Organisation was concerned with world health matters.

 Its aim was to end diseases such as leprosy, malaria, yellow fever and typhus.
 It carried out international campaigns to exterminate malaria and organised a
large campaign to prevent a typhus epidemic in the Soviet Union.
 The League of Nations helped to fight typhus and prevented the spread of
cholera from the East.
 The Health Organisation performed a lot of useful work in organising action
against other diseases such as small-pox, leprosy, rabies, cancer, tuberculosis,
and syphilis.
 It helped researches in medicine and helped nations to improve their health
matters.
 It organised technical conferences and cooperated with governments in reporting
the spread of epidemics.

Commission for Refugees

  The League of Nations created a Commission for Refugees in 1921 to settle
refugees and prisoners of war.
 The First World War had resulted in the problem of refugees and prisoners of
war.
 In April 1920, there were over half a million prisoners of war most of them in
Russia waiting to be repatriated.
 The Council of the League appointed Fridtjof Nansen of Norway to look into the
situation.
 Nansen took immediate steps and repatriated more than 427,000 prisoners of
war to 26 different countries.
 In 1922, the Refugee Commission established camps in Turkey to deal with the
refugee crisis in that country and helped prevent hunger and disease.
 One of the greatest achievements of the Refugee Commission was the
introduction of the Nansen passport as a means of identification for stateless
people.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO)

 The International Labour Organisation convinced many countries to adopt its

recommendations to improve the living and working conditions of their workers.
 The working hours were reduced to eight hours a day or 48 hours a week.
 Workers got benefits such as paid annual holidays and the right to form trade
unions.
 It banned child labour and increased the rights of women in the workplace.
 Ship owners became liable for accidents involving sailors.
 In 1930, the League of Nations dealt with the problem of forced labour in Liberia.
 It carried out an investigation into alleged use of forced labour on the massive
Firestone rubber plantation.
 A League report found many government officials guilty of selling contract labour.
 The League threatened to take over control of Liberia unless reforms were
carried out.
  President Charles D. B. King, his vice-president and many government officials
were forced to resign.
 The new President Edwin Barclay agreed to introduce reforms.

Slavery Commission

 The Slavery Commission was set up to abolish slavery and the slave trade.
 The League of Nations realised that slave markets existed in several countries.
 The League appointed the Slavery Commission to study information and the
institutions related to slavery, and to consider ways of eliminating them.
 The Slavery Commission helped to get rid of slavery and the slave trade as well
as prostitution and drug trafficking across the world.
 It succeeded in freeing 200,000 slaves in Sierra Leone and carried out raids
against slave traders to stop 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 monitored slavery, prostitution and
drug trafficking by keeping records on those issues.

Minorities Commission

 The Minorities Commission protected the right of racial and religious minorities.
 It encouraged countries to sign treaties that promoted minority rights such as
freedom of worship and freedom to speak their own languages.
 Countries that signed such treaties were expected to send report to the Minorities
Commission proving information on protection of minorities in their territories.

Economic and Financial Organisation

 The Economic and Financial Organisation was established to deal with economic
and financial problems faced by all European countries at the end of the First
World War.
 It aimed at finding solutions to monetary problems and, facilitate the movement of
goods and funds.
  It dealt with issues such as treatment of foreign nationals and businesses,
abolition of trade restrictions, veterinary medicines, international industrial
agreements and problems of smuggling.
 The League of Nations helped European countries that faced economic collapse
after the First World War.
 In 1921-22, Austria was on the verge of economic collapse and the League
organised an international loan to put the country back on its feet.
 Similar loans were organised to revive Hungary, Greece and Bulgaria.
 The League also established international agreements regarding customs, export
of certain commodities and suppression of fake currency.

Organisation for Communications and Transit

 The League of Nations created the Organisation for Communication and Transit
in 1920.
 Its General Conference included all member states while its Committee had 18
members.
 The Organisation for Communication and Transit facilitated the movement of
people and goods by simplifying administrative regulations.
 It recommended that strict passport and visa regulations should be removed.
 The organisation drew up agreements concerned with transport in international
rivers.
 It also helped with arbitration in disputes concerning transit.
 It also gave expert advice to both the Polish government to settle certain inland
shipping problems, and the Chinese government to develop its railways and
improve some of its waterways.

International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation

 The International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation was established in

1922.
 Its purpose was to improve the conditions of intellectual workers and facilitate
contacts.
  Its work included enquiry into the conditions of intellectual life, provide help to
countries whose intellectual life was in danger, create national committees for
intellectual cooperation, cooperation with international intellectual organisations,
protection of intellectual property, promote cooperation between universities,
coordinate international exchange of publications, and encourage international
cooperation in archaeological research.

Permanent Central Opium Board

 The Permanent Central Opium Board was set up in 1928.

 Its main purpose was to supervise the traffic in opium and other dangerous
drugs.
 It controlled the trade and production of drugs between the contracting parties.
 The Permanent Central Opium Board also limited the manufacture of narcotics
as the only way to prevent illicit drug trafficking.

Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children

 The Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children was set up in 1921.
 By the end of the First World War trafficking in women and children had grown on
a world scale.
 The Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children was set up to strengthen
measures against trafficking in women and children.
 The Committee coordinated and supervised work on women and child trafficking.

Reasons for collapse of the League of Nations

Weakness of League structure

 The structure of the League of Nations weakened the organisation in many ways.
 In the first place, all decisions of the League had to be unanimous that is agreed
to by every member state.
 This made it very difficult for the League to reach agreement on many issues as
a single country could block the decision of the majority.
  Furthermore, the fact that all countries had equal voting power meant that
important decisions could not be made when countries failed to agree with each
other.
 Also, when disagreement arose a country simply withdrew its membership and
the League could not do anything.
 The League was a voluntary association which relied on the willingness of
member states to cooperate.
 The fact that membership was voluntary meant that a country could walk out of
the League and carry out its wishes without hindrance.
 The decisions of the League were not binding on member states.
 The League did not have its own army and this made it difficult for the
organisation to take any direct and effective action.

Absence of major powers

 The League of Nations was crippled right from the start because not all countries
were members.
 The absence of the great powers weakened the League and this contributed to
the collapse of the League of Nations.
 One key weakness of the League of Nations was that the USA never joined. This
denied the League of Nations of support of the most powerful and influential
country in the world.
 Defeated countries like Germany were not allowed to join until much later which
upset them. They became suspicious of the League and came to view it as a
club of the victors.
 Germany only joined in 1926 but later withdrew in 1933 after the failure of the
Disarmament Conference.
 The Soviet Union which was excluded when the League was formed only joined
in 1934 when the organisation had become ineffective. It was expelled five years
later.
 Both Japan and Italy which were permanent members of the Council withdrew in
1933 and 1937.
  The League was dominated by Britain and France, and as a result other
countries lost confidence in the organisation.
 At the same time Britain and France were reluctant to use sanctions and even
more reluctant to resort to military action on behalf of the League.
 After the war, Britain often preferred to negotiate treaties without involving the
League.
 Britain and France finally abandoned the idea of collective security in favour of
appeasement in the face of growing German power under Adolf Hitler.
 In any case Britain and France were not powerful enough to enforce world
peace even if they wished to do so.

Association of the League with Peace Treaties

 The Covenant of the League of Nations was closely associated with the peace
settlement.
 It could have been better if it was kept separate.
 Many countries considered the Treaty of Versailles as a treaty of revenge and
refused to ratify it.
 They could not become members of the League after refusing to accept the
Treaty of Versailles.
 There were no chances of peace as Germany was completely humiliated by the
Treaty of Versailles.
 Germany was bound to defy the Treaty of Versailles and actually did that under
Hitler in the 1930s.

Conference of Ambassadors

 The Conference of Ambassadors also undermined the authority of the League.

 For example, in the dispute over Vilna, the Conference of Ambassadors ruled
over the dispute although Poland had appealed to the League of Nations.
 Once again the League of Nations was over-ruled by the Conference of
Ambassadors over the Corfu incident in 1923. The League had condemned Italy
 as the aggressor but the Conference of Ambassadors forced Greece to
apologise and to immediately pay compensation to the Italians.

Rise of dictatorships

 The rise of dictatorships in Italy, Japan and Germany reduced the chances of
success for the League of Nations.
 Japan was determined to expand its territory and withdrew from the League
when it was condemned for invading Manchuria.
 The Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, became aggressive in the 1930s and
attacked Abyssinia. He withdrew Italy from the League in 1937 after League
criticism for his attack on Abyssinia.
 Hitler withdrew Germany from League in 1933 after the failure of the
Disarmament Conference. Hitler weakened the League by following a policy of
aggression in the 1930s.

National interests

 The idea of collective security could only work if nations of the world were
prepared to sacrifice their national interests for the sake of the League or world
interests.
 However, national interests prevailed over world interests.
 This was also responsible for the failure of the League of Nations. Many
countries remained as members of the League of Nations as long as their
national interests were not threatened. They were more concerned with their
national interests than care for strengthening the League of Nations.
 Small nations lost faith in the League as it failed to protect them from aggression
by the great powers. The examples of Manchuria, Abyssinia and Czechoslovakia
showed that the League was powerless in dealing with great powers.

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