 The L of N was set up because Wilson wanted it more than anything else.  He wanted the League to be a ‘world parliament’ where nations could sort out arguments.  He wanted to make the world a better place.

 Stop wars.  Improve people’s lives.  Disarmament.  Enforce the Treaty of Versailles.

 The United States did not join the League.  The cartoon suggests that the Senate rejected the Treaty because it had been left out of negotiations.  Americans did not want to get dragged into other countries’ problems.

 Forty-two countries joined the League at the start.  In the 1930’s about 60 countries were member.  This made the League appear strong.

 The most powerful countries in the world were not members.  The USA did not want to join.  The Russians refused to join they were Communists!!  Germany was not allowed to join.  This weakened the League.

 Britain and France were the main members.  Italy and Japan were also members.  These were the most powerful countries.

 Covenant – all members had promised to keep the peace (Article X)  Condemnation – the League could tell a country it was doing wrong.  Arbitration – the League could offer to decide between two countries.  Sanctions – stopping trade

 The League could use its four powers to make countries do as it wanted.  Theoretically, the league was allowed to use military force.  The League did not have an army of its own.  If a country ignored it, there was nothing the League could do.

 The absence of the US was catastrophic.  The US was the wealthiest nation in the world and had the greatest potential to intervene in the interest of maintaining peace.  The absence of the USA meant that challenges to the status quo established at Versailles, would meet limited resistance.

 The concept of collective security depended on collective action.  The absence of the three great powers limited the effectiveness of the League’s reaction in a crisis.

 The Treaty of Rapallo demonstrated how the League had no recourse.  It also illustrated that the disarmament clause of the T of V was dead in the water.  Germany developed weapons which could not be seen by League inspectors, they also trained large numbers of personnel.

 The disarmament conference in Washington. (organized by the US!)  The Locarno Treaty between France and Germany which promised lasting peace. (Germany was not a member of the League!)

 The absence of the defeated countries meant that the League was a league of victors enforcing the T of V.  Another serious problem was the fact that a number of important countries dropped out between 1919 and 1939.

 The different parts of the League were supposed to work together.  In a crisis no-one could agree.

 Assembly – the main meeting of the League met once a year.  Its main problem was that decisions had to be unanimous, which was very difficult to achieve.  Council – a small group of the more important nations – Britain, France, Italy and Japan plus some other countries met 4-5 times a year.

 Agencies (committees of the League):  Court of International Justice – for small disputes  Health (to improve world health)  International Labor Organization (to try to get fair wages)  Slavery (to end slavery)  Refugees  Secretariat – was supposed to organize the League but failed

 This was the cornerstone of the L of N.  Article X – all nations would protect the other members against aggression.  No more alliance systems or to defend one’s own self- interest.  C.S. is a more abstract concept.  It does not specify where threats come from.  It assumes that all nations will see each challenge in the same light.

 Not all nations see every crisis in the same way.  It failed as a concept because it ignored reality.  It required a level of altruism that humans had not yet been capable of.  It failed because it asked nations to give up their freedom of action.  It also asked nations to enforce policies they disagreed with.  Or intervene against countries they were friends with.

 The league could not be considered very collective if three of the largest nations were not members of the League.  The UK and France could not agree on their treatment of Germany.  It was likely they would not agree on any major issues.

 Collective Security  Moral Persuasion  Community of Power  The cartoon is from 1936 and it is entitled “Moral Persuasion”  What was it saying about the League?

 The weakness of collective security was demonstrated by the fact that it was necessary to reinforce the obligation of the league members to resist aggression.  Draft treaty of Mutual Assistance in 1923 – supported by France but rejected by the UK and its dominions.  It would have called on nations to support the victims of aggression as determined by the League.  The same thing happened with the Geneva Protocol for the Pacific settlement of International Disputes.  This would have enforced compulsory arbitration in all disputes.

 Few members of the League were willing to take on the open-ended commitments that collective security entailed.  The main reason being self-interest.  Also after WW1 the prospect of armed intervention would not gain support from the population of any nation.  There was widespread opposition to using military force to resolve other countries disputes.  Especially if the aggressor was a large country.  This was true of the Corfu dispute in  This was led by Mussolini and members of the League took no action.

 An Italian general was killed while he was doing some work for the League in Greece.  Mussolini was angry with the Greeks and invaded Corfu.  The Greeks asked the League to help.  The Council met and told Mussolini to leave Corfu.  It told Greece to give some money to the League.  Mussolini refused.  The League changed its decision told Greece to apologize and pay money to Italy.  The Greeks did as the League said and then Mussolini gave Corfu back to Greece.

 It was a concept that attracted great popular support but nothing of a concrete nature.  It was an illusion in which desperate populations wanted to believe.  However, if there was to be collective security then the collective has to agree.  The world in the 1920’s and 30’s was far from agreement on many fronts.

 In the early years of the league it was called on to intervene in a number of disputes.  Its record of success is mixed. It allows us to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the League and collective security.  Success: The Aaland Islands, Upper Silesia and the Greco- Bulgarian War of  Failures: The Seizure of Fiume, Vilna, the Russo-Polish War, the Corfu incident and the Ruhr invasion.

 Greek soldiers were killed in a fight on the border between Greece and Bulgaria.  The Greeks were angry.  Bulgaria asked the League to help.  The Council of the League met.  It condemned the Greeks and told them to leave Bulgaria.  The Bulgarian govt sent orders for their soldiers not to fight back.  The Greeks did as the League said and left Bulgaria.

 Greece and Bulgaria are fighting like Tweedle- dum and Tweedle –dee.  The League, like the dove of peace stops the fight.  ‘Just then came down a monstrous dove whose force was purely moral,  Which tuned the heroes hearts to love and made them drop their quarrel.

 The antagonists were small or medium powers.  These powers were usually unwilling to resort to violence.  This allowed the League to negotiate and enforce a settlement which both parties would accept.

 The dispute involved a major power that refused to submit to the League.  Countries decided to resort to violence and not seek peaceful solutions.  The Corfu incident was a major indicator of the problems the league faced.  Greece complained that there seemed to be one set of rules for small countries and a different set of rules for big countries.  Italy was a major power and when she resorted to violence the league could do nothing.  This was the case when a major power pursued a policy in contravention of the League.  Peacekeeping would only prevail in the disputes of smaller countries provided that the stronger members could agree on a course of action.

 In the absence of the US it was vital that the remaining powers were in agreement on major issues.  This was not the case.  The British govts of the 1920’s did not really support European settlements.  In the dispute between Turkey and Greece , GB and France took opposite sides.  France supported Poland in Russia and Silesia, GB did not.  GB also had major problems in Ireland and the Empire so it did not focus on upholding the interests of the League.

 The Dutch did not give up the Kaiser.  Germany did not surrender war criminals.  She did not disarm or meet reparations quotas.  Austria could not and did not pay reparations.  Poland did not accept her frontiers.  Italian troops did not evacuate Fiume.  Turkey did not accept the Treaty of Sevres.  Nothing much happened.  The will to enforce the treaties was lacking or at best divided.