The League of Nations: effects of the absence of major powers, the principles of collective responsibility, and early attempts at peacekeeping (1920-25)

1.5.1 The League of Nations

• The goal was to create an organisation that would prevent war and resolve conflict by discussing issues in a peaceful manner
• Woodrow Wilson had talked about the League of Nations in his Fourteen Points
• The formation of the League was one of Wilson's most important goals
• Many people supported the idea as they believed it could keep peace between nations
• The League Covenant was written into the Versailles Treaty and so all those who signed the treaty would become members of the League
• The Covenant was made up of 26 articles
• The most important one was Article X which stated that "all members undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and political independence of all members of the League" 
• This was the idea of collective security. If one nation was under threat, the others would have to defend it even if it was of no interest to themselves and regardless of the outcome
• This meant that money and military staff would have to be sacrificed if ever one nation was under threat. 
• The main goal of the League was to prevent further conflict but it also dealt with humanitarian and economic problems
• There was the mandate commissions, the refugee department, the slavery commission, the drugs department as well as an International Court of Justice and an International Labour Organisation 

1.5.2 Effects of the absence of major powers

• USA never joined, USSR and Germany excluded
• USSR and Germany did not support the Versailles Treaty nor the League as they had been excluded from these and Germany was blamed for starting the war. This created tension instead of a reconciliation that Wilson had proposed.
• The USSR was weak after the war but once it regained it strength it would potentially become a major threat due to its exclusion from the League and wanting to recover the territory it had lost 
• Since Germany and the USSR were excluded from the League, once they regained strength and sought to recover their lost territory, it excluded the possibility to discuss the terms of the settlement and negotiate a compromise, instead it would lead to an inevitable conflict. 
• As soon as the USSR and Germany regained their strength, the new small states in Europe would be under threat
• The exclusion of both of these countries also lead to the Treaty of Rapallo which represented a major threat for the League as these two where both major powers that now where co-operating economically and militarily. It also undermined the terms of the Treaty of Versailles as Germany could increase its armament and train military staff in the USSR without the League knowing.
• Since Germany was not producing arms in the USSR, the effectiveness of the disarmament process that the League had worked on was greatly reduced 
• Because the League excluded the defeated nations it angered the USSR and Germany and both of these saw the League as an enemy which undermined the goal of peace keeping
• The most important loss for the League was the USA
• The USA was the only country which had emerged stronger after the end of the war
• All other countries where in debt while the USA was wealthy
• The USA had the greatest power to intervene in case of tension between countries which could lead to possible conflicts
• Affected the purpose and power of the League 
• Collective security depended on collective action
• The status of the league was greatly diminished
• When the USA refused to be part of the League and provide guaranteed military support to France, Britain also withdrew from the military guarantee
• The USA and Britain went back into isolationism
• France and Britain had very different mind sets about the treaty and Germany, Britain wanted Germany to rebuild its economy for the purpose of trade and France wanted to make it as hard as possible for Germany to recover economically as it was worried about a German attack in the future. This created conflict within the League.
• More important countries dropped out of the League between 1919 and 1939, this included Italy and Japan
• This weakened the League even further

1.5.3 Collective Security

• Article X stated that all members had to protect other members in the event of an aggression
• The idea of collective security was a new one
• In the past alliances had been made between countries with similar interests
• By agreeing to article X, each nation was being forced to defend the other nations from aggression no matter what the costs where and had to do so even if they had no interest in it for themselves
• This was a big sacrifice especially to South American nations who would have little interest in having to go to war for a dispute occurring in central Europe
• The major problems of collective security where that it obliged nations to give up their freedom of action and also nations might be forced to go to war against other nations with whom they might have a good relationship with, profit from their trade or then nations which could be much stronger than themselves and cause a lot of damage
• The absence of three major powers, USA, Germany and USSR meant that collective security had little chance of succeeding
• Also France and Britain who where both part of the League where growing further apart due to disagreement on how to deal with Germany. In an event of an attack there was the possibility that they would disagree on how to react

1.5.4 Early Attempts at Peacekeeping 1920-1925

• The League had a mandate to resolve conflicts between nations so that peace could be maintained
• The League intervened in many conflicts, some in which it did so successfully, others in which it failed to resolve conflict
• The successful interventions include the Greco-Bulgarian War of 1925 and Upper Silesia 
• The failed interventions include Vilna, the Russo-Polish War, the Seizure Fiume and the Ruhr invasion
• The successes of the League usually involved small or medium powered nations which wanted to avoid war and so the League managed to enforce a settlement on these disputes
• The failures of the League usually involved major powers who where not interested in keeping the peace or did not agree with the League's settlement and would not submit to it
• Disputes arose within the League itself 
• In the conflict between Turkey and Greece of 1920-1923 Britain and France took opposite sides
• France and Britain disagreed on how to deal with Germany which made tension grow between these two members of the League
• Peacekeeping was made increasingly difficult when the members of the League themselves could not resolve their own conflicts