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HISTORICAL DICTIONARIES OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS SERIES Edited by Jon Woronoff 1. European Community, by Desmond Dinan. 1993 2. International Monetary Fund, by Norman K. Humphreys. 1993. Out of print. See No. 17 3. International Organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa, by Mark W. DeLancey and Terry M. Mays. 1994. Out of print. See No. 21 4. European Organizations, by Derek W. Urwin. 1994 5. International Tribunals, by Boleslaw Adam Boczek. 1994 6. International Food Agencies: FAO, WFP, WFC, IFAD, by Ross B. Talbot. 1994 7. Refugee and Disaster Relief Organizations, by Robert F. Gorman. 1994. Out of print. See No. 18 8. United Nations, by A. LeRoy Bennett. 1995 9. Multinational Peacekeeping, by Terry Mays. 1996. Out of Print. See No. 22 10. Aid and Development Organizations, by Guy Arnold. 1996 11. World Bank, by Anne C. M. Salda. 1997 12. Human Rights and Humanitarian Organizations, by Robert F. Gorman and Edward S. Mihalkanin. 1997 13. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), by Seth Spaulding and Lin Lin. 1997 14. Inter-American Organizations, by Larman C. Wilson and David W. Dent. 1997 15. World Health Organization, by Kelley Lee. 1998 16. International Organizations, by Michael G. Schechter. 1998 17. International Monetary Fund, 2nd Edition, by Norman K. Humphreys. 1999 18. Refugee and Disaster Relief Organizations, 2nd Edition, by Robert F. Gorman. 2000 19. Arab and Islamic Organizations, by Frank A. Clements. 2001 20. International Organizations in Asia and the Pacific, by Derek McDougall. 2002 21. International Organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2nd Edition, by Terry M. Mays and Mark W. DeLancey. 2002 22. Multinational Peacekeeping, Second Edition, by Terry M. Mays. 2004 23. League of Nations, by Anique H. M. van Ginneken. 2006
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Historical Dictionary of the League of Nations Anique H. M. van Ginneken
Historical Dictionaries of International Organizations, No. 23
The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland • Toronto • Oxford 2006
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SCARECROW PRESS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.scarecrowpress.com PO Box 317 Oxford OX2 9RU, UK Copyright © 2006 by Anique H. M. van Ginneken All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ginneken, Anique H. M. van, 1946Historical dictionary of the League of Nations / Anique H. M. van Ginneken. p. cm. — (Historical dictionaries of international organizations series ; no. 23) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8108-5473-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. League of Nations—History—Dictionaries. I. Title. II. Series. JZ4869.G56 2006 341.22'03—dc22 2005014314
∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Manufactured in the United States of America.
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To my mother, who fell victim to an Allied bombardment in Breda, in 1944. To my father, who was wounded during the first days of World War II, and who subsequently worked as a forced laborer in Czechoslovakia during the German occupation of the Netherlands, escaped, and was saved by the Brunekreeft family, members of the Dutch resistance. Just two random witnesses of a failing international system.
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Contents
Editor’s Foreword Jon Woronoff
ix
Preface
xi
Acronyms and Abbreviations
xiii
Chronology
xv
Introduction
1
THE DICTIONARY
29
Appendixes A The Covenant of the League of Nations
203
B List of Member States
217
C Secretaries-General
219
D Budget of the League
221
E Organization Scheme of the League of Nations
223
F Organizations Linked to the League of Nations
225
G The Organization of the Secretariat
227
Bibliography
229
About the Author
271
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Editor’s Foreword
It is amazing how poor a collective memory humanity has. Created after the bitterness and devastation of World War I, the League of Nations was supposed to put an end to war. It was also designed to resolve deeply embedded problems of nationalistic strivings and minorities and, alone or with other organizations, improve the difficult situation of women and children, workers and refugees, the less-advanced countries and outright colonies. It simply could not, with its limited powers and facing overwhelming challenges and repeated crises. So it was deemed a failure. But could any organization have succeeded under those conditions? More to the point, was it a failure of the League of Nations or a failure of the member states and humanity collectively? Nor should it be forgotten that its failure was far from total. The League’s achievements in many sectors, mainly social and technical, but even with regard to peaceful settlement and reconciliation, were considerable. And its biggest contribution was probably that it paved the way for the United Nations and the specialized agencies and non-governmental organizations that are fulfilling many of the promises once attached to the League. Without this Historical Dictionary of the League of Nations, the subseries on International Organizations would not be complete. It is, in a sense, the missing link without which the relative successes of many present-day organizations could not be properly understood and evaluated. Thus, just to remind readers, the introduction shows the difficult circumstances surrounding the birth of the League, just after the war and forsaken by its most important potential member. The chronology also fills in some of the background and especially notes the many events in a hectic—if brief—life from 1919 to 1946. The details are provided in the dictionary, with numerous entries on persons who shaped its establishment and operations, its various departments and sections, ix
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the many related organizations, its fairly broad range of activities, and then the most difficult issues it had to face. The bibliography is indispensable to learn more about the League, but also regrettably short because this first and vital attempt was too quickly blamed and forgotten. From the above, it must be obvious that we were lucky to find anyone to write this volume, let alone someone with such good credentials. Anique H. M. van Ginneken already focused on the League of Nations for her dissertation at Utrecht University: a study of the administration of the mandated territories. She has also written several articles on the mandate system for learned journals. But her background is much broader. She has undertaken archival research at the League of Nations Archives in Geneva and Foreign Ministry archives in London, Rome, the Hague, and Berne. And this can be inserted in the bigger picture because she has been teaching the history of international relations at the University of Utrecht since 1989. Jon Woronoff Series Editor
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The trouble with the League of Nations is that historians and students of international relations alike regard the organization as a failure at worst or merely a predecessor of the United Nations at best. Still, the organization—as may become apparent from this book—was more than that. Few people realize that an organization on such a scale had never been attempted before. The League, therefore, arose from nothing: it had no precedents and could not fall back on earlier institutions as models. Bearing that in mind, it is really amazing just how much the League achieved in its brief two decades of existence. Thus, any historian presenting the history of the League has to avoid the temptation of insisting on rectifying common opinion on the League’s performance. Basically, this book has no intention of vaunting the merits of the League, let alone playing down its weaknesses. The sole aim of this volume is to provide the reader with enough objective information on the League’s activities so that he or she can form a more balanced view. It focuses more on “what happened” and less on “why it happened.” An analysis of the League’s value will have to be left to other works. Therefore, this book deals only with countries and personalities in so far as they played a role within the League. Chronologically, only the interwar period is considered, not what happened to countries or personalities after the League. The book does not claim to provide the reader with a history of the interwar period. Nevertheless, political developments that on the surface had little to do with the League are included because they had a great impact on the League’s performance in the global arena. Therefore, international conferences, conventions, and treaties, even if held or concluded outside the League, form part of this dictionary. The League, from an administrative point of view, was an effective organization with many sections and commissions. Though most members xi
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of commissions were renowned experts in their field, only the heads of sections and commission chairs are mentioned here. The main purpose of the introduction is to show briefly the historical context in which the League was formed and functioned. The details, and there are many, are provided in the dictionary. The chronology provides the reader with an overview of what happened within and outside the League of Nations at the same time. The appendixes are designed to give the reader some facts and figures that are vital to understanding the functioning of the League: the Covenant, the very basis for its existence; its member states; its three secretaries-general; its budget; the relationship between its organs; the organizations linked to the League; and the working of its Secretariat. The bibliography is perhaps the most important part of this book. Harking back to the first sentence of this preface, the League has suffered from a lack of interest from contemporary historians. But that does not mean that many articles, books, and other publications did not appear during the League period or after that can give readers further insight into its workings, its successes, and its failures. And, obviously, there are numerous official documents of the League and related bodies. It is truly amazing how a picture, even if not worth a thousand words, can recreate the past and help us visualize things more concretely. The photos in this volume, which show some of the leading personalities and several significant bodies, are part of the collection of the Archives of the League of Nations and could be included here thanks to the kind assistance of Bernhardine Pejovic, the archives assistant in charge of the League of Nations Reading Room at the Library of the United Nations Office in Geneva.
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Acronyms and Abbreviations
ECOSOC FAO ICJ ICRC ILO IPU ITU NSDAP PAU PCIJ SDN TMC UN UNESCO UPU USSR WIPO WMO
Economic and Social Council (United Nations) Food and Agricultural Organization International Court of Justice International Committee of the Red Cross International Labour Organisation Interparliamentary Union International Telegraph Union; International Telecommunication Union Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei [National Socialist German Worker’s Party] Pan-American Union Permanent Court of International Justice Société des Nations [League of Nations] Temporary Mixed Commission for the Reduction of Armaments United Nations United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Conference Universal Postal Union Union of Soviet Socialist Republics World Intellectual Property Organization World Meteorological Organization
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1815 Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia resolve to hold regular meetings to discuss European matters: the Concert of Europe. Establishment of the Peace Society in New York. 1816
Establishment of the Peace Society in London.
1823 2 December: President James Monroe of the United States issues the Monroe Doctrine. 1856 After the Crimean War, the Conference of Paris constitutes a Law on Naval War and the legal force of treaties. Establishment of the European Danube Commission. 1864 Establishment of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 1865
Establishment of the International Telegraph Union (ITU).
1873
Establishment of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
1874 Conference of Brussels enacts a Law on Land War. Establishment of the General Postal Union; in 1878 its name is changed to Universal Postal Union (UPU). 1883 Establishment of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). 1884/1885 Conference of Berlin establishes rules on the use of the Congo Basin. Berlin Central African Act deals with questions of labor, opium, and the traffic in women and children. 1889 First hydrographic conference, eventually resulting in the establishment of the International Hydrographic Bureau. Establishment of the Interparliamentary Union (IPU). xv
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1890 Conference of Brussels issues a slave-trade general act. Brussels Act establishes Central International Office for the Control of the Trade in Spirituous Liquors in Africa. Establishment of the Pan American Union (PAU). 1892
International Sanitary Convention on Cholera and the Plague.
1899/1907 First and Second Peace Conference at the Hague. Both conferences elaborate the laws of war, develop rules on neutrality and the peaceful solution of international conflicts; establishment of the Hague Court of Arbitration. Agreement on disarmament could not be reached. 1901 Basel: Creation of the International Association for the Legal Protection of Workers. 1904 International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children signed in Paris. 1905
International Institute of Agriculture established in Rome.
1906
International Radiotelegraph Convention.
1907 Second Hague Peace conference. International Office of Public Health established in Paris. 1910 Establishment of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace by Andrew Carnegie. 1912
International Opium Convention signed at the Hague.
1913 Establishment of the Rockefeller Foundation by John D. Rockefeller Sr. Independence of Albania. 1914
28 July–4 August: Outbreak of World War I.
1915 Establishment of the British League of Nations Society. 26 April: Treaty of London between the Allies and Italy promises Italy the acquisition of South Tyrol, Istria, Dalmatia, Libya, Eritrea, and parts of Asia Minor. 17 June: Establishment of the American League to Enforce Peace. 1917 The Inquiry established, an American body of experts collecting data for the Paris peace conference. 6 April: American declaration of war on Germany. 25/26 October: Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. 2
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November: Balfour Declaration promises the Zionist Organization the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. 1918 8 January: President Woodrow Wilson delivers his “Fourteen Points” speech at a joint session of the two houses of U.S. Congress. One of these points envisages the establishment of a general association of nations. 16 February: Proclamation of the independent state of Lithuania. 14 October: Armistice of Mudros between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire. 3 November: Proclamation of the Polish Republic. 11 November: Armistice between the Allies and Germany. 1919 18 January: Opening of the Paris Peace Conference. 23 January: Fighting breaks out between Polish and Czechoslovakian troops over Teschen. 25 January: Plenary session of Paris Peace Conference accepts proposals for the creation of a League of Nations. Appointment of a committee to “work out the details of the constitution and functions of the League.” 23 March: Establishment of Italian combat groups, the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, by Benito Mussolini. 28 April: Peace Conference unanimously adopts draft Covenant of the League of Nations. Secretariat starts to function at Sunderland House, Curzon Street, London. 7 May: The Supreme Council allocates C-mandates. 10 June: The first secretary-general, Eric Drummond, presents a memorandum on the working of the administrative services. First sections of the Secretariat set up. 28 June: Covenant of the League of Nations signed as part of the Versailles Peace Treaty (Part I, Articles 1 to 26). Part XIII of the Peace Treaty contains the constitutive act of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). End of the Paris Peace Conference. 10 September: Treaty of Saint Germain-en-Laye signed between the Allies and Austria. Saint Germain Conventions revise the Berlin Central African Act of 1885 and the Brussels slave-trade general act of 1890. 29 October–29 November: First International Labor Conference held in Washington, D.C. 27 November: Peace Treaty of Neuilly signed between the Allies and Bulgaria. 1920 Allied troops supervise plebiscites in Schleswig, Klagenfurt, and Upper Silesia. The ethnic Swedish population of the Finnish Åland Islands demands association with Sweden. Red Cross Societies ask the Council of the League of Nations for assistance to the many refugees and prisoners of war in Soviet Russia. The League requests Fridtjof Nansen to investigate the problem. 10 January: Covenant of the
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League of Nations and Versailles Peace Treaty enter into force. 16 January: First session of the Council of the League of Nations in Paris. 10 February: North Schleswig plebiscite. 11 February: League takes over the administration of Danzig. 12 February: Allied occupation of Upper Silesia. 13 February: The Council accepts its responsibilities as regards the protection of minorities. 15 February: Allied occupation of Memel. 26 February: Governing Board of the Saar Territory installed. 11 March: The Arabs proclaim Faisal king of Syria. 13–17 March: Monarchist Kapp-putsch in Germany. 14 March: Southern Schleswig plebiscite. 19 March: Versailles Peace Treaty, and thereby the League of Nations, rejected by U.S. Senate. 6 April–17 May: French occupation of the Ruhr. 13–17 April: International Health Conference in London. 18–26 April: San Remo Conference allocates A-mandates. The Council suggests the United States as mandatory power over Armenia (rejected by Congress in June). 25 April–25 October: Polish–Russian war over Ukraine. 15 May: The Council approves the internal organization of the Secretariat of the League of Nations. 18 May–24 August: Enzeli affair between the Soviet Union and Persia. 4 June: Peace Treaty of Trianon signed between the Allies and Hungary. 16 June: International Jurists’ Committee meets for the creation of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ). 5–16 July: Spa conference on German reparations. 12 July: Peace treaty signed between the Soviet Union and Lithuania, by which Lithuania was recognized as an independent state and Vilna fell within the Lithuanian state. 25 July: French dethrone King Faisal of Syria. 28 July: Partition of the contested city and district of Teschen between Poland and Czechoslovakia. 2 August: Italo–Albanian agreement; Italy evacuates its troops from Albania, except for the island of Saseno. 10 August: Sèvres Peace Treaty concluded between the Allies and the Turkish government. 14 August: Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia conclude a treaty of alliance: the starting point for the formation of the Little Entente. 17 August: Romania joins the Yugoslavian–Czechoslovakian treaty of alliance. 5 September: Dispute between Poland and Lithuania over the city of Vilna. 24 September–8 October: International Financial Conference in Brussels. 10 October: Klagenfurt (Carinthia) plebiscite. 12 October: Peace Treaty of Riga ends the Polish–Russian war. 15–21 October: League Conference on Passports and Customs Formalities in Paris. 1 November: League of Nations’ seat transferred from London to Geneva. 9 November: Danzig
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declared a Free City under the administration of the League. 12 November: Treaty of Rapallo between Italy and Yugoslavia on the port of Fiume. 15 November: The Council asks that an international force be sent to the Polish–Lithuanian border during the dispute over Vilna. 15 November–18 December: First Assembly meeting convened by President Wilson. The Assembly admits Albania as a member of the League, despite frontier claims of Greece, Yugoslavia, and Italy. Finland, Costa Rica, and Bulgaria become member states. Argentina leaves the Assembly. Establishment of the Opium Committee. The Assembly adds the so-called optional clause to the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice. The Assembly nominates non-permanent Council members. Establishment of the Temporary Mixed Commission for the Reduction of Armaments (TMC) and Disarmament Section. 1 December: The Council approves appointment of the Permanent Mandates Commission and mandate texts for the C-mandates. 13 December: The Assembly approves draft statute of PCIJ. 15 December: Austria admitted as member of the League. 15–22 December: Brussels Conference on German reparations. 1921 International Hydrographic Bureau placed under the authority of the League; name changed to International Hydrographic Organization. International Federation of League of Nations’ Societies, also known as International Union of League of Nations Societies, created in Brussels. 24–30 January: Paris Conference on German reparations. 19 February: Poland signs mutual aid treaty with France. 21 February–4 March: London Conference on German reparations and Greco–Turkish war. 3 March: Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Poland conclude pacts of alliance with Romania, an extension of the Little Entente. 8 March: The Allied powers occupy some German cities to force the government to pay its reparations. 10 March–20 April: Barcelona: First General Conference on Communications and Transit. 18 March: Riga Peace Treaty between Poland and the Soviet Union signed. 20 March: Upper Silesia votes for union with Germany. 24 June: The Council decides that Åland Islands remain Finnish. 27 June: Fridtjof Nansen becomes High Commissioner of Refugees. 30 June–5 July: Geneva: International Conference on Traffic in Women and Children. 22–24 August: Intergovernmental Conference on Russian Refugees. 30 August: Dispute over Upper Silesia placed before the Council. 2 September: Permanent Court
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of International Justice comes into force. 5 September–5 October: Second session of the Assembly adopts amendment on the financial contribution of League member states and specifies the rules for the election of non-permanent members of the Council. Spain demands a permanent seat on the Council. Estonia and Latvia admitted as member states. October: Financial conference convened in Brussels by the Supreme Council to raise money for the Russian famine. 4–8 October: First session of Permanent Mandates Commission. 10–20 October: Neutralization of Åland Islands Conference in Geneva. 7 November: Establishment of the Italian fascist party, the Partito Nazionale Fascista, by Benito Mussolini. 9 November: Albanian frontiers settled by the Conference of Ambassadors and the Council. 23–26 November: German–Polish conference on Upper Silesia. 12 November–6 February 1922: Washington Conference on Naval Affairs. 1922 The Council establishes Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, designed to improve the material condition of intellectual workers. 30 January: The Assembly elects nine judges and four deputy judges of the PCIJ. 20–28 March: Warsaw Health Conference to extend the fight against the postwar epidemics beyond the Russian border. 10 April–19 May: Conference of Genoa, convened by Great Britain, on European reconstruction and disarmament which would include Germany and the Soviet Union. Separate trade agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union at Rapallo. 18 April: Polish incorporation of Vilna. 15 May: Geneva Convention on Upper Silesia. German–Polish Convention relating to Upper Silesia signed. 10 June: British White Paper declares Jewish immigration subject to the economic capacity of Palestine. 3–5 July: Intergovernmental conference on identity certificates for Russian refugees. 20 July: The Council approves mandate texts for the B-mandates. 18 September: Hungary admitted as League member state. 4–30 September: Third Assembly. Establishment of the Health Committee. 9–11 September: Greek troops defeated by Kemalist troops in Asia Minor. 25 September: Number of non-permanent members of the Council increased from four to six. Treaty of Mutual Guarantee adopted by resolution XIV of the Assembly. 4 October: Protocols relating to the financial reconstruction of Austria signed in Geneva. 20 October: King Faisal of Iraq concludes a treaty of alliance with Great Britain, which makes Iraq, nominally, an independent state. 28 October: Mussolini is invited to form a government in Italy. 1 November: Ottoman sultanate
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abolished. Turkish Republic proclaimed by Mustafa Kemal. 4 November: The district of Leticia Trapeze is ceded by Peru to Colombia. 20 November–4 February 1923: Lausanne Conference between the Allies and Turkey. 1923 2–4 January: Paris conference on Allied bonds and German reparations. 11 January: French occupation of the Ruhr to guarantee payment of reparations. Lithuania occupies the Memel territory. 14 March: Conference of Ambassadors allocates Vilna to Poland. 23 April–24 July: Lausanne Conference: Near Eastern Peace Treaty between Turkey and the Allies. Formation of the mixed Greco–Turkish commission to resettle Greek and Turkish populations. 31 August–12 September: Geneva: International Convention for the Suppression of the Circulation of and Traffic in Obscene Publications concluded and signed by more than 60 states. 31 August–27 September: Dispute over frontiers between Italy and Greece; Corfu occupied by Italy. Conference of Ambassadors decides on Italian evacuation of Corfu. 3–29 September: Fourth Assembly. Abyssinia and Ireland admitted as League members. Treaty of Mutual Assistance presented. 15 October–3 November: International Conference for the unification of customs formalities. 15 November–9 December: Second General Conference on Communications and Transit in Geneva. Convention on the International Regime of Maritime Ports and the Convention on the International Regime of Railways. 1924 Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP). 21 January: Death of Vladimir I. Lenin, struggle for power between Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. 25 January: Treaty of mutual aid between France and Czechoslovakia. 27 January: Pact of Rome signed between Italy and Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia recognizes Italy’s sovereignty over the city and port of Fiume. 14 March: Protocols relating to the financial reconstruction of Hungary signed at Geneva. Polish–Lithuanian dispute over Memel settled by the Council: Memel under Lithuanian sovereignty. Advisory committee of Experts on Slavery, also called Temporary Commission on Slavery, established by the Council. 8 May: Memel Statute signed by Allies. 16 July–16 August: London reparations conference. Dawes Committee appointed by Reparations Committee. 6 August: Anglo–Turkish dispute over Mosul referred to League. 1 September–2 October: Fifth Assembly. Protocol for the Pacific
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Settlement of International Disputes (Protocol of Geneva) laid before the Assembly. Amendments to Covenant accepted. Financial contribution system enters into force. Establishment of the Child Welfare Committee. 3 November–11 February 1925: First Opium Conference held in Geneva. 24 December: Costa Rica withdraws from the League. 1925 12 January–11 February: Second Opium Conference in Geneva. 20 January: Soviet–Japanese treaty settles possession of Sakhalin. 4–13 February: Singapore: International Health Conference. 11–19 February: Geneva Convention on Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs. 4 May–17 June: Geneva: International Conference on the Traffic in Arms. Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare signed. 19–22 May: International Conference on Sleeping Sickness. 25 August: End of French occupation of the Ruhr. 7–26 September: Sixth Assembly establishes a committee of experts representing the press of the different continents to prepare a Governmental Conference of Press Bureaus and Representatives of the Press. 5–16 October: Locarno Treaties, only to come into force when Germany enters the League. 21 October: Greek forces cross the border with Bulgaria. 26–30 October: Extraordinary Council session over Greco–Bulgarian border dispute. 20–27 November: European Conference on Ship Measurements. 1 December: Treaties of mutual guarantee of Germany’s western borders signed. French treaty of mutual assistance with Poland and Czechoslovakia. 14 December: Council settlement of Greco–Bulgarian border dispute. The Council appoints preparatory commission for a disarmament conference. 16 December: Dispute between Great Britain and Turkey over Mosul (Iraq) settled by the Council. 1926 16 January: Inauguration of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation. 12 February: Extraordinary Council session on the admission of Germany. 24 April: Treaty of friendship and nonaggression between the Soviet Union and Germany. 8 May: Geneva: First meeting of the Preparatory Disarmament Commission. 12–18 May: Second International Passport Conference. 12 May: Joseph Pilsudski becomes dictator of Poland. 5 June: Treaty between Turkey, Iraq, and Great Britain on Mosul signed. 10 June: Franco–Romanian treaty of friendship. 12 June: International Congress of the International Press Federation. 14 June: Brazil withdraws from the League.
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6–25 September: Seventh Assembly. Amendment of Covenant on election of non-permanent members of the Council comes into force. The Assembly decides to hold an international competition for the construction of a new League building. Anti-slavery convention adopted. 8 September: Germany admitted as a member of the League and as a permanent member of the Council. Number of permanent members of the Council increased from six to nine. Spain and Brazil withdraw from the League. 17 September: Gustav Stresemann meets Aristide Briand in Thoiry. 5–6 November: Congress of the International Union of Press Journalists. 27 November: Treaty of Tirana between Italy and Albania makes Albania de facto an Italian protectorate. 18 December: Augustinas Voldemaras becomes dictator of Lithuania. 1927 Report on the traffic in women and children published. 17–20 January: Conference of experts on child welfare, Paris. Establishment of the Child Welfare Center. April: French garrison withdraws from the Saar. 5 April: Italian–Hungarian treaty of friendship. 18 April: Chinese Kuomintang breaks with communists. 2–23 May: World Economic Conference in Geneva. 25 May–16 June: Tenth session International Labour Conference. Committee on Native Labour set up by the International Labour Office. 7–11 June: Conference of health experts on the protection of children, Montevideo. 20 June–4 August: Three-Power Naval Conference fails. 23 August–2 September: Third General Conference on Communications and Transit. 24–27 August: International Conference of Press Experts, Geneva. 5–27 September: Eighth Assembly. 26 September: General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes adopted by the Assembly. Arbitration and Security Committee installed. Report on legal competence of the Council adopted. Germany proposes General Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War. 26–28 September: Fourth Congress of the International Confederation of Intellectual Workers, Paris. 17 October–8 November: Diplomatic Conference for the Abolition of Prohibitions and Restrictions on Imports and Exports. 5–12 December: The Council succeeds in putting an end to the state of war between Poland and Lithuania. 1928 January: Hungary and Italy involved in Szent–Gotthardt affair. February: Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods
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of Warfare enters into force. 28 February: Treaty between King Abdullah and Great Britain confirms the independent status of Transjordan under British mandate rule. 22 March: Spain reenters the League. 3–11 July: Geneva: Second Conference on the Abolition of Prohibitions and Restrictions on Imports and Exports. 2 August: Treaty of friendship between Italy and Abyssinia. 27 August: Kellogg–Briand Pact signed in Paris. 3–26 September: Ninth Assembly. 23 September: Wailing Wall incidents in Palestine. 7–14 October: Prague: League Conference on Popular Art. 15–18 October: Paris: Health Conference on tuberculosis vaccination. 4–8 November: Geneva: International Diplomatic Conference on Economic Statistics. 5–7 November: Second International Conference on Sleeping Sickness. 15–17 November: Dijon, France: League International Congress of Journalists. 26 November–4 December: International Conference on the Unification of Economic Statistics. 6 December: First Chaco incident between Bolivia and Paraguay. 1929 24 July: Kellogg–Briand Pact enters into force. 6–31 August: The Hague Reparations Conference adopts the Young Plan. 16 August: General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes enters into force. 28–29 August: Wailing Wall incidents in Palestine. 2–25 September: Tenth Assembly. Briand presents the League with his plan for a United States of Europe. First stone of the Palais des Nations laid. Great Britain recommends Iraq as a new member state. Establishment of the Commission of Inquiry on Liberia. Establishment of the Permanent Central Opium Board. 4–13 September: Conference on the Revision of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice, Geneva. 14 September: United States joins the Permanent Court of International Justice. 28 October: Stock market crash in the United States. 5 November–5 December: Paris: International Conference on the Treatment of Foreigners. 5–20 December: Third Conference on the Abolition of Prohibitions and Restrictions on Imports and Exports. 1930 3–20 January: Second Hague Reparations Conference. 20 January: Outbreak of war between Bolivia and Paraguay over Chaco region. 21 January–22 April: London Naval Conference. 6 February: Austro–Italian treaty of friendship. 17 February–24 March: First International Conference on concerted economic action, Geneva. 13 March–14 April: Conference for the Codification of International Law.
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17 May: French memorandum on and appointment by the Assembly of a Commission of Inquiry for a European Union. 10–28 June: Fourteenth session of the International Labour Conference. Forced Labour Convention. 10 September–4 October: Eleventh Assembly. 30 September: Nansen International Office for Refugees established by the Council. 5–12 October: First Conference of the Balkan Entente. 17 November–19 December: Second International Conference on Concerted Economic Action, Geneva. 1931 24 January: The Council decides to convene the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. 18 March: International Conference on Tariffs fails. 14 April: Spain becomes a republic. May: German–Polish dispute over Danzig. Nazi-dominated government in Danzig. 27 May–13 June: Conference for the Limitation of Manufacturing of Harmful Narcotics, Geneva. 5 September: Customs union between Germany and Austria rejected by the Permanent Court of International Justice. 7–29 September: Twelfth Assembly. 12 September: Mexico enters the League. 19 September: Sino–Japanese incident at Mukden. Japan occupies Manchuria. 26 September: General Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War adopted by the Assembly, but never enters into force. 12–24 October: Fourth General Conference on Communications and Transit. 16 October: United States attends Council meeting for the first—and last—time. 9–28 November: Conference for the Suppression of Opium Smoking, Bangkok. 1932 January: Establishment of the Lytton Commission of Inquiry to investigate situation in Manchuria. Shanghai Investigation Committee, also called Consular Committee, set up by the Assembly. Conference of Press Bureaus, Copenhagen. 2 January: Japanese government declares Manchuria an independent state under the name of Manchukuo. 7 January: Stimson doctrine: United States refuses to recognize any situation, treaty, or agreement brought about by means of force. 11 January: British government does not support Stimson doctrine. 25 January: Polish–Soviet non-aggression pact. 28 January: Japanese attack on Shanghai. 29 January: China invokes Article XV of the Covenant and requests that Japanese aggression be considered by the Assembly. 2 February: Geneva: Opening of the two-year Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments (World Disarmament Conference). 7 February: Oslo Convention between Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Belgium,
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Luxembourg, and the Netherlands on economic cooperation. 3 March 1932–24 February 1933: Extraordinary meeting of the Assembly on Sino–Japanese conflict (officially never closed). 11 March: League adoption of Stimson doctrine. 12–30 April: Sixteenth session of the International Labour Conference: Forced Labour Convention enters into force. 16 June–9 August: Lausanne Conference on reparations. 18 July: Turkey becomes a League member state. 25 July: Soviet non-aggression pacts with Finland and Estonia. 1 September: Peruvian army drives Colombia out of Leticia. 4 September: Lytton Report, rejected by Japan. 5–20 September: Stresa Conference on Central-Eastern European issues and European Union. 26 September–17 October: Thirteenth Assembly. 3 October: Iraq admitted as member of the League. November: Electoral victory in Germany of Adolf Hitler’s NSDAP. 27 November: Persia cancels concession to Anglo–Persian Oil Company. 29 November: Franco–Soviet non-aggression pact. 3 December: Mexico announces withdrawal from the League. 9 December: Madrid Conference of the International Telecommunication Union decides to combine the International Telegraph Convention of 1865 and the International Radiotelegraph Convention of 1906, to form the International Telecommunication Convention. 1933 Argentina reenters the League. 6 January: Dispute between Peru and Colombia over Leticia district. 30 January: Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany. 2 February–14 October: World Disarmament Conference. 25 February: Assembly adopts findings of Lytton Commission on Japanese aggression in Manchuria. 25 March: Peru signs Leticia agreement in Geneva. 27 March: Japan withdraws from the League. 29 April: Anglo–Persian dispute over Anglo–Persian Oil Company settled by the Council. 10 May: Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay. Extraordinary session of the Council. 31 May: China signs an armistice agreement with Japan. 8–30 June: Seventeenth session of the International Labour Conference. Germany withdraws from ILO. 12 June–17 July: London: World Monetary and Economic Conference. 20 June: National Socialist government in Danzig. 29 June: Adjournment of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. 30 June: Sir Eric Drummond resigns as secretary-general; he is succeeded by Joseph Avenol. 15 July: Signature of Four-Power pact between Italy, France, Great Britain, and Germany, to revise the peace treaties of Paris. 10 August: Massacre of Assyrians in Iraq. 25 September–11 October:
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Fourteenth Assembly. 2 October: The Assembly provisionally raises number of non-permanent members of the Council from nine to 10. 4 October: Council action on slavery in Liberia. 9–11 October: Diplomatic Conference for the Repression of Traffic in Women, Geneva. 14 October: Germany withdraws from the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. 21 October: Germany withdraws from the League. 26–28 October: Intergovernmental Conference on Refugees, Geneva. 26 October–1 November: Conference of Experts on Public Health Standards, Geneva. 7–11 November: Conference of Government Press Bureaus, Madrid. 1934 26 January: Polish–German non-aggression pact. 9 February: Turkish, Greek, Romanian, and Yugoslav governments sign the Balkan Pact, designed to complement the Little Entente. 21 February: League’s Chaco commission proposes arms embargo. 10 April: Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. 24 May: Peru and Colombia reach an agreement on Leticia affair. 29 May–11 June: Meeting of the General Commission of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. 10–27 September: Fifteenth Assembly. 13 September: Poland refuses further cooperation with the League as to minorities. 18 September: Afghanistan and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics admitted as League members. The Assembly approves the Council’s proposal that the USSR should be made a permanent member. 8 October: Assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou in Marseilles. 23 October–19 December: London Naval Disarmament Conference. 20–24 November: Extraordinary Assembly meeting on Chaco dispute. 29 November: Dispute between Persia (Iran) and Iraq over Shatt-al-Arab. 1 December: Assassination of Sergei Kirov, beginning of purges in Soviet Union. 5 December: Wal-Wal incident between Italy and Abyssinia. 5–11 December: Extraordinary session of the Council on the Yugoslav–Hungarian dispute after assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia. 6 December: International force sent to Saar territory to supervise plebiscite. 10 December: Council mediation results in agreement between Hungary and Yugoslavia. 1935 13 January: Plebiscite held in the Saar territory. 16 January: End of League embargo on Bolivia in Chaco War. 17 January: Council decision to unite Saar territory with Germany. 23 February:
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Paraguay withdraws from the League. 1 March: Germany takes over government of Saar territory. 16 March: Hitler denounces Versailles Peace Treaty. German Army Law promotes rearmament. Great Britain announces rearmament. 11–13 April: Italy, Great Britain, and France hold Stresa Conference on German rearmament. 15–17 April: Extraordinary Council session on German rearmament. 2 May: Franco–Russian treaty of alliance. 20–21 May: Extraordinary Assembly meeting on Chaco dispute. 14 June: Chaco War armistice. 18 June: Anglo–German naval agreement. 27 June: Results of Peace Ballot in Great Britain published. 1–4 July: Buenos Aires Peace Conference on Chaco War. 31 July: Extraordinary Council session on Italo–Abyssinian relations. 16 August: Paris Conference on Italo–Abyssinian war. 31 August: United States neutrality acts. 4 September: Extraordinary Council session on Italo–Abyssinian relations. Establishment of the Committee of Thirteen to implement Article XV of the Covenant and to devise final recommendations for the settlement of the dispute between Abyssinia and Italy. 9 September–11 October: Sixteenth Assembly. Establishment of the Commission on Nutrition. 3 October: Italian attack on Abyssinia. 11 October: First meeting of Sanctions Conference, set up at the proposal of the Assembly. 14 October: Financial sanctions on Italy and prohibition of imports from Italy accepted by Sanctions Conference. 9 December–25 March 1936: London naval conference. 9 December: Hoare–Laval plan breaks unity of League action: gives satisfaction to Italy’s economic and territorial claims on Abyssinia. 1936 April–October: Arab uprising in Palestine. 21 January: Peace treaty between Bolivia and Paraguay ends Chaco War. 17 February: Secretariat moves into Palais des Nations, the new League of Nations buildings in Geneva. 19 February: Popular Front government in Spain. 7 March: Germany occupies demilitarized Rhineland. 8 March: Germany denounces Treaty of Locarno. 14–24 March: London: Extraordinary Council session on German occupation of Rhineland. 23 March: Three-Power Pact between Italy, Austria, and Hungary to counter expansionist policy of Germany. 20 April: Extraordinary Council session on Italo–Abyssinian war. 20 April–2 May: Conference of Central Authorities of Middle East and Far Eastern Countries on the Traffic of Women, Bandung. 9 May: Italian proclamation of sovereignty over Abyssinia. 26 May: Guatemala withdraws from the League. 5 June: Popular Front government in France. 8–26 June: Conference for the
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Repression of Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs, Geneva. 27 June: Nicaragua withdraws from the League. 1 July: European neutrals, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Finland, submit a declaration to the Assembly by which they regard application of Article XVI of the Covenant as optional, not binding. 2–4 July: Intergovernmental Conference on the Adoption of a Judicial Statute for German Refugees, Geneva. 4 July: The Assembly asks the Council to invite governments to suggest proposals for improving the application of the Covenant’s principles; Council and Assembly recommend termination of sanctions. 10 July: Honduras withdraws from the League. 11 July: German–Austrian treaty of friendship. 18 July: Outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. 20 July: Montreux Conference on the Straits: Turkey regains sovereignty over Bosporus and the Dardanelles. 27 August: Anglo–Egyptian treaty makes Egypt an independent state. 3–6 September: Brussels: World Peace Congress, organized by the International Peace Campaign. 9 September: Establishment of the NonIntervention Committee to impose an arms embargo against both sides in the Spanish Civil War. 9 September: Franco–Syrian treaty of friendship and alliance concluded, but not ratified by French parliament. 17–23 September: Intergovernmental conference on a convention for the use of radio broadcasting to promote peace, Geneva. 21 September–10 October: Seventeenth Assembly. 1 October: Sean Lester, high commissioner in Danzig, resigns. 2 October: The Council increases the number of its non-permanent members from 10 to 11 for a period of three years. 6 October: Turkish riots in Syrian Alexandretta. 10 October: The Assembly appoints a Committee of Twenty-Eight to study the application of the principles of the Covenant. 25 October: Establishment of the Rome–Berlin Axis. 13 November: Franco–Lebanese treaty of friendship concluded, not ratified by French parliament. 25 November: Anti-Comintern Pact concluded by Germany and Japan; joined by Italy in January 1937. 10–16 December: Extraordinary Council session on the Spanish Civil War and Turkish claims on Syrian Sanjak of Alexandretta. 14 December: First session of the Committee on the Application of Principles of the Covenant. 1937 28 January: Understanding between Nationalists and Communists in China to face Japanese aggression. 2–15 February: Bandung Conference of Central Authorities of Eastern Countries on the Traffic in Women and Children. 7–10 February: International Conference for the
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Adoption of a Convention concerning the status of German Refugees, Geneva. 25 March: Italian–Yugoslav non-aggression and neutrality pact. 26–27 May: Extraordinary Assembly session on the admission of Egypt to the League. 28 May: Council approval of reorganization of Health and Financial Committees. 29 May: Statute of the Sanjak of Alexandretta ratified by France and Turkey and adopted by League. July: Publication of Nutrition Report on “relation of nutrition on health, agriculture and economic policy.” 5–9 July: Paris: Second General Conference of National Committees on Intellectual Cooperation. 7 July: Marco Polo Bridge incident. Outbreak of the Sino–Japanese War. 8 July: British Royal Commission recommends partition of Palestine. 9 July: Formation of Middle Eastern Pact between Afghanistan, Persia, Iraq, and Turkey. 26 July: El Salvador withdraws from the League. 3 August: League Conference on Rural Hygiene in Far Eastern Countries in Bandung. September: Iraq and Persia (Iran) reach agreement on Shatt-al-Arab. 8 September: Pan-Arab Congress on Palestinian question in Bludan, Syria. 10–14 September: Conference of Great Britain and France to discuss Spanish Civil War, held in Nyon, Switzerland. 13 September–6 October: Eighteenth Assembly. 27 September: International Conference for Labour Statisticians, Geneva. 5 October: The Council adjourns the convocation of the Bureaus of the Disarmament Conference. 1–16 November: International Conference for the Repression of Terrorism, Geneva. 3–24 November: Nine-Power Conference on Sino–Japanese War fails. 11 December: ltaly withdraws from the League. 14 December: ltaly leaves the International Labour Office. 1938 7–10 February: Geneva: Convention concerning the Status of Refugees coming from Germany signed by seven states. 28 February: Anthony Eden resigns as a result of the British government’s attitude toward the Spanish Civil War. 12–13 March: Union of Germany and Austria. 16–19 March: Poland forces Lithuania to resume diplomatic relations under the threat of a Polish invasion. 16 April: Anglo–Italian agreement recognizes Italian sovereignty over Abyssinia. 14 May: League accepts Swiss return to complete neutrality. 2 June: Chile withdraws from the League. 29 June: The League’s Electoral Commission forced to leave the Sanjak of Alexandretta. 12 July: Venezuela withdraws from the League. 21–23 August: Bled Conference on Little Entente defense planning. 2 September: Sanjak of Alexandretta becomes an autonomous state, the Republic of Hatay, with Turkey in complete
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control. 12–30 September: Nineteenth Assembly. Republican government of Spain appeals to the Assembly to end foreign intervention in civil war. Assembly members declare Covenant no longer applicable to sanctions against aggressors. The Council declares that every League member is free to apply the provisions of Article XVI of the Covenant. 29 September: Anglo–French–German–Italian Conference in Munich on German–Czechoslovak dispute over Sudetenland. 30 September: The Council postpones the meeting of the Bureaus of the Disarmament Conference. 1 October: Official separation of the Covenant from the peace treaties. 2 October: Polish occupation of Teschen. 9 November: French recognition of Italian conquest of Abyssinia. 17 November: Award of Nobel Peace Prize to the Nansen International Office for Refugees. 30 November–3 December: Conference on the conclusion of an International Act for Intellectual Cooperation, Paris. 1939 7 February–17 March: Palestine Conference, London. 27 February: British and French governments recognize the government of Francisco Franco in Spain. 16 March: Germany annexes Czechoslovakia (Bohemia and Moravia). Slovakia becomes a German protectorate. Hungary occupies Ruthenia. 23 March: Germany annexes the port of Memel. 28 March: End of the Spanish Civil War. 31 March: Great Britain and France guarantee Polish independence. 1 April: United States recognizes Franco regime in Spain. 6 April: Anglo–French mutual assistance pact with Poland. 7 April: Italian conquest of Albania. Spain joins the Anti-Comintern Pact. 11 April: Hungary withdraws from the League. 13 April: Anglo–French mutual assistance pacts with Greece and Romania. 28 April: Hitler denounces German–Polish Agreement of 1934 and Anglo–German Naval Agreement of 1935. 9 May: Spain withdraws from the League. 17 May: British White Paper gives up partition of Palestine and envisages independence within 10 years. Jewish immigration remains restricted. 20 May: German and Italian troops withdraw from Spain. 22 May: German–Italian military agreement, the so-called Steel Pact, concluded. 22–27 May: Last regular session of the Council. Appointment of Bruce Committee to study future development of the economic and social activities of the League. 7 June: Non-aggression pact between Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, and Germany. 8–24 June: Twenty-fifth session of the International Labour Conference: Penal Sanctions (Indigenous Workers) Convention and Contracts of Employment (Indigenous Workers) Convention concluded. 23
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June: Sanjak of Alexandretta annexed to Turkey. Franco–Turkish mutual aid agreement. 20 August–1 September: Polish–German dispute over Danzig. 22 August: Bruce Report: proposal for a new Central Committee for Economic and Social Questions. 23 August: German– Soviet non-aggression pact. 25 August: Defense alliance between Great Britain and Poland. 1 September: German attack on Poland. Outbreak of World War II. Danzig annexed by Germany. Polish Silesia annexed by Germany. 3 September: France and Great Britain declare war on Germany. 17 September: Soviet Union invades eastern Poland. 10 October: Soviet troops restore Lithuanian sovereignty over Vilna. 30 November: Soviet Union attacks Finland. 11–14 December: Twentieth meeting of the Assembly, convened for the Russo–Finnish War. Condemnation of Soviet aggression. Secretariat reorganized. 14 December: One-hundred-seventh and last session of the Council. Soviet Union excluded as a League member. 1940 May: Amalgamation of League services. Health, Drug Control, Social and Cultural Questions, the Library, and Internal Administrative Services forthwith fall under Department III. Economic, Financial, and Transit Department moves to Princeton, New Jersey. League Treasury moves to London. 31 August: Secretary-General Joseph Avenol resigns; Deputy Secretary-General Sean Lester acts as his successor during the war. 1941 Headquarters of the International Labour Office moves to Montreal (Canada). Opium Section moves to Washington, D.C. 6 January: Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms Speech. 18 April: Vichy France withdraws from the League. 9–12 August: Atlantic Charter Conference, Arcadia, Canada. 14 August: Joint declaration of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill on war aims: the Atlantic Charter. 7 December: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 1942 1 January: United Nations Declaration signed by 26 nations, affirming principles of the Atlantic Charter. 12–16 August: First Moscow conference between United States, Great Britain, and Soviet Union. 1943 14–24 January: Casablanca conference between the United States and Great Britain, attended by General Charles de Gaulle of the Free French. 15 March: Free French government in North Africa. 18
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May–3 June: Conference on Food and Agriculture, Hot Springs, Virginia; establishment of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). 19–30 October: Moscow conference of foreign ministers of the United States, Great Britain, and Soviet Union. 9 November: Organization of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, Atlantic City, New Jersey. 28 November–2 December: Teheran conference drafts Charter of United Nations. 1944 1–22 July: Bretton Woods conference on postwar financial organization. 21 August–9 October: Dumbarton Oaks conference on Charter of the United Nations. 9–19 October: Second Moscow conference between Great Britain and Soviet Union. 1945 7–12 February: Yalta Conference on Allied occupation of Germany and postwar aid. 25 April–26 June: United Nations Conference on International Organization. Charter of the United Nations signed in San Francisco. 17 July–2 August: Potsdam Conference on Allied occupation of Germany, peace plans, and surrender of Japan. 24 October: UN Charter enters into force. 1–16 November: First meeting of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Conference (UNESCO) in London. 1946 10 January: Opening of United Nations General Assembly in London. 31 January: Judges of Permanent Court of International Justice resign. 3 April–6 May: First meeting of International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague. 17 April: Last meeting of League Assembly. 18 April: Sean Lester formally nominated as the third secretary-general. League of Nations transfers all its assets to United Nations. 19 April: Sean Lester’s term as secretary-general officially ends.
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EMERGENCE OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION The League of Nations was an absolute novelty in the history of international relations. An organization on such a scale, covering all fields of international cooperation, never existed before. Still, the idea behind it was not new. Voluntary cooperation between states or city-states had already occurred in ancient times. Alliances then were usually meant as a defensive weapon against enemy states. Projects for the promotion of peace and the collective settlement of disputes were espoused by the French statesman Abbé de Saint Pierre who, from 1713 to 1716, published the Projet pour rendre la Paix perpétuelle en Europe (Project for Making Perpetual Peace in Europe) and the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in his Zum Ewigen Friede (Eternal Peace) of 1795. A direct predecessor of the League of Nations and the United Nations was the Holy Alliance, one of the outcomes of the Congress of Vienna, the peace conference held in 1814–1815 after the Napoleonic wars. The Holy Alliance aimed at periodic meetings between the great powers of the time to preserve the status quo. International organization then had two underlying motives. The first was political cooperation to preserve the peace. The Congress of Vienna and both Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 were examples of this. For the peaceful settlement of disputes, the Hague conferences established a permanent Court of Arbitration. The second motive was cooperation in technical fields. To this end, all kinds of cooperation developed in the nineteenth century. The Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine was a result of the Congress of Vienna. The Congress of Paris (1856) established the Danube Commission, which can be regarded as the first supranational institution. It had its own organs and could adopt measures without interference of the member 1
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states. The customs union of the German states (1833) had its own parliament and council; these organs could take majority decisions without consulting the member states. Technical progress made it impossible for individual states to properly defend their interests in certain fields. Hence the foundation of technical institutions like the Universal Telegraph Union in 1865 and the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874. International agreements on railway transport (the International Convention on Railway Freight) and commodities, such as sugar, followed in 1890 and 1902, respectively. The International Office of Public Health was founded in 1907. Since in these cases international cooperation was restricted to one sector, it was fairly easy to institutionalize. The technical organizations were in fact non-political, administrative agreements imposed upon the otherwise sovereign states. The need for international cooperation was also generally felt in the humanitarian field. Repression and arbitrariness were no longer considered “civilized.” Almost all conferences and agreements contained clauses on “human rights.” Protection of humanitarian norms and values was regarded as an international responsibility. In 1864 the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was established. Because the committee was a non-governmental organization, the Hague Peace Conferences adopted its philosophy and tried to codify the laws of war. The Berlin Act of 1885, which brought the Congo Basin under an international arrangement, ensured the protection of “the moral and material well-being” of the indigenous population, but did not provide for supervisory machinery. In 1904 an international conference on the trade in women and children and, in 1912, a conference on the opium trade further tried to protect vulnerable groups. The preservation of peace and technical cooperation also provided the basis for regional forms of cooperation, such as the Organization of American States, which, since 1890, held periodic Pan-American Conferences and, from 1907 to 1918, had a Central American Court. Most of the international agreements suffered from an important restriction on their implementation: the sovereignty of the member states. Even the Hague Peace Conference of 1899 recognized this principle. The Permanent Court of International Arbitration could not intervene in non-juridical disputes between sovereign states. Even for strictly juridical disputes, obligatory arbitration did not exist either. The Porter Con-
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vention, officially called the Convention Respecting the Employment of the Limitation of Force for the Recovery of Contract Debts, which formed part of the 1907 peace conference, did not allow military intervention when a state failed to pay its debts to other states. The sovereignty of states and the principle of non-intervention remained the basis of international law. The states could implement agreements as they wished, but international supervision only existed on paper and violation of the rules could not be punished by sanctions. Nevertheless, nineteenth-century developments initiated a process that would ultimately change inter-state relations considerably.
PLANS FOR PEACE World War I had an enormous impact on the development of international organization. The scale of the losses in human and material terms created a feeling that similar wars had to be avoided in the future. War, as a legal means to promote national interests, could no longer be accepted. It had become clear that the Vienna system had failed, that European cooperation had led to nothing, and that international cooperation had to be organized on a worldwide level. New forms of inter-state relations had to be found and state sovereignty had to be limited. Many anti-war movements arose spontaneously as the Great War dragged on and the shock of its horrors penetrated the minds of the public. One example was the British League of Nations Society of 1915. Also British were the socialist Fabian Society and the Round Table group, both of which devised plans for a postwar international organization. Also important was the American League to Enforce Peace, founded in June 1915. The League to Enforce Peace campaigned for a new international system, for the preservation of peace and justice—if necessary by the use of force—and for a full commitment of the United States to a future League of Nations. On the whole, its program did not differ much from those of other anti-war movements. What made it special was that the leading politician of that time threw his full weight behind its principles. For the American president, Woodrow Wilson, was the first statesman to declare officially that its ideals would be incorporated in his own policies. Wilson’s declaration took on a new meaning when the United States entered the war in April 1917. From that moment
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on, the establishment of a League of Nations became one of the principal war aims of the most powerful Ally. The ideals of the League to Enforce Peace had a strong appeal for Wilson. Religiously inspired, he had a taste for grandiose projects and the prophetic associations of the word “Covenant.” Now, in the chaos of the era, he could fully indulge the visionary and missionary features of his character and organize the peace to his own standards. Wilson had always hated big-power politics and the balance of power system that went with it. In his view, secret diplomacy, secret alliances and treaties, imperialism, and militarism—all tools in the hands of the decadent, perverted European Powers—were held responsible for the outbreak of the Great War. As he outlined in his Fourteen Points of January 1918, these vices had to be remedied by new inter-state relationships based on cooperation and openness, on coordination and international law, by a system of free trade and freedom of the seas, and by self-determination for colonial peoples. To achieve all this, a League of Nations had to be established. Wilson never lost sight of his great vision; it inspired him with every political step he took. And it made wonderful rhetoric. By the end of the war, Wilson was immensely popular with the public all over the world, seen by many as a great savior. Having a vision, however, is one thing; transforming it into everyday policy is quite another. And Wilson never bothered to present the world with any elaborate plans, which did have the advantage of avoiding conflicts with the other Allies, at least until the war was over. Still, Wilson’s obsession with the League of Nations cannot be explained out of visionary motives alone. It cannot be denied that his ambitious scheme of international reform, vague though it was, opened the way for a prominent American presence on the political and economic world stage. Moreover, from the end of 1917, the League of Nations found a new raison d’être in the events in Russia, where a Bolshevik, undemocratic regime was installed. It goes without saying that the old European political thinking and new Wilsonian concepts of international organization were hard to accommodate. It also seemed quite clear that the friction would come to the surface, one way or another. Ironically, Wilson would benefit the most from the old power system he so despised. During the war, all the belligerents accepted Wilson’s Fourteen Points as the basis for a peace settlement. They did so for var-
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ious reasons. Although the other Allies might not share his enthusiasm for a new world order—for example, Britain feared that freedom of the seas would endanger its position as a naval power, and similarly resented the idea of Germany’s free access to British raw materials—they did realize which party would serve their interests best. Whether they liked it or not, that was the United States. During the war, Paris and London urgently needed Wilson’s financial and military assistance. Great Britain was anxious to establish lasting Anglo–American cooperation, and the British Cabinet, although divided over the form the future organization would take, considered Wilson’s League of Nations the framework for such a cooperation. And appeasing Wilson on his cherished League could pave the way for concessions on matters of real vital interest to Britain. Moreover, Cabinet support for the League could serve propaganda purposes. It could satisfy public opinion and attract the liberals and socialists to the Allied cause.
THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE When Wilson came to Paris for the Peace Conference of 1919, he gave the establishment of the League the highest priority. He could never overcome his distrust of the European big powers and their way of doing political business. Fearing that they might change their minds, now that the war had ended in an Allied victory, he decided to use American pressure at a time when American influence was still overwhelming. To remedy the U.S. Senate’s opposition to his League scheme, he insisted that the Covenant should be incorporated in the peace treaties. He was confident that the Senate would never refuse to ratify the peace treaty with Germany and therefore made the Covenant an integral part of it. Whether his suspicions toward the other Allies were justified or not, Wilson got his League of Nations. Great Britain and France still needed Wilson’s support to overcome economic disaster. Paris had an additional reason to remain on good terms with Wilson; it was Wilson and Wilson’s power alone that could give France the guarantees for military security it so desperately sought. As in the old days, power prevailed. It forged an organization that, by its very nature, denied power as the sole determinant of conditions in this world.
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Still, apart from Wilson’s political and economic dominance, other factors made the Allies yield to the experiment. The first was the constitution of the League, the major organ of which was the Council, with permanent seats for the Allied Powers and a voting procedure that gave them a practical veto. This provision suited the majority of British politicians who preferred to see the League as an instrument to uphold the European balance of power. The second factor was the vagueness of the Covenant. International rules that are liable to different kinds of interpretation have always been popular among states. The stricter the rules, the fewer contracting parties can be found. Because of its vagueness, the future League was a very convenient place for all those issues that the delegates could not or did not want to settle at the peace conference. The third factor was public opinion, which advanced democratic countries had to be sensitive about. And public opinion was still very much in favor of the League. This does not mean that many politicians were not. Those who were would be responsible for what came to be known as “the spirit of Geneva.” So even practitioners of Realpolitik were willing to give the whole venture the benefit of the doubt.
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS Thus the organization was born, and with it a new system of international communication and organization had been established. International politics had been brought to a different, worldwide level, at least on paper. But it was difficult to throw off the old habits, especially when the alternative was some vague new organization. Therefore, from the early 1920s on, two distinct levels of international relationships operated at the same time. On the first level, political and other issues were settled within the League; on the second level, all kinds of bilateral and multilateral networks were maintained as if the League were non-existent. An outstanding example of this ambivalence was, of course, the Italo–Abyssinian War, which forced League members to condemn Italy as an enemy of the collective system, whereas the same country remained the “friend” of the status quo security system. The ambivalence also offers an explanation for the fact that delegates of member states advocated disarmament and free trade in Geneva, and armament and tariff barriers back home. Obviously, the key word here was the notion of sovereignty. No
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member state had been willing, or would ever be willing, to renounce its sovereign rights. Sovereignty remained the basis for the network of international relationships. And because each state considered itself the best guardian of its own interests, there could be no such thing as a homogeneous international organization. Nevertheless, the League had done its best to limit state sovereignty. The most important innovation was that the right to wage war no longer belonged to the exclusive competence of individual states, but henceforth was regarded as a matter of concern for the world as a whole. Article XI of the Covenant stated that “[Any] war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of the Members of the League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations. In case any such emergency should arise the Secretary General shall on the request of any Member of the League forthwith summon a meeting of the Council.” Those member states that started a war in violation of the Covenant were, according to Article XVI, to be punished by sanctions. The principle of collective security deemed such a state “to have committed an act of war against all other Members of the League ” and condemned the aggressor to “the severance of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition of all intercourse between their nationals and the nationals of the covenant-breaking State, and the prevention of all financial, commercial or personal intercourse between the nationals of the covenantbreaking State and the nationals of any other State, whether a Member of the League or not.” It meant that even non-member states were involved in the new system of international relations. Contrary to The Hague Peace Conferences, the settlement of disputes was made obligatory. To this end, a Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) was established. Also in the humanitarian field, all existing agreements were united in the Covenant and their activities transferred to the League. Examples were the trade in women and children, opium, and weapons. Article XXIV had clauses on health care and for “fair and humane conditions of labour for men, women, and children, both in their own countries and in all countries to which their commercial and industrial relations extend.” Ethical responsibility for less-developed regions was continued by the mandates system of Article XXII, which promised to “peoples
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not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world” that their well-being and development would be “a sacred trust of civilisation and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this Covenant.” Therefore, they were put under the tutelage of “advanced nations who by reason of their resources, their experience or their geographical position can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the League.” Under the League’s responsibility also fell the implementation of a series of minority treaties, concluded during the Paris Peace Conference. These treaties generally concerned minorities in Eastern European states. The League covered areas formerly belonging to the exclusive competence of the state. Though states earlier had given up part of their sovereignty, now an international and permanent means of supervision had been established that brought an end to the noncommittal cooperation of the nineteenth century. At least on paper, it looked as though finally an ideal form of cooperation had been found. The League of Nations was the first permanent organization with a general competence to promote all forms of international relations, to settle disputes, and to protect against aggression. The League, indeed, often fulfilled its promises, especially in the initial period. It was able to settle the dispute between Finland and Sweden over the Åland islands in 1921; it saved Austria from financial ruin in 1922; it drew up the Statute of the Memel, and allocated Mosul to Iraq, in 1924–1925. Moreover, it initiated many activities concerning arbitration and disarmament. Highly appreciated were its activities in the social and economic field. The enthusiasm for the League and the “spirit of Geneva” resulted in the establishment of national League of Nations societies.
STRUCTURE OF THE LEAGUE The main decision-making organ of the League was the Council, on which the great powers—the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan—had a permanent seat. The failure of the United States to
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become a League member state was a serious setback from the very beginning. That sanctions could never be effective when the biggest economic power did not cooperate was only one of the problems. Another was that the remaining big powers could defend their interests through the unanimity rule in the Council. The Council as the central body was one of the reasons these powers had adhered to the League during the peace conference. The number of seats was increased to 14 in 1926, when Germany was made a permanent member. Two of the seats were semi-permanent and given to Poland and Spain; seven nonpermanent seats were for countries from Latin America, Asia, and the Commonwealth, for the former neutral states, and the Little Entente. The Council had to give its consent to nearly all activities of the League. For politically sensitive issues, it was the only decision-making organ. The other organ of the League was the Assembly, in which every member state was represented. The Covenant was vague about the distinction between the Council and the Assembly, so officially the Assembly could deal with any subject, but in practice the Council could withhold information or even forbid the Assembly to deal with certain issues. The Assembly was seen as the democratic organ of the League, in which small states also had a say. This made the Assembly an unpredictable and thus dangerous institution in the eyes of the big powers. It was also the reason why states that felt ill-treated by the Council appealed to the Assembly. Meetings of the Assembly were public. Its weakness was that it only met once a year for about three weeks. For practical reasons, meetings took place in six committees. The first dealt with the organization of the League; the second with economic, social, and technical questions; the third with the Permanent Court of International Justice; the fourth with the budget and staff of the Secretariat; the fifth with admission of new member states. The sixth committee dealt with political questions, mandates, and minorities and was generally regarded as the most important one. Resolutions had to be approved by the plenary meeting and by a unanimous vote. The administrative organ was the Secretariat, which was modelled on the British civil service, whereby the work came up from below. All correspondence arrived at a central point, the registry, which distributed files to the civil servants. They subsequently dealt with issues within their competence. Everything else was sent to higher levels. The result was that only the most important issues arrived at the top. The system
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required a great degree of teamwork. The head of the Secretariat was the secretary-general, and the first secretary-general was Eric Drummond, who had made a career in the British civil service. The powers at the Paris Peace Conference preferred a civil servant, not a statesman, at the top. In June 1933, Drummond was succeeded by the Frenchman Joseph Avenol, a former banker, who showed more interest in figures and statistics than political issues. Avenol tried to introduce the French administrative system, which meant centralized, top-down decision-making. The secretary-general was assisted by a deputy secretary-general and three under secretaries-general. These last posts were political: they represented the big powers and were in charge of the internal administration, political affairs and international bureaus, and intellectual cooperation. The primitive conditions under which Drummond had to set up the organization in London forced him to appoint British and French staff members. In 1919 the League had a staff of only 121; in 1931, some 707 staff members worked for the League. The Secretariat was divided into 12 sections, each dealing with a specific field and headed by a director. The most important was the Political Section; the other significant ones were the Central Section, the Legal Section, and the Information Section. Specialized areas were dealt with by the Mandates, Minorities, Health, Economic and Financial, Communications and Transit, Social and Opium, Disarmament, and International Bureaux and Intellectual Cooperation Sections. The Paris Peace Conference had decided on the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice, and Article XIV of the Covenant stated that the court was “to hear and determine any dispute of an international character which the parties thereto submit to it.” The court’s nine judges and four deputy judges were elected by the Assembly on 30 January 1922. The first Assembly of 1920 added the so-called optional clause to the statute. This clause implied that in all cases of a legal character, the court should have compulsory jurisdiction; an additional clause stated that any state could accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the court on the basis of reciprocity. Adherence to both clauses was not obligatory. Nevertheless, by 1929, some 41 states had signed them.
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The court acted independently and appointed its own staff. In the history of the League, it was seized with several cases. In 1931 the court rejected the formation of a German–Austrian customs union. But its decisions were often set aside, as was the case with Benito Mussolini during the Corfu affair of 1923. And the Soviet Union did not recognize its competence for a long time.
INTERNATIONALISM VERSUS SOVEREIGNTY The new international constellation, represented by the League, had certain characteristics that were to influence its working considerably. In the first place, the Covenant took the sovereignty of the member states for granted. Its main designer, President Woodrow Wilson, assumed, however, that this sovereignty would be limited by the new convention and that the League, with its moral pretensions, would become an umbrella organization, superior to the constituent parts. At the Paris Peace Conference, it soon became clear that powers like France and Great Britain would not accept a reduction of their sovereignty without a struggle. Paris saw the League mainly as a means to obtain security, and London regarded the League as an improved version of the European concert, so typical of the nineteenth-century post-Vienna constellation. The League was looked upon with suspicion by many military brass, who did not like disarmament, and by foreign offices, which did not like national interests being publicly discussed. In the second place, the League’s reputation suffered from the fact that the Covenant formed an integral part of the peace treaties. For that reason, the United States refused, and Germany was not allowed, to become a member state. The result was that the pretension of being a universal institution could not be upheld. In the third place, the League was entrusted with tasks it could not carry out. President Wilson himself soon realized that the principle of national self-determination created more problems than solutions. What he originally had in mind was the right of communities to govern themselves, so as to permit the German population to liberate itself from Prussian militarism. Wilson had little notion of the complexity of
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European nationalities, and he never intended to divide the Habsburg empire into ethnicities. Even to Wilson, self-determination was subject to strategic, political, and economic interests. The outcome was that the peace conference ended with numerous compromises, and the principle of self-determination was applied only to the vanquished powers. The establishment of a League of Nations was Wilson’s first concern, and everything that could not be settled at the peace conference, he simply passed on to the League, which, in his mind, had the potential for settling disputes by peaceful means. As a result, the League was burdened with the resolution of numerous minority questions and subsequently came into conflict with powers whose territorial integrity the Covenant likewise guaranteed. The Covenant, therefore, protected the sovereignty of member states and limited it at the same time. This ambidexterity was also expressed in the League organs. As has been stated above, the Council was the main decision-making organ, on which the big powers had a permanent seat. The unanimity rule enabled these powers to defend their interests at any time. Another organ was the Assembly, representing all member states, including the small ones, but they could do little more than voice their concerns. The Secretariat was the only permanent body and for that reason could pull the wires and influence decisions, to the annoyance of some member states. One could even contend that the Council guaranteed state sovereignty while the Secretariat aspired to limit this sovereignty. Though the Allies, pushed by the United States, accepted the establishment of a League of Nations, it was apparent from the very beginning that the new institution could only count on their grudging support. The Council could serve the big powers as some sort of consolation, but foreign policy through the League involved definite risks. One of those was the force of public opinion. By the end of the nineteenth century, the influence of the press, and the manipulation of public opinion that went with it, had grown considerably. Since the minutes of all League meetings were published in the Official Journal, each Council member was aware of the effects his decisions could have on public opinion at home. To remedy such complications, the Council often resorted to postponement of decisions or noncommittal resolutions. To avoid unnecessary problems, the old multilateral contacts were maintained. At the instigation of France, the Little Entente of Eastern European powers was established outside the League in 1920. The
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Washington Conference of 1921–1922, the Three-Power Naval Conference of 1927, and the Naval Treaty of London of 1930 settled naval affairs and entered the area of disarmament, officially reserved for the League. With the Genoa Conference and the Rapallo Treaty of 1922, the League had little to do. German reparations were dealt with outside the League. Collective security was also guaranteed through the Locarno Treaties of 1925 and the Kellogg–Briand Pact of 1928. This parallel circuit would frustrate the League’s management of some major political crises.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES The sovereignty and interests of the member states regularly prevented adequate League action. One of the first issues the Council had to deal with was the fate of Armenia, which had just declared itself an independent state but was claimed by the Soviet Union as well as Turkey. The unstable situation demanded some action of the Council, and one of the solutions offered was to make Armenia a mandated territory. In April 1920, however, the Council hesitated too long and considered a mandate the task of individual states, not of the League as a whole, all the more so since the League had no military or financial resources to carry it out. It therefore suggested the United States as mandatory power. Though President Wilson was willing to accept the burden, in June 1920 the U.S. Congress rejected the idea. Meanwhile the situation in Armenia deteriorated as a result of internal strife and the atrocities of the invading Turkish army. The first League Assembly, though full of sympathy for the new republic, could do little else but try to persuade Armenians and Turks to stop fighting. A communist coup d’état further prevented League action. Armenia became one of the Soviet republics and ceased to exist as an independent state. The unanimity rule of the Council soon made itself felt during the Corfu crisis of 1923. The occupation by Italian forces of this Greek island even induced the Council to transfer its competence to the Conference of Ambassadors. Moreover, it subordinated itself to Benito Mussolini, who insisted on settling things himself without interference from the League or the Permanent Court of International Justice. The Corfu question showed that the Council accepted the occupation by a foreign
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country as a measure of peaceful coercion. In this case, the reputation of the League was somewhat saved by the Assembly’s demanding a clear vindication of the Covenant: the Council should act under Article XV even when one of the conflicting parties found it inapplicable, and coercive measures should not be allowed even when they were not intended as an act of war? The Council yielded to this demand in the form of a legal report. But this did not change the situation in practice. Subordination to Allied Powers also occurred during the French and Belgian occupation of the German Ruhr in January 1923. The attitude of the Council caused great disappointment to League supporters, and to Germany, which more and more felt the need to rearm against neighbors like France and Poland. The dispute would not be settled by the League, but by the Dawes Plan, and the occupation ended only in 1925. The settlement of security and disarmament issues likewise failed as a result of the attitude of one or more big powers. A proposed Treaty of Mutual Assistance, which provided for automatic assistance of all signatories in case one of them was attacked, was adopted in 1922 by the third Assembly and especially supported by France, the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Belgium, all states which felt threatened by their neighbors. But the other states turned it down, with the argument that this kind of collective security could only work when the conflicting states were forced to accept arbitration before the other states undertook any action. Two years later, another attempt at compulsory arbitration, the Protocol of Geneva, was rejected by one of the big powers. The protocol intended to refine some clauses of the Covenant and wanted every dispute to be submitted to the Permanent Court of International Justice or the Council. The decisions of these organs would be binding. Only after such a decision, the protocol made it the duty of every signatory to resist the aggressor and help the attacked state. The Council would receive undertakings from member states, stating what military forces they would hold ready to defend the Covenant. The protocol would come into force only after a disarmament conference, to be held in Geneva in 1925, agreed on a general plan for arms reduction. The protocol was accepted by the Assembly in October 1924, but not by the British Commonwealth, which feared intervention in domestic affairs or trouble with the United States and generally disliked compulsory arbitration. The British foreign minister, Austen Chamberlain, simply pre-
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ferred bilateral or multilateral alliances to League undertakings. In 1927 Germany suggested another variation of compulsory arbitration, the socalled Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War. It would have bound League members in advance to any recommendation of the Council in case of disputes, but for many member states this also went too far. A League report even showed that the Council had greater legal powers than had been realized. Legally, the Council could order any impartial investigation and take measures ranging from warnings to an order to withdraw troops. Refusal to obey them could lead to the breaking off of diplomatic relations with all League member states and to naval and air demonstrations, or stronger action. Though the report was approved by the Council and Assembly in 1931, it was decided that any preventive action of the Council required the unanimous vote of all members, including those of the interested parties. The efficiency of League intervention was also obstructed by competition between the Organization of American States and the League. This competition prevented the League’s settlement of the Chaco affair. The Council soon succeeded in pacifying both parties, Bolivia and Paraguay, in 1928. But when, in 1932, hostilities resumed, the United States was able to block the League’s arms embargo for some time. The acceptance of a League treaty by Bolivia led to the withdrawal of Paraguay from the League in February 1935. Thereafter, the League was no longer involved in the proceedings, and only in July 1938 did a Pan-American conference succeed in having the peace treaty signed. Big power solidarity on the Council hardly ever failed. This mechanism also worked during the Szent–Gotthard affair of 1928. There were strong indications that the weapons found at the Szent–Gotthard border between Italy and Hungary came from Italy and were destined for Hungary. Because Hungary, under the Trianon Peace Treaty, was subject to military restrictions, the Council sent a commission, which could not establish the facts. So as not to risk alienating Italy, the big powers on the Council thereupon refrained from further investigation. The real point of no return, however, was the Sino–Japanese War. The Japanese attack on Manchuria on 18 September 1931 was clearly a violation of the Covenant. According to the Covenant, every League member state had to come to the rescue of China, all the more so because China requested Council action. Japan, however, with a permanent seat
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on the Council, preferred direct negotiations with China, without League interference. The United States, though not a League member state, had interests in the region and supported Japan. It advised against sending a League commission of inquiry, which only encouraged Japan. After the bombardment of Chinchow, the United States was willing to cooperate with the Council. Isolationist tendencies, though, prevented further American commitment. Thereupon, Japan simply refused to withdraw its troops. Without Japanese consent, the Council could not apply Article XI of the Covenant and thus could not take action. The great powers did not want to risk a war and each had different motives. France worried about Germany and would not provoke another militarily strong power. Germany had internal political problems. And for Great Britain, Japan was an old ally of World War I. Japan, moreover, could serve as the capitalist bridgehead to the enormous Chinese market. The small states, however, expected League action, and one of the possibilities was the application of Article XV of the Covenant, which allowed sanctions without the consent of the interested party. But the permanent members of the Council chose not to invoke this article because it would certainly lead to war. Moreover, Washington indicated that it favored a peaceful settlement of the dispute. In November 1931, Tokyo unexpectedly accepted a commission of inquiry. This, in fact, would mean a continuation of Japanese occupation. Nevertheless, the Council accepted the Japanese proposal and entered into lengthy deliberations on the competence, or jurisdiction, of the commission. To the great disappointment of small and Latin American countries, and public opinion, the result was that the commission had hardly any competences at all: it was not allowed to investigate military action nor to enter into negotiations. The Lytton Commission, headed by the British Lord Lytton, arrived in Manchuria in April of the following year. Meanwhile, the new nationalistic government of Japan had proclaimed Manchuria an independent state. Great Britain prevented an American initiative to declare this act illegal under the Kellogg–Briand Pact, since Japan had guaranteed protection of foreign trade. France kept aloof, and none of the powers favored League intervention. The attack on Shanghai, where Western powers had economic interests, did provoke a sudden haste to achieve an armistice, but through bilateral negotiations, not through the League. The other non-permanent mem-
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bers of the Council appealed to Japan to respect the Covenant because no member state would be willing to recognize the new state of Manchukuo. To China, it had become clear that it had little to expect from the Council, and it therefore invoked Article XV of the Covenant, which meant the transfer of the issue to the Assembly. The Assembly adopted a resolution to the effect that annexation through violence would never lead to recognition. It would remain a guiding principle of the League, until 1938, when some member states, and Great Britain in particular, did recognize the Italian annexation of Abyssinia. The gap between small and big powers even deepened after the discussion on the Lytton report, in December 1932. The report condemned Japan on all relevant points, and big powers scolded small ones for their demands of action that could only be performed by other, big, powers. The additional condemnation of a special Assembly committee, in February 1933, induced Japan to announce its withdrawal from the League. The example of Japan was to be followed by other, fascist, states, as soon as the League became an obstacle to their sovereignty. The first major crisis of the League had led many to believe that the Council was not able, or willing, to apply the principles of the Covenant. It had become clear that collective security only worked when all great powers opposed a common enemy. The system did not work when this enemy was a member of the big power club. The attitude of the great powers proved fatal to the reputation of the League and encouraged other powers to ignore the League completely. One of the major undertakings of the League, the disarmament conference of 1932–1933, soon became overshadowed by the events in the Far East. The League had worked for years to prepare the conference, but when it finally met, few countries appeared willing to endorse substantial limitations of national armaments. Another reason for its failure was the German demand for complete equality of treatment as to armaments. When it was not given what it wanted, Germany withdrew from the conference and from the League, in October 1933. The result was French and British rearmament instead of disarmament. Failure also became the key word for the World Economic Conference of 1932. Though a similar conference in 1927 led to treaties between several countries for tariff reductions, the conference of 1932 took place in a time of economic depression as the Great Depression
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spread from the United States to Europe and the rest of the world. The result was that the United States refused to discuss a stable monetary standard and France a general lowering of tariffs. International politics outside the League increased during the 1930s. In June 1933, a Four-Power Pact was concluded between Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. It sought a revision of the Paris peace treaties, equality of rights for Germany with regard to armaments, and cooperation on colonial questions. All these matters should have been the prerogative of the League. By way of consolation, the French were able to change the pact in such a way that it did not violate the Covenant and the Locarno Treaties, but the main consequence was the alienation of another country, namely Poland, from the League system. Adolf Hitler’s rejection of a pact establishing the eastern borders of Germany provoked a separate Franco–Russian treaty of mutual assistance in 1935. At the Nyon Conference of 1937, Great Britain and France discussed the Spanish Civil War and came to a naval agreement on the Mediterranean. The marginal position of the League also became apparent when, in 1935, Italy attacked Abyssinia. Initially the collective security system, including the application of sanctions, seemed to work: some 50 states adopted the resolutions of the sanctions committee. British and French economic and strategic interests, however, prevented the next step, an oil embargo. The Hoare–Laval Plan in fact spelled the end of the League’s policy. Again, most member states condemned Italy as an enemy of the collective system, whereas the big powers regarded Italy as a vital element in the preservation of the old-fashioned status quo. A double conflict of interests occurred: between the League and the big member states, but also within those states, namely between their commitments as League members and their interests in the parallel international balance of power network. This schizophrenia only increased with the advent of fascist and other dictatorial regimes. Italy was just one of them; Germany and Japan were others. Totalitarian regimes naturally had little respect for individual freedom and human rights and even less for the League, which could frustrate their ambitions. Berlin and Tokyo therefore withdrew from the League in 1933 and Rome in 1937. Their territorial claims affected League member states, and this meant that the League had to ful-
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fill its obligations. Very often, however, the parallel balance-of-power circuit dominated League action and made the League powerless. The Hoare–Laval Plan had given Adolf Hitler an indication of what to expect from Great Britain and France in the case of territorial aggression. When, on 7 March 1936, Hitler invaded the Rhineland, which had been demilitarized and guaranteed by the Versailles Peace Treaty and the Locarno Treaties, France and Great Britain appealed to the Council. The Council appeared utterly divided: Great Britain had earlier shown some understanding for revision of the peace treaty; Italy refused to apply sanctions of which it was a victim itself, and moreover could not afford loss of its trade with Germany; and France was paralyzed without British support. The remaining Council members did not want to risk a conflict between Germany and the other Western European powers, which meant the end of League action. Local Nazi terror in the Free City of Danzig, in 1935, could not provoke Council action either. German rearmament briefly united Great Britain, France, and Italy at the Stresa Conference of 1935, but a separate Anglo–German naval agreement shattered this unity and condoned German rearmament and revision of the Versailles Peace Treaty. Public opinion, however, could not accept the prevailing situation. The Italo–Abyssinian War had led to the British Peace Ballot, a petition against the war, and caused the downfall of Foreign Minister Samuel Hoare. During the summer of 1936, an International Peace Campaign on a much larger scale demanded the restoration of the principles of the Covenant. The campaign had been initiated by British and French former politicians and by socialist and trade union leaders, and it was supported by women’s and church movements. In September 1936, some 500 delegates from 35 countries attended a congress in Brussels. Alas, it came too late to influence events. By 1936, confidence in the League was at an all-time low. Therefore, most member states opted for disconnection of the Covenant from the peace treaties and revision of Article XVI, the so-called “sanctions article.” Few member states were willing to risk their own security for the sake of League action. It was only natural that China appealed to the United States when, in July 1937, Japan launched a new attack. Only the aloofness of the United States induced China to turn to the League. Once again, China could count on the sympathy of the Assembly, but
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again, Great Britain and France refused to do anything that might incite Japan to war. Appeasement of Germany and Italy as intervening powers during the Spanish Civil War induced France and Great Britain to maintain a strict policy of non-intervention, which did not help the Republican government and only prolonged German–Italian support of Francisco Franco. Appeasement also led to the Anglo–Italian Agreement of 1938, by which the British recognized Italian annexation of Abyssinia. By September 1938, no one even expected that the League would be consulted during the Czechoslovakian crisis. The League was completely cut out at the Munich Conference, which decided the fate of Czechoslovakian Sudetenland. The 1937 decision of the Council, that the Sanjak of Alexandretta, part of the French mandated territory of Syria, should remain part of Syria unless its population should decide otherwise, was ignored by France when, in June 1939, it agreed to the Turkish annexation of the Sanjak. Hitler’s annexationist policy toward Czechoslovakia, Memel, and Danzig, as well as Italy’s annexation of Albania, further paralyzed the League. For this, the big powers had to be held responsible. Here, too, they sought security through bilateral security guarantees, such as the Anglo–Polish Agreement of 1939, and the French guarantees given to Eastern European states. The only upsurge of decisiveness could be witnessed in the League’s final days. With remarkable speed the Council and Assembly expelled the Soviet Union from the League in November 1939, after its attack on Finland. But the Soviet Union, of course, was not a member of the club. The Finns, however, could only count on humanitarian aid from the Secretariat. Intervention by the member states was clearly out of the question. It had become clear that as soon as the League interfered in the vital interests of member states, those states settled their affairs outside the League. It is doubtful whether even membership of the United States would have changed this reaction. Through the Covenant’s recognition of state sovereignty and the establishment of the Council as the main organ, the great powers preserved sufficient freedom of action to do what they wanted in a pinch. Without this, however, the League might never have existed at all. Sovereignty and national interests likewise influenced the League’s policy in the humanitarian field. The protection of Eastern European
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minorities led to political unrest, especially when Germany obtained a permanent seat on the Council. To counterbalance Germany, Poland could count on French support in the Council because a permanent member was able to keep petitions from the Council’s agenda, thereby preventing effective League supervision. Even in the Assembly, most member states feared interference with their own ethnic, racial, or religious minorities and therefore often kept a low profile. The growing aggression of fascist Germany provoked an appeasement policy, and not only in Great Britain. The hitherto discreet handling of minority affairs by the League depended greatly on its prestige, and as soon as its reputation sank, minorities became pawns in the political games of their respective powers. Effective League supervision also became a subject of controversy with regard to the mandates system. As a result of the intervention and “meddling” of the—independent—Permanent Mandates Commission, irritation among the mandatories, especially Great Britain and France, grew. And out of this irritation, numerous conflicts arose. In 1926 a major clash in the Council erupted between the mandatories and the commission. Under no circumstances would the mandatories comply with the commission’s request to hear petitioners and to extend the already very detailed questionnaires, the models for the mandatories’ annual reports. The Assembly wished to discuss the conflict but was prevented from doing so by the representatives of the mandatories. Though the commission continued its supervisory work until 1940, the message had been made clear: mandatories, not the League, governed the mandated territories.
SUCCESSES Dealing with mandates and minorities belonged to the supervisory tasks of the League. These tasks were entrusted to it by the Covenant or by treaties concluded during, or shortly after, the Paris Peace Conference. The performance of the Permanent Mandates Commission was an example of the mixed results the League achieved during its 20 years of existence. Although the commission may not have gained everything it wished, its proceedings still belong to the success stories of the League. The inability to receive petitioners from the mandated territories did not
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prevent it from scrutinizing every step taken by the mandatories. The commission successfully protested against the Union of South Africa’s notion that it possessed sovereignty over South West Africa and prevented South West Africa’s incorporation as a fifth province within the Union. Likewise, and with the support of Germany and Italy on the Council, it could prevent Great Britain’s “closer union” plans with Tanganyika in 1932. The commission’s initiative, not appreciated by the mandatories, to settle the nationality of the inhabitants of the mandated territories protected the inhabitants from automatic and forced naturalization. Its criticism of French rule over Syria accelerated the establishment of an organic law. And in some cases it was even successful as to the application of the principle of economic equality. Of great value to international law were its concerns about minorities. When, in 1930, Great Britain wanted to get rid of its Iraq mandate, the commission doubted whether Iraq was ripe for independence and would agree only if Iraq met certain conditions, such as the protection of minorities and foreigners and the rights of the member states of the League. These guarantees were given by Iraq—and soon proved worthless. The fate of the Iraqi minorities frustrated the commission, and therefore it demanded solid guarantees when, in 1936, France concluded treaties with Lebanon and Syria, promising independence within three years. Many successes could be attributed to the power of public opinion. The publication of the minutes more or less forced the mandatories to take the commission’s recommendations into account. One of the salient features of the mandates system was the right of petition for inhabitants of mandated territories. This right was not embodied in the Covenant or the mandate texts. The initiative had been taken by Great Britain, which also set up the rules. The commission succeeded in using them as a powerful instrument by publishing them as annexes to the minutes, which gave many petitioners sufficient satisfaction. The mere fact that individuals could make a direct appeal to an international organization and receive the full—and public—attention of the commission was of great value to the development of later trends regarding “human rights.” The League’s performance in the field of minorities was equally mixed. That the minorities regime became subject to political strife was not entirely the League’s fault. The League could have done better, but
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the mere fact that the existence of minorities was recognized and that individuals had a forum to turn to was a considerable improvement compared to earlier periods. Minorities could count on individual protection, juridical equality, and absence of discrimination, as well as preservation of their language. These stipulations of the minorities treaties codified another aspect of human rights protection and brought further limitation on state sovereignty. Petitions were just one of the sources of information for the League to supervise the implementation of the treaties. Committees-of-Three Council members studied these petitions, but the Minorities Section of the Secretariat did the investigation work. A large number of problems could be settled by the section itself, informally. Most cases of redistribution of land were, indeed, solved by the section. The section took its work seriously and developed a very broad view of its functions. Every petition was studied and distributed to all member states and, from 1929, published in the League’s Official Journal. Cases on citizenship were settled by the Permanent Court of International Justice. The most striking achievements of the League lay in the field of human rights issues in the broadest sense. The Saint-Germain Conventions of 1919 had already revised all the acts and treaties concluded in the nineteenth century, on questions of labor, opium, and the traffic in women and children. The conventions added stipulations on the liquor traffic in Africa. It was in these human rights sectors that the League set up permanent commissions and institutions. The conferences it organized would subsequently change the ideas on the protection of human beings, and their decisions would be incorporated in international law. The Geneva Convention on Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs of 1925 established an independent body to monitor and advise on matters relating to opiate distribution and control. It also set up a system of annual reporting of drug stocks, manufacture, and shipments. Another Geneva convention of 1925 issued the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. It intented to ban permanently the use of all forms of chemical and biological warfare. The League’s activities on the protection of children were also new. In 1926 the Social Questions Section established a special Child Welfare Center. This section gradually occupied itself with infant mortality, school recreation, and juvenile courts.
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The Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, the Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children, and the Child Welfare Committee all sought to improve the condition of children all over the world. Important achievements were the acceptance by 50 countries of the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child and the disclosure of the methods whereby girls were shipped from Europe to other continents. A report on the traffic in women and children, published in 1927, even became one of the League’s best-sellers. Slavery had been a subject of some nineteenth-century agreements and treaties, but the League established a special Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery. This committee prepared an anti-slavery convention, which was adopted in 1926. Forced labor and slavery were also fields of interest to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), established by the peace treaties and part of the League. Its aim was the “collection and distribution of information on all subjects relating to the international adjustment of conditions of industrial life and labour.” Its unique membership, consisting of government, employers, and “workpeople,” did much more than that. The ILO organized numerous conferences and concluded numerous conventions on every aspect of labor. Among the successes, not so much of the League as of one of its employees, was the work on the protection of refugees. Because no provisions were made for the League to perform this task, neither in the Covenant nor at the Paris Peace Conference, the League’s budget remained restricted. Its main protagonist, Fridtjof Nansen, started to work for the League at the request of the Secretariat, originally just to repatriate about a million prisoners of 26 countries detained in the Soviet Union. By 1922, he had fulfilled this task. He also campaigned for help during the Russian famine. In 1921 he obtained the title High Commissioner of Refugees. In this capacity, he worked for Armenian, Greek, and (White) Russian refugees and gave the stateless a “nationality” by issuing the so-called Nansen passport; the certificate bore his name and photograph and was accepted by more than 50 countries. After Nansen’s death in 1930, a new organization, the Nansen International Office for Refugees, took over his work. The League also refined existing agreements. The first Assembly decided to set up a new permanent health organization and a Health Committee, with a greater range of activities than the International Office of
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Public Health, established in Paris in 1907. The Health Organization, led by the Polish doctor Ludwik Rajchman, was one of the few worldwide organs of the League and was successful in the struggle against epidemics; it studied tropical diseases in Africa and dealt with all aspects of public health in general. The League organized health missions to various countries and collected data. The organization regularly served as a political intermediary between the League and countries like China and the Soviet Union. Pioneering research was also done in the field of nutrition. As a result of the economic depression, the League felt the need to undertake a study that would cover all aspects of food: agriculture, famine, health, labor, and economic policy. The driving force behind it was the Australian Stanley Bruce. Therefore, in 1935, the Assembly set up a committee that published a series of reports in 1937. This so-called nutrition report also became one of the League’s best-selling publications. Soon, national committees were established to carry out the necessary reforms and inform the League about their progress. In the economic field, the League organized several conferences. In September 1920, a worldwide conference on international financial questions, held in Brussels, dealt with postwar economic and financial problems. It laid down general principles on economics and currencies and advised recovery programs for all countries that had suffered from the war. One of its recommendations was that the League should provide the widest possible publicity on public finances and currencies. The conference advised the establishment of an economic committee and a financial committee. Both committees set up other committees, such as the Fiscal Committee and the Committee of Statistical Experts. The publication of the Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, the international Statistical Yearbook, the Review of World Trade, and, as of 1932, the World Economic Survey was carried out by the League’s Economic Intelligence Service. The gathering of data and their distribution on a worldwide scale had never been undertaken before and their value should not be underestimated. The same worldwide importance can be attributed to several conferences on communications and transit. The first major conference was held in Barcelona, in 1921, which concluded conventions on freedom of transit and international waterways. It also established a permanent organization for all matters regarding communications and transit.
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The League was able to solve economic problems with a political touch, such as the conflict between Great Britain and Persia over the Anglo–Persian Oil Company. This British oil company had concessions in Persia (present-day Iran). When the Persian government demanded better terms in 1932, Great Britain referred the dispute to the Council, which succeeded in bringing the two parties together. The new contract was much more profitable for Persia, while the British saw their concession extended for a considerable time. The League could also resolve several purely political issues. One of its first successes was the settlement of the Swedish–Finnish dispute over the Åland Islands. When in 1920 the ethnic Swedish population demanded association with Sweden, the question was taken up by the Council. Its report was subsequently accepted by Sweden and Finland in 1921: the islands remained Finnish but the League supervised the treatment of the Swedish population. The League saved some defeated powers from financial ruin. The most famous example was the reconstruction of Austria, which started in 1922. A League commissioner-general, with the financial aid of several member states, worked out a program by which Austria was able to control its own budget in 1925. In 1921 the League Council established a committee of experts that delimited the frontiers of Upper Silesia, a region claimed by Germany and Poland. The Upper Silesian Conference, in May 1922, resulted in the Geneva Convention on Upper Silesia, which was accepted by Germany and Poland. The settlement would last 15 years, during which a German–Polish joint commission and a joint tribunal would supervise the arrangements. Though, in later years, minorities in the region would cause political problems, the convention worked fairly well, certainly in the economic respect. A Polish–Lithuanian dispute over the port of Memel was also successfully resolved. In 1923 the Council drafted a statute for the city by which Lithuania promised Poland equal rights as to transit and commerce with all other users of the Memel port. A neutral member of the Harbor Board, appointed by the League’s Transit Committee, would provide external supervision. The Memel Convention was subsequently accepted by Lithuania and the Allies, in March 1924, and entered into force in August 1925. After numerous efforts, in December 1927, the Council also succeeded in
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putting an end to the state of war in the Polish–Lithuanian dispute over Vilna. The end of the Greco–Turkish War and the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1923 brought a solution for several ethnic groups. The Lausanne Peace Treaty included a separate agreement that provided for the compulsory exchange of populations. Under the supervision of a mixed League of Nations commission, more than 1 million Greeks of Asia Minor were resettled in Greece, and about 800,000 Turks and 80,000 Bulgarians left Greece and were repatriated in their respective countries. The program ended in 1926 and was one of the major undertakings of the League. In 1925 the League was able to prevent the outbreak of war between Greece and Bulgaria. When Greek troops crossed the border with Bulgaria in October 1925, the Council immediately sent a commission of inquiry on the spot. The commission’s report was accepted by the Council and both parties to the conflict. Territorial disputes also lay at the root of the Mosul affair. Mosul was a disputed region on the border between Turkey and Iraq, allocated by the Treaty of Sèvres to Iraq under British mandate rule. Turkey claimed the province at the negotiations over the Lausanne Treaty. A Council commission of inquiry advised a demarcation line and continuation of the British mandate for 25 years, unless Iraq became a League member state before this period expired. The Kurdish population would receive guarantees from Great Britain. These recommendations were accepted by the Council in December 1925 and, though reluctantly, by the Turkish government in June 1926. The Council likewise intervened successfully in the Hungaro–Yugoslav crisis of 1934, caused by the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia. One of the most succesful undertakings of the League was the administration of the Saar territory, placed under League administration for 15 years after the conclusion of the peace treaties ending World War I. The administration of the Saar was a truly international government. The Governing Commission consisted of a Frenchman, a Saarlander, and persons of three other nationalities. The population of the Saar was to express its wish to remain under League administration or to return to German sovereignty in 1935. This was to be the first plebiscite held under the authority of the League. The Council nominated a Plebiscite Commission of three neutral members and a Supreme Plebiscite Tribunal of
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25 judges and deputy judges. To maintain order during the plebiscite, an international force was established, consisting of 3,300 British, Swedish, and Dutch troops under British command. The plebiscite was held on 13 January 1935, and 90 percent of the Saarlanders voted for reunion with Germany. On 28 February, the Governing Commission was able to transfer the territory to Germany. Some years later, in 1937, the Council’s mediation between Iraq and Persia on the waterway of the Shatt-al-Arab, forming the border between the two countries, led to an agreement between both countries. Apart from these political interventions, the League performed pioneering work for the codification of international law. Its discussions on arbitration, its application of international sanctions, including an arms embargo, its experiments with an international force, and its convention on terrorism paved the way for further development within the framework of the United Nations. The League, for the first time in history, provided a meeting place for states that otherwise would not have had a forum to express their anxieties and wishes. The League treated non-European states as equals and offered them possibilities of discussing their concerns and defending their interests. The Middle Eastern Pact of 1937 could only have come into being because of the contacts made in Geneva. Perhaps the most important innovation of the League was its openness with regard to international affairs. The work of the Information Section, its contacts with the press, and the fact that everything concerning the League’s activities was published, involved public opinion in world affairs on a scale never witnessed before. Public opinion, after World War II, would become a factor to reckon with. Public interest, not just in domestic affairs but in international affairs, had been awakened and would become a subject of constant concern for every government. The Peace Ballot of 1935 and the fall of Samuel Hoare in Great Britain were only a warning shot for the years to come.
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–A– ABYSSINIA. Located in northeastern Africa between the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia, Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) had been invaded by Italy in 1896. Abyssinia was admitted as a member state of the League of Nations in 1923, on the condition that it would abolish slavery and the slave trade. After 1928, it was ruled by Ras Tafari, who became emperor Haile Selassie in 1930. Haile Selassie tried to modernize his country and concluded a treaty of friendship with Italy in 1928. Because earlier economic penetration had failed, it became subject to Italian annexation in the 1930s. This caused the Italo–Abyssinian War. ADATCI, MINEICHIRO (1869–1934). Adatci was the Japanese ambassador to Belgium from 1917 to 1928. He represented Japan at the Paris Peace Conference and on the Council from 1919 to 1930. Adatci played an important role in the framing of the Geneva Protocol and acted as rapporteur on European minority questions. In 1929 he was a member of the Assembly committee to study the plans for a new League building. In 1931 he was appointed as judge and chair of the Permanent Court of International Justice. He resigned after the Japanese announcement of withdrawal from the League in 1933. See also YOSHIZAWA, KENKICHI. ADMINISTRATIVE COMMISSIONS AND MINORITIES QUESTIONS SECTION. One of the 12 sections of the League’s Secretariat. Established in 1920, the section dealt with the protection of minorities and questions relating to Danzig, the Saar, and the exchange of populations. The second group fell under the direct 29
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authority of the secretary-general. After the return of the Saar to Germany in 1935, the section was renamed the Minorities Section. All its other activities were transferred to the Political Section. In 1939 after a reorganization of the Secretariat, this section, together with the Disarmament, Mandates, and Intellectual Cooperation Sections, formed Department I. The section received and examined petitions coming from countries that were signatories of the minority treaties. Section members visited the countries concerned and received petitioners in Geneva. They were also responsible for informal communications with the governments. The section had eight members in 1921 and 14 in 1930. They were chosen from countries without minorities, so as to guarantee their impartiality. Until 1930, Erik Colban of Norway was director; his successors were Pablo de Azcárate of Spain, and Rasmus Skylstad of Sweden. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES, INTERNAL. The services were set up simultaneously with the first sections of the Secretariat at the Paris Peace Conference. They fulfilled the vital tasks for a proper working of the Secretariat and dealt with staff, buildings, stenographic service, distribution of documents, interpreters, library, publications, and the registry of documents. In 1930 they had a staff of 343 persons. They came under one of the under secretaries-general. AFGHANISTAN. Afghanistan was admitted as a League member state in 1934. Even before that date, it participated in the Disarmament Conference, where it developed an attitude it would maintain throughout the years of its membership, namely to take a firm stand against big Western powers that preferred decision-making in secret meetings. League meetings in Geneva stimulated the conclusion of a treaty of peace and friendship, also known as the Middle Eastern Pact, in July 1937. Its signatories were Afghanistan, Persia, Iraq, later Egypt, and Turkey, which acted as the dominant power. AGHNIDES, THANASSIS (1889–1984). Aghnides was a Greek jurist and diplomat who, during World War I, was involved in press affairs in London. He joined the League in 1919 and served briefly as a member of the Minorities Section. From 1921 to 1923, he worked in
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the Disarmament Section and, until 1930, in the Political Section. Aghnides became director of the Disarmament Section in 1930, and in 1932–1933 acted as secretary of the Disarmament Conference. AGRICULTURAL MORTGAGE CREDIT COMPANY, INTERNATIONAL. See EUROPEAN UNION; FINANCIAL COMMITTEE. AGRICULTURE, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF. Established in 1905, in Rome, it was one of the oldest international organizations. It remained autonomous after 1919, but there was some technical cooperation between the institute and the League. AIR NAVIGATION COMMITTEE, INTERNATIONAL. In 1919 a meeting of the victorious nations of World War I resulted in the International Convention for Air Navigation, commonly called the Paris Convention. The committee was one of the international organizations placed under the authority of the League of Nations by Article XXIV of the Covenant. See also AVIATION, CIVIL. ÅLAND ISLANDS. Group of islands near the coast of Finland under Finnish sovereignty. In 1920 the ethnic Swedish population demanded association with Sweden. At the instigation of Great Britain, the question was taken up by the Council of the League of Nations, which sent a neutral commission to the Baltic. Sweden and Finland accepted its report in 1921: the islands had to remain Finnish but the League wanted control over the treatment of the Swedish population. The question is regarded as the first successful intervention of the League concerning minority issues. During the last regular session of the Council, in May 1939, Finland and Sweden asked permission to fortify the islands in order to defend their neutrality in case of war. Due to the delaying tactics of the Soviet Union on the Council and the outbreak of World War II, no decision could be reached. ALBANIA. Albania had been an independent state only since 1913. After World War I, parts of the country were claimed by Greece, Italy, and Yugoslavia. Though Robert Cecil, at the Assembly of 1920, succeeded in having it admitted as a League member, disturbances
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along its borders still occurred. In November 1921 the Conference of Ambassadors decided that the borders should remain what they were in 1913 and made Italy responsible for protecting the independence of Albania. This last-mentioned decision would have grave consequences in the 1930s. In 1923 a conflict arose between Italy and Greece over the frontier between Greece and Albania. The Italian member of the delimitation commission, appointed by the Conference of Ambassadors, was murdered on Greek territory, which led to the Italian occupation of Corfu in August 1923. As one of the smaller states of the League, Albania often protested against tendencies of the big Western powers to settle issues among themselves. During the Italo–Abyssinian War, Albania hesitated to apply sanctions against Italy, and it also supported Italy during the Spanish Civil War. Albania ceased to exist as an independent state and League member when it was annexed by Italy in April 1939. ALEXANDER (1888–1934). King of Yugoslavia from 1921 to 1934. On 8 October 1934, he was assassinated in Marseilles, together with Louis Barthou, French minister of foreign affairs. The assassination led to the Hungarian–Yugoslav crisis. ALEXANDRETTA, SANJAK OF. District in northwestern Syria. Syria was a mandate of the League of Nations, administered by France. When in 1936 the French considered independence for Syria and Lebanon within three years, Turkey demanded independence for the Sanjak as well, claiming that it feared for the fate of the Turkish population (about 40 percent of the total population) when they fell under Syrian authority. The question was laid before the Council, and League observers were sent to the region. The Council decided that the Sanjak should remain part of Syria but that it should be granted internal autonomy. The Statute and Fundamental Law to that effect were ratified in May 1937. To organize the elections of the Sanjak Assembly, an electoral commission was appointed by the Council. Its work was made impossible by the Turks, who feared a non-Turkish majority. A French–Turkish organization took over and guaranteed a Turkish Sanjak government. In June 1939 France agreed to the Turkish an-
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nexation of the Sanjak. The episode is generally regarded as another example of the failure of the League, since in the final stages, neither Turkey nor France consulted the Council or the Permanent Mandates Commission. ALLIED AND ASSOCIATED POWERS. At the Paris Peace Conference, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan together were called the Principal Allied Powers, the United States being the Associated Power. ALLIED MILITARY COMMISSION. Under the terms of the various peace treaties, this commission was entitled to prevent illegal rearmament of the defeated powers. Officially, its task should have been taken over by the Council, but Great Britain, Germany, and Japan prevented this. ALOISI, POMPEO (1875–1949). An Italian diplomat who acted as Benito Mussolini’s representative in the latter’s capacity as foreign minister. He was chief of cabinet of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1932 to 1936. Aloisi represented Italy at the Disarmament Conference (1932–1933), the Stresa Conference (1935), and on the Council (1932–1937). Aloisi also acted as Council rapporteur on Saar affairs, mediated in the Shatt-al-Arab dispute, and negotiated with the Council, France, and Great Britain during the Italo–Abyssinian War. ALSACE-LORRAINE. Alsace-Lorraine was a province of France when it was annexed by Germany after the Franco–Prussian war of 1870. The Paris Peace Conference restored the fertile and densely populated region to France. AMBASSADORS, CONFERENCE OF. See CONFERENCE OF AMBASSADORS. AMES, HERBERT (1863–1954). Sir Herbert Ames was a Canadian member of Parliament when he became treasurer of the League in 1919. He was succeeded in 1926 by the South African Seymour Jacklin.
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ANGLO–GERMAN NAVAL AGREEMENT. The agreement, signed on 18 June 1935, between Great Britain and Germany, permitted Germany to possess 35 percent of the British naval strength and the right to submarine tonnage equal to the total of the Commonwealth. It was a clear breach of the Versailles Peace Treaty and a great disappointment to France and Italy. The three countries had just agreed, at the Stresa Conference, to contain German rearmament. As a consequence, the naval agreement strengthened French–Italian ties. ANGLO–ITALIAN AGREEMENT. By this agreement, concluded in April 1938, Great Britain recognized Italy’s sovereignty over Abyssinia. Italy promised to withdraw its forces from Spain after the end of the Spanish Civil War. ANGLO–PERSIAN OIL COMPANY. This British oil company had a concession in Persia (present-day Iran). In 1932 the Persian government announced the cancellation of the concession, since it demanded better terms. The government of Great Britain, however, saw this as a potential international conflict between the two countries and referred the dispute to the Council. The Council rapporteur, Eduard Benesˇ, succeeded in bringing the two parties together, which resulted in a revised contract. The new contract was more profitable to Persia, while the British saw the concession extended from 1961 to 1993. The compromise has been regarded as a triumph for League intervention. ANGLO–POLISH AGREEMENT. The agreement was in fact a military alliance concluded between Poland and Great Britain in March 1939. It was meant to prevent a German attack on Poland and guaranteed British support in case of foreign aggression. Similar guarantees were given to Greece and Romania. ANTI-COMINTERN PACT. The pact was concluded in November 1936 by Germany, Italy, and Japan, officially to inform each other about activities of the Comintern (the Communist International) and to cooperate against communist subversive acts. In reality, anticommunism proved to be the pretext for their territorial ambitions.
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ANTI-SLAVERY AND ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY. This respectable society in Great Britain, with some influence in government circles, sent numerous petitions to the League, especially in connection with mandates issues. ANTI-SLAVERY COMMITTEE. See SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. ANZILOTTI, DIONIZO (1867–1950). Anzilotti was an Italian international lawyer who served Italy as a legal adviser at the Paris Peace Conference. The League’s secretary-general, Eric Drummond, invited him in 1919 to become one of the three under secretariesgeneral, which post he held until 1921. He was president of the Permanent Court of International Justice from 1928 to 1930. ARBITRATION. The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 tried to institutionalize the hitherto voluntary and disorganized means of arbitration. No state would agree to compulsory arbitration, however. At the Paris Peace Conference, it was generally felt that disputes between states had to be settled by arbitration, and the Phillimore and Bourgeois Committees incorporated some form of compulsory arbitration in their plans. Articles XII to XV of the Covenant subsequently submitted disputes “likely to lead to a rupture” to arbitration or inquiry by the Council, and the disputants were to “agree in no case to resort to war until three months after the award by the arbitrators or the report by the Council.” States therefore were not held to submit every dispute to arbitration, and they were entitled to resort to war three months after the arbitrators’ decision. To remedy this, compulsory arbitration was placed on the agenda of all disarmament initiatives of the League. The Protocol of Geneva, unlike the Covenant, submitted all disputes, except those that lay in the domestic jurisdiction of one of the parties, to arbitration and made the decision of the arbitrator binding. In 1927 Germany suggested another variation of compulsory arbitration, the so-called Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War. It would have bound League members in advance to any recommendation of the Council in case of disputes, but for many member states this went too far. The General
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Act of the Arbitration and Security Committee of 1928 refined the Protocol of Geneva. The failure of the Disarmament Conference also meant the end of further developments as to arbitration. See also HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCES; COVENANT, DRAFTING OF. ARBITRATION AND SECURITY COMMITTEE. The committee was set up by the Assembly in 1927 to assist the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference. Its task was to formulate security guarantees, which would make it easier for states to maintain the lowest armament limits. It also drafted a series of model treaties on compulsory arbitration and mutual assistance. Those on arbitration, conciliation, and judicial settlement became a separate treaty, known as the General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, which was adopted by the Assembly in 1928 and entered into force in 1931. It remained a dead letter, though, after the aggression of Japan and Germany, which was soon to follow. ARGENTINA. Argentina did not belong to the original members of the League but was invited to become a member state in 1920. It accepted the invitation and soon had its permanent representative residing in Geneva. Though it had walked out on the first Assembly in 1920 because its amendment to the Covenant was not discussed, it participated in the League’s work and resumed full membership in 1933. In 1926 it sat on the committee that raised the number of Council seats from 10 to 14. In 1935 Argentina, both as a League member and as a member of the conference of American states, succeeded in mediating during the Chaco War. It rejected the Soviet Union’s entry into the League in 1934. See also LATIN AMERICA; PAN-AMERICAN UNION. ARMAMENTS, CONFERENCE FOR THE REDUCTION AND LIMITATION OF. See DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE. ARMAMENTS, TEMPORARY MIXED COMMISSION FOR THE REDUCTION OF. See TEMPORARY MIXED COMMISSION FOR THE REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS (TMC).
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ARMAMENTS COMMISSION, PERMANENT. See MILITARY, NAVAL, AND AIR QUESTIONS, PERMANENT ADVISORY COMMISSION ON. ARMENIA, REPUBLIC OF. Before World War I, Armenia was part of the Ottoman Empire and declared itself independent after the war. It could count on the moral support of the Allies and the United States and was even invited to sign the Treaty of Sèvres, but it became a victim of the antagonism between the Soviet Union and the growing power of nationalist Turkey. As the victorious powers had no intention of intervening militarily, the Supreme Council suggested making Armenia a mandated territory with the League acting as trustee. In April 1920 the League Council, however, considered a trusteeship the task of individual states, not of the League as a whole, all the more so since the League had no military or financial resources to carry out that task. The Council suggested the United States as mandatory power. Woodrow Wilson was willing to accept the burden, but the U.S. Congress rejected the idea in June 1920. Meanwhile the situation in Armenia deteriorated as a result of internal strife and the atrocities of the invading Turkish army. The first League Assembly, though full of sympathy for the new republic, could do little else but try to persuade Armenians and Turks to stop fighting. During its session, however, a communist coup d’état took place in Armenia. It became one of the Soviet republics and ceased to exist as an independent state. See also MANDATES SYSTEM. ARMS EMBARGO. Articles XI, XV, XVI, and XVII of the Covenant gave the Council and the Assembly the right to take any action to “safeguard the peace of nations.” One of those measures was to impose an arms embargo on the conflicting parties. The instrument was applied during the Chaco War and the Italo–Abyssinian War. ASQUITH, HERBERT (1852–1928). Asquith was prime minister of Great Britain during World War I. He supported the idea of a League of Nations and encouraged the British League of Nations Society, founded in 1915. He was replaced as prime minister in December 1916 by David Lloyd George, who formed a war cabinet. See also: LEAGUE OF NATIONS ASSOCIATIONS.
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ASSEMBLY. According to Article II of the Covenant, the “action of the League . . . shall be effected through the instrumentality of an Assembly and of a Council, with a permanent Secretariat.” Article III stipulated that the Assembly should consist of representatives (with a maximum of three) of all member states. The Covenant therefore created a full-scale international conference, for the first time dealing with the whole field of international affairs, a true international “parliament.” Each member state had one vote. According to the Rules of Procedure, decisions had to be taken unanimously, the only exception being matters of procedure. The Assembly operated under the principle of equality. Unlike the Council, it had no permanent members, so the big powers had no privileged position. The Assembly would meet at “stated intervals” at the seat of the League or any other place. The agenda was drawn up by the secretary-general, but new items could be placed on the agenda after the opening session, provided that twothirds of the Assembly agreed. After the Assembly resolution of 29 September 1922, the Assembly based its discussions on the secretarygeneral’s report on the work of the Council since the last session of the Assembly, the work of the Secretariat, and on the measures taken to execute the decisions of the Assembly. A disadvantage of the Assembly was that it met only once a year. One of the consequences was that the social and economic work of the League remained in the dark, since the Council devoted most of its time to political issues. Therefore, from 1937 on, plans were made for a reorganization of the League system. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the Bruce Report presented the new structure, which was subsequently adopted by the United Nations. In 1920 the Assembly had 42 members; by 1927 the number had increased to 55 states. In all, 63 states were for a shorter or longer period members of the League. See also MEMBERSHIP. ASSEMBLY COMMITTEES. Due to the great number of representatives, plenary meetings did not seem appropriate for regular deliberations. Therefore the Assembly was divided into six committees and sometimes further subcommittees. The first committee dealt with general questions regarding the organization of the League; the second committee with economic, social, and technical questions; the third committee with the Permanent Court of International Jus-
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tice; the fourth committee with the budget and staff of the Secretariat; the fifth with the admission of new member states; and the sixth, generally seen as the most important one, with political questions, including mandates and minorities. Because of political sensitivities, the chair of this committee was usually a delegate of one of the smaller (or Scandinavian) states. Each member state could send one representative (assisted by one technical adviser) to each committee. Though the plenary sessions of the Assembly were always public, those of the committees sometimes were not. ASSEMBLY COMPETENCES. According to the Covenant, the Assembly had the competence (or jurisdiction) to deal with “any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world.” In practice, however, the Council became the main political organ of the League. The Assembly only received documents after they were seen by the Council. The Council did not interfere, though, with one of the main tasks of the Assembly, the management of the League’s finances, and seldom interfered with the admission of new member states, another prerogative of the Assembly. Some states, such as Bolivia and China, in later years expressly ignored the Council when it reached a deadlock or took unfavorable decisions, and turned to the Assembly to give a verdict on a dispute. The Assembly regularly attacked the Council on the handling of some political affairs. From the mid-1920s, when important issues, such as the Locarno Treaties, were settled outside the League of Nations, the smaller nations resented that they were excluded from important decisions. This often caused vehement discussions in the Assembly. ASSEMBLY DELEGATES. Each member state was entitled to send at least three delegates to the Assembly, apart from secretaries and technical advisers. The character of these delegates differed somewhat from those to the Council. A national delegation could consist not only of ministers and officials from foreign ministries, but also of officials from other ministries, party members, or persons with a certain prestige. Fridtjof Nansen, for instance, also represented his country on the Assembly. This meant that some delegations were far from homogeneous and sometimes even utterly divided. Personal opinions could play a greater role in the Assembly than in the Council and
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therefore made it, in the eyes of governments, an unpredictable—or dangerous—body. ASSEMBLY PLENARY SESSIONS. At plenary meetings of the Assembly, all representatives were present. All opening sessions were plenary, and other plenary sessions were held to deal with the conclusions of the separate committees and to formulate resolutions. The official voting took place in these sessions. Unlike some sessions of the various committees, plenary sessions were open to the public and therefore used by governments to issue political statements. ASSEMBLY PUBLICITY. The meetings of the Assembly always obtained considerable publicity. Internally the Secretariat issued the Journal de l’Assemblée for the delegates. Each delegation and the press received the minutes of all committees daily. As of the second Assembly in 1921, the chairs of the League of Nations Associations were invited to attend the plenary sessions, and from 1923 they could even send a representative to the committees. See also INFORMATION SECTION; PRESS. ASSEMBLY SESSIONS. Normally, the Assembly held one session of three weeks a year, usually starting on the first Monday in September. The duration of the session was defined beforehand. If deliberations on a given question could not be completed within that period, the question was referred to the Council. The Assembly held its first session from 15 November to 18 December 1920 and its last on 17 April 1946. The last session before World War II prevented further gatherings was held 11–14 December 1939. In total the Assembly had 21 ordinary sessions and four extraordinary sessions. The first extraordinary session, held 3 March 1932–24 February 1933, dealt with the Chinese–Japanese conflict over Manchuria and officially never closed; the second and third were held 20–24 November 1934 and 20–21 May 1935, on the Chaco crisis; and the fourth was held 20–27 May 1937, on the admission of Egypt as a member state of the League. ASSYRIANS. This Christian people of the Hakkiari Mountains revolted against their Turkish rulers during World War I. Many of them
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were killed and few managed to flee to Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq. After Mesopotamia became a mandate of Great Britain, they fell under British authority. When Iraq gained its independence in 1932, the Assyrians requested reunion with Assyrians in Turkey and Persia (present-day Iran), as well as autonomy within the Iraqi state. After the refusal of Iraq, many fled to Syria. Iraq thereupon massacred some 600 men of those who had stayed behind. Because the Council, with the termination of the mandate, had pronounced itself responsible for Iraqi minorities, it sought a place where the Assyrians could be safe. From August 1933, only the French government, as mandatory power of Syria, was willing to house 9,000 of the 20,000 Assyrians on the banks of the Syrian Upper Khabur. The rest remained in Iraq. See also MANDATES SYSTEM. ATATÜRK. See KEMAL, MUSTAFA. ATTOLICO, BERNARDO (1880–1942). Attolico had been the head of the Italian food, shipping, and raw materials organization in London during World War I. He was chosen by the League’s secretarygeneral, Eric Drummond, to become the director of the Communications Section. From December 1920 to January 1921, he served as the League’s administrator in Danzig. Soon he became under secretary-general and was replaced, in 1927, by Marquis Paulucci di Calboli Barone. In the 1930s he was Italy’s ambassador to Germany. AUSTRALIA. At the Paris Peace Conference, the dominions under Great Britain had successfully pleaded for equal rights with other League members. Therefore, they were treated as independent states and had representatives on all League organs. Australia belonged to the original member states and joined the League in 1919. During the debates at the peace conference on the fate of Germany’s former colonies, Australia demanded annexation of the Pacific Islands for strategic and security reasons. This Woodrow Wilson could not allow. A compromise was found in the mandates system, which gave Australia the administration over North-East New Guinea. For practical reasons, a British representative often spoke for Australia when mandates were being discussed in the
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Council. To limit emigration from East Asia, Australia had objected to Japan’s wish to include in the preamble of the Covenant some remark on the principle of equality of nations and the just treatment of their nationals. Australia also objected to the admission of Abyssinia as a League member because of the domestic slavery, slave raiding, and slave trade there. For strategic reasons during the Sino–Japanese War, Australia tried hard to appease Japan, which was the dominant power in the Pacific. Australia’s prime minister, Stanley Bruce, drew up the report on the reorganization of the League in 1939. AUSTRIA. As one of the defeated powers, Austria emerged from World War I as a small state that had lost its former subjects: Italy, Yugoslavia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The peace treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, moreover, prohibited an association with Germany. Austria was admitted as a League member state in December 1920. During the first three years after the war, many Austrians died of starvation. A League of Nations plan of reconstruction failed in 1921, because it lacked American approval. In 1922 an Austrian committee was established by the Council, consisting of Arthur Balfour (Great Britain, chair), Gabriel Hanotaux (France), Marquis Guglielmo Imperiali (Italy), Eduard Benesˇ (Czechoslovakia), and Monsignor Ignaz Seipel, the Austrian chancellor. Its scheme, a new loan of $120 million and certain taxes, was adopted in October 1922, and a commissioner-general, Alfred Zimmerman of the Netherlands, was appointed by the League. By 1925, the Austrian government was able to control its own budget. From the beginning of the 1930s, Austria increasingly came under Italian influence: it refused to apply sanctions against Italy during the Italo–Abyssinian War and supported Italy’s actions during the Spanish Civil War. From 1933 Adolf Hitler developed his plans to include Austria in his Reich; when he marched into the country on 18 March 1938, Austria ceased to exist as an independent state. Its government and people had hardly offered resistance, and therefore the League was not involved. AVENOL, JOSEPH (1879–1952). Avenol was a French banker when in 1922 the government of France asked him to replace Jean Monnet, who retired from the financial organization of the League.
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Avenol devised financial solutions for Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, Estonia, and China. In 1929 he was sent on a League mission to China. From 1923 he was under secretary-general, charged with the League’s technical organizations, until he succeeded Eric Drummond as secretary-general of the League in 1933. He resigned in August 1940. AVIATION, CIVIL. In preparation of the Disarmament Conference, the Secretariat started to collect information on civil aviation, which could influence the discussions on the limitation of air forces. At the conference, an air committee, composed of staff officers, was established, which had to investigate the abolition of military aviation and the internationalization of civil aviation. The committee was utterly divided, however, over the question of whether civil aircraft could be used for military purposes. It succeeded, though, in fostering future developments in the internationalization of civil aviation. See also AIR NAVIGATION COMMITTEE, INTERNATIONAL. AZCÁRATE Y FLOREZ, PABLO DE (1890–1971). De Azcárate was a member of Spain’s parliament before he joined the League’s Secretariat in 1922 as a member of the Minorities Section. He assisted Erik Colban and went on numerous missions to Central and Eastern European countries to investigate minorities questions. As of 1930, de Azcárate served as director of the section. In 1933 he was appointed deputy secretary-general.
–B– BADOGLIO, PIETRO (1871–1956). Badoglio was Italy’s chief of General Staff and replaced Marshal Emilio De Bono during the Italo–Abyssinian War. BAKER, PHILIP J.; LORD NOEL-BAKER (1889–1982). Philip Baker, who became Lord Noel-Baker, had been Great Britain’s League of Nations expert during the Paris Peace Conference and the personal assistant of Lord Robert Cecil. He acted as director of the Mandates Section after the death of George Louis Beer until
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the arrival of the first director, William Rappard, in November 1920. Baker was a Quaker and fervent promoter of the League. He had a great influence on the independent character of the Mandates Section and the Permanent Mandates Commission and assisted Arthur Henderson at the Disarmament Conference. Baker was a member of the Labour Party and was elected several times to the British parliament. BALBO, ITALO (1896–1940). Balbo, in 1932, replaced Dino Grandi as Italy’s representative at the Disarmament Conference. BALDWIN, STANLEY (1867–1947). Baldwin, a member of the Conservative Party, was Great Britain’s prime minister in 1923–1924, 1924–1929, and 1935–1937. He supported Ramsay MacDonald’s rearmament program when it became clear that Germany was building up its armed forces on a large scale. Baldwin won the November 1935 election on his avowed support of the League in the Italo–Abyssinian War, but in December 1935 he was forced to dismiss his foreign secretary, Samuel Hoare, after the indignation of public opinion about the Hoare–Laval Plan. Britain’s supportive policy toward Italy did not change in essence, however. BALFOUR, ARTHUR J. (1848–1930). As Great Britain’s minister of foreign affairs (1916–1919), Balfour attended the Paris Peace Conference, with Eric Drummond as his personal secretary. He was also responsible for the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, by which the British government would facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. The declaration was given to the Jewish British banker Baron Rothschild of the Zionist Organization. Balfour was the president of the second Council meeting and played an important role in settling the Upper Silesia issue in 1921. In 1924 he was a member of the Labour cabinet and contributed to Britain’s rejection of the Protocol of Geneva. BALKAN ENTENTE. The pact was concluded in 1934 between Yugoslavia, Greece, Romania, and Turkey. Its aim was containment of the Soviet Union’s influence, Germany’s expansionism, and Bulgaria’s revisionism.
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BARCELONA, CONFERENCE OF. This conference on communications was convened by the first Assembly and held in March and April 1921. Some 44 states attended, including non-member states of the League. Its achievements were the Convention on Freedom of Transit and a Convention on the Regime of International Waterways. It also established a permanent organization on all matters regarding communications and transit. BARTHOU, LOUIS (1862–1934). Barthou was France’s minister of foreign affairs when he was murdered in 1934, together with King Alexander of Yugoslavia. Barthou was responsible for the French alliances with Eastern European states. He also advocated good relations with Italy and promoted the Soviet Union’s membership in the League. BECK, JOSEF (1894–1944). In November 1932, Beck succeeded the moderate Auguste Zaleski as Poland’s minister of foreign affairs. Under Beck, Poland increasingly tried to settle things outside the League. In January 1934 an agreement with Germany was reached to that effect. The agreement temporarily appeased the German minorities in Poland to such an extent that Beck, in September 1934, refused any further cooperation with the League as to minorities, thereby risking that German minorities would put complaints before Berlin and no longer before Geneva. Because Poland never recognized the Locarno Treaties, Beck did not condemn Germany at the Council session of March 1936, where Adolf Hitler’s occupation of the Rhineland was being discussed. In April 1939 Hitler denounced the German–Polish agreement of 1934, and German complaints on the position of German minorities eventually served as the pretext for the German attack on Poland in September 1939. BEELAERTS VAN BLOKLAND, FRANS (1872–1956). Beelaerts van Blokland was the Dutch foreign minister and represented the Netherlands on the Council in 1926 and 1927. As Council rapporteur, in October 1927 he was able to ease the growing tension between Poland and Lithuania. BEER, GEORGE LOUIS (1862–1920). Beer was a colonial expert and professor at Columbia University, New York. Together with Edward
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House, he had been the chief adviser of the American delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, where he suggested a mandates system. Beer was appointed as the first director of the Mandates Section but never took up his post, due to ill health and the non-participation of the United States in the League. BELGIUM. Belgium had suffered great losses and destruction during World War I. It participated in the Paris Peace Conference and was one of the original members of the League. During the conference, Belgium wanted Brussels to be the seat of the League, but Woodrow Wilson feared that, in that case, the League would forever be associated with the war. Belgium sat on the Council until the first Assembly was able to elect the members and was reelected in 1920. Belgium always remained suspicious of Germany’s intentions and therefore hesitant toward arms reductions. It did adhere, though, to the Treaty of Mutual Assistance and the Locarno Treaties of 1925. When Germany failed to meet its reparation obligations, Belgium, together with France, occupied the mines and factories of the Ruhr territory in January 1923. Generally speaking, Belgium supported French views on many subjects, including disarmament, though it disliked, like other small states, secret meetings of the big powers. It participated in the arms embargo during the Italo–Abyssinian War. The occupation on 7 March 1936 of the demilitarized Rhineland by German forces gave Belgium the right to take military action and to call on Great Britain and Italy as guarantors of the Locarno Treaties. Instead, France and Belgium turned to the Council, which, with the exception of France, appeared unwilling to apply sanctions. The Council restricted itself to a resolution that simply pronounced the German occupation a violation of the Locarno Treaties. In October, Belgium declared itself a neutral country, faithful to the Covenant but without obligations to the Locarno Treaties. In the same year, it started to rearm. It stayed aloof in the crisis over Czechoslovakia in 1938. Belgium never had been in favor of the communist Soviet Union as a League member state, so it was with little regret that it voted, on 14 December 1939, for the exclusion of this country after its attack on Finland. In May 1940 Belgium itself became the victim of an attack by Germany.
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BELLEGARDE, DANTÈS (1877–1966). Bellegarde was the ambassador of Haiti in Paris and its representative at the Assembly. He was one of the first to draw attention to ill treatment of a black tribe in the mandated territory of South-West Africa. In 1930 he became Haitian ambassador to the United States. BENESˇ, EDUARD (1884–1948). Benesˇ was the first minister of foreign affairs of the newly created Republic of Czechoslovakia. He served as foreign minister from 1918 to 1935, when he became president. After the annexation by Germany in 1938, Benesˇ and his government went into exile. Benesˇ played a significant role in the Council when Germany was to receive a permanent seat. He was involved in the drafting of the Protocol of Geneva and the agenda of the Disarmament Conference. BERNSTORFF, ALBRECHT J. H. VON (1862–1939). Von Bernstorff had been Germany’s ambassador to the United States during World War I. He became chair of the German Liga für Völkerbund and acted as observer in Geneva before the entry of Germany into the League. He was a member of the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference. See also LEAGUE OF NATIONS ASSOCIATIONS. BISMARCK ISLANDS. See MANDATES SYSTEM. BLACK SEA STRAITS. In the aftermath of World War I, the successes of Mustafa Kemal and the defeat of Greece in the Greco–Turkish War convinced the Allied Powers that a new peace treaty had to be concluded with Turkey’s new regime. The Treaty of Lausanne, concluded in 1923, stipulated that the Black Sea Straits, connecting the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea, should be demilitarized and placed under League supervision. In 1935, Turkey wished to change the Straits settlement, and the Montreux Conference of June–July 1936 gave it freedom of action. By the Montreux agreements, Turkey obtained the right to close the Straits to ships of belligerent countries, except those that were defending the Covenant. Turkey promised to accept any Council decision when the measures
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it took in connection with the Straits could not count on League approval. BLUM, LÉON (1872–1950). Blum was a prime minister of France and leader of the left-wing Popular Front government that came to power in June 1936. He supported Italy in the Italo–Abyssinian War and forbade the supply of arms to both sides in the Spanish Civil War. BOLIVIA. Bolivia was one of the original members of the League. Though it did not attend all Assembly meetings, it definitely returned to the meetings in 1929, after six years of absence. From 1928 on, it was involved in the Chaco War with Paraguay, in which Standard Oil had some interests on the Bolivian side. It remained a faithful League member and voted for the exclusion of the Soviet Union in 1939. BONAR LAW, ANDREW (1858–1923). Bonar Law had been a member of Great Britain’s delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He was prime minister in 1922–1923. BONNET, GEORGES (1889–1972). Bonnet was France’s foreign minister in 1938 and 1939. He represented France on the Council at a time when Great Britain and France settled most of their affairs outside the League. BONO, EMILIO DE (1866–1944). De Bono was Italy’s minister of the colonies in the 1930s. In 1937 he published a book that revealed the Italian annexation plans for Abyssinia: Anno XIIII: The Conquest of an Empire. In 1934 he became high commissioner for East Africa and prepared the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. BORDEN, ROBERT L. (1854–1937). Sir Robert L. Borden was the prime minister of Canada who participated in the Paris Peace Conference, where he demanded equal treatment for the dominions under Great Britain. BOURGEOIS, LÉON (1851–1925). The French jurist Bourgeois participated in both Hague Peace Conferences and was a former prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in France. He was a member of the
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French delegation to the Paris Peace Conference and played a major role in the drafting of the Covenant. From January to May 1920, he presided over the first Council session in Paris. Bourgeois had great influence on the settling of the Upper Silesia issue in 1921, and he mediated between Poland and Lithuania in their conflict over Vilna. As a renowned peace activist, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1920. BOURGEOIS COMMITTEE. This committee set up by France under Léon Bourgeois contributed to the plans for the new League as part of the drafting of the Covenant. BRANCH OFFICES. These were usually outposts of the Information Section. They served as public relations offices and were established in the capitals of the permanent members of the Council: Berlin, London, Paris, Rome, and Tokyo. Countries such as China, Turkey, Hungary, and the Netherlands, as well as some Latin American countries, also had so-called correspondents of the Secretariat of the League of Nations; however, they were not League officials. BRANTING, HJALMAR (1860–1925). Branting was a leading figure in the trade union movement and a socialist prime minister of Sweden. He presented the Swedish case before the Council in the Åland Islands question and served as Swedish representative in the Assembly and the Council. He formed, together with Robert Cecil and Fridtjof Nansen, the so-called left-wing group in the Assembly. He played a significant role in the Assembly during the Corfu crisis but accepted France’s formalistic view in the Ruhr crisis. He sat on the Council during the Saar crisis and acted as rapporteur on the conflict between Great Britain and Turkey over Mosul. BRAZIL. Brazil belonged to the original members of the League and participated in the drafting of the Covenant. It supported the United States on the insertion of a clause regarding the Monroe Doctrine. Brazil was given a seat on the Council until the Assembly had chosen the definite members, but was reelected by the first Assembly in 1920. Brazil was the first country to have a permanent delegation in Geneva. It adhered to the Protocol of Geneva in 1924 but on 14 June 1926 withdrew from the League when it could not obtain a permanent
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seat on the Council. It did not return after the two-years’ notice but remained a member of the International Labour Organisation and the economic and social organizations of the League. It also participated in the Disarmament Conference. Brazil mediated in the conflict between Colombia and Peru over Leticia but gave up its efforts when the Council tried to settle the case. In 1934 Brazil offered to resettle Assyrians on the estates of the Paraná Plantations Company, but was prevented from doing so after the adoption of new immigration laws by the Brazilian congress. BRIAND, ARISTIDE (1862–1932). Briand was a socialist who served as France’s prime minister in 1909, 1921–1922, and 1925. From 1926 to 1932, he was minister of foreign affairs. He was involved in drafting the Protocol of Geneva and the Kellogg–Briand Pact. Briand was a firm supporter of the League and played a major role in the conclusion of the Locarno Treaties. He insisted on Germany’s membership of the League and in 1929 presented the League with his plan for a United States of Europe. Briand was chair of the Council during the Sino–Japanese War over Manchuria. See also EUROPEAN UNION. BRIAND–KELLOGG PACT. See KELLOGG–BRIAND PACT. BROCKDORFF-RANTZAU, ULRICH VON (1869–1928). Brockdorff-Rantzau was Germany’s minister of foreign affairs and leader of the German delegation receiving the peace terms of the Allies. He refused to sign the Versailles Peace Treaty. Later, he became the German ambassador to the Soviet Union. BROUCKÈRE, LOUIS DE (1870–1951). De Brouckère was a Belgian socialist and firm League supporter who represented Belgium on the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference set up in 1925. In 1927 he drew up a report on preventive military action of the Council. De Brouckère was one of the initiators of an international congress to establish national peace campaigns. BRUCE, STANLEY (1883–1967). Bruce, from 1947 Viscount Bruce of Melbourne and Westminster, had been a member of parliament when
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he became prime minister of Australia in 1922, which post he held until 1929. From 1933 he was the high commissioner for Australia in London. Bruce represented Australia in the second Assembly (1921). In 1935 he sat on the Council to discuss the Stresa resolution and laid a proposal before the Assembly for a general study on nutrition. During the Italo–Abyssinian War, he defended reform of the Covenant. Bruce was president of the Council when it discussed Germany’s occupation of the Rhineland (March 1936). He suggested that the Assembly invite the signatories of the Nine-Power Treaty (including the United States) to meet and discuss Japan’s aggression toward China (October 1937). In May 1939 Bruce became chair of a committee to study the future development of the economic and social activities of the League. See also BRUCE COMMITTEE; BRUCE REPORT. BRUCE COMMITTEE. As the political influence of the League diminished, the respect for its other work increased. Much of the social and economic activities of the League were undertaken by experts without much interference from their respective governments. In some of the committees, the United States participated fully. Nevertheless, all ultimate decisions were still taken by the Council, on which many countries had no seat. To avoid Council control, many institutions favored a new organ to coordinate the various agencies and to give non-member states a fair share in the management of the work. Therefore, and at the express wish of the United States, in May 1939 the Council set up a small committee, chaired by Stanley Bruce, to study a reform of the League. See also BRUCE REPORT. BRUCE REPORT. This report issued on 22 August 1939 was the outcome of the deliberations of the Bruce Committee. The report proposed a new central committee for economic and social questions, which would coordinate all League institutions in this field. It would have ultimate control and consist of ministers of commerce, finance, transport, and health. They would be appointed by the Assembly and operate autonomously. Non-member states were allowed to participate. The report came too late to be executed by the League, but it lived on in the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations.
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BRÜNING, HEINRICH (1885–1970). Brüning was the leader of the Catholic Center Party when he became chancellor of Germany in 1930. At the Disarmament Conference he maintained that Germany had already disarmed by the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty and that therefore disarmament had to be undertaken by the neighboring states. Brüning was only willing to accept disarmament proposals when a new convention would replace the Versailles treaty. In May 1932 he was dismissed by President Paul von Hindenburg and succeeded by Franz von Papen. BRUSSELS, FINANCIAL CONFERENCE OF. See FINANCIAL CONFERENCE. BUDGET. The League’s budget was supplied by contributions of the individual member states. Therefore, each year, the budget had to be approved by the Assembly, not by the Council, since only in the Assembly was each member state represented. A small body of independent advisers audited the secretary-general’s estimates and expenditures. This body, also known as the Supervisory Commission, strangely enough was initially appointed by the Council, but after 1929 by the Assembly. The budget had to be approved unanimously. It rose from 21,250,000 Swiss francs in 1921 to 33,687,994 in 1932 and declined to 14,868,408 in 1945. It covered the expenses of the Permanent Court and the International Labour Organisation as well as buildings, pensions, and refugee assistance. The Secretariat’s budget rose from 11,700,000 Swiss francs in 1921 to 19,174,317 in 1932 and then declined to 3,126,817 in 1945. It included salaries, Assembly, Council, and committee meetings. The average annual cost for a big power like Great Britain was 15 percent of the budget, or 150,000 pounds; small powers paid 1 percent. BUERO, JUAN ANTONIO (1889–1950). Buero was a former minister of foreign affairs of Uruguay. He acted as legal adviser and director of the Legal Section from 1928 to 1935. He was also secretary of the League commission to investigate the Chaco War in 1933. BULGARIA. By the Treaty of Neuilly, signed on 27 November 1919, Bulgaria had ceded territories on the Mediterranean coast to Greece. It was admitted as a League member state by the first Assembly in 1920,
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despite initial hesitations from Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia, which would later form the so-called Balkan Entente. Bulgaria accepted the Council as guarantor of minority rights, and King Boris succeeded in putting an end to the feuds between Bulgars and Yugoslavian Serbians. In the beginning of the 1920s, the League organized loans for its economic recovery and the many refugees that had settled in the country. In 1925 Greek troops crossed the Bulgarian border, which led to the Greco–Bulgarian crisis. From the beginning of the 1930s, Bulgaria gradually came under the influence of Italy. Bulgaria took part in the Disarmament Conference and signed several resolutions. BURCKHARDT, CARL (1891–1974). Carl Burckhardt, from Switzerland, was the League’s high commissioner for Danzig from January 1937. During his term of office, the influence of the League was reduced to a minimum because of the two-thirds majority of Nazis in Danzig’s parliament. He succeeded, however, in postponing application of anti-Jewish laws in the free city. On 23 August 1939, the leader of the Nazi party dissolved the constitution and declared himself ruler of Danzig. On 1 September 1939, Danzig was incorporated into the German Reich. BUTLER, HAROLD (1883–1951). As a member of Great Britain’s civil service, Butler participated in the Paris Peace Conference as deputy secretary-general of the commission on labor questions. He entered the service of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 1920 and succeeded Albert Thomas as director of the ILO in December 1932.
–C– CADOGAN, ALEXANDER (1884–1968). Cadogan was a high-ranking civil servant of Great Britain’s Foreign Office and adviser of the British delegation to the Disarmament Conference. He became head of the Foreign Office in 1937. CAMEROONS, BRITISH AND FRENCH. The Cameroons, former colonies of Germany, were allocated to France and Great Britain after World War I as mandated territories of the League of Nations.
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CANADA. Canada was one of the original League members and participated in the Paris Peace Conference. Its representative there, Prime Minister Robert Borden, wanted Canada, as one of the dominions of Great Britain, to be treated on an equal footing with the other states, so that it could be chosen as one of the Council members. This, indeed, was the case in 1927. From the beginning, Canada had objections to Article X of the Covenant, which preserved the territorial integrity of all member states against external aggression. At the third Assembly in 1922, it received some support for its interpretation of the article, namely that every state could decide for itself whether it would employ armed forces to help another member state under attack. This opinion was shared by the Scandinavian states in the 1936 Assembly, when the system of collective security collapsed. In 1929 Canada signed the optional clause of the statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice on the condition that the compulsory jurisdiction of the court would not prevail for disputes between Commonwealth countries. Canada defended Japan after its attack on Manchuria, and a change of government in 1936 also changed Canada’s mind on the application of sanctions against Italy, which were now no longer endorsed. Generally speaking, it supported the appeasing attitude of Great Britain during the Italo–Abyssinian War. CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE. The endowment was established in 1910 by Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), who made his fortune in the American steel industry. The Carnegie Endowment was initially organized into three divisions: one to support the development of international law and dispute settlement, another to study the causes and impact of war, and a third to promote international understanding and cooperation. During the interwar period, the endowment revitalized efforts to promote international conciliation, financed reconstruction projects in Europe, supported the work of other organizations, and founded the Academy of International Law at the Hague. It financed several projects of the League. See also UNITED STATES. CATASTINI, VITO (1879–?). Catastini was bureau head of Italy’s Ministry of Colonial Affairs when he joined the delegation to the
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Paris Peace Conference. He became director of the Information Section of the Reparations Commission in 1920 and a member of the Mandates Section in 1921. Catastini was temporary chief of cabinet of an Italian minister while being a member of the section. He succeeded William Rappard in 1924 as director of the Mandates Section and resigned after Italy’s withdrawal from the League in December 1937. CECIL, ROBERT (1864–1958). Lord Cecil; since 1923, viscount Cecil of Chelwood. Cecil was one of the statesmen who rendered the League numerous services. During countless meetings of the Assembly and Council, he always showed an unquestioning belief in the League’s possibilities. Cecil had been Great Britain’s minister of blockade during World War I. As the leader of the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, he took part in the drafting of the Covenant. He had a tendency to give precedence to the League and not to British interests. Therefore, he was not chosen to represent Great Britain at the first Assembly. On the invitation of General Jan Smuts, he became a member of South Africa’s delegation instead. In 1923 British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made him minister for League of Nations affairs and asked him to represent Great Britain on the Council. In this capacity, Cecil rejected the Council’s conduct during the Corfu crisis. Cecil also was chair of the British League of Nations Union, and he resigned from the British government in 1927 out of disappointment with its League policy. As a strong supporter of female suffrage and disarmament, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1937. See also LEAGUE OF NATIONS ASSOCIATIONS. CENTRAL SECTION. Established in 1933, it formed part of the Secretariat to assist the secretary-general in his capacity as secretary of the Assembly and the Council, and in the coordination of the Secretariat. Every document that was distributed to member states or committees of the Assembly had to be seen by this section. It also supervised official missions of members of the Secretariat. The coordination of political questions was in the hands of the secretarygeneral’s chief of cabinet, however. The section had only three staff members and cooperated closely with the Political and Legal Section. Its director was Joseph Wilson of New Zealand.
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CHACO WAR. In December 1928 a war broke out between Bolivia and Paraguay over the disputed, supposedly oil-rich area of Chaco Boreal. In this case, it was the secretary-general himself who put the issue before the Council. Aristide Briand, acting as president of the Council, succeeded in pacifying both parties. But the issue soon became a test case for the authority of the League over the countries of Latin America, which also felt bound by the Monroe Doctrine. In practice, they preferred that American conflicts be settled by American countries. So, when hostilities resumed in 1932, two separate bodies were involved: the Neutral Commission of the Conference of American States and the League Council. An arms embargo proposal of the Council was rejected by the U.S. Senate, but Paraguay and Bolivia did accept a League commission to study the situation on the spot. The report of this Chaco Commission, presented in February 1934, also proposed an arms embargo, and now both houses of Congress agreed to it. By August 1934, the embargo was almost complete. By this time, Bolivia had invoked Article 15 of the Covenant, which gave parties to a dispute the right to refer the case to the Assembly. The Assembly duly appointed a special committee consisting of Latin American member states, which drew up a detailed treaty covering all aspects of the conflict. One of the clauses stipulated the formation of a neutral military commission to supervise matters in the region. The treaty was adopted by the Assembly as well as by the separate peace conference that met in Buenos Aires. Bolivia accepted the treaty but Paraguay did not. The arms embargo thereupon was lifted for Bolivia, which led to the withdrawal of Paraguay from the League in February 1935. From 1935 on, the League was no longer involved in the proceedings, and only in July 1938 did the Buenos Aires conference succeed in having the peace treaty signed. CHAMBERLAIN, ARTHUR NEVILLE (1869–1940). Neville Chamberlain, Conservative prime minister of Great Britain from July 1937 to 1940, had always favored cooperation with Italy. During the Italo–Abyssinian War and prior to his term as prime minister, he had expressed the view that sanctions against Italy would damage Great Britain considerably. His minister of foreign affairs, Anthony Eden, left the cabinet in February 1938 as a result of the
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prime minister’s pro-Italian policy. Chamberlain did not condemn Italy’s participation in the Spanish Civil War and, in April 1938, signed an agreement with Benito Mussolini by which Great Britain recognized the Italian annexation of Abyssinia and Italy promised to withdraw its troops from Spain once the civil war was over. The widow of his brother Austen played the role of intermediary between Neville Chamberlain and Benito Mussolini. When the appeasement policy toward Germany, highlighted in the Munich Conference of 1938, did not prevent the attack on Czechoslovakia, on 31 March 1939, he radically changed his course by guaranteeing the independence of Poland, Greece, and Romania and offering immediate support in case they were attacked. CHAMBERLAIN, AUSTEN (1863–1937). Chamberlain was Great Britain’s minister of foreign affairs from 1924 until 1929, and responsible for the rejection of the Protocol of Geneva in 1925. To Chamberlain, the League had no priority, because international affairs were better settled between the respective countries, without interference of the League. Therefore, he supported Gustav Stresemann in his resistance to the extension of the Locarno agreements. He was always anxious not to entangle Great Britain too much in international obligations and hardly willing to intervene in the internal affairs of countries troubled by minority issues. See also CHAMBERLAIN, ARTHUR NEVILLE. CHEMICAL WARFARE. See DISARMAMENT; DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE; GENEVA CONVENTION. CHIANG KAI-SHEK (1888–1975). In 1925 Chiang Kai-shek became the leader of the army of China’s nationalist movement, the Kuomintang. The movement gradually took over the power of rival warlords. From 1926 on, he conquered Shanghai, Nanking, and Peking. In 1928 Chiang became prime minister, and his government could be considered the only representative government. In the beginning of the 1930s, he was faced with a civil war against the Communists and with Japan’s aggression in Manchuria. In 1937 he made peace with the Communists to create a united front against renewed Japanese aggression. See also SINO–JAPANESE WAR.
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CHICHERIN, GEORGI VASILYEVICH (1872–1930). Chicherin was the Soviet Union’s commissar for foreign affairs in the 1920s, with an outspoken, hostile attitude toward the League. He negotiated the Treaty of Rapallo with Germany and did much to end his country’s isolation from the rest of the world. He died in 1930 and was succeeded by his assistant Maxim Litvinov. CHILD WELFARE COMMITTEE. In 1924 a special Child Welfare Committee was separated from the Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children to deal with all international aspects of child welfare. In 1926 a Child Welfare Center and a Child Welfare Information Center were established. CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE, ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR THE PROTECTION AND WELFARE OF. This was the name for the combined Committees on Traffic in Women and Children and Child Welfare. See also WOMEN AND CHILDREN, ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE TRAFFIC IN. CHINA. China had participated in the Paris Peace Conference but was disappointed when the German rights in Shantung were granted to Japan and therefore, instead of the Versailles Peace Treaty with Germany, only signed the Saint Germain-en-Laye Peace Treaty with Austria. China belonged to the original members of the League. In practice, the League lost much of its attraction to China when the United States failed to become a member state. From 1920 to 1923, China sat on the Council, its representative being Wellington Koo. It attended the Washington Conference of 1921–1922 and signed the Nine-Power Treaty. China had a seat on the Opium Committee and always supported plans for disarmament. In 1936 it was reelected as a member on the Council. In the first half of the 1920s, China suffered under rival warlords; in the second half, the nationalist Kuomintang, under Chiang Kaishek, gained so much influence that it came to be recognized as the lawful government of China. The main goal of the nationalist government was to abolish the nineteenth-century unequal treaties with Western powers and at the same time maintain good relations with the West. Ludwik Rajchman of the Health Section did much to
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bind this government closer to the League by sending health and other experts to help the country with its reconstruction. From September 1931, China became the victim of Japanese aggression toward Manchuria. To be able to concentrate on the civil war with the Communists, on 31 May 1933, Chiang Kai-shek signed an armistice agreement with Japan. Being the victim of foreign aggression itself, it was only natural that China supported all League efforts for a settlement in the Italo–Abyssinian War. After the renewed Japanese attack in July 1937, China again appealed to the League. In the autumn of 1938, it formally demanded the application of sanctions under Article XVI of the Covenant, and though the Council decided favorably, as a result of the tense international situation, no League member dared to put the sanctions into effect. See also SINO–JAPANESE WAR; LYTTON COMMISSION. CIANO, GALEAZZO (1903–1944). Count Ciano was the son-in-law of Benito Mussolini. In 1936 he succeeded Baron Pompeo Aloisi as Italy’s minister of foreign affairs. Ciano was on good terms with Eric Drummond, who was Great Britain’s ambassador in Rome after he left the Secretariat. CLEMENCEAU, GEORGES (1841–1929). Clemenceau, also called the Tiger, was prime minister of France from 1917 to 1920. He represented France at the Paris Peace Conference and was strongly opposed to any moderation of the peace terms laid before Germany. COLBAN, ERIK (1876–1956). Colban was a member of Norway’s foreign service before he entered the League’s Secretariat in 1919. He was the director of the Minorities Section and in 1920 prepared the Tittoni Report, which laid down the details of the League’s connections with minorities. In 1921 he acted successfully as a mediator in the conflict between Poland and Danzig. In 1930 Colban was succeeded as director by Pablo de Azcárate. In 1928–1929 he also served as director of the Disarmament Section. COLLECTIVE SECURITY. The collective security principle of the League of Nations was mainly based on Articles X and XVI of the Covenant. Article XVI stipulated that any member of the League
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which resorted to war in disregard of Articles XII, XIII, or XV (the settlement of disputes articles) “shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other Members of the League, which hereby undertake immediately to subject it to the severance of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition of all intercourse between their nationals and the nationals of the covenant-breaking State, and the prevention of all financial, commercial, or personal intercourse between the nationals of the covenant-breaking State and the nationals of any other State, whether a Member of the League or not.” Canada in particular always disliked Article X of the Covenant, which preserved the territorial integrity of all member states against external aggression, and held that every state should decide for itself whether it would employ armed forces to help another member under attack. Other, Scandinavian, states shared this view in the 1936 Assembly, when the Italo–Abyssinian War caused the collapse of the collective security system. At the time that the European member states were threatened by Germany’s aggression, the Assembly of 1938 eventually, though not officially, accepted this state of affairs. COLOMBIA. Colombia was invited to join the League immediately after the signing of the peace treaties in 1919 and remained a faithful member state until World War II. In the beginning of the 1930s, it profited from League intervention in the dispute with Peru over Leticia. COMERT, PIERRE (1880–1964). Comert had been a French journalist, working as correspondent of Le Temps in Vienna and Berlin, when he was asked, in 1919, to become the first director of the Information Section. He left the Secretariat in 1932. COMMITTEE OF EIGHTEEN. The committee was the managing body of the coordination committee, set up in 1935 by the League member states to coordinate the sanctions that each member state would take against Italy during the Italo–Abyssinian War. COMMITTEE OF THIRTEEN. This committee was set up by the Council in September 1935 to implement Article XV of the Covenant. It consisted of Council members and was to formulate final recommendations for the settlement of the dispute between
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Abyssinia and Italy. Its report rejected all Italian claims and concluded that the Covenant, the Kellogg–Briand Pact, and the 1928 treaty of friendship between Italy and Abyssinia, as well as the Optional Clause of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice, excluded all resort to arms. By the time the report was issued, on 5 October 1935, Italy had already invaded Abyssinia. COMMITTEE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS, SPECIAL. See BRUCE COMMITTEE. COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS, BRITISH. The idea of voluntary cooperation between Great Britain’s empire and the dominions as autonomous states had been propagated by the British journal The Round Table, set up in 1910 by Lionel Curtis. Curtis invented the name British Commonwealth of Nations. The Statute of Westminster of 1931 confirmed the sovereignty of the seven members of the British Commonwealth, each with its own parliament, elected government, and foreign policy. The crown colonies, colonies, and protectorates became members of the Commonwealth only in 1947 (India) or after their independence. The dominions became members of the League of Nations. See also AUSTRALIA; CANADA; IRISH FREE STATE; NEW ZEALAND; UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA. COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT ORGANIZATION. The organization was established by the Barcelona conference in 1921. Though officially connected to the League of Nations, it enjoyed great autonomy in some respects. The Transit Committee, the executive committee of the organization, was appointed by the conference and not by the Council of the League. Non-member states of the League could be members of the organization, and its conventions were not subject to approval by the Council or the Assembly. The organization held a general conference every four years and dealt with all matters concerning rail transport, inland and maritime navigation, ports, road traffic, and power transmission. Its budget was provided by the League and its secretariat was the Communications and Transit Section of the League’s Secretariat. In 1927 the Third General Conference on Communications and Transit under the auspices of the League was held, and in 1932 the general conference concluded the Convention on
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the International Regime of Maritime Ports and the Convention on the International Regime of Railways. COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT SECTION. The section formed part of the Secretariat and assisted the Communications and Transit Organization. Its directors were Bernardo Attolico, Arthur Salter, and, until his death in 1935, Robert Haas; he was succeeded by Pierre Watier. CONFERENCE OF AMBASSADORS. When the Paris Peace Conference ended, many issues had been left unsettled. The Supreme Council therefore regularly met from 1920 to 1923. The Supreme Council also established a standing organization, consisting of the ambassadors of France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United States. Its seat was Paris and the French minister of foreign affairs acted as chair. This conference dealt with all matters arising from the execution or interpretation of the peace treaties. The Allies had wished to keep these questions outside the sphere of action of the League Council or Assembly. By 1926 the Conference of Ambassadors had virtually ceased to exist; its role gradually had been assumed by the League Council. COOLIDGE, CALVIN (1872–1933). Coolidge had been vice president of the United States when he succeeded President Warren Harding on his death in 1923. As president, he was reelected in 1924. In August 1927 he failed to conclude a Three-Power Naval Treaty between the United States, Great Britain, and Japan, which was intended to contribute to disarmament. CORFU. This Greek island was occupied by Italy’s forces in 1923 after the assassination of the Italian member of the delimitation commission sent to define the frontier between Albania and Greece. Since this commission had been appointed by the Conference of Ambassadors, the Council authorized José Quiñones de León to draw up a report and submit it to the Conference of Ambassadors, thereby subordinating itself to the Conference. The report provided that Greece should apologize to the three powers represented on the delimitation commission, that these powers should participate in the investigation of the crime, and that the Permanent Court of Inter-
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national Justice (PCIJ) at the Hague should lay down the amount of compensation to be paid by Greece. The proposal was accepted by the Council and the Conference. When Benito Mussolini persuaded the Conference of Ambassadors to disregard the PCIJ, the small countries and those from Latin America in the Assembly expressed great resentment because the Council apparently accepted the occupation by a foreign country as a measure of peaceful coercion. The Assembly demanded a clear vindication of the Covenant: the Council should act under Article XV even when one of the conflicting parties found it inapplicable, and coercive measures should not be allowed even when they were not intended as an act of war. This the Council did in the form of a legal report. Though the disappointment of some League supporters did not disappear when the Conference of Ambassadors announced the Italian evacuation of Corfu at the end of September, most small member states in the Assembly felt that their demands had had some effect. To France, which had supported Italy, and Mussolini, it became clear that acts of violence could count on opposition. COSTA RICA. Costa Rica initially was excluded as a League member state because Great Britain and the United States disapproved of its ruler. But the first Assembly of 1920 decided to accept its membership. Costa Rica gave notice of its withdrawal in December 1924; the reason given was that it could not afford the annual contribution. When the Council in 1928 inquired about its intentions, Costa Rica made its return to the League conditional on a League interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. This the Council could not do, but it confirmed that the Covenant gave every member the same rights and obligations. This answer did not satisfy Costa Rica and it did not return to the League. See also MEMBERSHIP OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. COUNCIL OF FIVE. This Council, set up by the Paris Peace Conference, was the Council of Four supplemented by Japan. COUNCIL OF FOUR. The council was established during the Paris Peace Conference and consisted of the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, and the prime ministers of France, Great Britain, and Italy: Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Vittorio Orlando, respectively.
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COUNCIL OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. Though Article III of the Covenant gave the Assembly the right to deal “with any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world,” it was clearly the intention of the drafters that the Council should be the main decision-making organ of the League. Only the Council was entitled to supervise the reduction of armaments (Article VIII) and to preserve the territorial integrity of the member states (Article X). Disputes or threats of war had to be brought to the attention of the Council (Articles XI, XII, XV) and the Council could propose what steps should be taken if a member state failed to carry out a decision of the Permanent Court of International Justice (Article XIII). Disputes that could not be settled by arbitration or judicial settlements were to be submitted to the Council, which would draw up a report. Any member could ask for a settlement by the Assembly, but only after the Council had been informed (Article XV). According to the collective security article (Article XVI), it was the Council’s duty to recommend which military forces the members should put at the disposal of the League. The Council could even inquire into disputes between non-member states and take measures to prevent hostilities (Article XVII). These prerogatives of the Council would, in later years, cause much frustration for League supporters, and the small member states in particular. COUNCIL MEMBERS. According to Article IV of the Covenant, the Council was to consist of representatives of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers together with representatives of four other members of the League. These four members were to be elected by the Assembly by a two-thirds majority. Member states that were not represented on the Council could send a representative when matters affecting those states were being considered. Unlike in the Assembly, member states had only one representative on the Council. Decisions had to be taken unanimously, even when one of the members was an aggressor whose actions the Council was meant to control. The rule did not apply when Article XV of the Covenant was invoked. When the Covenant had been approved by the Paris Peace Conference in April 1919, the Council had nine members. The permanent members were the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and
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Japan. The non-permanent seats were given to Belgium, Brazil, Greece, and Spain. When the United States failed to become a member state, one permanent seat became vacant. In 1922 the number of seats was increased to 10: four permanent seats and six non-permanent seats. With the admission of Germany in 1926, the composition of the Council changed drastically; Germany was entitled to a permanent seat and the total number of seats was raised to 14. Two semi-permanent seats were established, one for Poland and one for Spain; the remaining seven non-permanent seats were reserved for countries of Latin America and Asia, countries belonging to the Little Entente, the British Commonwealth, and the former neutral states. These non-permanent members were chosen for three years. From 1934 the Soviet Union occupied the permanent seat of Germany, which had left the League in 1933. COUNCIL SESSIONS. The Covenant did not define the number of sessions a year; it merely stated that the Council would meet “from time to time as occasion may require, and at least once a year, at the Seat of the League.” The first Council meeting took place on 16 January 1920. In 1929 it was decided that the Council would hold three, instead of four, regular sessions a year, in January, May, and September. In total, the Council held 107 sessions; 15 of them were extraordinary ones. Most of the sessions took place in Geneva, but others were held in London, Paris, San Sebastian (Spain), Brussels, Rome, Lugano, and Madrid. Its last session was held on 14 December 1939. COUNCIL OF TEN. The Council of Ten was the Council of Five supplemented by the respective ministers of foreign affairs. COURT. See PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE. COVENANT, THE. With its biblical connotation, this was the name Woodrow Wilson preferred for the constitution of the League of Nations. Since it formed an integral part of the Versailles Peace Treaty, the League officially existed only after this treaty had come into effect, which was the case on 10 January 1920. In practice, the League started to function from April 1919.
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Article I of the Covenant dealt with membership. The 32 states that had signed the Versailles Peace Treaty were the original members. Other countries needed a two-thirds majority of the Assembly to be admitted as a member. Withdrawal could only take place after giving two-years’ notice. Articles II to V described the function and power of the Assembly and Council. Articles VI and VII covered the secretary-general, as well as the seat and the finances of the League. Articles VIII and IX pleaded for disarmament. Article X promised League members protection of their territorial integrity and assistance against external aggression. Article XI called upon member states to involve the Assembly or Council in any dispute, and Articles XII to XV gave various solutions as to the settlement of disputes. Article XIII specifically mentioned the Permanent Court of International Justice. Article XVI was the collective security or sanctions article, under which each member was obliged to take actions when another member went to war in violation of the Covenant. Among those actions were the rupture of all financial and economic relations and the use of military force. Article XVII gave member states the same protection against non-member states. Articles XVIII to XXI dealt with the effect of the Covenant on other treaties and the validity of the Monroe Doctrine. Article XXII established the mandates system. Article XXIII specified the social and economic fields in which the members had to take measures. Article XXIV incorporated existing international organizations into the League. Article XXV promised to promote the activities of the national Red Cross organizations, and Article XXVI dealt with amendments to the Covenant. Noteworthy was that France’s wish to establish an international military force, to be placed at the disposal of the League, did not find its way into the Covenant. Practically no future member state was willing to commit itself to this point. Instead, Article IX set up a permanent commission on all military, naval, and air questions. Japan’s wish to have some declaration in the Covenant on the equality of nations—the so-called race equality clause—did not make it either, due to the immigration laws of several countries. For the text of the Covenant, see appendix I. COVENANT, AMENDMENTS TO THE. The first Assembly of 1920 decided to appoint a special committee on amendments to the
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Covenant. In 1921 the second Assembly adopted an amendment on the financial contribution of the League member states, which hitherto followed the lines of the Universal Postal Union. It entered into force in 1924. Also in 1921, the Assembly specified the rules by which it could elect the non-permanent members of the Council. This amendment came into force in 1926. In 1922 the number of the nonpermanent members was set at six; in 1926, the number was raised to nine, and in 1933 to 10. Articles XII and XIII underwent changes as to the means of settling disputes; in 1924 the phrase “or judicial settlement” was added to arbitration. The Permanent Court of International Justice replaced “the court of arbitration.” Since the United States had failed to become a League member, many states in 1921 requested a revision of Article XVI, with its economic sanctions clause. It was felt that the League could not prohibit trade between the United States and the aggressor state, which made Article XVI more or less ineffective. The Assembly therefore voted for a proposal that sanctions should be applied gradually and partially. Though the amendment never came into force, as a result of France’s refusal to weaken the Covenant’s security clauses, its underlying principle was applied during the Italo–Abyssinian War. COVENANT, DRAFTING OF THE. In the summer of 1917, the governments of the Allies started to draw up plans for a new international order. France set up a committee under Léon Bourgeois; Great Britain likewise appointed the Phillimore Committee. Though he had made a League of Nations one of his Fourteen Points, Woodrow Wilson kept all details of a future League to himself and his friend Edward House. At the opening of the Paris Peace Conference, another plan circulated: General Jan Smuts’s The League of Nations: A Practical Suggestion. At the conference, Wilson gave priority to the establishment of the League and the drafting of its Covenant. The plenary session of the conference, on 25 January 1919, decided to appoint a committee to “work out the details of the constitution and functions of the League.” President Wilson (accompanied by House) was chair of this League of Nations Committee; Smuts and Robert Cecil represented the British Commonwealth; Bourgeois was the French delegate. Representing Italy were Vittorio
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Orlando and Vittorio Scialoja. Japan’s representatives were Baron Nobuaki Makino and Viscount Chinda. Belgium sent Paul Hymans, Brazil sent Epitacio Pessôa, and China sent Wellington Koo. Portugal and Serbia also sat on the committee. Later, representatives of Greece, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania were added. On 28 April 1919, the final text of the Covenant was laid before and adopted by the plenary session of the conference. COVENANT, REVISION OF THE. When, in July 1936, the Assembly gave up its efforts to implement the sanctions against Italy during the Italo–Abyssinian War, a discussion among League members ensued on the question of whether the Covenant should be reformed. Roughly speaking, the Assembly was divided into two groups: those who did not wish to be bound by the obligations of Article XVI, the automatic action or sanctions clause, and those who defended the Covenant as it was. A Reform Committee was set up, which studied several proposals, one of them being the formation of regional groups for mutual defense. None of these proposals could count on a majority of League members. The suggestion to separate the Covenant from the Paris peace treaties was adopted, though, but could not be carried through due to the outbreak of World War II. See also CRANBORNE, ROBERT ARTHUR. CRANBORNE, ROBERT ARTHUR (1893–1972). Lord Cranborne was Great Britain’s parliamentary under secretary for foreign affairs in 1935. As British representative at the Assembly, he drew up a plan for the revision of the Covenant in 1936, which suggested three possible kinds of League: a coercive League, a consultative League, and an intermediate League in which consultation, but not coercion, would be obligatory. CROATIA. Croatia was one of the former territories of the Austro–Hungarian empire that, together with Serbia and Slovenia, formed the new state of Yugoslavia after World War I. From the beginning, Croats wanted more autonomy and separatists were supported by Italy and Hungary. In July 1934 an agreement between Yugoslavia and Hungary was reached to settle existing disputes. Nevertheless, it was generally believed that Croat terrorists living in Hun-
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gary were responsible for the assassination of King Alexander and Louis Barthou, which led to the Hungarian–Yugoslav crisis. CROWDY, RACHEL (1884–1964). Dame Rachel Crowdy, of Great Britain, was a social worker who had been active behind the fronts in Belgium and France during World War I as commandant of the Volunteer Aid Detachment. As director of the League’s Social Questions Section (until 1930), she was the only high-ranking woman in the Secretariat. See also OPIUM. CUNHA, GASTAO DA (1863–1927). Da Cunha was Brazil’s ambassador in Paris who, from 1920, also represented his country on the Council. He was a member of the Council committee on Upper Silesia in 1921–1922. CURTIUS, JULIUS (1877–1948). Curtius succeeded Gustav Stresemann as foreign minister of Germany in 1929. During his term, public demand for the revision of Germany’s eastern borders and the agitation of German minorities in Poland became stronger. He abandoned a scheme for a customs union with Austria after it was rejected by the Permanent Court of International Justice in September 1931. In May 1932, after the fall of the Heinrich Brüning government, he was succeeded by Konstantin von Neurath. CURZON, GEORGE NATHANIEL (1859–1925). Lord Curzon, former viceroy of India, was the foreign secretary of Great Britain in 1920, when he attended the first meeting of the Council in Paris. In 1922 he was in favor of a new peace conference with Turkey and proposed demilitarization of the Black Sea Straits and a League role for the protection of minorities in Turkey. CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Czechoslovakia was one of the new states that emerged from the former Austro–Hungarian empire. It belonged to the original member states of the League and accepted the Council’s supervision on the treatment of its minorities. Its minister for foreign affairs, and later president, Eduard Benesˇ, rendered great services to the Assembly and Council meetings. Czechoslovakia donated funds for the reconstruction of Austria and supported the Treaty of Mutual
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Assistance. In 1923 it obtained a seat on the Council and a year later signed the Protocol of Geneva. From the beginning of the 1930s, Czechoslovakia was alarmed by developments in Germany, such as the customs union between Germany and Austria concluded in March 1931. Therefore, it always joined other small states in their rejection of secret meetings between the big powers and welcomed the Soviet Union as a League member, replacing Germany on the Council. After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, it was clear that Czechoslovakia would be the next victim of Adolf Hitler’s expansionist plans. The pretext was the treatment of German Sudeten minorities in Czechoslovakia. These minority complaints were never brought before the Council. Great Britain and France believed that preserving the peace could better be reached by direct negotiations between them and Germany, without involving the League. Other, smaller member states had taken a neutral stand two years earlier, after the abandonment of sanctions in the Italo–Abyssinian War. By the Munich Conference of September 1938, held between Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Neville Chamberlain, and Edouard Daladier, Sudetenland was ceded to Germany. Six months later, German troops entered the remaining part of Czechoslovakia, which became the German protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. During World War II, the Czechoslovakian government in exile remained a member of the League.
–D– D’ABERNON, EDGAR VINCENT (1857–1941). Lord d’Abernon was Great Britain’s ambassador in Berlin from 1920 to 1926, who did much to restore Germany as an equal partner in Western European diplomacy and to have it admitted as a League member state. His aim was to keep Germany away from any entanglements with the Soviet Union. DALADIER, EDOUARD (1884–1970). Daladier was prime minister of France in 1933, 1934, and 1938–1940. He became minister of war for the Popular Front government of Léon Blum in 1936, and became prime minister again in 1938, after the fall of the Popular Front.
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His term in office saw the Munich Conference, when France backed out of its obligations to defend Czechoslovakia. In 1939, after Germany invaded Poland, he was reluctant to go to war, but did so on 3 September 1939. In March 1940 he was dismissed and replaced with Paul Reynaud. DANDURAND, RAOUL (1861–1942). Lord Dandurand was a Canadian senator and lawyer who represented Canada on the Council. In 1928 he formed part of a committee of three to study minority complaints. When he suggested a reform of minority petition procedures, he provoked a conflict between Poland and Germany over Upper Silesia. DANUBE COMMISSION. The commission was established by the Paris peace conference of 1856, held after the Crimean War. It regulated all traffic along the Danube and has been regarded as the first supranational organization. The commission existed until 1938. DANZIG, FREE CITY OF. At the Paris Peace Conference, the port of Danzig together with a small strip of neighboring territory was proclaimed an autonomous state as the Free City of Danzig. It was put under the guarantee of the League, which appointed a high commissioner, paid by Danzig and Poland, whose task it was to draw up a constitution and to act as a mediator between Danzig and Poland. For its external relations, Danzig was subordinate to Poland. Poland never really accepted Danzig as a Free City, because it regarded the city as Polish territory. Jealous of the prosperity of the Danzig port, it soon started to build its own neighboring port of Gdynia. Danzig was administered by the following high commissioners: the British Sir Reginald Tower from 1919 to 1920, the Italian Bernardo Attolico from 1920 to 1921, and the British general Richard Haking, who served from 1921 to 1923. Haking was succeeded by the British Mervyn Mac Donnell. In 1925 the Dutch Joost van Hamel occupied the post until 1929. He was succeeded by the Italian Count Manfredo Gravina until 1932. After Gravina’s death, the Danish Helmer Rosting took over until December 1933. During Gravina’s term, a nationalist government came to power, which favored a return to Germany. Clashes between Poles and
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Germans occurred, and the increasing use Poland made of the new port of Gdynia caused resentment in Danzig. The British rapporteur of the Council, Arthur Henderson, for a while succeeded in appeasing both parties. In May 1933 the Nazi party gained a majority in the Danzig parliament, the Volkstag, though it could not obtain a two-thirds majority to abolish the constitution in 1935. The brutal rule of Arthur Greiser provoked numerous petitions to Sean Lester, high commissioner since December 1933, but the Council, now with Anthony Eden as rapporteur, could do little against Nazi propaganda and terror in the city. By the time the Swiss Carl Burckhardt succeeded Lester, in January 1937, the Danzig constitution had virtually ceased to exist. On 23 August 1939 the constitution was officially rescinded and the Nazi leader, Albert Förster, informed the high commissioner that Danzig had returned to the German Reich. DAVIS, NORMAN HEZEKIAH (1878–1944). Davis was an American banker and confidant of President Woodrow Wilson. As a staff member of the State Department, he represented the United States on the League commission on the Statute of Memel and became chair of the Memel Commission. He also participated in the Financial Committee and the Disarmament Conference of 1932. DAWES COMMITTEE. The committee was appointed by the Reparation Commission in December 1923. The results of its findings were discussed at a London conference and, on August 1924, the agreements were signed. Germany had to pay 5.4 billion marks until 1928, and thereafter 2.5 billion annually. Payment of these amounts was facilitated by a loan of 800 million marks. DELBOS, YVON (1885–1956). Delbos was France’s minister of foreign affairs in 1936, and member of the French delegation to the Assembly, who, together with Anthony Eden, suggested abolishing the non-intervention committee during the Spanish Civil War if Italy and Germany did not withdraw their support to Francisco Franco. DELEGATIONS, PERMANENT. From the beginning, the Secretariat tried to persuade individual governments to set up special offices to deal with all League matters. This was to avoid the need for
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League sections to communicate with different government departments. Only one member state acted on the request, and the Service français de la Société des Nations became a model of cooperation between the Secretariat and the government of France. Other governments established offices in Geneva to keep in touch with League events. In practice they functioned as embassies to the League, their heads often being trained diplomats—much to the annoyance of the Secretariat, which feared loss of contact with the respective capitals, and the government of Switzerland, which had to grant them diplomatic privileges. They came to be known as permanent delegates, and in later years even the United States maintained an office. From 1932 on, the delegates presented themselves as a group and requested the secretarygeneral to receive them regularly as a corporate body. DEMOGRAPHIC COMMITTEE. See FINANCIAL SECTION. DENMARK. Denmark belonged to the original members of the League. During League meetings and conferences, it usually joined other small states in their indignation at secret meetings between big powers. It rejected the results of the Stresa Conference with the argument that the League should not act as the judge over Germany’s rearmament plans. In 1937 it prohibited the export of arms to Abyssinia during the Italo–Abyssinian War. It concluded a nonaggression pact with Germany in June 1939. See also NEUTRAL STATES. DEPARTMENT I. In 1939 a Committee on Budgetary Economics advised a regrouping of the Secretariat. From the December 1939 Assembly session, General Affairs (disarmament, mandates, minorities, intellectual cooperation, and liaison) fell under Department I. DEPARTMENT II. From 1939 the economic and financial and transit areas fell under Department II in the reorganized Secretariat. DEPARTMENT III. This newly established department since 1939 included health and social questions, the suppression of opium traffic, the secretariat of the Central Opium Board, the Internal
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Administrative Services of the Secretariat, the library, branch offices, liaison with member states, and the secretariat of the Administrative Board of the Staff Pensions Fund. In May 1940, after the outbreak of World War II, a further amalgamation of the services took place. It then included health, drug control, social and cultural questions, the library, and Internal Administrative Services. Of the branch offices, only the London and Delhi offices survived. DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL. See UNDER SECRETARYGENERAL. DISARMAMENT. After World War I, many believed that the catastrophe had been caused by the armaments race. Disarmament therefore had been an important issue in creating the Covenant and was high on the agenda of the League. Article VIII of the Covenant stipulated that “the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety” and that the “Council . . . shall formulate plans for such reduction.” Therefore, in 1920, the Council set up a Permanent Armaments Committee, dominated by the big powers and consisting of high officers, which soon concluded that any attempt to draft a scheme of arms reduction was premature. But the Assembly, and especially the small countries represented on it, insisted on the matter and composed its own committee, which came to be known as the Temporary Mixed Commission. Lord Robert Cecil of Great Britain was among its members. With the Washington Conference on naval forces in mind, Cecil and his British colleague Lord Esher suggested a reduction of air and land forces to a fixed ratio. To pacify France, which needed additional guarantees for its security before it could disarm, the commission proposed a Treaty of Mutual Guarantee, which provided for collective security once one of its signatories was attacked. The plan was adopted by Resolution XIV of the 1922 Assembly and laid before the respective governments. It was supported by France, but many countries turned it down, with the argument that collective security could only work after compulsory arbitration. A new draft, now renamed Treaty of Mutual Assistance, and presented to the 1923 Assembly, was accepted only by France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Finland,
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and the Baltic states, in short by countries which felt threatened by their neighbors. The Protocol of Geneva also had clauses on disarmament but was rejected by Great Britain. In 1925 the Council appointed a Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference. The disappointing results of the proposals made by this commission led to numerous petitions from peace movements, churches, and women’s and labor movements. The League’s disarmament activities regularly were brought to a standstill by separate negotiations between the big powers. DISARMAMENT, MOSCOW CONFERENCE ON. The conference was convened by the Soviet Union in 1922 and attended by its neighbors. Moscow proposed a reduction of the existing forces by 75 percent, demilitarized zones, and non-aggression pacts. The proposal was rejected by the neighboring states, which desired a thorough study first. A suggested committee of experts was subsequently turned down by the Soviets. DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE. In January 1931 the Council decided to convene a disarmament conference for February 1932. The conference was officially called Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. Its chair was to be Arthur Henderson and its secretary Thanassis Aghnides. All member states of the League were invited, but also future member states like Afghanistan, Ecuador, Egypt, Mexico, the Soviet Union, and Turkey, as well as the United States. The conference opened on 2 February 1932 and 64 countries were present. The draft convention of the Preparatory Commission had been rejected earlier and the delegations had to work with new proposals from big powers like France, the United States, and Italy. From the start, the conference was overshadowed by the Sino–Japanese War, growing nationalist tendencies in Germany, and the economic depression. The first proposal was the Tardieu plan, which was not accepted by the other participants. The conference subsequently formed four technical committees on land, sea, and air armaments and armaments budgets. None of the representatives in these committees was willing to endorse a substantial limitation of national armaments. The proposal of U.S. President Herbert Hoover to abolish offensive
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weapons and reduce the rest by a third did not pass either. Another plan, put forward by Anthony Eden in March 1933, was only approved by Italy. A French proposal that would give Germany equality of treatment within eight years was not accepted by Nazi Germany, which subsequently withdrew from the conference and from the League, in October 1933. Thereupon, the Italian delegates were instructed to act only as observers. These events were the signal for rearmament by France, Great Britain, and other countries. Though the technical commissions continued their meetings and achieved some results as to the publicity of armaments budgets, the internationalization of civil aviation, and the publicity and control of arms manufacture and arms trade, the general conference held its last meeting on 11 June 1934. DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE, PREPARATORY COMMISSION FOR THE. The commission was appointed by the Council in December 1925. It consisted of representatives of states then on the Council, six other member states, and non-member states such as Germany, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Its chair was a Dutch former minister of foreign affairs, John Loudon; other important members were Robert Cecil for Great Britain, Louis de Brouckère for Belgium, and Joseph Paul-Boncour for France. The commission met for the first time in May 1926 and the meetings were public. The commission was assisted by two committees of technical experts. The first expert committee consisted of officers of the fighting forces and the second of members chosen by the Financial, Economic, and Communications Committees of the League and the workers’ and employers’ group of the International Labour Organisation. Several draft conventions, some drawn up by the Soviet Union and the United States, were rejected by the other powers. Nevertheless, the Council decided in January 1931 to convene the Disarmament Conference for February 1932. DISARMAMENT SECTION. Based on Articles I, VIII, IX, and XXIII, the section was set up by the first Assembly in 1920. It served as a secretariat of the Permanent Advisory Commission on Military, Naval, and Air Questions, which met for the last time in September 1932, of the Preparatory Commission for the Disarma-
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ment Conference, and later of the Disarmament Conference of 1932. It also controlled the observance of the peace treaties. In 1932 the section had eight staff members and, after the failure of the Disarmament Conference, four members. It was noteworthy that several citizens of the United States formed part of the staff. The section came under the direct supervision of one of the under secretariesgeneral. Its successive directors were Salvador de Madariaga, Erik Colban, and Thanassis Aghnides. The section published numerous works on chemical weapons, defense expenditure, and air questions, as well as the annual Armaments Year-Book. DISPUTES. See ARBITRATION; ARBITRATION AND SECURITY COMMITTEE; COVENANT; PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE. DIVISIONS. See STAFF. DOCUMENT SERVICE. See ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES, INTERNAL. DOMINIONS. Dominions were former colonies of Great Britain’s empire that were given self-rule. Canada obtained dominion status in 1867, Australia in 1901, New Zealand and Newfoundland in 1907, and the Union of South Africa in 1910. After World War I, they were treated as equal partners in the British empire, which meant that they could become member states of the League of Nations. In 1926 the Imperial conference defined the independent status and the allegiance to the Crown as “members of the British Commonwealth,” and the 1931 Statute of Westminster confirmed the voluntary cooperation between the seven sovereign states: Great Britain, the Irish Free State, Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, the Union of South Africa, and New Zealand. DOUMERGUE, GASTON (1863–1937). Doumergue was president of France from 1924 to 1931 and involved in the signing of the Kellogg–Briand Pact. From February until November 1934, he was prime minister and appointed Louis Barthou as his minister of foreign affairs.
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DRUG CONTROL SERVICE. Name of the Opium Traffic Section from 1939. DRUGS. See OPIUM AND OTHER DANGEROUS DRUGS, ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON. DRUGS LIMITATION CONFERENCE. See OPIUM AND OTHER DANGEROUS DRUGS, ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON. DRUMMOND, ERIC (1876–1951). At the time of the Paris Peace Conference, Drummond, son of the 15th Earl of Perth, was the private secretary to Arthur Balfour, Great Britain’s minister of foreign affairs. When the conference decided that the first secretarygeneral of the League of Nations had to be more of an administrative than a political figure, Drummond was appointed to the post. He assumed his function on 28 April 1919 and started to set up the organization of the League from Sunderland House in London. He resigned on 30 June 1933 in the midst of the Disarmament Conference and the Manchurian crisis. After his resignation he became British ambassador in Rome until 1939. DUFOUR-FERONCE, ALBERT (1868–1945). Dufour-Feronce had worked in Germany’s embassy in Great Britain before he entered the Secretariat in January 1927. He became under secretary-general and director of the International Bureaux Section. He left the Secretariat when Germany withdraw from the League in 1933.
–E– EBERT, FRIEDRICH (1871–1925). Ebert was a social-democratic politician and the first president of Germany’s Weimar Republic after World War I. He was succeeded by General Paul von Hindenburg. ECONOMIC COMMITTEE. The establishment of this committee was suggested by the International Financial Conference held by the League in Brussels in 1920, and it was set up by the first Assem-
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bly in December 1920. The Economic Committee had 12 members, most of them officials, who were appointed by the Council as individual experts. It prepared the World Economic Conference of 1927 and dealt with the Tariff Truce Conferences and the Commission of Enquiry into a European Union. The Economic and Financial Section served as its secretariat. ECONOMIC CONFERENCE, WORLD. The conference was held in May 1927 on the request of France’s delegation at the sixth Assembly (1925). It was attended by 50 states, including the United States and the Soviet Union. It is worthy of note that the representatives were economic experts who could act on their own authority. The conference adopted a report on the improvement of the economic situation. Among its practical results was a commercial treaty between France and Germany and a series of other treaties between several countries on tariff reductions. In October 1927 another—this time official—conference was held on the abolishment of restrictions and prohibitions on imports and exports, which led to a convention that was signed in July 1928 by 30 states. The economic depression and the protectionist measures that went with it led to the cessation of free trade even by its strongest advocate, the British Commonwealth, in 1932. Therefore, in April 1932, the International Labour Organisation called for a new economic conference on monetary and economic questions, and the suggestion was adopted by the powers, which were assembled in Lausanne for the last reparations conference. The conference met in London in June 1933 and 64 countries participated, including the United States and the Soviet Union. Soon, however, the United States refused to discuss a stable monetary standard and France a general lowering of tariffs. Though some results were achieved regarding a stable market for wheat and sugar, the conference ended infailure five weeks later. ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SECTION. The section was created by the first Assembly following a recommendation of the International Financial Conference in Brussels in 1920. The recommendation advised the establishment of an Economic and a Financial Committee. Two other standing committees, the Fiscal Committee
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and the Committee of Statistical Experts, grew out of these two committees. The section was the secretariat of all these committees. With 53 staff members in 1930, it was one of the largest sections of the League Secretariat. In 1920 it was a unified body, but with the departure of its director, Sir Arthur Salter, in 1931, the section was divided in two: the Financial Section and Economic Intelligence Service, and the Economic Relations Section. ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE SERVICE. The Economic Intelligence Service was a research body attached to the Financial Section. It acted as the secretariat for the Committee of Statistical Experts, the mixed Nutrition Committee, the Delegation on Economic Depressions, and the Demographic Committee. It was responsible for publications on financial and economic subjects, such as the Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, the international Statistical Yearbook, the Review of World Trade, and as of 1932 the World Economic Survey. See also ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SECTION. ECONOMIC RELATIONS SECTION. This section was established in 1931 and acted as the secretariat for the economic committees and all major international conferences on economic questions. Its director was the Italian Pietro Stoppani. See also ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SECTION. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS, CENTRAL COMMITTEE FOR. See BRUCE REPORT. ECUADOR. Ecuador signed the Covenant in 1919 but ratified it only in 1934. During the Italo–Abyssinian War, it voted against continuation of the sanctions against Italy and refused to attend the Council meeting on Germany’s occupation of the Rhineland. See also LATIN AMERICA. EDEN, ANTHONY (1897–1977). Eden was a member of parliament and one of the most fervent League supporters in Great Britain. He represented Britain at the Disarmament Conference, where he presented a plan that would give Germany equal treatment as to armaments. The new convention he proposed would replace the disarma-
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ment obligations of the Versailles Peace Treaty; supervision of arms reduction by other countries as well would be entrusted in a permanent disarmament commission. Eden was the British delegate to the Council from 1932 to 1938 and acted as Council rapporteur in the Hungarian–Yugoslav crisis. Together with the French foreign minister, Louis Barthou, he engineered the arms embargo in the Chaco crisis. Since June 1935, Eden was minister of League of Nations affairs and became foreign minister in December 1935. He attended the Stresa Conference and negotiated with Benito Mussolini during the Italo–Abyssinian War. Eden played an important role in the Council’s condemnation of Nazi aggression in Danzig. Together with Yvon Delbos, Eden proposed an Assembly resolution in 1937 on the abolition of the non-intervention commission during the Spanish Civil War. He resigned in February 1938, because he could no longer support Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy toward Italy. EGYPT. Even before Egypt became a member state of the League, it had agreed to participate in the sanctions against Italy during the Italo–Abyssinian War. When, by the Anglo–Egyptian treaty of 1936, Egypt officially became an independent state, it looked upon the League as a protector and upon Geneva as an ideal meeting place. League meetings in Geneva stimulated the conclusion of a treaty of peace and friendship, also known as the Middle Eastern Pact, in July 1937. Its signatories were Afghanistan, Persia, Iraq, later Egypt, and Turkey, which acted as the dominant power. Two months earlier, Egypt had been welcomed as a member state of the League. EKSTRAND, ERIK EINAR (1880–1958). Ekstrand was a Swedish diplomat and member of the Mixed Greco–Turkish Commission from 1923 to 1926. In 1931 he was appointed director of the Social Questions Section. ENZELI AFFAIR. This was the first issue ever brought before the Council. In 1920 the government of Persia complained about the Soviet Union’s occupation of the port of Enzeli. Since negotiations between Moscow and Teheran proceeded in a friendly manner, the Council took no action.
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EPIDEMIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE, SERVICE OF. See HEALTH COMMITTEE. ESTONIA. Estonia was one of the new states that emerged from the Paris Peace Conference. It had declared itself an independent state after the breakdown of tsarist Russia. When the conference closed, it was still at war with the Soviet Union. Estonia became a member state of the League in September 1921 and agreed to Council supervision over the treatment of its minorities. In June 1939 it concluded a non-aggression pact with Germany, and in the autumn of 1939 it yielded to Soviet annexationist demands. ETHIOPIA. See ABYSSINIA. EUROPEAN UNION, COMMISSION OF INQUIRY FOR A. In 1929 France’s delegate, Aristide Briand, presented the Assembly with a scheme for a United States of Europe. The subsequent memorandum of the French government of May 1930 was essentially a blueprint for a common market, with a permanent political committee of restricted membership as executive organ, and a small secretariat. The Assembly decided to appoint a commission to study the matter. Its chair was Briand and its secretary Eric Drummond. The Soviet Union and Turkey were invited to participate. Italy was skeptical, because it feared French economic domination and preferred special economic relations with Austria and Hungary. Great Britain feared the plan would damage its relations with the dominions. But Germany welcomed the plan and so did other European countries, provided that a European union would be a subordinated body attached to the League. In 1931 the French, British, German, and Italian foreign ministers who sat on the commission issued a declaration by which they promised, as European ministers, that they would “use the machinery of the League to prevent any resort to violence.” The commission subsequently worked out plans for agricultural surpluses, unemployment, public works, and an International Agricultural Mortgage Credit Company, but the economic depression prevented these from being implemented. The commission’s work gradually merged with the other economic activities of the League.
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EXHIBITIONS BUREAU, INTERNATIONAL. The first universal and international exhibition in the modern sense of the term took place in 1851 in London. Subsequently other international exhibitions were held in Vienna, Amsterdam, Brussels, Barcelona, St. Louis, Turin, and Philadelphia. As interest and experience in exhibitions grew, it became apparent that problems between the various parties had to be solved. In 1912 Germany called for an agreement. The diplomatic decision that resulted could not be ratified because of World War I. In 1920 the activities were transferred to the authority of the League. The international convention of 1928 brought order to the world exhibitions’ situation by regulating their frequency and outlining the rights and obligations of the exhibitors and organizers. At the same time the International Exhibitions Bureau was created in order to ensure compliance with the provisions of the convention.
–F– FAISAL, KING (1883–1933). In March 1921 Great Britain made Faisal king of Iraq. He was regarded as the only person who could put an end to the uprising in the country following the allocation of Mesopotamia as a League mandate to Great Britain. One year earlier, France had driven him out of Syria, which had proclaimed him king. In October 1922 he concluded a treaty of alliance with Great Britain, which made Iraq nominally an independent state. FERNANDES, RAUL (1877–1968). Fernandes was a famous Brazilian jurist who played an important role in drafting the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice. In 1920 he represented Brazil at the first session of the Assembly. FETHI BEY (1880–1943). Fethi Bey was Turkey’s main negotiator during the Mosul crisis in 1924. He was a fervent supporter of Mustafa Kemal. FINANCES. See BUDGET.
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FINANCIAL COMMITTEE. The International Financial Conference, organized by the League in Brussels in 1920, laid the foundation of an economic and a financial committee, created by the first Assembly in December 1920. Both committees set up other committees, such as the Fiscal Committee and the Committee of Statistical Experts. The Financial Committee consisted of 12 officials of national services and directors of private and national banks. They were appointed by the Council, not as government representatives but as individual experts. The committee dealt with the financial reconstruction of Austria, Hungary, Greece, and Bulgaria; with refugee settlement and the preparation of a convention for assistance to states victims of aggression; and with monetary problems and plans for the creation of an International Agricultural Mortgage Credit Institute. Its importance was derived from the fact that, for the first time, an international institution collected financial statistics from all over the world and placed the information at the disposal of member states. The Financial Section served as a secretariat to the Financial Committee. FINANCIAL CONFERENCE, INTERNATIONAL. The first session of the Council instructed the Secretariat, in February 1920, to convene a worldwide conference on international financial questions to deal with postwar economic and financial problems. The conference was held in Brussels in September 1920. It laid down general principles on economics and currencies and advised recovery programs for all the countries that had suffered from the war. German reparations and inter-Allied debts were not on the agenda, however, because the big powers reserved those issues for themselves. One of its recommendations was that the League should provide the widest possible publicity on public finances and currencies. The publication of periodical statements on the subject was carried out by the Economic Intelligence Service. Another financial conference in Brussels, in October 1921, was convened by the Supreme Council to raise money for the Russian famine. FINANCIAL SECTION AND ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE SERVICE. The section was part of the League Secretariat and set
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up to assist the Financial Committee. It was created in 1931. After the departure of the director of the Economic and Financial Section, Arthur Salter, Alexander Loveday became the new director. FINLAND. Finland was admitted as a neutral League member state in 1920 and accepted supervision of the Council over its minorities. In 1921 its conflict with Sweden over the Åland Islands was successfully settled by the League. Finland accepted the Treaty of Mutual Assistance. Finland had a frontier dispute with the Soviet Union, which in 1923 could not be settled by the Permanent Court of International Justice because the Soviet Union denied its competence. In 1928 it devised a plan for financial assistance to a small state in case such a state was attacked by a more powerful neighboring state. Great Britain, however, would only approve such an arrangement if it came into force simultaneously with a general disarmament treaty. Nevertheless, a convention was signed by 26 states during the 1930 Assembly, but never entered into force. In 1928 Finland was one of the three members of the Council investigating the Szent–Gotthard affair. From 1938 on, the Soviet Union increased its pressure on Finland. It wanted to be sure that Finland would remain neutral in case Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Though Finland refused a non-aggression pact with Germany, its refusal of Soviet territorial demands led to the Russo–Finnish war. The Finnish appeal to the League provoked extraordinary sessions of the Council and the Assembly, which decided to expel the Soviet Union from the League. The Secretariat subsequently organized a program of relief for the Finnish people, but in March 1940 the Finns gave up their resistance against the Soviets. FIRST DIVISION. See STAFF. FISCAL COMMITTEE. See FINANCIAL COMMITTEE. FIUME. This port on the Adriatic was claimed by Italy and Yugoslavia after World War I. During the Paris Peace Conference, it was briefly seized by the Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio. Though an agreement on Fiume already existed in the treaties of Rapallo (12 November
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1920) and Santa Margherita, Italy refused to have these treaties registered with the secretary-general of the League of Nations. Shortly after the Corfu affair in September 1923, Benito Mussolini finally gave in, after threats of the Yugoslav government to submit the whole issue to the League. In January 1924 the Pact of Rome was signed between Italy and Yugoslavia, by which Yugoslavia recognized Italy’s sovereignty over the city and port of Fiume. FIVE-POWER TREATY. The treaty was concluded at the Washington Conference between the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. The powers promised not to exceed fixed maxima as to the tonnage, size, and fighting power of battleships, cruisers, and aircraft carriers. The United States, Great Britain, and Japan moreover agreed not to build new naval bases on the Pacific islands. FLANDIN, PIERRE ETIENNE (1889–1958). Flandin was the conservative prime minister of France from November 1934 to May 1935. He attended the Stresa Conference and the deliberations of the sanctions committee during the Italo–Abyssinian War. During Germany’s occupation of the Rhineland in 1936, Flandin was minister for foreign affairs. FOCH, FERDINAND (1851–1929). Marshal Foch had been the French supreme commander of the Allied armies during World War I. In 1920 he coordinated the contingents, promised by France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Greece, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, to be sent to Vilna. See also POLISH–LITHUANIAN DISPUTE OVER VILNA. FOREIGNERS, CONVENTION ON TREATMENT OF. The convention had been a proposal of the World Economic Conference. Its aim was equal treatment of foreigners, once admitted to a country, in the fields of profession, taxation, property rights, and freedom of travel. The draft convention was put before a diplomatic conference in November 1929 but rejected by several European states, due to the economic depression. FOSDICK, RAYMOND (1883–1972). Fosdick had been the chief civilian adviser of the American commander-in-chief in France,
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General John Pershing, during World War I. In 1919 he was appointed deputy secretary-general of the League of Nations and was involved in the preparation of the first International Labour Office conference in Washington, D.C. Fosdick resigned in 1920 when the United States failed to become a member state. FOUR-POWER PACT. The pact was concluded in Rome in June 1933 between Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. It aimed at revision of the peace treaties of Paris, at equality of rights for Germany as to armaments, and at cooperation with regard to colonial questions. The French were able to change the pact in such a way that it did not violate the Covenant and the Locarno Treaties. Its main result was the alienation of Poland from the League system. FOUR-POWER TREATY. The Four-Power Treaty was concluded in 1922 at the Washington Conference between the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan. By the treaty, they would respect each others territories in the Pacific, consult each other in case of disputes, and support each other when threatened by another power. FOURTEEN POINTS. In his address to the U.S. Congress of 8 January 1918, President Woodrow Wilson laid down his “fourteen points,” to be regarded as war aims of the United States. They called for open diplomacy, freedom of the seas, removal of trade barriers, and reduction of armaments, as well as settlement of colonial claims according to the principle of the self-determination of peoples. The fourteenth point advocated the establishment of a League of Nations. The American war aims became the war aims of the other Allies and were accepted by Germany and Austria as a basis for a peace settlement. FRANCE. France was one of the Allied powers that organized the Paris Peace Conference. It was a member of the Supreme Council and a permanent member on the League Council. France regarded the League as one of the main instruments to obtain security against Germany. It therefore had a great influence on the security articles of the Covenant. When the formation of an international force proved impossible, the French settled for an international staff, the Permanent Advisory Commission on Military, Naval, and Air
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Questions, and the reduction of armaments. France soon established a special department that dealt with League questions, the Service français de la Société des Nations. The San Remo conference of 1920 appointed France as mandatory power of Syria, Lebanon, Togo, and the Cameroons. Many actions of the French were, for a long time, inspired by the wish to minimize Germany’s influence on the international scene, and this foreign policy did not alter with the many changes of government. In 1921 it opposed the allocation of the industrial triangle of Upper Silesia to Germany. France supported any measure that would enhance its security, such as the Treaty of Mutual Assistance of 1923, the Kellogg–Briand Pact, and the Locarno Treaties. To encircle Germany, it concluded agreements and treaties with Poland and other Eastern European countries, such as those of the Little Entente. In 1923 it occupied the mines and factories of the Ruhr, to obtain compensation for the failure of Germany to pay its reparations. It supported Italy during the Corfu affair to get Italy’s approval in the Ruhr crisis. The Anglo–German Naval Agreement of 1935 forced France into an even closer friendship with Italy. The Hoare–Laval Plan in fact meant the end of the League’s sanction policy during the Italo–Abyssinian War. France’s wish to remain on good terms with Benito Mussolini regularly endangered its relations with its other friends of the Little Entente and Belgium. With Aristide Briand as foreign minister, from 1925 France became a firm supporter of Germany’s entry into the League. But after the rise of national socialism in Germany, it demanded security before disarmament. France was not willing to revise the Versailles Peace Treaty nor to allow Germany an equal military status. This policy was an underlying motive in the Four-Power Pact of 1933 and the Franco–Russian Treaty of 1935. The rapidly deteriorating international situation forced France to concentrate its foreign policy on the prevention of war. Hence its attitude during the Spanish Civil War, the Czechoslovakian crisis in 1938, and the cession of Alexandrette to Turkey. Its treaties of guarantee with Poland, Greece, and Romania were another demonstration of this attitude, and so were its fruitless attempts to reach an agreement among France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union in 1939. The German
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attack on Poland led to the French declaration of war on 3 September 1939. FRANCO, FRANCISCO (1892–1975). Franco was chief of staff of Spain’s army when he was expelled to the Canary Islands in 1936. In the same year, he put himself at the head of the rebels against the leftwing Republican government. From June 1936 to April 1939, he led the fascist party of the Falange in the Spanish Civil War. In October 1936 he proclaimed the Spanish state, which was recognized by Germany and Italy. In January 1938 he declared himself the leader of the civil government and head of state. FRANCO–RUSSIAN TREATY. This mutual assistance treaty was concluded in 1935 as a reaction to Adolf Hitler’s rejection of a pact establishing the eastern borders of Germany. It was used by Hitler as a pretext to declare the Locarno Treaties null and void and to legitimize the reoccupation of the Rhineland.
–G– GARCÍA CALDERON, FRANCISCO (1883–1953). García Calderon, one of Latin America’s well-known writers, represented Peru in the Leticia dispute with Colombia. GENERAL SECTIONS AND SERVICES. The sections of the Secretariat were divided into two groups: special and general. Contrary to the special sections, the general sections served the Secretariat as a whole. Examples were the treasury and the library, but also the Central, Political, Legal, and Information Sections. The Internal Administrative Services furnished the entire Secretariat with technical assistance: personnel office, stenographic service, distribution of documents, and so forth. The special sections dealt with specific subjects, such as mandates, health, and opium. GENEVA. Geneva, Switzerland, became the seat of the League of Nations at the express wish of Woodrow Wilson. In 1919 the League was seated in Sunderland House, Curzon Street, London. From October
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1920, the Secretariat was established in the Hotel National, Geneva. Meetings of the Assembly were held in the Salle de la Réformation. In subsequent years, the Secretariat spread to surrounding buildings, and Council and Assembly meetings were held under inadequate conditions. In 1926 the Assembly decided to hold an international competition for the construction of a new building. The first stone was laid in September 1929 in the Ariana Park, and in 1935 the Council met in the new building: the Palais des Nations. In 1936 the Secretariat moved in, and in 1938 the Assembly met for the first time in its new environment. An agreement between the Swiss federal authorities of 1926 made the League’s premises inviolable. GENEVA CONVENTION. The convention and its protocol are regarded as an addition to the the Hague Peace Conferences. The Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisxsonous, or Other Gases and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare was signed on 17 June 1925 and entered into force in February 1928. It intended to ban permanently the use of all forms of chemical and biological warfare. GENEVA CONVENTION ON OPIUM AND OTHER DANGEROUS DRUGS. The convention of 1925 established an independent body to monitor and advise on matters relating to opiate distribution and control. It also set up a system of annual reporting of drug stocks, manufacture, and shipments. See also OPIUM. GENEVA PROTOCOL. See PROTOCOL OF GENEVA. GENOA, CONFERENCE OF. The conference was convened by David Lloyd George, who, without consulting the League, wanted a European reconstruction and Disarmament Conference that would include Germany and the Soviet Union. It was held from 10 April until 19 May 1922 and was a failure from the very start. France’s prime minister and foreign secretary, Raymond Poincaré, kept a low profile because he resented German participation, and Germany used the occasion to conclude a separate trade agreement with the Soviet Union at Rapallo. Lloyd George did not succeed in signing a general economic agreement with the Russians. The conference did not
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bridge the gulf between Germany and the Western powers but rather established the rapprochement between Germany and the Soviet Union. GERMAN–SOVIET NON-AGGRESSION PACT. The treaty, also called the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, was concluded by Germany’s minister of foreign affairs, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and the Soviet Union’s commissar for foreign affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, on 27 August 1939. It contained secret clauses on the definition of mutual spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. The pact allowed the Soviet Union to seize eastern Poland, the Baltic states, and part of Finland and Romania. GERMANY. The armistice of 11 November 1918 between the Allies and Germany brought an end to World War I and the German empire. The terms of peace were communicated to Germany on 7 May 1919 and the Versailles Peace Treaty was signed by the new Weimar Republic on 28 June 1919. The loss of territory, the payment of reparations, the clause that declared Germany guilty of the outbreak of the war, and the refusal of the Allies to admit Germany as a League member state were extremely painful to all Germans. The peace treaty therefore aroused a hostile attitude to the League from the outset. Right-wing movements never accepted the defeat in World War I and caused political unrest. The coalition governments of the Weimar Republic were not able to control the extreme nationalism of rightwing parties and the agitation of left-wing parties. Economic malaise and the Ruhr occupation by France only worsened the situation. Germany’s membership in the League remained an issue of debate in the League’s Assembly for many years, but it could not be considered due to French resistance. When in March 1921 the Allied powers occupied some German cities to force the government to pay its reparations, Germany for the first time—in vain—appealed to the Council. Germany’s first appearance on the international scene was at the Conference of Genoa in April 1922. Though the conference ended in failure, Germany used the occasion to conclude a separate trade agreement with the Soviet Union at Rapallo. From 1924 its foreign minister, Gustav Stresemann, despite fierce opposition from left-wing and right-wing parties, aspired to make Germany a League
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member state on the condition that it would obtain a permanent seat on the Council. Its official request was submitted on 8 February 1926, and on 8 September 1926 the Assembly unanimously voted for Germany’s admission. Its entry had been facilitated by the Locarno Treaties of 1925. German proposals led to the General Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War, which was adopted by the Assembly in 1931 but never entered into force. By the end of the 1920s, right-wing parties, such as the National Socialist Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP) under Adolf Hitler, had gained more influence. German minorities in Memel, Posen, Pomerania, and Upper Silesia caused political unrest and regularly embarrassed the Council when discussing petition procedures. They were increasingly used by German governments, and Hitler in particular, as a pretext for revision of the Versailles Peace Treaty. Treaty revision played an important role at the Disarmament Conference, where Germany demanded to be treated on an equal footing with the other big powers. The economic depression of 1929 destabilized the German political system even further. From 1930 until the assumption of power by Hitler in January 1933, Germany had three cabinets (the Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, and Kurt von Schleicher governments). Under Hitler’s chancellorship, Germany left the International Labour Organisation in June 1933, and the Disarmament Conference and the League in October 1933. Hitler’s aspirations for treaty revision and Lebensraum for an ethnically “clean“ German empire led to an aggressive annexationist policy and the persecution of Jews and other “non-German elements,” such as gypsies. His annexationist policy took place in several stages. The non-aggression pact with Poland of 1934 disrupted the French alliance system, and so did the Anglo–German Naval Agreement of June 1935. The German Army Law of March 1935 announced the formation of a considerable military force. The Locarno Treaties were revoked by the reoccupation of the Rhineland zone in March 1936, and from July 1936 Germany supported Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. In July 1936 a treaty of friendship was concluded with Austria, and in March 1938 Austria was annexed. The AntiComintern Pact with Japan, of November 1936, joined by Italy in January 1937, designated the Soviet Union as the common enemy. In
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November a Berlin–Rome axis was announced. The treatment of the German minority in Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland led to the demand that these Germans be returned to the German Reich. The Munich Conference of September 1938 allocated the Sudetenland to Germany, and in March 1939 Hitler seized the remaining parts of Czechoslovakia. In the same month, the port of Memel was annexed, and in September the Free City of Danzig underwent the same fate. A German–Italian military agreement, the so-called Steel Pact of May 1939, non-aggression pacts with Estonia, Latvia, and Denmark of June 1939, as well as the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 27 August 1939, cleared the way for the German attack on Poland on 1 September 1939, which led to the outbreak of World War II. GOEBBELS, JOSEPH (1897–1945). Goebbels was a national-socialist politician who became a member of Germany’s parliament in 1928. From 1933 he served Adolf Hitler as minister of information and propaganda. At the 1933 Assembly, he rejected France’s plan for a delayed disarmament of Germany’s neighboring states in two fouryear stages. He tuned up the machinery of anti-League propaganda to a considerable extent. GRANDI, DINO (1895–1988). Grandi was Italy’s minister of foreign affairs when he attended the conference on the Young Plan in 1929. He was a member of the Italian delegation at the Disarmament Conference of 1932 and represented Italy on the Council during the Rhineland crisis of 1936. From 1930 he was the Italian ambassador to Great Britain. GRAVINA, COUNT MANFREDO (1883–1932). Italy’s Count Gravina was the high commissioner for Danzig from 1929 until 1932. When, in 1931, a Nazi-dominated nationalist government came to power, causing much unrest in the city, he succeeded in calming down the situation. GREAT BRITAIN. Great Britain belonged to the Principal Allied and Associated Powers and played a major role in the drafting of the Covenant. The Paris Peace Conference and the San Remo Conference made Britain the mandatory power of Tanganyika,
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Cameroon, Togo, Palestine, Transjordan, and Mesopotamia. Great Britain had a permanent seat on the Council and was involved in all issues that were placed before this organ. Contrary to France, which saw the League as a security organization, Great Britain preferred to look upon the League as an additional debating forum without too much extra commitment for the British empire. These differences of opinion already became apparent at the Paris Peace Conference. From the outset, Great Britain objected to the stern demands that France laid down on Germany, and the French occupation of the Ruhr put great stress on Anglo–French relations. Throughout the interwar period, London tried to avoid a new war, especially over Germany’s borders. League interference with British foreign and defense policy was rarely appreciated. The conservative government of Stanley Baldwin rejected the Protocol of Geneva, a plan for financial assistance to a small state when it was attacked, and the Optional Clause of the Permanent Court of International Justice. The Locarno Treaties were only welcomed because they guaranteed Germany’s western but not its eastern frontier. The Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald, with Arthur Henderson as its foreign minister, adopted a more friendly attitude toward the League. In 1929 it signed the Optional Clause and proposed a tariff truce. It could not, however, adhere to Aristide Briand’s plans for a European Union. The Naval Treaty of London of 1930 settled its naval interests with the other naval powers, and at the Disarmament Conference Great Britain favored equal treatment of Germany. The Four-Power Pact of June 1933 confirmed British willingness to revise the peace treaties. Though it duly performed League tasks and sent its troops to supervise the Saar plebiscite, from 1935 under the national government of Baldwin, Britain’s policy to avoid war and to appease Germany and Italy became more outspoken. The German Army Law of March 1935 provoked British rearmament and the Stresa Conference of April 1935, but the Anglo–German Naval Agreement of June 1935 soon followed and revealed Britain’s cooperative policy toward Germany. Its attitude in the Italo–Abyssinian War resulted in the socalled Peace Ballot, which in June 1935 showed that British public opinion was in favor of the implementation of the Covenant. Public
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opinion did not change British policy toward Italy, however. The Hoare–Laval agreement in fact caused the collapse of the League’s collective security system. The British and French proposal of an alternative, the formation of regional groups for mutual defense, did not find favor with other League member states. Great Britain condoned Adolf Hitler’s occupation of the Rhineland, and the Neville Chamberlain government, in its fear of alienating Italy, reacted to the Spanish Civil War with a non-intervention policy. The appeasement policy also led to the Anglo–Italian agreement of April 1938, whereby London recognized Italian sovereignty over Abyssinia and Rome promised to withdraw its forces from Spain after the end of the Spanish Civil War. It culminated in the Munich Conference of September 1938. When Hitler’s territorial wishes turned out to go beyond Czechoslovakia, the policy of appeasement was abandoned. The end of the League’s collective security system was once more affirmed by a British statement that no member state should be held to the application of economic or military sanctions. Foreign Minister Edward Halifax even declared that the League no longer had any function in the preservation of peace. Instead, in 1939 Britain concluded treaties of alliance with Poland, Romania, and Greece and, together with France, entered into negotiations with the Soviet Union in an attempt to seek security against Hitler’s aggression. After Hitler’s attack on Poland, Great Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939. During the Russo–Finnish War in December 1939, it joined League action and voted for the exclusion of the Soviet Union from the League. See also ANGLO–PERSIAN OIL COMPANY; ANGLO–POLISH AGREEMENT; COMMONWEALTH; DOMINIONS; EGYPT; IRAQ; MOSUL; PALESTINE. GRECO–BULGARIAN CRISIS. On 23 October 1925, Greek troops crossed the border between Greece and Bulgaria. The Council met in an extraordinary session in Paris and sent a commission of inquiry to the scene. The commission’s report was accepted by the Council, and Greece had to pay an indemnity to Bulgaria. GRECO–TURKISH COMMISSION, MIXED. Following the Greco–Turkish War and the Lausanne Peace Treaty, a separate
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agreement provided for the compulsory exchange of populations. Under the supervision of the mixed League of Nations commission, more than 1 million Greeks of Asia Minor were resettled in Greece, and about 800,000 Turks and 80,000 Bulgarians left Greece and were repatriated in their respective countries. GRECO–TURKISH WAR. After World War I, Greece held the Aegean coast of Asia Minor but by 1922 was driven back by troops supporting Mustafa Kemal’s nationalist movement in Turkey. Since the Allied Powers Great Britain, France, and Italy still occupied Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), the situation nearly provoked a Turkish–British war. Fridtjof Nansen, who took care of the many refugees, suggested laying the question before the League. The Allied powers refused, however, to hand over their affairs to the League and proposed a peace conference with the new Turkish leaders. Such a conference should demilitarize the Black Sea Straits and place them under League supervision. Moreover, Turkish Christian minorities should also be placed under League protection. Deliberations with the Turks led to the Lausanne Peace Conference of 1923. See also GRECO–TURKISH COMMISSION, MIXED. GREECE. Greece belonged to the original member states of the League. It was nominated as a Council member until the first Assembly was able to designate Council members. In 1920 it was replaced by China. In the same year, it claimed the southern part of Albania, but the Conference of Ambassadors settled the Albanian frontiers by the end of 1921. Greece accepted having its minorities placed under the League’s supervision. Until 1923 Greece was entangled in the Greco–Turkish War. Its defeat in that war caused emigration on a large scale by Turkish minorities in Greece and Greek minorities in Turkey. Financially, it could only survive through loans, organized by the League. Greece got involved in the Corfu crisis and the Greco–Bulgarian crisis in October 1925. In the mid–1930s, it feared expansion by Bulgaria, the Soviet Union, and Germany and therefore concluded the Balkan Entente with Yugoslavia, Romania, and Turkey. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, France offered guarantees of its independence.
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GREISER, ARTHUR (1897–1946). Greiser was the president of Danzig from November 1934. He organized elections that were expected to give the Nazi party a two-thirds majority. Failing this, he established a reign of terror. Protests of the League Council and Assembly led to an aggressive anti-League campaign in Danzig, which brought about a two-thirds majority for the Nazis in the Danzig parliament. In August 1939 Danzig was declared part of the German Reich. GREY, EDWARD (1862–1933). Lord Grey was Great Britain’s foreign minister at the outbreak of World War I and until 1915. From the beginning of that war, he devised peace plans and became a strong supporter of a League of Nations.
–H– HAAS, ROBERT (1890–1964). Haas, of French nationality, was the director of the Communications and Transit Section of the Secretariat until his death in 1935. He was sent to China to assist the Nationalist government and acted as secretary to the Lytton Commission during the Sino–Japanese War of 1932. HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCES, THE. In 1899, on the initiative of Tsar Nicolas II of Russia, the first peace conference was held in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its main aim was to put an end to the arms race. The conference failed in its purpose but succeeded in drawing up a convention for the pacific settlement of international disputes. It even provided for a Permanent Court of Arbitration. Some 44 states attended the second peace conference held in 1907. Both conferences achieved important results with regard to the law of war but, due to Germany’s objections, did not fulfill the expectations. HAILE SELASSIE I (1892–1975). Haile Selassie, earlier called Ras Tafari, was the emperor of Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) from 1930, after having been crowned king in 1928. During his reign, he tried to suppress all forms of slavery and the slave trade, with disappointing results. His country had become a League member state in
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1923. In 1926 when Great Britain and Italy agreed to safeguard their economic interests in Abyssinia, Haile Selassie, then regent, appealed to the League. Since both governments denied wishing to endanger the independence of Abyssinia, no Council action was required. In 1928 Haile Selassie even signed a treaty of friendship with Italy. Nevertheless, in December 1934 the Italo–Abyssinian War broke out. On 2 May 1936 he fled the country and in May 1938 made a still memorable speech to the Assembly. By then, several countries had already recognized Italian rule over Abyssinia. HALIFAX, EDWARD (1881–1959). Lord Halifax succeeded Anthony Eden as Great Britain’s minister of foreign affairs in 1938. As a representative of Britain’s appeasement policy, he entered into negotiations with Benito Mussolini in April 1938 and recognized Italy’s sovereignty over Abyssinia. Halifax supported the non-intervention system in the Spanish Civil War and played a role at the Munich Conference. The failure of appeasement led to military pacts with Poland, Romania, and Greece. The conclusion of these pacts further proved British disregard of the League. Halifax in 1939 also tried—in vain—to conclude a treaty with the Soviet Union. HALL, H. DUNCAN. Hall, a distinguished scholar from Australia, was a member of the Social Questions and Opium Traffic Section as well as secretary of the Drugs Limitation Conference in 1931. HALLER, EDUARD DE (1897–?). De Haller was a Swiss lawyer who had been involved in the Mixed Greco–Turkish commission on the exchange of Greek and Turkish populations from 1923 to 1926. He entered the Secretariat in 1926 and in 1928 was moved from the Minorities to the Mandates Section. In 1937 he succeeded Vito Catastini as director of the Mandates Section. HAMBRO, CARL (1885–1964). Hambro was the leader of Norway’s conservative party. He regularly represented Norway in the Assembly and became one of the most outspoken critics of the Council. He often defended the smaller countries against the big powers. HAMEL, JOOST VAN (1880–1964). Van Hamel was a jurist and university professor in the Netherlands. He was the director of the Le-
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gal Section from 1919 to 1925 and served as high commissioner for Danzig from December 1925 to June 1929. HANKEY, MAURICE (1877–1963). Hankey was the British secretary of the Paris Peace Conference. He played an important part during the deliberations of the Supreme Council on mandates questions. From March 1939 to December 1939, he briefly served as a member of the Permanent Mandates Commission. HANOTAUX, GABRIEL (1853–1944). Hanotaux had been France’s minister of foreign affairs from 1894 to 1898. He represented France at the third Assembly in 1922. Hanotaux sat on the Council during the Corfu crisis and on the commission for the reconstruction of Austria. Hanotaux was also a famous historian and a member of the Académie Française. HARDING, WARREN G. (1865–1923). Harding had been a journalist and Republican senator when he became president of the United States in 1921. He more or less followed the Henry Cabot Lodge line in his attitude toward the League. He died before the end of his term and was succeeded by Calvin Coolidge. HEALTH COMMITTEE. The committee was the executive committee of the Health Organization. It was established in 1922 by the Assembly and consisted of 12—in later years 20—health experts from Europe, America, and Asia. It prepared regular international health conferences such as the Warsaw Health Conference of March 1922, where a decision was taken to extend the struggle against the postwar epidemics beyond the Russian border, at that time not a member state. One of its subcommittees was the Service of Epidemiological Intelligence, which collected information from national health administrations and submitted regular, sometimes daily, reports to them. The service had an Eastern Bureau in Singapore. HEALTH ORGANIZATION, PERMANENT. To implement Article XXIII of the Covenant, the Paris Peace Conference decided to set up a new health organization with a greater range of activities than the already existing International Office of Public Health, established in Paris in 1907. Though the office and its American member
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in particular refused to give up their autonomy, the Assembly of the League installed a Permanent Health Organization and a Health Committee. From 1923 on, it established a working relationship with the Health Office in Paris. The Health Organization was one of the few worldwide organs of the League. Even the United States, in later years, supported it wholeheartedly. Its budget was regularly increased by donations of the Rockefeller Foundation. The Health Organization was successful in the struggle against epidemics; it studied tropical diseases in Africa and dealt with all aspects of public health in general. HEALTH SECTION. This section was part of the League’s Secretariat. It was the technical secretariat of the Health Committee and its subcommittees. It organized health missions to different countries. In 1932 a member of the section even assisted in the pacification of the Kroo tribes in Liberia. The section also collected data and issued several publications, such as the quarterly Bulletin of the Health Organization, the Weekly Epidemiological Record, and the International Health Year-Book. From the beginning until January 1939, the section was directed by Dr. Ludwik W. Rajchman. It was one of the largest sections of the Secretariat, growing from seven staff members in 1922 to 48 in 1933. HENDERSON, ARTHUR (1863–1935). A Scottish socialist and member of the Labour Party, Henderson formed part of Great Britain’s delegation at the signing of the Protocol of Geneva. In June 1929 he became foreign minister under the Ramsay MacDonald government. His term marked an improved relationship with the League. The optional clause of the Permanent Court of International Justice was signed and a proposal made for a tariff truce. As a member of the Council, he initiated a special committee on Liberia. Henderson, like Anthony Eden, believed that world peace in general, and disarmament in particular, depended on a good functioning of the League. Though the MacDonald cabinet fell in 1931, Henderson presided over the Disarmament Conference from 1932 to 1934. During the summer of 1933, Henderson and Thanassis Aghnides visited Berlin in an attempt to reconcile Germany and France on disarmament issues. In 1934 he received the Nobel Peace Prize.
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HERRIOT, EDOUARD (1872–1957). As prime minister of France in 1924–1925, 1926, and 1932, Herriot was strongly in favor of disarmament and Anglo–French solidarity. In 1924 he supported the Treaty of Mutual Assistance. Herriot promoted the foundation of an organization for peace and used the Disarmament Conference to make overtures to the Soviet Union. HINDENBURG, PAUL VON (1847–1934). Von Hindenburg had been commander-in-chief of the German army during World War I. He was the president of Germany from 1925 to 1934. In 1933 he asked Adolf Hitler to become chancellor. Von Hindenburg was a conservative and monarchist who remained hostile to the League. HITLER, ADOLF (1889–1945). Hitler became the leader of Germany’s Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) in 1923. In 1930 this party won the elections, and in January 1933 he was asked by President Paul von Hindenburg to become chancellor. After his assumption of power, he abolished the parliamentary system and established the Third Reich. In 1934 he succeeded Von Hindenburg as president. Hitler’s main goals were the annulment of the Versailles Peace Treaty and the ethnic cleansing of Germany. By the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, he sought to establish a great German empire. His attack on Poland in September 1939 caused the outbreak of World War II. HOARE, SAMUEL (1880–1959). Hoare was Great Britain’s foreign secretary from June 1935. He was in favor of friendship with Italy to counter the growing political threat of Germany and Japan. Hoare had to resign in December 1935, after severe criticism of the Hoare–Laval Plan. HOARE–LAVAL PLAN. The plan, devised by the France’s prime minister, Pierre Laval, and Great Britain’s minister of foreign affairs, Samuel Hoare, was another effort to reconcile Italy and Abyssinia during the Italo–Abyssinian War and to prevent a further deterioration of French–British relations with Italy. The plan had two components. The first was an exchange of territories: Abyssinia should give up three territories adjoining the Italian colonies of Eritrea
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and Somalia. In return, Abyssinia would receive an outlet to the sea through Eritrea or French or British Somaliland. The second was that the southern half of Abyssinia should be marked as an Italian zone of economic expansion and settlement, controlled by the Italians on behalf of the League. The plan was a shock to all countries applying sanctions to Covenant-breaking Italy. HONDURAS. Honduras belonged to the original member states of the League. From the outset, it had asked, in vain, for a definition of the Monroe Doctrine, appearing in Article XXI of the Covenant. In 1929 Honduras returned to the Assembly after five years of absence. As a small state, it supported the Abyssinian side during the Italo–Abyssinian War. In July 1936 it withdrew from the League, officially because it could not pay its contribution to the League’s budget. See also LATIN AMERICA. HOOVER, HERBERT (1874–1964). Hoover was president of the United States from 1929 to 1933. He generally adopted a more proLeague attitude than his predecessors and repeatedly tried to overcome the deadlock in the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference. An important contribution to the League was his proposal of 22 June 1932 to the Disarmament Conference that amounted to abolition of specified offensive weapons, such as tanks, large mobile guns, bombing planes, and chemical weapons. Land forces, above a certain minimum for the maintenance of order, as well as battleships, both in total tonnage and number, should be cut by a third, surface warships by a quarter. No state should have more than 40 submarines of 35,000 tons in total tonnage, and all air bombardments should be forbidden. The proposal was not adopted, due to France’s fears for its security. HOUSE, EDWARD MANDELL (1858–1938). As a personal friend and main adviser of President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, House was a member of the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. House was one of the drafters of the Covenant. HUGHES, CHARLES EVANS (1862–1948). Hughes was an American Republican senator and supporter of the League. In March 1921 he be-
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came secretary of state of the United States in the Warren Harding administration. He was in favor of American adherence to the Permanent Court of International Justice but failed in his efforts. HULL, CORDELL (1871–1955). Hull was secretary of state of the United States from 1933 to 1944, during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. In 1933 he accepted the invitation to take part in a committee, set up by the Assembly, to investigate the Sino–Japanese conflict over Manchuria. Together with Roosevelt, he collaborated with the League in all fields that did not involve direct responsibility for collective security; both were not able to resist the isolationist factions in their country. Hull was in favor of the development of the League’s activities in the social, economic, and financial fields and therefore supported the Bruce Committee in 1939. In 1945 he received the Nobel Peace Prize. HUNGARIAN–YUGOSLAV CRISIS. Following the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia on 8 October 1934, the governments of Hungary and Yugoslavia brought complaints before the Council. Yugoslavia accused the Hungarians of secretly supporting Croatian terrorists, whereas Hungary accused the Yugoslavs of violations of the Hungarian frontier. In a special Council session of 5 December 1934, British cabinet minister Anthony Eden agreed to act as rapporteur. His advice, namely that it was one of the tasks of every state to prevent all acts of terrorism and that a committee should be established to draft a convention on the subject, was accepted by both parties on 10 December 1934. HUNGARY. Since the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Trianon, Hungary resented the territorial losses imposed on it. Several disputes with Romania and Yugoslavia resulted from its wish for treaty revisions, one of them culminating in the Hungarian–Yugoslav crisis. Nevertheless, Hungary became a League member state in 1922, and it accepted League supervision over the treatment of its minorities. From March 1924 it could count on League support for its economic and financial recovery. The reparation commission and its former enemies, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, acquitted Hungary’s reparations to that purpose. The League’s commissioner in
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Budapest was the American banker Jeremiah Smith. In 1928 Hungary got involved in the Szent–Gotthard affair, and from the beginning of the 1930s it increasingly acted as a satellite of Italy. It stood behind Italy during the Disarmament Conference, the Italo–Abyssinian War, and the Spanish Civil War. On 15 March 1939, Hungary received part of Czechoslovakia after the annexation of that country by Germany. It withdrew from the League in April 1939. HURST, CECIL (1870–1963). As legal adviser to Great Britain’s Foreign Office, Hurst was involved in the drafting of the Covenant at the Paris Peace Conference. In 1929 he became a judge on, and later president of, the Permanent Court of International Justice. HYDROGRAPHIC BUREAU, INTERNATIONAL. The International Hydrographic Bureau was the result of international conferences and congresses held as early as 1889. In 1921 it was placed under the authority of the League and changed its name to the International Hydrographic Organization. HYMANS, PAUL (1865–1941). In 1919 Hymans was foreign minister and a member of Belgium’s delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He participated in the League of Nations Committee and helped draft the Covenant. In 1920 Hymans was the president of the first Assembly. He acted as Council rapporteur on the dispute between Germany and Poland over Upper Silesia (1921), and the conflict between Lithuania and Poland over Vilna.
–I– IMPERIALI DI FRANCAVILLA, GUGLIELMO (1858–1944). Imperiali was Italy’s ambassador to Great Britain from 1910 to 1920. He represented Italy at many League meetings. IMPORT AND EXPORT PROHIBITIONS AND RESTRICTIONS, CONVENTION FOR THE ABOLITION OF. The convention had been a proposal of the World Economic Conference of 1927. Though 29 states signed and 17 states ratified the convention,
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it was not enough for it to come into effect. The economic depression was the main reason for this. INDIA. One surprising aspect of the League’s membership was that a colony could join the organization. India was an example, though it was—until 1929—not represented by Indian officials but by those of Great Britain. Lord Hardinge, the former viceroy, was one of them. India was an original member, and as it derived a great deal of its income from opium trading, it played a significant role in the conventions on opium. India, together with the members of the British Commonwealth, signed the optional clause of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice in 1929, and two years later it acceded to the General Act of the Arbitration and Security Committee of 1928. INFORMATION SECTION. Since the League of Nations, even more than governments, depended on the support of public opinion, it favored from the beginning the widest possible publicity of its activities. In this, the Information Section played a pioneering role. It brought about a revolutionary change in the relationship between diplomatic activities and the public. Its director for many years was Pierre Comert. As a former journalist, he maintained close relations with newspapers; any official document was given to the press, even before it was publicly discussed in Assembly or Council. The section was supposed to be neutral; it was not allowed to express opinions or even to make propaganda for the League. Its duty was restricted to providing factual information to the press and to League of Nations Associations and other private organizations, and informing the secretary-general of trends in public opinion. Most of the branch offices were outposts of the section. The section published the Monthly Summary, an account of the League’s activities, and all sorts of pamphlets and brochures on special subjects of interest to the public. From the 1930s it made use of the new technical possibilities of film and photography. The League even had its own radio station. The Information Section was the only section that appointed members on the basis of their nationality, so that, for example, a British national dealt with the British press. It was one of the largest sections
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of the Secretariat: it had 12 members in 1920 and 19 members in 1930. Pierre Comert was succeeded in 1934 by Adriaan Pelt. See also ASSEMBLY PUBLICITY. INQUIRY, THE. The Inquiry, created by the United States, was a body of experts that collected data for the Paris Peace Conference. It was set up in 1917 and ended its activities in 1919. Some of its members participated as advisers in the Paris Peace Conference. INTELLECTUAL COOPERATION, INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE ON. The committee was established by the Council in 1922 and was designed to improve the material condition of intellectual workers. According to France’s Federation of Intellectual Workers, it should become to the liberal professions what the International Labour Office was to industrial workers. It should also facilitate contacts between scholars and artists and promote the League of Nations as an instrument of peace among teachers. In 1922 the committee had 12 members, later raised to 15, and consisted of eminent scholars. Albert Einstein and Marie Curie were among its members. The French philosopher Henri Bergson was its first chair. In 1925 he was succeeded by the Oxford classical scholar Gilbert Murray. The committee promoted the exchange of scientific publications, the regulation of archeological exploration, the exchange of staff and students between universities, and the protection of copyright. Lack of League funds led to the establishment, by the French government, of a separate International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation in Paris. The committee was never able to carry out more than a small part of its aims, due to national preoccupations, especially in Germany after 1933, and the Soviet Union. INTELLECTUAL COOPERATION, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF. The institute was established in Paris in 1926. Together with the League’s Intellectual Cooperation Section, it constituted the executive body of the Intellectual Cooperation Organization. INTELLECTUAL COOPERATION SECTION. The section formed part of the League’s Secretariat. It was originally called International Bureaux, from 1928 International Bureaux and Intellectual
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Cooperation Section, and finally Intellectual Cooperation Section. Though no article of the Covenant referred to intellectual activities, the Council in May 1922 set up an International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation as an advisory organ of the Council and the Assembly. It was recognized as a separate organization by the Assembly in 1926 and could only carry out its activities through the facilities of the more numerous staff of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, placed at its disposal by the government of France. The section served as administrative secretariat to the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. It also communicated between the Secretariat and the Institute of Intellectual Cooperation in Paris, the Educational Cinematographic Institute in Rome, and the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law in Rome. It acted as the secretariat of the Permanent Committee on Arts and Letters and the subcommittee of Experts for the Instruction of Youth in the Aims of the League. The small section, which never had more than four staff members, published the Bulletin of Information on the Work of International Organizations, the Bulletin of League of Nations Teaching, and The Aims and Organization of the League of Nations. Germany’s under secretary-general, Albert Dufour-Feronce, and after 1933 Italy’s under secretary-general, Massimo Pilotti, acted as directors of the section. INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS, UNION OF. Set up before World War I, the union, under the leadership of the Belgians Henri Lafontaine and Paul Otlet, promoted contacts between teachers, artists, scientists, and other intellectual professions. Some 200 associations were affiliated when the union, in the beginning of the 1920s, demanded that a League organization take over its activities. This became the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. INTERNATIONAL BUREAUX SECTION. The section was one of the initial sections of the League’s Secretariat. It was established under Article XXIV of the Covenant, which placed all international bureaux of earlier general treaties under the direction of the League.
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Most of the international unions, such as the Universal Postal Union, were not willing to give up their autonomy, however, and the implementation of Article XXIV never really got off the ground. Only six international organizations placed themselves under the authority of the League: the International Bureau of Assistance, the International Hydrographic Bureau, the Central International Office for the Control of the Trade in Spirituous Liquors in Africa, the International Air Navigation Committee, the Nansen Office, and the International Exhibitions Bureau. As the League gradually developed its own technical activities, the International Bureaux Section was incorporated into the Intellectual Cooperation Section in 1928. INTERNATIONAL FORCE. At the Paris Peace Conference, the Bourgeois Committee put forward a French draft of the Covenant by which an international force or contingents of national armies would be placed at the disposal of the League. A permanent international staff would organize and train those forces and carry out military actions if the League deemed them necessary. Neither Léon Bourgeois nor Georges Clemenceau insisted on the international force but did demand an international staff. Their demand was honored by Article IX of the Covenant, which established the Permanent Advisory Commission on Military, Naval, and Air Questions. To the French, the international staff should also be able to inspect military establishments and the reduction of armaments. This plan met with strong objections from the United States and Great Britain. Though the Allies, shortly after World War I, maintained troops in Europe to provide security, they were not League forces in a strict sense. These Allied forces of Great Britain, France, and Italy supervised plebiscites in Schleswig, Klagenfurt, and Upper Silesia, all in 1920. The Council briefly considered sending an Allied force to Armenia but abandoned this plan after a negative response of the United States. In November 1920 the Council asked that an international force be sent to the border between Poland and Lithuania during the Polish–Lithuanian dispute over Vilna. A plebiscite had to be organized so that the population could decide whether they wanted to be Polish or Lithuanian subjects. Contingents were promised by
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France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Greece, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Protests of the Soviet Union against the sending of the force, however, put the operation in danger and few countries were willing to risk hostilities with the Soviet Union. In 1931 France again proposed an international force in a memorandum that preceded the Disarmament Conference, and the proposal was repeated in the Tardieu plan. The plan received too little support from the conference to be taken seriously. One occasion where League troops were put into action was in 1933, during the Leticia dispute between Colombia and Peru. In fact, they were Colombian troops, placed under command of a League commission on the spot, solely to maintain law and order until an agreement between the two countries had been reached. To ensure order in the Saar territory when a plebiscite was held, an international force was thought indispensable by the French and the chair of the Governing Commission, Geoffrey Knox. The Council duly invited neutral Sweden and the Netherlands to send contingents. From December 1934 to January 1935, the international force of 3,300 Dutch, Swedish, Italian, and British soldiers, under British command, performed its duties adequately. It would remain the only truly international force the League deployed. INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE. See INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION. INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (ILO). The ILO was established by the Paris Peace Conference, and its constitution formed part of the Versailles Peace Treaty (part XIII, articles 387–399) concluded with Germany, and of all subsequent peace treaties. Even before the League of Nations was officially installed (January 1920), the first Labour Conference took place in Washington, D.C., with considerable success: it drew up six important conventions and decided to admit Germany and Austria as members, thereby recognizing the vanquished as equal members of the international community. According to the Versailles Peace Treaty, the original members of the League were also members of the ILO. The organization consisted of a General Conference of Representatives of the members and an International Labour Office controlled
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INTERPARLIAMENTARY UNION (IPU)
by a Governing Body. The General Conference was to be held at least once a year and was to be composed of four representatives of each government, two of them government delegates and the other two representing employers and “workpeople.” The Governing Body consisted of 12 government representatives (six representing employers and six representing workers), and its period of office was three years. The International Labour Office proper was responsible for “collection and distribution of information on all subjects relating to the international adjustment of conditions of industrial life and labour.” The organization was part of the League of Nations and was paid out of the budget of the League. The director of the ILO should be responsible to the secretary-general of the League; however, since the membership of the Governing Body was decided by the Conference and the director of the ILO was appointed by the Governing Body, the organization had considerable autonomy. The director of the ILO, the French socialist Albert Thomas, was indeed very keen on preserving this autonomy. One of the consequences thereof was that countries which left the League in later years remained members of the ILO and even the United States decided to become a member state. After Thomas’s death in May 1932, his British assistant Harold Butler was appointed director. By 1930 the ILO had a staff of nearly 450 persons. In view of the special character of the ILO, its staff was recruited from among national labor departments, trade union officials, and employers’ organizations. While most of the staff of the League Secretariat had an upper-middle-class background, the ILO never had “diplomats” as staff members. INTERPARLIAMENTARY UNION (IPU). Established in 1889, the IPU promoted cooperation between the national parliaments in order to achieve a form of internationalism. The IPU, among other things, urged the creation of a permanent court of arbitration and played a significant role at The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907. Its permanent commission on racial and colonial questions was particularly active on the issue of mandates and sent numerous petitions to improve the system.
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IRAN. See PERSIA. IRAQ. The Ottoman province of Mesopotamia was occupied by British forces during World War I. In April 1920 at the Conference of San Remo, it was allocated to Great Britain as a mandated territory of the League of Nations by the Supreme Council. After strong nationalist protests, the British decided to make it a hereditary kingdom under Faisal. With him, they concluded a treaty of alliance in 1922, which declared Iraq an independent country, administered by Great Britain as mandatory of the League of Nations. Because the costly Iraq mandate was unpopular in Great Britain, the British in 1929 decided to recommend Iraq as a member state of the League. The Permanent Mandates Commission had grave doubts as to whether Iraq was able to stand on its own feet and demanded guarantees for minorities and juridical protection for foreigners. Iraq accepted these conditions and became a new member state in October 1932. That the minority guarantees remained a dead letter soon became clear with the fate of the Assyrians. League meetings in Geneva stimulated the conclusion of a treaty of peace and friendship, also known as the Middle Eastern Pact, in July 1937. Its signatories were Iraq, Afghanistan, Persia, and Turkey, later joined by Egypt. See also MOSUL; SHATTAL-ARAB. IRISH FREE STATE. When in 1921 Ireland obtained the status of British dominion, with its own government and parliament, it immediately asked to join the League. The Assembly accepted it as a League member in 1923. Ireland signed the optional clause of the statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice in 1929. It sat on a Council committee of three during the Chaco and Leticia crises. Though it generally defended strict adherence to the Covenant, it did not condemn Italy’s policy during the Spanish Civil War. See also COMMONWEALTH. ISHII, KIKUJIRO (1865–1945). Ishii was a former minister of foreign affairs and ambassador to France for Japan when in 1920 he served as president of the Council.
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ITALO–ABYSSINIAN WAR. The economically unprofitable Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia were situated along the northern and southeastern borders of Abyssinia, which was fertile and rich in minerals. Since economic penetration remained without success, Italy began to plan outright annexation. The Wal-Wal incident of December 1934 became the perfect pretext for starting hostilities. Thereupon, Emperor Haile Selassie drew the attention of the Council to the situation, referring to Article XV of the Covenant. From that moment on, Council discussions and separate talks between the governments of Great Britain, France, and Italy ran parallel. Since they wanted Italy on their side in their anxiety about Nazi aggressiveness, France and Great Britain tried to find a solution favorable to Italy. For a long time, the Council was paralyzed by the delaying tactics of these three powers. By the time the Assembly met in September 1935, numerous groups and non-governmental organizations had declared their resolve to stand by the Covenant. Since all conciliation had failed, the Council formed a Committee of Thirteen to study the measures to be taken by the League. Italy invaded Abyssinia on 3 October, however. The Assembly thereupon set up a committee that decided on an arms embargo for Italy. For further sanctions, a new committee was established to coordinate the measures taken by each member state. As 50 of the 54 League members were willing to apply sanctions, most of the work was done by a smaller and more practical Committee of Eighteen, also called the Sanctions Committee. Few member states, however, were willing to apply Article XVI, the collective security article, which would cut off all intercourse with the Covenant-breaking state. Nevertheless, the majority of the member states agreed to prohibit all loans and credits to the Italian government, to stop all imports from Italy, and to place an embargo on commodities such as rubber, tin, and aluminum. When it came to an embargo on oil, iron, steel, and coal, however, Benito Mussolini turned to the French prime minister, Pierre Laval. Laval contacted the British foreign minister, Samuel Hoare, and they devised a new plan of conciliation, known as the Hoare–Laval Plan. The plan created a great commotion among all countries applying sanctions and was generally regarded as a breach of faith toward the League. The indignation over the Italian use of mustard gas did not alter French–British policy, however, the more so
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since Adolf Hitler had denounced the Locarno Treaties and marched into the Rhineland on 7 March 1936. After Haile Selassie fled the country, Mussolini announced the annexation of Abyssinia on 9 May 1936. Shortly afterwards, Great Britain and France lifted their sanctions. By the Anglo–Italian agreement of April 1938, Great Britain recognized Italian sovereignty over Abyssinia. The defeat of the League led to discussions about whether the Covenant should be reformed from an instrument of common defense against war into a forum of consultation. ITALY. In exchange for Italian participation on the Allied side, the secret Treaty of London of April 1915 had promised Italy the acquisition of South Tyrol, Istria, Dalmatia, Libya, Eritrea, and parts of Asia Minor. Though Italy was a member of the Supreme Council, these promises were only partially kept at the Paris Peace Conference. Italy felt betrayed, especially when in 1920 Turkey’s former possessions in Asia Minor became mandated territories under France and Great Britain and the League failed to establish an organization that would regulate the fair distribution of raw materials. By the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey, Italy received the Dodecanese Islands. Frustration over its ill-treatment in Paris spawned nationalist movements and the advent of the Partito Nazionale Fascista, under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. From 1922 this party dominated Italian politics and gradually destroyed the democratic system. By 1926 Italy was an autocratic, corporative state. Its foreign policy aimed at an equal position among the big powers, control of the Adriatic, hegemony over the Mediterranean, and expansion of colonial possessions in Africa. Throughout the interwar period, Italy had disputes with its neighboring states, Albania, Yugoslavia, and Greece. After a brief occupation of Fiume by the Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, the Rapallo Treaty of 1920 could not end Italy’s conflict with Yugoslavia over the city. Its conflict with Yugoslavia over Albania in 1927 was settled outside the League. Italy’s claims on the Albanian coast caused a crisis in 1921, which could be settled by the Council but gave Italy the right to protect Albania’s independence. This right enabled Italy to gain complete economic and political control over Albania and eventually culminated in its annexation in 1939. In 1923 Italy’s conflicts with Greece led to the occupation of Corfu. In the
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1930s Italy established a group of satellite states, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria, to counterbalance the Little Entente group under the leadership of France, and did much to upset the shaky balance within the Yugoslav state. As one of the Allied and victorious powers, Italy held a permanent seat on the Council. It participated in the Allied army occupying Upper Silesia and contributed to the economic recovery of Austria. Under Mussolini’s regime, Italy continued to cooperate with the League, although it demanded more Italian officials—who had to report to Rome—in the League’s institutions. Italy adhered to the Locarno Treaties of 1925, but gradually its territorial demands overshadowed its commitments to the League. From 1928 Italy, together with Germany, tried to diminish the power of the secretary-general by proposing a committee, composed of the big powers, to head the Secretariat. Though Italy supported several proposals at the Disarmament Conference, from July 1932 its attitude toward the League became hostile and more in line with that of Germany. To grant Germany equality of rights in every respect, Mussolini proposed the Four-Power Pact of 1933. He soon became alarmed by the growing power of Germany in Central Europe and in 1935 convened the Stresa Conference as a reaction to German rearmament. Italy’s expansionist policy led to the Italo–Abyssinian War, which eventually caused the collapse of the League’s collective security system. Italy’s aloofness from the League was demonstrated by Mussolini’s refusal to attend the Montreux Conference on the Black Sea Straits in June 1936. Adolf Hitler’s violation of the Locarno Treaties was condoned and was followed by German–Italian assistance to Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War, which initiated the Berlin–Rome axis. In 1937 Italy refused to condemn Japan’s policy toward China and signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in the same year. In December 1937 Mussolini announced Italy’s withdrawal from the League. At the Munich Conference of 1938, Italy agreed to the German acquisition of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, but by its treaty of alliance and friendship with Germany of 1939, it virtually lost its freedom of action in foreign policy. See also HUNGARIAN–YUGOSLAV CRISIS; SZENT–GOTTHARD AFFAIR.
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–J– JACKLIN, SEYMOUR (1882–1971). Jacklin had been secretary of the public works department of the Union of South Africa before he became treasurer of the League in 1926. He served until 1946. JAPAN. Japan belonged to the Principal Allied and Associated Powers. At the Paris Peace Conference, it obtained Germany’s concessions in China, such as Shantung. The Pacific islands north of the equator were allocated to Japan as mandated territories of the League, which made Japan the second sea power in the Pacific. To its great frustration, Japan’s proposal to include in the Covenant a clause on the equality of nations was rejected by the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, which barred East Asian immigrants. Japan found some compensation in the fact that it had a permanent seat on the Council. Though the Washington Conference of 1921–1922 granted Japan only a tonnage of 315,000, against 525,000 for the United States and Great Britain, the Nine-Power Treaty gave it control over the Chinese coast. A treaty with the Soviet Union in 1925 settled the problems over Sakhalin. Until 1931, moderate, pro-League politicians ruled the country. In 1931 a militarist government took over. It based its foreign policy on the Tanaka memorandum of 1927, which aimed at a new order in East Asia. The new order would provide Japan with new markets and raw materials. The nationalist and expansionist government started the Sino–Japanese War over Manchuria. The acceptance of the Lytton Report by the Assembly resulted in Japan’s announcement on 27 March 1933 that it would withdraw from the League. This step meant a renewed Japanese isolation from the rest of the world and eventually led to the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany on 25 November 1936. In July 1937 Japan launched a new attack on China. The NinePower conference in Brussels in November 1937 ended in a failure, due to obstruction by Germany and Italy. A non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, concluded in 1941, paved the way for Japan’s attack on the United States and the occupation of French Indo-China. See also OPIUM.
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JORDAN. See TRANSJORDAN. JOURNALISTS ACCREDITED TO THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF. The association was set up by the journalists who permanently resided in Geneva. It was recognized by the Secretariat, and its member cards were signed by the secretary-general. See also INFORMATION SECTION; PRESS. JOUVENEL, HENRI DE (1876–1935). De Jouvenel represented France in the Assembly of 1922. He was a firm League supporter and proposed linking Germany’s reparations to disarmament. De Jouvenel therefore supported proposals on a Treaty of Mutual Assistance, which would eventually lead to the Locarno Treaties of 1925. In 1927 he refused to be a member of the French delegation any longer because he disapproved of the French attitude toward the League. In the early 1930s, De Jouvenel played an important role in the International Peace Campaign. JUDICIAL COMMITTEE. The Judicial Committee watched over the conduct and rights of the staff. It consisted of two members appointed by the secretary-general. The committee had to investigate unfair treatment by superior officials, misconduct, and willful negligence of the staff in general.
–K– KELLOGG, FRANK B. (1856–1937). Kellogg had been a Republican senator and ambassador of the United States in London when he succeeded Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state in the Calvin Coolidge administration. Together with Coolidge, he was in favor of American adherence to the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice. From 1930 to 1935, he was a judge in this court. KELLOGG–BRIAND PACT. The pact was worked out by France’s foreign minister, Aristide Briand, and the American secretary of state, Frank Kellogg. In August 1928 the pact was signed in Paris by 15 countries. It renounced war as an instrument of national policy
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and provided that disputes could only be settled by peaceful means. Since the pact upheld the possibility of war in self-defense, it offered no substantial improvement over the Covenant. What was important was that the United States now committed itself to the basic lines of the Covenant. Therefore, in case of aggression, states could appeal not only to the Covenant, but also to an agreement to which the United States was a party. KEMAL, MUSTAFA (1880–1938). Kemal was the leader of the national movement in Turkey that emerged from World War I and the occupation of the country by foreign troops. He gradually conquered Turkey and proclaimed the Turkish republic in 1923. He became the first president of the republic and remained so until his death in 1938. Also known as Atatürk (Father of the Turks), Kemal made Turkey a secular state. He concluded the Lausanne Peace Treaty with the Allies. See also MOSUL. KNOX, GEOFFREY. Knox was the British chair of the Governing Commission of the Saar at the time when the plebiscite was held in 1935. KOO, WELLINGTON (1887–1985). As one of the members of China’s delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, Koo took part in the League of Nations Committee responsible for the drafting of the Covenant. He was president of the Council in 1921 and rapporteur on the question of Upper Silesia. From 1932 Koo represented China on the Council during the Sino–Japanese conflict over Manchuria. In May 1938 he requested Council intervention against aggression by Japan. KUOMINTANG. See CHIANG KAI-SHEK; CHINA; RAJCHMAN, LUDWIK. KURDS. See MOSUL.
–L– LABOUR, COMMITTEE ON NATIVE. The committee was set up in 1927 by the International Labour Office at the suggestion of the
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seventh Assembly (1926). For the first time an American, Joseph P. Chamberlain from Columbia University, sat on the committee. This committee prepared the Forced Labour Convention of 1930, which came into force in May 1932. It prohibited every form of forced labor for private profit, including such practices as convict leasing. It also forbade the granting of any rights over labor to concessionaires. In 1939 a Penal Sanctions (Indigenous Workers) Convention and Contracts of Employment (Indigenous Workers) Convention came into being. LANGUAGES. The Covenant made no mention of official languages, but for practical reasons French and English were used as official languages. Documents of the League were issued in these two languages. The exception was the Information Section, which was free to publish pamphlets and brochures in any language. The translating service translated incoming documents from many languages. Due to the bilingual character of the Secretariat, all staff members had to be fluent in both French and English. Deliberations at Council and Assembly meetings were simultaneously interpreted in French or English. Delegates who wished to speak in another language had to provide their own interpreters. See also ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES, INTERNAL. LATIN AMERICA. In all, 20 Latin American states were League members. In 1926 three of the 14 Council seats were reserved for Latin American members. The mention of the Monroe Doctrine in Article XXI of the Covenant was regretted by nearly all of them. It meant that their foreign policies were always conducted under the shadow of the United States, which used the doctrine as a means to prevent European influence in the western hemisphere. Most of the Latin American states resented the predominance of the United States and its interventions in Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, and Panama. Uncertain about their status and freedom of action, some Latin American countries in 1928 demanded a clear verdict of the League Council on the relationship between League membership and the Monroe Doctrine. The Council’s assertion that the Covenant had given equal rights and obligations to all League members proved satisfactory. Nevertheless, the Latin American countries often accepted American
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solutions for problems in the Americas, as was the case in the Chaco affair. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attempts to establish a separate security system for the western hemisphere in 1936 were only welcomed, though, on the condition that this would not interfere with League commitments. In general, the Latin American states were strong supporters of disarmament and compulsory arbitration. They collectively opposed the Council’s hesitant attitude during the Sino–Japanese War, which seemed to condone foreign occupation of China. When in 1938 the collective security system of the League failed, most Latin American members adopted the view that League members were no longer bound by the application of sanctions. In most countries there was sympathy for Germany and Francisco Franco, and fear of entanglement in a European war drove them closer to the Pan-American Union, as became clear at the Lima Conference of 1938. By the outbreak of World War II, 10 of the Latin American members had resigned, some for financial reasons, though most of them maintained cooperation with the social and economic organs of the League. See also LETICIA. LATVIA. Latvia emerged from World War I as an independent state. It was admitted as a League member in September 1921 and accepted the League’s supervision over its minorities. Latvia suffered from the Polish–Lithuanian dispute over Vilna, because transit between Poland and Latvia became impossible. In June 1939 it concluded a non-aggression treaty with Germany. Nevertheless, as a result of the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939, it had to give in to the Soviet Union’s territorial demands. LAUSANNE, CONFERENCE OF. The conference, being the last reparations conference, was held in June–July 1932. Great Britain, Belgium, and Italy urged a “clean slate” for Germany, but France refused and demanded 3 billion marks. Franz von Papen offered 2 billion marks in exchange for German parity of arms and cancellation of the war guilt clause of the Versailles Peace Treaty. The conference, on 9 July 1932, settled for 2.6 billion marks, without parity or mention of the German war guilt.
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LAUSANNE, TREATY OF. The treaty replaced the Sèvres Peace Treaty of August 1920, concluded between the Allies and Turkey. The Sèvres Treaty had become obsolete with the conquest of Turkey by troops of Mustafa Kemal’s nationalist movement. A new treaty with the new government, therefore, was needed. In 1922 Great Britain, France, and Italy invited Turkey to take part in a peace conference. The conference took place in Lausanne in 1923. By the Lausanne treaty, Turkey regained some lost territories: East Thracia, the islands of Imbros and Tenedos, the Smyrna region, and western Armenia. The Black Sea Straits were demilitarized, and consular jurisdiction was abolished. Moreover, Turkey was indemnified from reparations. After the conclusion of the treaty, well over 1 million Turkish Greeks were resettled in Greece, and some 800,000 Turks living in Greece went to Turkey. LAVAL, PIERRE (1883–1945). Laval was prime minister of France in 1931–1932 and 1935–1936. He was responsible for the Hoare–Laval Plan. The plan precipitated his downfall in January 1936. LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE. In 1915 an American organization under the leadership of former president William Taft was established to promote a future League of Nations. Its other aims were maintenance of peace and justice, by means of force if necessary, and participation of the United States in the new world order. The organization was supported by Woodrow Wilson of the Democratic Party and Henry Cabot Lodge of the Republican Party. LEAGUE OF NATIONS ASSOCIATIONS. During the nineteenth century, all kinds of peace movements, groups, societies, and associations had promoted the League idea. After World War I, most of them remained League supporters and tried to mobilize public opinion on the League itself and the issues it dealt with. The socialist Fabian Society in Great Britain drafted a postwar plan, based on Leonard Woolf’s International Government, many features of which later appeared in the Covenant. The American League to Enforce Peace, which had influenced Woodrow Wilson to some extent, was unable to have the Covenant accepted in the United States.
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Examples of organizations that were active in spreading information and influencing their governments were Switzerland’s National Association for the League of Nations, Germany’s Liga für Völkerbund, France’s Société Française pour la Société des Nations (S.D.N.), and the Netherlands’ Vereniging voor Volkenbond en Vrede. The British League of Nations Union, a merger of the League of Free Nations Association and the League of Nations Society, was the most powerful of them, with nearly a million members in 1932. Under the leadership of Robert Cecil, it became a political factor of some importance. In 1921 an International Federation of League of Nations’ Societies, also known as the International Union of League of Nations Societies, was created in Brussels. Its secretary-general was the French philosopher and peace activist Théodore Ruyssen. LEAGUE OF NATIONS COMMITTEE. The committee was appointed by the Paris Peace Conference on 25 January 1919 to “work out the details of the constitution and functions of the League.” It was chaired by U.S. president Woodrow Wilson and had 19 members, among them Edward House (United States), Robert Cecil (Great Britain), Jan Smuts (South Africa), Léon Bourgeois (France), Vittorio Orlando (Italy), Nobuaki Makino (Japan), Paul Hymans (Belgium), and Wellington Koo (China). See also COVENANT, DRAFTING OF THE. LEBANON. A part of Syria, Lebanon was created as a separate mandated territory by France in September 1920. Though nominally an independent state, it remained under French mandated rule. LEGAL SECTION. As one of the services of the Secretariat, the Legal Section advised the Council, the Assembly, and the Secretariat on all legal questions. It also communicated with the federal or cantonal authorities in Switzerland on diplomatic immunities and privileges of the staff, and registered international treaties and conventions (nearly 5,000 by 1943), a task entrusted to the League by Article XVIII of the Covenant. In 1938 the section had seven staff members. Successive directors of the Legal Section from 1932, with the rank of under secretary-general, were Joost A. van Hamel of
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the Netherlands, Juan Antonio Buero of Uruguay, and Luis A. Podesta Costa of Argentina. LESTER, SEAN (1889–1959). The Irish Lester was involved in League contacts with the states of Latin America and was chair of the Chaco commission. He also served as a member of the committee of nineteen in the Sino–Japanese War. In 1935 he became high commissioner for Danzig. Lester repeatedly got into conflict with the Nazi-dominated senate of the city and sent numerous petitions to the League. In September 1936 he became deputy secretary-general under Joseph Avenol and in August 1940 succeeded him as acting secretary-general. On 18 April 1946 Lester was formally nominated as the third secretarygeneral. His term ended on 19 April 1946, when the League ceased to exist and the United Nations officially took its place. See also LETICIA. LETICIA. The district of Leticia Trapeze was situated on the borders of Colombia and Peru. In 1922 it was ceded by Peru to Colombia by a treaty, which was ratified in 1928. In September 1932 a Peruvian armed force drove the Colombians out of Leticia. The situation escalated fast and war was imminent. Brazil offered to mediate, but when Peru officially asked the Council to intervene, the Council took over its activities. In the first instance, the Council appointed a committee of three, consisting of the Irish Free State, Spain, and Guatemala, to study the case. Colombia requested to apply Article XV of the Covenant, and soon the Council proposed that, firstly, a League commission should administer Leticia for one year, and secondly, that a small contingent of Colombian troops under League command should be regarded as an international force. The League’s advisory commission, under Sean Lester, consisted of all Council members, Brazil, and the United States. Peace could be reached rather easily after the assassination of the Peruvian dictator Sanchez Cerro. The new Peruvian government signed an agreement in Geneva on 25 March 1933. After some time, Leticia was handed over by the League to Colombia. LIBERIA. Liberia had been established in 1822 by freed slaves of the United States. In 1847 it became an independent republic with an
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American-style constitution. Liberians had fought for the United States during World War I. Therefore Liberia could send a delegation to the Paris Peace Conference and was one of the original members of the League. The preliminary work for the League’s Anti-Slavery convention revealed that slavery on a large scale existed in Liberia. Liberia subsequently, in 1929, accepted an Inquiry Commission composed of an American, Liberian, and League representative. Its report induced the Liberian government to ask the Council for assistance to the necessary reform measures. A Liberian Committee of three experts was sent to the region, which advised a loan to the government. The loan, however, could not be issued without the permission of the Firestone company, which had made great investments in the rubber plantations of the country. Only in 1933 did the company give its permission for the reconstruction of Liberia. The League’s plan of assistance was initially rejected by the ruling elite of Liberia, but Great Britain’s threat that Liberia should be expelled from the League had some effect. For some time the Council tried to execute the plan, but Liberia could not sustain it. Because no further appeals were made, however, the League was no longer involved in the issue. LIBRARY. See INTERNAL ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES. LIQUORS IN AFRICA, CENTRAL INTERNATIONAL OFFICE FOR THE CONTROL OF THE TRADE IN SPIRITUOUS. See SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS IN AFRICA, CENTRAL INTERNATIONAL OFFICE FOR THE CONTROL OF THE TRADE IN. LITHUANIA. Lithuania had been part of the Russian empire and declared its independence when the tsarist regime broke down. Its capital, Vilna, immediately became a pawn in the conflict between Russia and Poland over boundaries. In 1920 a treaty of peace was signed between the Soviet Union and Lithuania by which Lithuania was recognized as an independent state and Vilna fell within the Lithuanian state. See also POLISH–LITHUANIAN DISPUTE. LITTLE ENTENTE. The entente was shaped in 1920, when fear of Hungary’s revisionism drove Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia to a treaty of defense. In 1921 Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Poland
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concluded defense pacts with Romania. The formation of the Little Entente was strongly promoted by France, which favored preservation of the Versailles peace system. LITVINOV, MAXIM (1876–1951). Litvinov had been the assistant to the Soviet commissar on foreign affairs, Georgi Chicherin, in 1920. In 1930 he became foreign minister and acted as the Soviet Union’s representative on the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference, on the commission for a European Union, set up in 1930. After the Soviet Union’s entry into the League, Litvinov served as delegate to the Council and the Assembly. He was the president of the Council during the Italo–Abyssinian War. Litvinov was known for his outspoken loyalty to the League and the Covenant. LLOYD GEORGE, DAVID (1863–1945). Lloyd George was Great Britain’s minister of trade and finance from 1905 to 1914. In 1915 he became minister of war and in 1916 prime minister. After World War I, he represented Great Britain on the Supreme Council. Lloyd George was never particularly interested in a League of Nations. Nevertheless, he decided to lay the matter of Upper Silesia in the hands of the League Council (August 1921). He considered the peace terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty too harsh and devoted himself to the entry of Germany and the Soviet Union into the League. Therefore, he initiated a general European conference on the reconstruction of Europe. The Genoa Conference turned out to be a failure, however, and Lloyd George fell from power even before its end in May 1922. LOCARNO, TREATIES OF. While Great Britain was still in doubt over the signing of the Protocol of Geneva, Chancellor Gustav Stresemann of Germany proposed a Rhineland Pact that would guarantee the Franco–German border. The seven powers involved in such an agreement met in Locarno in October 1925. They signed a Treaty of Mutual Guarantee between Germany, Belgium, France, Great Britain, and Italy, which defined their frontiers and the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland as inviolable, and in which the signatories promised never to attack one another. Disputes would be settled by
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peaceful means and any violation would be brought before the Council of the League. In addition, four arbitration conventions were signed: between Germany and Belgium, Germany and France, Germany and Poland, and Germany and Czechoslovakia. Germany was not willing to guarantee its eastern borders, however. France concluded separate treaties with Poland and Czechoslovakia by which they promised armed support in case of a German attack. All these treaties would come into force only when Germany became a member state of the League. LODGE, HENRY CABOT (1850–1925). Though the American Republican senator Lodge attended meetings of the League to Enforce Peace, he developed anti–League of Nations, or rather anti–Woodrow Wilson, sentiments during the congressional elections of 1918 in the United States. By 1919 he had organized a powerful group within the U.S. Senate that demanded amendments to the Covenant. The anti-League movement was inspired by racial sentiments toward Japan, indignation over the treatment of Italy, and traditional isolationist considerations. The most important objection concerned Article X of the Covenant, with its implications regarding the protection of every member’s integrity and independence. On this article, Lodge demanded in each case separate consideration of the U.S. Congress. Wilson remained firm on this issue, and on 19 March 1920 the Versailles Peace Treaty, and thus the League of Nations, was rejected by the U.S. Senate. In 1925 Lodge also prepared the Senate’s refusal to adhere to the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice. LOVEDAY, ALEXANDER (1888–1962). Loveday was a British member of the Economic and Financial Section from 1920. In 1931 he became the director of the Financial and Economic Intelligence Section of the League’s Secretariat. LUGARD, FREDERICK (1858–1945). Lugard had been Great Britain’s governor of Hong Kong and Nigeria. He won some fame with his book The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (1922) and served as a member of the Permanent Mandates Commission from 1921 to 1936.
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LYTTON, VICTOR ALEXANDER (1876–1947). Lord Lytton had been Great Britain’s governor of Bengal from 1922 to 1927, and for some time officiating viceroy of India. He was the president of the Lytton Commission, investigating the conflict between Japan and China in 1932. LYTTON COMMISSION. The commission, consisting of Council members under the leadership of Lord Victor Alexander Lytton, was established by the Council in January 1932 to investigate the Sino–Japanese War over Manchuria. It had limited powers and was only supposed to study the circumstances that would threaten peace and good relations between China and Japan. It was not allowed to control military movements or promote negotiations, nor was it allowed to make recommendations on the settlement of the dispute. Its report of 4 September 1932 condemned Japan on all essential points.
–M– MACDONALD, JAMES RAMSAY (1866–1937). MacDonald was Great Britain’s Labour prime minister in 1924 and 1929–1935. He was involved in drafting the Protocol of Geneva but turned down the Treaty of Mutual Assistance. During the Disarmament Conference, he devised a plan for a (never ratified) four-power pact with France, Germany, and Italy that would reserve changes in the Versailles Peace Treaty to these powers. In March 1935 MacDonald announced British rearmament and in April participated in the Stresa Conference with Benito Mussolini and Pierre Laval. He resigned in June 1935 due to hostile public opinion regarding the British attitude toward the Italo–Abyssinian War. MADARIAGA, SALVADOR DE (1886–1978). De Madariaga was a Spanish philosopher and diplomat who briefly was the director of the Disarmament Section. He led the coalition of small states during the Disarmament Conference. He was also a member of the commission that prepared the admission of the Soviet Union to the League. In September 1935 he was chair of the commission investigating the
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crisis over Abyssinia. He retired from political life during the Spanish Civil War. See also ITALO–ABYSSINIAN WAR. MAKINO, NOBUAKI (1862–1949). In 1919 Makino was Japan’s foreign minister and member of the Japanese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He was involved in the drafting of the Covenant but was unable to insert an equality of nations clause. MANCHURIA. Manchuria was a province of China when it was attacked and occupied by Japan’s troops in September 1931. A new militaristic Japanese government declared Manchuria an independent state in February 1932, under the name of Manchukuo. The new state was not recognized by the United States, and the principle of nonrecognition of a situation brought about by means of force remained an accepted principle of the League until 1938, when many member states recognized Italy’s annexation of Abyssinia. MANDATES COMMISSION, PERMANENT. As one of the few commissions mentioned in the Covenant (Article XXII), the Permanent Mandates Commission was set up to receive and study the annual reports of the mandatory powers and advise the Council “on all matters relating to the observance of the mandates.” It was composed of independent—and for the most part retired—colonial experts. Their high-ranking background—Lord Frederick Lugard, former governor of Nigeria, was perhaps its most famous member—prevented them from keeping a low profile. The first meeting of the commission took place in October 1921. It usually held two three-week sessions a year. The commission took the widest possible view of its functions and even decided to receive petitions (3,044 in total) from individuals and organizations of the mandated territories, which regularly caused clashes with the big mandatory powers, France and Great Britain. This was the case in 1926 when these powers refused to accept a further extension of the commission’s competences. The achievements of the Mandates Commission are still regarded as examples of the successes of the League. The commission prevented South-West Africa’s incorporation as a fifth province within the Union of South Africa. Likewise, and with the support
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of Germany and Italy on the Council, it could also prevent Great Britain’s “closer union” plans with Tanganyika in 1932. Its initiative to settle the nationality of the inhabitants of the mandated territories protected the inhabitants from automatic and forced naturalization. Its criticism on French rule over Syria speeded up the establishment of an organic law. In some cases it was also successful as to the application of the principle of economic equality for League member states. Of great value to international law were its concerns about minorities. When in 1930 Great Britain wanted to terminate the Iraq mandate, the commission would only agree when Iraq met certain conditions, such as the protection of minorities and foreigners, and the rights of the member states of the League. The guarantees were given by Iraq—and soon proved worthless. Its demand for solid guarantees as to minorities, on the other hand, delayed independence for Syria and Lebanon. Most of its successes could be attributed to the power of public opinion. The publication of the minutes more or less forced the mandatories to take the commission’s recommendations into account. One of the most important features of the mandates system was the right of petition for the inhabitants of mandated territories. This right was not embodied in the Covenant or the mandate texts. The initiative had been taken by Great Britain, which also set up the rules. The commission succeeded in using them as a powerful instrument by publishing them as annexes to the minutes, which gave many petitioners sufficient satisfaction. The mere fact that individuals could make a direct appeal to an international organization and receive the full—and public—attention of the commission was of great value to the development of later “human rights” achievements. See also MANDATES SECTION. MANDATES SECTION. This section, part of the Secretariat, was organized even before the Covenant went into effect. The duties of the section were to prepare the work of the Council and the Assembly on mandates questions, to correspond with the mandatory powers, to serve as the secretariat of the Permanent Mandates Commission, and to collect data on the policy of the mandatory powers and general questions of colonial administration. It also received petitions and examined them as to their admissibility.
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The section had great influence on the work of the commission, which could mainly be attributed to its first director, William Rappard. He served as director until 1924, when he left the section to become a member of the commission. He was succeeded in 1924 by Vito Catastini and in 1937 by Eduard De Haller. In 1921 the section had five staff members and nine in 1938. Only citizens of non-mandatory powers were employed in the section to guarantee full impartiality. In 1922 the question of slavery was added to its tasks. From then on, it also served the Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery. The section published the Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, Liquor Traffic in Territories under B and C Mandates, and Statistical Information concerning Territories under Mandate. See also MANDATES SYSTEM. MANDATES SYSTEM. At the Paris Peace Conference, the mandates system was devised by Woodrow Wilson, who refused annexation of Turkey’s territories and Germany’s colonies by the victorious powers France and Great Britain. Instead, these territories should become mandated territories, administered under the tutelage of certain powers “on behalf of the League of Nations” until they were able to stand by themselves. The mandates system became part of the Covenant. The drafting of Article XXII was undertaken by the Supreme Council and not by the League of Nations Committee. The idea of a mandates system had been suggested by George Louis Beer and Jan Smuts’s The League of Nations: A Practical Suggestion, published in December 1918. France and Great Britain reluctantly accepted the system. From the outset, Wilson had three categories of mandates in mind. Territories that already had reached a certain stage of development became A-mandates (Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia). A-mandates could be given some form of autonomy. B-mandates needed stricter control and C-mandates had no self-ruling rights at all. The conditions for mandatory rule were laid down in mandate texts. All texts had, among other things, clauses on self-government, slave trade, forced labor, economic equality for League member states (except in C-mandates), military recruitment, and native land. The Palestinian mandate had a special clause on the establishment of a Jewish national home.
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By the end of August 1919, the C-mandates were allocated: Japan got the Pacific islands north of the equator; Australia received the Bismarck Islands, the Solomon Islands, North-East New Guinea, and Nauru; New Zealand became responsible for Western Samoa; and South Africa was allotted South-West Africa. Of the African B-mandates, German East Africa (Tanganyika) went to Great Britain, Ruanda–Urundi to Belgium, and Togo and the Cameroons were shared by France and Great Britain. The allocation of the A-mandates Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Syria had to wait until the San Remo Conference of April 1920. The approval of the mandate texts by the Council followed in December 1920 for the C-mandates, and in July 1922 for the B-mandates. The last A-mandate texts only went into effect in September 1923. The United States in particular held up the approval of the Mesopotamian mandate because it wanted to safeguard its oil interests there. Each mandatory power had to submit an annual report, which was studied by the Permanent Mandates Commission. The report of the commission thereupon was sent to the Council for approval and subsequently dealt with by the sixth committee of the Assembly. MANTOUX, PAUL (1877–1956). Mantoux was a famous French economic historian and Sorbonne professor. At the Paris Peace Conference he acted as the general interpreter and confidant of the Supreme Council. In 1919 he became the first director of the Political Section of the League’s Secretariat. In 1927, together with William Rappard, he founded the Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva. MASSIGLI, RENÉ (1888–1988). Massigli was a high-ranking civil servant in France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was one of the French delegates at the Disarmament Conference. MATSUOKA, YOSUKE (1880–1946). Matsuoka was a Japanese diplomat who participated in the Paris Peace Conference and in 1932 represented Japan on the Council during the crisis over Manchuria. See also YOSHIZAWA, KENKICHI. MELLO FRANCO, AFRIANO DE (1871–1943). De Mello Franco was Brazil’s representative on the Assembly when Brazil in October
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1924 supported the Protocol of Geneva. In July 1924 he had been appointed permanent representative on the Council, with the rank of ambassador, resident in Geneva. He was recalled by his government in 1926, when Brazil was denied a permanent seat on the Council and, as a result thereof, withdrew from the League. Later, he became Brazil’s foreign minister and negotiated in the Leticia case. MEMBERSHIP OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. The League had three categories of member states. The 31 original members had signed the peace treaties at the Paris Peace Conference. Immediately after the conference, thirteen other countries were invited to accede to the Covenant. These were neutral states and states in Latin America. The remaining member states asked for admission in the coming years. According to Article I of the Covenant, “Any fully self-governing State, Dominion or Colony . . . may become a Member of the League if its admission is agreed to by two-thirds of the Assembly, provided that it shall give effective guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its international obligations, and shall accept such regulations as may be prescribed by the League in regard to its military, naval and air forces and armaments. ” In all, 63 states were, for a shorter or longer period, members of the League. Member states wishing to withdraw from the League had to give two-years’ notice, after which period they were asked to reconsider their decision. See also COUNCIL MEMBERS. MEMEL. The port of Memel had been a German town with a German and Lithuanian-speaking population in eastern Germany. From 1919 the region was divided between Poland and Lithuania. The Versailles Peace Treaty placed the town under Allied sovereignty until it could be allocated to Lithuania. Due to the Polish–Lithuanian dispute, the Allies later decided that it should become a Free City. In January 1923 Lithuania took Memel by force. The Conference of Ambassadors referred the question to the Council, which appointed a commission chaired by the American Norman Davis. The commission drafted a convention by which Lithuania promised Poland equal rights as to transit and commerce with all other users of the Memel port. A neutral member of the Harbor Board, appointed by the League’s Transit Committee, would provide external supervision. The Memel Convention was accepted by Lithuania and the Allies in
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March 1924 and entered into force in August 1925. The German population of the city caused much political unrest in the years to come. Their wish to be incorporated in the German Reich eventually led to Germany’s occupation of Memel in March 1939. See also COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT ORGANIZATION. MESOPOTAMIA. Mesopotamia formed part of the Ottoman Empire until the end of World War I, when it was occupied by British forces. In April 1920 the Supreme Council allocated it to Great Britain as a mandated territory of the League of Nations. The British made it a kingdom under Faisal in August 1921, and from then on, Mesopotamia was called Iraq. See also MOSUL. MEXICO. Mexico could not be admitted as an original member of the League because its government was not recognized by the United States, but it was admitted in 1931. Mexico belonged to the most fervent supporters of the Covenant. It stood behind Abyssinia during the Italo–Abyssinian War and declined a resolution that would recognize annexation by Italy. Mexico also rejected a revision of the Covenant just because the sanctions against Italy had failed. See also LATIN AMERICA. MIDDLE EASTERN PACT. League meetings in Geneva stimulated the conclusion of a treaty of peace and friendship known as the Middle Eastern Pact in July 1937. Its signatories were Afghanistan, Persia, Iraq, and Turkey, which acted as the dominant power. Egypt joined at a later date. MILITARY COMMISSION, ALLIED. See ALLIED MILITARY COMMISSION. MILITARY, NAVAL, AND AIR QUESTIONS, PERMANENT ADVISORY COMMISSION ON. The commission was a result of France’s wish for an international force placed at the disposal of the Council. At the Paris Peace Conference, the plan did not find favor with the other Allies, but France did receive some satisfaction through Article IX of the Covenant, which established a permanent commission to advise the Council on all military, naval, and air ques-
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tions. It consisted of three high officers from each member state and was dominated by the general staffs of the big powers. It was particularly useful in all technical military, naval, and air matters. Its secretaries were not League officials but officers of the French army, the British navy, and the Italian air force. MILLER, DAVID HUNTER (1875–1961). As American legal adviser and member of the Inquiry, Miller advised Woodrow Wilson in the League of Nations Committee at the Paris Peace Conference. MINORITIES. Though the Covenant had no clauses on the protection of minorities, the League’s concern was governed by five special treaties concluded between the Principal Allied and Associated Powers and Greece, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. The League also based its activities on four special chapters in the peace treaties with Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Turkey, on five declarations made before the Council by Albania, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as special chapters of the German–Polish convention relating to Upper Silesia and the convention concerning the Memel territory. The Council devised a procedure by which minorities could send petitions to the League when they felt ill treated. The Minorities Section examined them and communicated them to the governments concerned. Decisions were subsequently taken by the Committees of Three, composed of unbiased Council members. Especially after the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, German minorities in neighboring countries generated considerable political tension. In 1928 a serious dispute in the Council arose between Gustav Stresemann and Auguste Zaleski, the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland respectively, over the treatment of German minorities in the Polish provinces of Upper Silesia, Posen (Poznan), and Pomerania (Pomorze). Stresemann thereupon demanded a revision of the minorities procedures and the establishment of a permanent commission on minorities questions. He was supported by all states bound by the minorities treaties, which in addition demanded that the treaties be applicable to all states. This the big powers could not accept, and the only result was that greater publicity would be given to the Committees of Three.
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MINORITIES SECTION. From 1935 this was the new name for the Administrative Commissions and Minorities Questions Section. MIXED COMMISSION, TEMPORARY. See TEMPORARY MIXED COMMISSION FOR THE REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS. MOLOTOV, VYACHESLAV (1890–1986). Molotov succeeded Maxim Litvinov as foreign minister of the Soviet Union in May 1939. He was responsible for the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, which paved the way for Germany’s attack on Poland. MOLOTOV–RIBBENTROP PACT. See GERMAN–SOVIET NON-AGGRESSION PACT. MONETARY AND ECONOMIC CONFERENCE, WORLD. See ECONOMIC CONFERENCE, WORLD. MONNET, JEAN (1888–1979). Monnet had been head of France’s supply organization in London during World War I. He was appointed by Secretary-General Eric Drummond as deputy secretarygeneral when the League still had its headquarters in London (1919). He resigned in 1922. MONROE DOCTRINE. The doctrine was issued in an address to Congress by President James Monroe of the United States on 2 December 1823. Its main purpose was to prevent further colonial and political expansion of the European powers in the western hemisphere. The United States would not accept any intervention by European states, and in return it would not interfere with existing European colonies or dependencies. The doctrine was to become the theoretical basis of American isolationist policy. The United States never accepted an interpretation of the doctrine by others, not even by the League, which had incorporated the doctrine in Article XXI of the Covenant. When in 1928 some countries of Latin America, resenting the predominance of the United States and its interventions, demanded a clear verdict of the Council on the relationship between League membership and the Monroe Doctrine, the Council merely asserted that all League members were equal.
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MONTREUX, CONFERENCE OF. See BLACK SEA STRAITS. MOSUL. Mosul was a disputed region on the border between Turkey and Iraq. By the Treaty of Sèvres the province had been allocated to Iraq under Great Britain’s rule. But during negotiations over the Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey refused to give it up. Thereupon Great Britain referred the question to the Council, which appointed a commission of inquiry. The Kurds, forming the majority of the population, preferred independence but would agree to form part of Iraq, provided that the British mandate over Iraq would last at least 25 years. The commission of inquiry advised that the demarcation line drawn by a special Council session in Brussels should be the fixed frontier between Iraq and Turkey. It further recommended a mandate of 25 years, unless the kingdom of Iraq became a League member state before this period expired. The Kurdish population should receive guarantees from the mandatory power. These recommendations were accepted by the Council in December 1925, and in June 1926 the Turkish government reluctantly signed a treaty with Great Britain and Iraq. The agreement caused resentment with the Turks, who only decided to become a League member state in 1931. MOTTA, GUISEPPE (1871–1940). Motta had been Switzerland’s minister of finance from 1912 to 1919. He was the minister of foreign affairs from 1920 to 1937 and president of the Swiss Federation in 1915, 1920, 1927, 1932, and 1937. Motta was chair of the committee set up in 1926 to study the question of Germany’s permanent seat on the Council. In 1934 he voted against the Assembly resolution to admit the Soviet Union as a League member state. In 1935, during the Italo–Abyssinian crisis, he was in favor of appeasing Italy. MUNICH CONFERENCE. On 29 September 1938, Benito Mussolini, Neville Chamberlain, and Edouard Daladier tried to appease Adolf Hitler in his wish to bring the Sudeten Germans of Czechoslovakia “Heim ins Reich.” The Sudetenland was subsequently ceded to Germany, in the belief that giving in to Hitler’s “last” territorial claim would prevent the outbreak of a war.
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MURRAY, GILBERT (1866–1957). This British classical Oxford scholar joined the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation and in 1925 became its chair. In 1922 he attended the third Assembly, like Robert Cecil, as a delegate of the Union of South Africa. MUSSOLINI, BENITO (1883–1945). Mussolini had been a journalist before he established the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in 1919. These strongly nationalistic combat groups attacked Italy’s economically and politically weak state after the disappointing outcome of the Paris Peace Conference. In 1921 he founded the fascist party, the Partito Nazionale Fascista. In 1922, the Italian king asked Mussolini to form a stable government. By 1926 Mussolini had established a dictatorial regime, assisted by the Great Fascist Council and 22 corporate councils. His expansionist foreign policy and alliance with Nazi Germany led to the Italian declaration of war on France and Great Britain on 10 June 1940. MUTUAL ASSISTANCE, TREATY OF. The Temporary Mixed Commission of the Assembly, preparing the Disarmament Conference, proposed a Treaty of Mutual Assistance, which provided for collective security in case one of its signatories was attacked. The plan was adopted in 1922 by resolution XIV of the third Assembly and laid before the respective governments; nearly all states turned it down with the argument that collective security could only work after compulsory arbitration. The exceptions were France, the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Belgium, states that felt threatened by their neighbors.
–N– NANSEN, FRIDTJOF (1861–1930). Nansen was a Norwegian explorer of the Arctic (1889–1891) and as such a worldwide legend. He acted as Norway’s ambassador to Great Britain and as observer at the Paris Peace Conference. He started to work for the League at the request of the Secretariat, originally just to repatriate about a million prisoners of 26 countries, detained in the Soviet Union. By 1922 he
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had fulfilled this task. He also campaigned for help during the Russian famine. In 1921 he obtained the title High Commissioner of Refugees. In this capacity, he worked for refugees from Armenia and Greece as well as (White) Russian refugees. He gave the stateless a “nationality” by issuing the so-called Nansen passport; the certificate bore his name and photograph and was accepted by many countries. Nansen was also chair of a subcommittee on mandates of the Assembly. In 1923 Nansen received the Nobel Peace Prize. At the end of his life, he expressed his disappointment at the attitude of the League member states toward refugees in his book Russia and the Peace. NANSEN INTERNATIONAL OFFICE FOR REFUGEES. See REFUGEE ORGANIZATION. NAVAL AGREEMENT, ANGLO-GERMAN. See ANGLO-GERMAN NAVAL AGREEMENT. NAVAL TREATY OF LONDON. After the disappointing results of the Three-Power Naval Conference, the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy succeeded in April 1930 in extending the naval agreements of the Washington Conference to cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. NETHERLANDS, THE. Though the Netherlands had been a neutral country during World War I, it was allowed to join the League as an original member on equal terms with the Allied Powers, and it became the seat of the Permanent Court of International Justice. The Netherlands participated in the Washington Conference of 1921–1922 and became a party to the Nine-Power Treaty. It tried, together with Great Britain, France, and Portugal, to limit the League’s control over the opium trade. It contributed to the economic reconstruction of Austria, and the commissioner-general there was a Dutchman, Alfred Zimmerman. The Netherlands obtained a seat on the Council in September 1926 and formed part of the Council’s committee of three to study the Szent–Gotthard affair. In 1934 it objected to the admission of the communist Soviet Union to the League. In 1934–1935 it participated in the international force of the League to supervise the plebiscite in
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the Saar, and it joined the sanctions against Italy during the Italo–Abyssinian War. Because of its interests in the colony of the Dutch East Indies, it could not oppose Japan during the Sino– Japanese War. In 1938 the Netherlands joined a group of Scandinavian, Baltic, Balkan, and Latin American states which felt no longer bound to apply economic or military sanctions under Article XVI of the Covenant. Generally speaking, it belonged to the circle of small states that regularly objected against secret conversations among the big powers. Therefore, in 1934 it rallied its fellow members of the League to prevent the Italian version of the revision of the Covenant, namely to concentrate the affairs of the League in the hands of the big powers. The Netherlands rendered the League invaluable services through distinguished citizens, such as Frederik van Asbeck and Daniel van Rees, both members of the Permanent Mandates Commission, and Adriaan Pelt, head of the Information Section. Prime Minister Hendrik Colijn presided over the two economic conferences on tariffs of 1930 and 1931. NEUILLY, TREATY OF. This peace treaty was concluded between the Allied and Associated Powers and Bulgaria in November 1919. An important clause was the transfer of territories in West Thracia to Greece. See also PEACE CONFERENCE, PARIS. NEURATH, FREIHERR KONSTANTIN VON (1873–1956). Von Neurath was the foreign minister of Germany from 1932 to 1938 and the German representative during the Disarmament Conference in 1932–1933. He was known as being anti-League in principle. After the assumption of power by Adolf Hitler, in January 1933, he rejected any reference to the inequality of Germany as to armaments. In 1939 he became the administrator of the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia annexed from Czechoslovakia. NEUTRAL STATES. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and some states of Latin America had been neutral during World War I and therefore were excluded from the deliberations at the Paris Peace Conference. They generally disagreed with the Covenant because it had no clause on compulsory arbitration
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and gave the big powers too much influence. The newly emerged state of Finland also declared itself neutral. The neutrals objected to the exclusion of Germany as a member state. Throughout the interwar period, they continued to express their dissatisfaction with the politics of the great powers, which settled their affairs outside the League or dealt with certain issues in the Council in such a manner that discussions in the Assembly became superfluous. In 1930 the Oslo pact was concluded between Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Its aim was an economic union; in 1933 Finland was added to the pact. After the failure of the Disarmament Conference, the motivation of the neutrals to meet their commitments as to collective security, and sanctions in particular, diminished. Nevertheless, they supported the sanctions applied to Italy during the Italo–Abyssinian War. The conduct of the big powers during this war induced the European neutrals, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Finland, to submit a declaration, dated 1 July 1936, to the Assembly, by which they regarded application of Article XVI of the Covenant as optional, not binding. NEW GUINEA. See NORTH-EAST NEW GUINEA. NEW ZEALAND. At the Paris Peace Conference, New Zealand, a dominion of Great Britain and member of the British Commonwealth, objected to Japan’s wish to include in the preamble of the Covenant some remark on the principle of equality of nations and the just treatment of their nationals, because it had special laws limiting immigration from East Asia. New Zealand also objected to Woodrow Wilson’s idea not to annex conquered territories, which the dominions thought vital for their security. A compromise was found in the mandates system, which gave it Western Samoa. New Zealand belonged to the original members of the League and signed the Optional Clause of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice. It defended the maintenance of sanctions against Italy during the Italo–Abyssinian War and the preservation of the Covenant when many countries demanded its revision. It refused to support Japan during the Sino–Japanese War of 1937–1938 and did not recognize Italian sovereignty over Abyssinia.
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NINE-POWER TREATY. The Nine-Power Treaty, concluded at the Washington Conference of 1921–1922, respected the independence and integrity of China, maintained the economic principle of an open door, and provided for communication between the signatories when the engagements were violated. The treaty was signed by the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, as well as by the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, and China. NITOBE, INAZO (1862–1933). Nitobe was one of the leaders of the liberal movement in Japan and became under secretary-general of the League in 1919. He left the Secretariat in 1926 and was replaced by Yotaro Sugimura. NOBLEMAIRE REPORT. The report was named after the French chair of the committee that set up a system of financial and staff regulations. Its report was approved by the second Assembly in 1921. See also BUDGET. NON-INTERVENTION COMMITTEE. The committee was set up in London in September 1936, as a consequence of a non-intervention agreement signed by many European states, in order to impose an arms embargo on both sides in the Spanish Civil War. The agreement was an initiative of France and never really became effective. For political reasons, the governments of Great Britain and France would not disband the committee. NORTH-EAST NEW GUINEA. At the Paris Peace Conference, this northeastern part of the mainland of present-day Papua New Guinea was given to Australia as a C-mandate territory. NORWAY. Norway belonged to the original members of the League. In 1920 the League allocated Spitsbergen to Norway, and in 1933 the Permanent Court of International Justice denied Norway the possession of Eastern Greenland. Norway always played a significant role with regard to mandates questions on the sixth committee of the Assembly. Norway was a neutral state and generally followed the policy of the other Scandinavian neutral states. It shared their disappointment
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at the failure of the Disarmament Conference and wholeheartedly participated in the sanctions against Italy during the Italo–Abyssinian War. Norway had a seat on the Council in the beginning of the 1930s and in particular concerned itself with the fate of the Assyrians in 1933. Norwegian citizens like Fridtjof Nansen and Erik Colban rendered invaluable services to the League. NUTRITION REPORT. As a result of the worldwide economic depression, the League felt the need to draft a study that would cover all aspects of food: agriculture, famine, health, labor, and economic policy. The driving force behind it was the Australian Stanley Bruce. Therefore, in 1935 the Assembly set up a committee that published a series of reports in 1937. This so-called Nutrition Report became one of the best-sellers of the League’s publications. Soon, national committees were established to carry through the necessary reforms and inform the League about their progress. NYON, CONFERENCE OF. The conference was organized in Nyon, Switzerland, by Great Britain and France and held 10–14 September 1937 to discuss the Spanish Civil War. Italy and Germany were invited but did not attend. An agreement was signed that forbade (Italian and German) naval attacks on merchant ships in the Mediterranean. Those of Spain were excluded, however. The French and British navies would patrol the Mediterranean and attack if necessary.
–O– OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS CONVENTION. The International Convention for the Suppression of the Circulation of and Traffic in Obscene Publications was concluded in September 1923. It was signed by more than 60 states and had been prepared by the League’s Social Questions Section. OFFICIAL JOURNAL. The most important publication of the League was its Official Journal. It contained the minutes of all Council sessions and the most important official documents issued
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or received by the Secretariat. The minutes of Assembly sessions as well as those of committee meetings were issued as Special Supplements to the Official Journal. The number of special supplements was reduced in 1931 and restricted to the minutes of the Assembly, the Permanent Mandates Commission, and the opium committee. OPIUM BOARD, PERMANENT CENTRAL. The establishment of the board had been advised by the Geneva Convention of 1925 on Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs. It had its own secretariat and monitored whether the governments that had signed the convention carried out their obligations. OPIUM AND OTHER DANGEROUS DRUGS, ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON. Article XXIII of the Covenant entrusted the League with supervision of the traffic in opium and other dangerous drugs. Therefore, the first Assembly of 1920 set up an advisory committee, also known as the Opium Committee. Its members were representatives of those states directly concerned with opium: India, China, Japan, Siam (present-day Thailand), and the four European powers with colonies in the Far East (Great Britain, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands). Their expenses were borne by their governments. To these representatives were added three League assessors who had no voting power. The committee based its activities, apart from the Covenant, on several international conventions: the Hague Convention of 1912, the Geneva Convention of 1925, the Geneva Agreement on Opium Smoking of 1925, the Drugs Limitation Convention of 1931, the Bangkok Agreement on Opium Smoking of 1931, and the Convention for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs of 1936. Until 1931 the Social Questions Section of the League, under Dame Rachel Crowdy, served as the secretariat to the committee, thereafter this task was performed by the Opium Traffic Section. In 1929 the Permanent Central Opium Board was created and in 1931 the Supervisory Body. OPIUM TRAFFIC SECTION. The section was part of the Secretariat and assisted the Advisory Committee on Opium and Other
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Dangerous Drugs. Until 1931, this task was performed by the Social Questions Section. In 1939 the name of the section was changed to the Drug Control Service. The section studied the annual reports submitted by governments, prepared special reports on the illicit drugs traffic and drug addiction, and prepared international conferences. It published, among other things, the Quarterly Summaries of Seizure Reports and the Summary of Annual Reports. Its director was Dame Rachel Crowdy. OPTIONAL CLAUSE. See PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE. ORLANDO, VITTORIO EMANUELE (1860–1952). In 1919 Orlando was prime minister of Italy. He was involved in the drafting of the Covenant at the Paris Peace Conference. After the peace conference, he had to resign because he did not succeed in obtaining the territorial expansion Italy demanded. OSLO PACT. See NEUTRAL STATES.
–P– PACIFIC ISLANDS. Those islands in the Pacific that had formerly belonged to Germany became C-mandates under the League of Nations after World War I. The islands north of the equator were administered by Japan. The Bismarck Islands, the Solomon Islands, North-East New Guinea, and Nauru were administered by Australia. Western Samoa was administered by New Zealand. See also MANDATES SYSTEM. PALAIS DES NATIONS. See GENEVA. PALESTINE. The Ottoman province of Palestine was occupied by Great Britain during World War I. At the Conference of San Remo in April 1920, the Supreme Council allocated it to Great Britain as a mandated territory of the League of Nations. The mandate text for Palestine, which laid down the conditions under which Great Britain
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had to administer the province, included the establishment of a Jewish national home, based on the Balfour Declaration of 1917. From the beginning, the mandate led to strong protests from the Arab population. They claimed that the British had promised them an independent Arab state through the MacMahon–Husayn correspondence of 1916. The British White Paper of 1922 made Jewish immigration subject to the economic capacity of Palestine. Nevertheless, Arab protests culminated in the Wailing Wall incidents of 1928 and 1929. A British Commission of Enquiry, the Hope Simpson Committee, advised further restrictions on immigration in 1930, but a letter of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald to the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann of February 1931 revoked the committee’s recommendations. The zigzag politics of the British, alternately favorable to the Arabs and Jews, caused a great Arab uprising in 1936. A British Royal Commission under Lord Peel sent to Palestine to investigate the causes of the Arab rebellion submitted a report in July 1937 and recommended the partition of Palestine into an independent Jewish and Arab state. Since the Arabs would not accept this plan, a new White Paper of May 1939 promised the Arabs an independent state within 10 years, wherein Jewish immigration would virtually come to an end. The Permanent Mandates Commission regularly criticized British policies, but the Council, on which Great Britain had a permanent seat, avoided clear statements. The commission’s rejection of partition had no effect, due to the outbreak of World War II. From the beginning, Great Britain separated Transjordan from Palestine. It became a mandated territory in which the clauses on a Jewish national home were not applicable. PANAMA. Panama belonged to the original members of the League and held a seat on the Council in the early 1930s. As a small and weak state, it stood on the side of Abyssinia during the Italo–Abyssinian War. See also LATIN AMERICA. PAN-AMERICAN UNION (PAU). The union was established in 1890 to promote inter-American commerce. It was not incorporated in the League after 1919, though Latin-American members of the Secretariat regularly visited its conferences. After its failure to join the
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League, the United States tried to develop the PAU as a regional organization for peace and a rival to the League of Nations. Most Latin American states, however, rejected a regional security plan in which the United States would play the leading role. When faith in the League became virtually non-existent in the second half of the 1930s, the Latin American states relied on the union more and more. See also LATIN AMERICA. PAPEN, FRANZ VON (1879–1969). Von Papen succeeded Heinrich Brüning as chancellor of Germany in May 1932. He aimed at a conservative dictatorial national state. The electoral victory of Adolf Hitler’s Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) led to his resignation in November 1932. On his advice, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor. From 1934 to 1938, he served as Hitler’s representative in Austria, and in April 1939 he became Germany’s ambassador to Turkey. PARAGUAY. Paraguay was one of the original members of the League. In 1928 it got entangled in the Chaco War, as a result of which it left the League in 1935. PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE. See PEACE CONFERENCE, PARIS. PAUL-BONCOUR, JOSEPH (1873–1972). Paul-Boncour was a French senator who in 1932 became France’s minister of state, charged with League of Nations affairs. He attended the Disarmament Conference and represented France on the Council during the Saar crisis, the German occupation of the Rhineland, the Italo–Abyssinian War, and the expulsion of the Soviet Union from the League in 1939. PAULUCCI DI CALBOLI BARONE, GIACOMO (1887–?). Paulucci was an Italian diplomat who participated in the Paris Peace Conference as secretary of the Supreme Council. He was Italy’s ambassador in Tokyo and chief of cabinet of Benito Mussolini. From 1927 to 1933, Paulucci was under secretary-general of the League, in charge of the internal administration.
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PEACE CAMPAIGN, INTERNATIONAL. During the summer of 1936, when League action had been defeated by Great Britain and France during the Italo–Abyssinian War, an Anglo–French group set up an international movement in support of the Covenant. Among its members were Robert Cecil, Philip Noel Baker, and Edouard Herriot. The movement wanted international problems to be dealt with by the League and to stop the armaments race. It therefore contacted trade unions and associations of doctors, teachers, farmers, and women as well as the churches. In September 1936 the World Peace Congress held in Brussels was attended by organizations of 35 countries. The movement, also called the International Peace Campaign, was a great success, and by 1939 some 43 states had national campaign committees. In 1937 it launched an unofficial boycott of Japanese products during the Sino–Japanese War. The campaign, however, came too late to produce practical results due to the aggressive policies of Italy and Germany, and many conservatives regarded the campaign as a communist ploy. PEACE CONFERENCE, PARIS. During the weeks following the armistice with Germany (11 November 1918) some 1,200 diplomats gathered in Paris to organize a peace conference. But even before the end of World War I, the Allies had established numerous commissions that were to define the future world. Now, the governments of France, Great Britain, and the United States had to coordinate all these plans. The main responsibility lay in the hands of the Council of Four, consisting of the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, and the prime ministers of France, Great Britain, and Italy: Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Vittorio Orlando respectively. When Japan joined the deliberations, it was called the Council of Five. When the ministers of foreign affairs were included, it was known as the Council of Ten or Supreme Council of the Allies. The opening of the conference took place on 18 January 1919. The conference had to deal with numerous questions regarding the future of the world: the creation of new countries, minorities, mandates, and refugees. To Woodrow Wilson, the establishment of a League of Nations had priority over all other issues. Such a League would overcome the old-fashioned balance-of-power system that had caused so
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much rivalry in the past, with devastating consequences. Under the new international system, all nations of the world would cooperate in full harmony and find peaceful means to settle their disputes. A special League of Nations Committee chaired by Wilson was formed, which became responsible for drafting the Covenant. The Covenant was included in the Versailles Peace Treaty with Germany (June 1919) and subsequently in all other treaties with the defeated powers: the Treaty of Saint Germain-en-Laye with Austria (September 1919), the Treaty of Neuilly with Bulgaria (November 1919), the Treaty of Trianon with Hungary (June 1920), and the Treaty of Sèvres with Turkey (August 1920). PEACE MOVEMENTS. During the interwar period, all kinds of peace movements existed. They had a long history, the first having been established in 1815 in New York. In 1816 a Peace Society was set up in London, and soon other societies in Geneva and Paris followed. Particularly well-known were the International Peace Bureau, founded in 1891, and the International League for Peace and Freedom. Throughout the nineteenth century, Universal Peace Congresses were held. Most of these societies supported the League from the beginning. PELT, ADRIAAN (1892–1981). Pelt, of the Netherlands, entered the service of the League in 1920 as a member of the Information Section. From 1922 to 1924, he assisted his compatriot Alfred Zimmerman, the commissioner-general of the League in Austria. Pelt was sent on several League missions and became director of the Information Section in 1934. PERMANENT ADVISORY COMMISSION ON MILITARY, NAVAL, AND AIR QUESTIONS. See MILITARY, NAVAL, AND AIR QUESTIONS, PERMANENT ADVISORY COMMISSION ON. PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE (PCIJ). The establishment of the court had been decided at the Paris Peace Conference and was embodied in the Covenant. According to Article XIV, the court was “to hear and determine any dispute of an
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international character which the parties thereto submit to it.” The first Assembly of 1920 added the so-called optional clause to the Statute. This clause implied that in all cases of a legal character, the court should have compulsory jurisdiction; an additional clause stated that any state could accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the court on the basis of reciprocity. Adherence to both clauses was not obligatory. Nevertheless, by 1929, some 41 states had signed them. A total of 59 states eventually became members of the PCIJ. The court’s nine judges and four deputy judges were elected by the Assembly on 30 January 1922. Its seat was the Hague in the Netherlands. Though the judges were chosen by the Council and the Assembly, and its budget had to be approved by the Assembly, the court acted independently and appointed its own staff. According to Article 9 of the Statute of the Permanent Court, members of the court “should represent the main forms of civilization and the principal legal systems of the world.” The court was one of two autonomous organizations of the League, the other being the International Labour Organisation. PERMANENT DELEGATIONS. See DELEGATIONS, PERMANENT. PERMANENT MANDATES COMMISSION. See MANDATES COMMISSION. PERSIA. Persia (present-day Iran) belonged to the original members of the League and was the first state to submit a question to the Council. In 1920 it complained about the Soviet Union’s occupation of the port of Enzeli. It generally supported strict application of the Covenant and rejected any attempt to revise its meaning. In 1927 Persia signed a treaty of friendship and non-aggression with the Soviet Union. In 1932 it cancelled the concession of the Anglo–Persian Oil Company, which provoked successful Council mediation in 1933. In 1934 Persia became involved in a dispute with Iraq over border questions. One point of contention was the Shatt-al-Arab waterway. League meetings in Geneva were important to Persia. It could represent the Asian and Muslim views in an international forum, and its
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contacts with other countries stimulated the conclusion of a treaty of peace and friendship, known as the Middle Eastern Pact, in July 1937. PERSONNEL. See STAFF. PERU. Peru belonged to the original member states of the League. In 1929, after five years of absence, it was able to attend the meetings of the Assembly again. During the Chaco War, it was asked by the Neutral Commission to play a role of pacifier. As a result of the growing political difficulties in Europe, the League no longer held any attraction for Peru and it resigned in April 1939. PHILLIMORE COMMITTEE. This committee set up by Great Britain contributed to the drafting of the Covenant. PILOTTI, MASSIMO (1879–?). Pilotti was an Italian lawyer who had been working at the secretary-general’s office and the Intellectual Cooperation Section when he succeeded Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli Barone as deputy secretary-general in 1933. When Italy resigned from the League, the post was left vacant. PILSUDSKI, JÓSEF (1867–1935). Marshal Pilsudski of Poland had been in tsarist captivity and had formed a Polish legion during World War I to fight on Germany’s side against Russia. However, he got into a conflict with the Prussian High Command and was imprisoned by the Germans. After the proclamation of the Polish Republic in November 1918, Pilsudski became head of state until December 1922. In May 1926 he staged a military coup and turned Poland into an authoritarian state. Although only minister of defense, in practice Pilsudski ran the government until his death in 1935. PODESTA COSTA, LUIS A. (1885–1962). Podesta Costa of Argentina was an international lawyer who had been director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He entered the Secretariat in 1935 and was legal adviser and director of the Legal Section. In 1936 he became under secretary-general. He was involved in the conference on the Chaco War.
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POINCARÉ, RAYMOND (1860–1934). Poincaré was president of France from 1913 to 1920. He served as prime minister from 1922 to 1924 and from 1926 to 1929. Poincaré more or less boycotted the Genoa Conference and was actively involved in the French occupation of the Ruhr. He supported Italy during the Corfu crisis. POLAND. Poland had been part of the Russian empire but declared itself an independent republic on 3 November 1918, under the leadership of Marshal Jósef Pilsudski. In 1919 a coalition government was formed and Pilsudski remained head of state until 1922, when nationaldemocrats won the parliamentary elections. A coup d’état in May 1926 brought Pilsudski back to power. When he died in 1935, Poland had an authoritarian constitution. Pilsudski’s successor, Edward Rydz Smigli, brought the military state to perfection. The Versailles Peace Treaty gave Poland Eastern Galicia, the socalled corridor (part of former German West Prussia), Posen, and part of Teschen. In 1919 the Allies made the Curzon line the Polish eastern border. Nevertheless, in March 1920 Pilsudski crossed that line and marched into Russian territory, which led to the Polish–Russian War. Under Pilsudski, the city of Vilna in Lithuania was taken and remained in Polish hands until 1939. In 1921 Poland also obtained part of formerly German Upper Silesia. Throughout the interwar period, Poland had disputes with the Free City of Danzig, with Czechoslovakia over Teschen, and with Lithuania over Vilna and Memel. It felt threatened by Germany and therefore, in 1921, signed treaties of alliance with France and Romania. It refused to consider any revision of the Versailles Peace Treaty. In this, it could count on French support. Poland adhered to the Treaty of Mutual Assistance and the Geneva Protocol. It tried in vain to extend the Locarno Treaties to Germany’s eastern borders and could only agree to disarmament when it was certain that Germany would never be able to attack its neighbors. It concluded a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in 1932. The appointment in 1932 of Josef Beck as foreign minister, who succeeded the moderate Auguste Zaleski, resulted in a more aggressive foreign policy. The Four-Power Pact of 1933 alienated Poland from France and paved the way for its non-aggression pact with Germany in 1934.
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Poland was an original member of the League and in 1926 was given a semi-permanent seat on the Council. It had agreed to League supervision of the treatment of its minorities, but from the beginning, Poland had disputes with the neighboring states, Germany, Lithuania, and Czechoslovakia, over these minorities. Only the Ukrainians in eastern Poland received a noticeable bad treatment, however. One of the results of the non-aggression pact with Germany was that Poland, in September 1934, ended all cooperation with the League on minorities questions. The Italo–Abyssinian War alienated Poland even further from the League, and it refused to apply sanctions to Italy, nor did it condemn Japan’s attack on China in 1937. After Adolf Hitler’s annexationist policy, it became clear that salvation was only to be expected from Western powers, and Poland therefore accepted the guarantees offered by Great Britain and France in 1939. The non-aggression pact with Germany had served its purpose, and the German minorities once again complained of ill-treatment and outright violence. Poland’s refusal in March 1939 to meet German demands on Danzig and the corridor resulted in the German attack on Poland in September 1939. See also POLISH–LITHUANIAN DISPUTE OVER VILNA. POLISH–LITHUANIAN DISPUTE OVER VILNA. The city of Vilna was regarded by the newly independent state of Lithuania as its capital, whereas Poland saw it as Polish territory. After the signing of the Russian–Lithuanian peace treaty of 1920, Poland called upon the Council. Though Council intervention soon led to an agreement between the two countries, a Polish general occupied Vilna. In October 1920, the Council suggested that the inhabitants of Vilna should decide whether they wanted to belong to Poland or Lithuania. A League force, consisting of contingents of eight member states, should be sent to the region to supervise the vote. In November 1920, however, the Poles tried to occupy the rest of Lithuania. Protests by the Soviet Union prevented the sending of an international force and the issue could not be settled. When the Conference of Ambassadors in March 1923 allocated Vilna to Poland—because Poland was the de facto occupying power—the situation did not improve. The decision was disputed by several League members. Only in December 1927 did the Council
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succeed in putting an end to the state of war. In March 1938, Poland forced Lithuania to resume diplomatic relations under the threat of a Polish invasion. Poland, in fact the Polish government in exile, once again approached the League in October 1939, when Soviet troops restored Lithuanian sovereignty over Vilna. POLISH–RUSSIAN WAR. In the belief that the revolutionary regime in the Soviet Union would soon collapse, Poland marched into the Ukraine and put it under Polish protection. The Poles were driven back by the Red Army and saved by the French general Maxime Weygand. In October 1920 the Polish–Russian War came to end, and in March 1921 the Riga Peace Treaty was signed. The frontier between the two countries was fixed east of Vilna. POLITICAL SECTION. As one of the first sections of the Secretariat, the Political Section started its work immediately after the ratification of the Versailles Peace Treaty. It was the diplomatic service of the Secretariat and dealt with all matters of a political nature, such as the relation between the League and the Free City of Danzig. Its activities concerned disputes between states, members, and nonmembers of the League, questions affecting one of its member states, and the admission or withdrawal of member states. After 1933 admissions and withdrawals were transferred to the Central Section. In practice, most of the delicate work was done by the secretarygeneral himself. Its first member of section was the British diplomat Harold Nicolson and its first director Paul J. Mantoux, the French general interpreter to the Paris Peace Conference. Mantoux was succeeded by the Japanese Yotaro Sugimura, and in 1931 the Frenchman Henri Vigier became head of the section. In 1930 it had a staff of eight persons, falling under the category of First Division. All permanent members of the Council had a national in the Political Section, who was excluded from active work when the country was involved in an international dispute. POLITIS, NICOLAS (1872–1942). Politis had been Greece’s ambassador to France. He was the minister of foreign affairs when he represented Greece in the Assembly and brought the Corfu crisis to the
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attention of the Council. Politis often served as chair of League committees and as rapporteur in difficult questions. He was, together with Eduard Benesˇ, the main author of the Protocol of Geneva and chair of the arbitration commission set up after the WalWal incident between Italy and Abyssinia. PORTUGAL. Portugal was one of the original members of the League. It was a party to the Nine-Power Treaty of the Washington Conference and one of the signatories of the Protocol of Geneva. In 1926 a military coup brought an end to the parliamentary system, and in 1933 a fascist state under Antonio Salazar emerged. Under his regime, Portugal strongly opposed the entry of the communist Soviet Union into the League. Its anti-communism was one of the reasons it supported Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Portugal was among the League members that in 1938 felt no longer bound by Article XVI of the Covenant, that is the collective security clause, with its economic and military sanctions. POSTAL UNION, UNIVERSAL (UPU). Established in 1874, the UPU was one of the first international organizations. It regulated anything related to international postal deliveries and refused to be subordinated to League control in 1919. The proportional system used by the UPU in apportioning the contributions of member states to the budget was initially used by the League but abandoned in 1921. POTTER, PITMAN B. (1892–?). The American Potter was a member of the arbitration commission that investigated the Wal-Wal incident of 5 December 1934, between Italy and Abyssinia. PREPARATORY COMMISSION FOR THE DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE. See DISARAMENT CONFERENCE, PREPARATORY COMMISSION FOR THE. PRESS. The League favored the widest publicity for its activities and maintained close relations with the press. The press was provided with information, accommodation, technical facilities, and admission cards for meetings. There were permanent press representatives who resided in Geneva and special correspondents who only came to cover certain
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events. In 1928 newspapers and press agencies had 99 permanent representatives in Geneva. The seventh Assembly, in 1926, was covered by 333 newspapers and 28 agencies. See also ASSEMBLY PUBLICITY; INFORMATION SECTION. PRESS BUREAUS AND REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PRESS, GOVERNMENTAL CONFERENCE OF. The conference originated in an Assembly resolution of 1925 that favored the convening of a committee of experts representing the press of the different continents. The Information Section thereupon initiated the organization of a series of conferences of press experts. The first International Press Conference was held in Geneva in 1927, the biggest was held in Copenhagen in 1932, and another was held in Madrid in 1933. The Geneva Conference was attended by 118 members from 38 countries and five continents. It demanded moderate rates for the dissemination of press news, improvement of telegraphic and wireless communications, protection of news, and more facilities for the transport of newspapers, but also free circulation of news, abolishment of peacetime censorship, and protection of journalists abroad. See also INFORMATION SECTION; PRESS. PREVENTING WAR, GENERAL CONVENTION TO IMPROVE THE MEANS OF. The convention was the result of a German proposal in 1927 that League members, in case of disputes, should bind themselves in advance to any recommendation of the Council in order to prevent war. Though the Assembly adopted the convention in 1931, it never entered into force. PREVENTION OF WAR. Article XI of the Covenant was expressly designed for the prevention of war, since it declared “any war or threat of war . . . is a matter of concern to the whole League and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations.” Under this article the Council was obliged to intervene. In 1927 Robert Cecil, Nicolas Titulescu, and Louis de Brouckère were instructed to make a further study of this article. Their report showed that the Council had greater legal powers than had been realized. Legally, the Council could order an impartial investigation and take measures, ranging from warnings
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to an order to withdraw troops. Refusal to obey them could lead to the breaking off of diplomatic relations with all League member states, and to naval or air demonstrations, or stronger action. The report was unanimously approved by the Council and Assembly. In 1931 it was decided, however, that any preventive action of the Council required the unanimous vote of all members, including those of the parties concerned. In 1927 Germany suggested the General Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War. It would have bound League members in advance to any recommendation of the Council in case of disputes. The Convention never entered into force, however. PROTOCOL OF GENEVA. Many member states of the League felt that the security clauses of the Covenant were not sufficient to prevent war. The Assembly, therefore, established two committees under the leadership of Eduard Benesˇ and Nicolas Politis. They laid before the Assembly a document that was officially called the Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes but came to be known as the Protocol of Geneva. It refined the Covenant in some respects. With regard to arbitration, every dispute had to be submitted to the Permanent Court of International Justice or the Council, except those that lay in the domestic jurisdiction of one of the parties, and their decisions were binding. As concerned security, the Protocol made it the duty of every signatory to resist the aggressor and help the attacked state. The Council would receive undertakings from member states stating what military forces they would hold ready to defend the Covenant. As to disarmament, the Protocol agreed to holding a Disarmament Conference in Geneva in 1925. After the conference had agreed on a general plan for arms reduction, the Protocol would come into force. The Protocol was accepted by the Assembly delegations in October 1924, but not by the British Commonwealth, which feared intervention in domestic affairs or trouble with the United States and generally disliked compulsory arbitration. The British foreign minister, Austen Chamberlain, in particular, preferred bilateral or multilateral alliances between countries to League undertakings.
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PROTOCOL FOR THE PROHIBITION OF THE USE IN WAR OF ASPHYXIATING, POISONOUS, OR OTHER GASES, AND OF BACTERIOLOGICAL METHODS OF WARFARE. See GENEVA CONVENTION. PUBLICATIONS. The Secretariat issued numerous publications. In principle, they were all for sale and distributed to organizations and individuals who had subscriptions. League publications were also sold by booksellers. Some became best-sellers, such as the World Economic Survey or a report on the traffic in women and children, published in 1927. Responsible for publication activities were the Publications, Printing, and Reproduction of Documents Service and the Publications Committee. See also INFORMATION SECTION. PUBLICITY. See INFORMATION SECTION; OFFICIAL JOURNAL; PRESS.
–Q– QUIÑONES DE LEÓN, JOSÉ MARIA (1873–1957). Quiñones de León was Spain’s ambassador in Paris and involved in the drafting of the Covenant. He sat on the Council from 1920 and in 1921 was a member of the committee of Council rapporteurs on Upper Silesia. He decided in 1923 to refer the Corfu case to the Conference of Ambassadors. When in 1931 a republican government came to power in Spain, Quiñones de León followed the king into exile.
–R– RAJCHMAN, LUDWIK (1881–1965). Poland’s Ludwik Rajchman was a doctor and director of the Health Section from 1921 to January 1939. He organized the campaign against the epidemics that broke out all over Europe at the end of World War I. He succeeded in winning the support of the Soviet Union, which from then on cooperated with the League on health questions. During his mission to Japan and China in 1925–1926, he recognized the power of the Kuomintang in an otherwise utterly divided China, where rival war-
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lords dictated events. Rajchman acted as an intermediary between the League and the Kuomintang, which resulted in visits of League experts to help with the reconstruction of the country after the formal recognition of the Nationalist government. RAPALLO, TREATY OF. The treaty was concluded between Germany and the Soviet Union in April 1922. Its aim was to normalize diplomatic relations between the two countries and establish a most-favored-nation treatment in their trade relations. The Soviet Union relinquished its claims to German reparations. See also GENOA, CONFERENCE OF. RAPPARD, WILLIAM (1883–1958). William Rappard of Switzerland was appointed first director of the Mandates Section in November 1920. He had studied economics and law at Harvard and the University of Geneva and had started a career as professor at both universities. He was highly valued by the Swiss federal government as a diplomat, in which capacity he attended the Paris Peace Conference. Before he entered the League Secretariat, he was general secretary of the League of Red Cross Societies. He had several clashes with Secretary-General Eric Drummond on the independent position of the Permanent Mandates Commission, whereupon he left the Mandates Section in 1924. Subsequently, he became a member of the commission and was co-founder of the Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva. RAPPORTEURS. Many organs of the League used a system of rapporteurs, which meant that one member of the Council, or a commission, studied a particular question. Usually, a citizen of a nonaffected nation was chosen to fulfill this task. Therefore, nationals of neutral states often served as rapporteurs. The task of the rapporteur was to draft a report and prepare a draft resolution, for which he needed the assistance of the Secretariat. The influence of the Secretariat on these reports has generally been underestimated. RAULT, VICTOR (1858–?). Rault, of France, was the president of the governing board of the Saar territory from 1920 to 1926. RAUSCHNING, HERMANN (1887–1982). Rauschnigg was the first Nazi president of the Danzig parliament. He took office in May 1933
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and had to resign in November 1934 because he failed to carry out the strict Nazi rules on Jews and foreigners. He was replaced by Arthur Greiser. REARMAMENT. After the failure of the Disarmament Conference, the withdrawal of Nazi Germany from the League, and Japan’s aggression against China, all big powers started to rearm in 1935. On 16 March 1935, Adolf Hitler denounced the Versailles Peace Treaty by establishing a conscription army of at least 36 divisions. Pierre Laval thereupon called for an extraordinary meeting of the Council in April. Benito Mussolini proposed a separate meeting of the Big Three, Great Britain, France, and Italy, which became the Stresa Conference. The conference had little influence on the rearmament plans of the three powers, which became clear when, weeks later, Great Britain, by the Anglo–German Naval Agreement, allowed Germany to rebuild its fleet up to 35 percent of the British navy. RED CROSS SOCIETIES. The International Committee of Red Cross Societies managed, at the Paris Peace Conference, to insert Article XXV in the Covenant, which urged League member states “to encourage and promote the establishment and co-operation of duly authorized voluntarily national Red Cross organizations having as purposes the improvement of health, the prevention of disease and the mitigation of suffering.” Set up in 1864, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) promoted the codification of international law at The Hague Peace Conferences and was entrusted with supervising compliance with the Geneva Conventions of 1864, 1899, and 1929 regarding treatment of prisoners of war and certain health matters. Though it never was incorporated in the League, the ICRC developed a working relationship which regularly led to appeals to the Council. This was the case in 1920, when the Red Cross societies asked the Council for assistance for the many refugees and prisoners of war in Soviet Russia. The League in its turn requested Fridtjof Nansen to investigate the problem. Within two years, Nansen was able to evacuate 425,000 people. Another example was the request of the Red Cross societies to help fight the epidemics in Poland in the aftermath of World War I. In this case, the Council sent the new head
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of the Health Organization, Ludwik Rajchman, who in 1923, through close cooperation with the Soviet Union, managed to put an end to the epidemics. REFUGEE ORGANIZATION. The organization was set up in 1921 as a temporary organization to deal with the refugees who wandered through Europe after World War I. Norway’s Fridtjof Nansen was appointed high commissioner. The organization was also called the Central Service of the High Commissioner for Refugees. Since there were no provisions made in the Covenant nor at the Paris Peace Conference for the League to perform this task, the League’s budget remained restricted. No member state appeared willing to accept the extra costs. The work of the organization was to a great extent financed by appeals to the public and philanthropic institutions. Its main achievement was to give refugees legal protection through the so-called Nansen passports that were accepted by more than 50 countries. Nevertheless, few member states, except France, were inclined to absorb large numbers of refugees. The high commissioner had a small office in Geneva that fell under the Secretariat, later under the International Labour Office. The organization first dealt with the refugees coming from the Russian Revolution. In 1922 it took care of Greek refugees who fled Asia Minor and the army of Mustafa Kemal and, in later years, Armenians and Assyrians also in flight from Turkey. By a decision of the Assembly in 1929, the Service of the High Commissioner was placed under the administrative authority of the secretary-general and incorporated in the Secretariat. But after Nansen’s death in 1930, the High Commissariat was discontinued and a new organization, the Nansen International Office for Refugees, took its place in April 1931. The office came under the authority of the League in accordance with Article XXIV of the Covenant, but the separate section of the Secretariat ceased to exist. When new refugees poured out of Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, new High Commissariats came into being, such as the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees Coming from Germany and the Office of the League of Nations Commissioner for Refugees. These agencies did not come under the authority of the League. But each high commissioner suffered from lack of funds, and the performance of the League
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in refugee questions was not what it could have been. The International Bureaux and Intellectual Cooperation Section served as the secretariat to the Nansen Office, in close cooperation with the Political and Legal Sections. REGISTRY SERVICE. The service was part of the Internal Administrative Services. It was responsible for the registration, classification, and filing of all official correspondence and documents, and for the circulation of files and the indexing of their contents. Its Indexing Service prepared analytical indexes of the Official Journal, the Treaty Series, minutes of committees, and so on. REPARATION COMMISSION. See REPARATIONS. REPARATIONS. Because Germany, by the Versailles Peace Treaty, had been declared guilty of provoking World War I, it was subjected to the payment of reparations. But also Hungary, Turkey, and Austria faced reparation claims from neighboring states. The Paris Peace Conference, therefore, established a Reparation Commission, which had to define the payments to be made by Germany. The commission consisted of representatives of Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, France, and the United States, who liked to keep all reparation issues to themselves. In 1922 the first British proposal was made to refer reparations to the League, and in 1923 Great Britain and France agreed that disputes on reparations should be submitted to arbitration. Nevertheless, the League was only indirectly involved in reparations. The Reparation Commission made use of League experts and those of the Financial and Economic Sections in particular. The claims on Hungary were settled by the Reparation Commission in March 1924, and those on Austria during the reconstruction of that country. Turkey was absolved with the Lausanne Treaty. When Germany could not pay the necessary sums, France and Belgium took matters in their own hands and occupied the mines and factories of the Ruhr in January 1923. The Reparation Commission appointed the Dawes Committee in December 1923. The results of its findings were discussed at a London conference, and in August 1924 agreements were signed. In 1929 another reparation conference
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was held at the Hague, where the Young Plan was adopted. The final details were settled at the Lausanne Conference of 1932. RHINELAND. By the Versailles Peace Treaty, Germany’s left bank of the Rhine had been divided into three zones that were occupied by the Allied Powers. These demilitarized zones would be evacuated within five, 10, and 15 years. A speedier reduction of Allied forces was high on the agenda of Gustav Stresemann. By the Locarno Treaties, the zones remained demilitarized, however. Adolf Hitler used the Franco–Russian Treaty of May 1935 as a pretext to reoccupy the demilitarized zones on 7 March 1936. Under the Locarno Treaties, an attack on the Rhineland was regarded as a direct attack on French and Belgian territory. Therefore, France and Belgium summoned the Council, which appeared utterly divided. None of the Locarno powers was willing to risk a war with Germany over German territory. The Council therefore restricted itself to a resolution that pronounced the German occupation a violation of the Locarno Treaties. RHINELAND PACT. See LOCARNO, TREATIES OF. RIBBENTROP, JOACHIM VON (1883–1946). Von Ribbentrop was Adolf Hitler’s adviser on disarmament questions from 1934. In 1936 he became Germany’s ambassador to Great Britain. He was a member of the non-intervention commission during the Spanish Civil War and became the German minister of foreign affairs in 1937. Though Germany had left the League in 1933, Von Ribbentrop appeared before the Council in 1936 to defend German reoccupation of the Rhineland. In May 1939 he signed a military pact with Italy, the Stahl pact, and in August 1939 he and his Russian colleague Vyacheslav Molotov concluded the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION. The foundation was established in 1913 by John D. Rockefeller Sr. (1839–1937), an American oil baron, to promote “the well-being of mankind throughout the world.” It aimed at the improvement of medical research, education, and public health. The foundation also helped finance relief measures after World War I. It financed the preparation of the Encyclopaedia of the
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Social Sciences (1932) and contributed to League institutions, such as the Health Organization. ROMANIA. Romania was one of the original members of the League. Greatly enlarged by the Paris Peace Conference, it included many minorities, mainly from Hungary, within its borders. It accepted the League’s supervision of the treatment of these minorities, though. In 1921 Romania concluded defense pacts with Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Fear of their economic consequences drove Romania to reject the sanctions imposed by the League against Italy during the Italo–Abyssinian War. It was a strong supporter of the maintenance of the non-intervention system during the Spanish Civil War. After Germany’s annexation of Czechoslovakia, Romania concluded a pact with France that guaranteed its independence. ROOSEVELT, FRANKLIN DELANO (1881–1945). Roosevelt was the president of the United States from 1933 to 1945. Under the Woodrow Wilson administration, he had been the under secretary for the navy. As president, he tried to combat the economic depression with his New Deal program. In 1933 he frustrated the World Economic Conference by giving priority to his New Deal and not to an international monetary standard. Roosevelt and his secretary of state, Cordell Hull, adopted a cooperative attitude toward the League. Active participation during the Sino–Japanese War and the Italo–Abyssinian War was prevented, however, by isolationist factions in Congress. But Roosevelt’s foreign policy attempted to break away from rigid isolationism. One of the means to achieve this was the holding of a special conference in 1936 with countries of Latin America in Buenos Aires. Its aim was the establishment of a regional security system. Later, Roosevelt supported France and Great Britain in their fight against fascism. After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Roosevelt declared war on Japan. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States on 11 December 1941. Through several inter-allied conferences, Roosevelt became responsible for the postwar world and the establishment of the United Nations. ROSENBERG, MARCEL (?–1937). The Russian Rosenberg entered the Secretariat in 1935, after the admission of the Soviet Union to
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the League, and was appointed under secretary-general. He became the first Soviet ambassador to Spain in 1936. ROSTING, HELMER (1893–1945). The Danish Rosting entered the Secretariat in 1920 and worked at the Administrative Commissions and Minorities Section until 1932. He was the high commissioner for Danzig from October 1932 to December 1933. ROYAL COMMISSION. British commission of enquiry, under Lord Peel, sent to Palestine to investigate the causes of the Arab rebellion in 1936. Its report advised the partition of Palestine in independent Arab and Jewish states. See also MANDATES SYSTEM. RUANDA-URUNDI. After World War I, this African country became a B-mandate of the League of Nations, administered by Belgium. See also MANDATES SYSTEM. RUHR. When Germany failed to meet its reparation obligations, France and Belgium occupied the factories and mines of the Ruhr region in January 1923. Passive resistance of the German population followed. Hjalmar Branting, Sweden’s representative on the Council, put the matter on the agenda of the Council, but soon accepted the French view that the Council could only deal with it after an invitation to do so by the Allied Powers. This attitude caused great disappointment for League supporters and also Germany, which increasingly felt the need to rearm against neighbors like France and Poland. The dispute was settled by the Dawes Plan, and the occupation ended in 1925. RULES OF PROCEDURE. Every organ of the League had its own rules of procedure, and the most important organs were the Council and the Assembly. The rules of procedure contained regulations for the agenda, the tasks of the chair and the secretary-general, extraordinary sessions, number and names of representatives, and public meetings. Though neither the rules of procedure nor the Covenant made any mention of official languages, the two working languages were French and English. RUSSIA. See SOVIET UNION.
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RUSSO–FINNISH WAR. From 1938 on, the Soviet Union wanted to be sure that the neutral state of Finland would not fall victim to Germany’s aggression and serve as a German ally. Therefore, it demanded a 30-years’ lease of the port of Hanko, in order to make it a Soviet naval base, as well as a vast strip of territory near Leningrad. The Finnish refusal led to the invasion by Soviet troops on 30 November 1939. The Finnish appeal to the League provoked extraordinary sessions of the Council and the Assembly, on 9 and 11 December respectively, and though many states abstained, both organs decided to expel the Soviet Union from the League. The Secretariat subsequently organized a relief program for the Finnish people, but in March 1940 the Finns had to give up their resistance against the Soviets.
–S– SAAR BASIN. The Versailles Peace Treaty had placed the German territory of the Saar under League rule for 15 years. France was allowed to exploit the coal mines. The administration of the Saar was a truly international government. It consisted of representatives of the Saar, France, and three other nations. Much to the resentment of Germany, the chair of the governing commission was French, Victor Rault. Following the French occupation of the Ruhr, miners and steel and railway workers decided to strike in February 1923. Rault reacted with severe limitations of civil liberties and called in the French army. When the Council investigated the case in July, most measures had already been withdrawn, but it was made clear that the Saar was the Council’s responsibility and not that of France alone. The population of the Saar was to express its wish to remain under League administration or to return to German sovereignty in 1935. It was to be the first plebiscite held under the authority of the League. The Council nominated a Plebiscite Commission of three neutral members and a Supreme Plebiscite Tribunal of 25 judges and deputy judges. To maintain order during the plebiscite, an international force was established, consisting of 3,300 British, Swedish, and Dutch troops under British command. The plebiscite was held on 13 January 1935, and 90 percent of the Saarlanders voted for reunion with Germany. On 28 February, the Governing Commission transferred the territory to the German government.
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SAINT GERMAIN CONVENTIONS. Article XXIII of the Covenant dealt with questions of labor, opium, and the traffic in women and children. It was inspired by earlier general conventions, such as the Berlin Central African Act of 1885 and the Brussels Slave-Trade General Act of 1890. The Saint Germain conventions of 1919 revised these acts and added stipulations on the spirituous liquors traffic in Africa. See also SLAVERY. SAINT GERMAIN-EN-LAYE, TREATY OF. This peace treaty was concluded between the Allied and Associated Powers and Austria in September 1919. Its main provisions were the cession of Hungary, South Tirol, Triest, and territories in Dalmatia and Carinthia as well as the recognition of the independent states of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia. See also PEACE CONFERENCE, PARIS. SALANDRA, ANTONIO (1853–1931). As Italy’s prime minister, Salandra had concluded the Treaty of London with France, Great Britain, and Russia in April 1915. After World War I, he became the head of the Italian delegation to the League’s Council and Assembly and defended Italy’s policy during the Corfu crisis. In 1928 he was appointed senator. SALTER, ARTHUR (1881–1975). Salter was a high-ranking civil servant in Great Britain who joined the League of Nations in 1919 and became director of the Economic and Financial Section as well as the Communications and Transit Section. He was responsible for the financial reconstruction plans for Austria and Hungary and served as an unofficial adviser to the Dawes Committee. He resigned in 1931. SANCTIONS. Article XVI of the Covenant stipulated that when a member resorted to war, it would be considered to have committed an act of war against all other members of the League, “which hereby undertake immediately to subject it to the severance of all trade or financial relations.” From the beginning, there were doubts among member states about the implications of this article. It was the main reason the United States failed to become a member. At the first Assembly, a special committee was set up to study
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the application of economic sanctions. The second Assembly proposed an amendment to the Covenant because it was not clear whether a Covenant breaker could still trade with the most powerful non-member state, the United States, and this could place the League members in a difficult position. It was decided that sanctions could be applied, but gradually and partially, and that all decisions should be left to the Council. The amendment never entered into force because France saw its security, derived from the Covenant, endangered. Nevertheless, the new principle was applied in 1935 during the Italo–Abyssinian War. Economic and military sanctions were included in the Treaty of Mutual Assistance of 1923 and in the Protocol of Geneva of 1924. Sanctions were also a main issue during the Disarmament Conference and during all discussions on revision of the Covenant in 1937 and 1938. Finally, in September 1938, many member states declared that they no longer felt bound to apply economic or military sanctions. Threats to actually use sanctions were uttered during the dispute between Yugoslavia and Albania over frontiers in 1921 and during the Greco–Bulgarian crisis of 1925. However, they were not applied during the Sino–Japanese War. SAN REMO, CONFERENCE OF. This conference was held by the Supreme Council (after the withdrawal of the United States, consisting of the Principal Allied Powers), in April 1920. The conference in particular dealt with the allocation of the A-mandates Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Syria. See also MANDATES SYSTEM. SANTOS, EDUARDO (1888–1974). Santos represented Colombia in the Leticia dispute with Peru. SATO, NAOTAKE (1882–1971). Sato represented Japan in the Council in 1932, during the Sino–Japanese War. He became minister of foreign affairs in March 1937. Sato was inclined to cooperate with the government of China and therefore soon had to resign. See also MATSUOKA, YOSUKE. SCHLEICHER, KURT VON (1882–1934). Von Schleicher was Germany’s minister of defense in 1932 and chancellor from November
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1932 to January 1933. He was a strong supporter of right-wing movements. SCIALOJA, VITTORIO (1856–1933). Scialoja was a lawyer and Italy’s minister of foreign affairs. From 1921 to 1932, he represented Italy on the Council. SEAT. See GENEVA. SECOND DIVISION. See STAFF. SECRETARIAT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. The Secretariat was one of the three main organs of the League. The other two were the Council and the Assembly. The establishment of the Secretariat was a remarkable achievement since no precedents for such a body on such a scale existed. General Jan Smuts’s The League of Nations: A Practical Suggestion of 1918 contained the first detailed plans for its functions. It had to “keep the minutes and records of the council, conduct all correspondence of the council, and make all necessary arrangements in the intervals between the meetings of the council.” Article VI of the Covenant did not specify the functions of the Secretariat, but the Noblemaire report of 1921 mentioned the preparation of the work and the decisions of the various organizations of the League, and the collection of the relevant documents. Though it was generally accepted that the Secretariat supervised the correct implementation of the Covenant, the evaluation report of a committee of thirteen, officially called the Committee of Enquiry on the Organization of the Secretariat, the International Labour Office, and the Registry of the Permanent Court of International Justice, defined the Secretariat in 1930 as a purely executive body that did not initiate policy. The minority report of this committee, however, confirmed that execution of the decisions of various organs required constant interpretations of a political nature. Another task of the Secretariat was the registration and publication of every treaty or international agreement to implement Article XVIII of the Covenant. The strength of the Secretariat was that it was permanent, that it had an overview of what was going on in the capitals of the member states and could coordinate the relations between them. Its weakness
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was that it remained an international civil service that could not take political decisions of its own. The first secretary-general, Eric Drummond, as a matter of fact, organized the Secretariat along the lines of the British civil service. See also BUDGET; SECRETARYGENERAL; SECTIONS; STAFF. SECRETARY-GENERAL. The function of the secretary-general was mentioned in Article VI of the Covenant. He was to be appointed by the Council and could appoint his own staff. His tasks were to convene and assist the meetings of the Council and Assembly and, according to Article XV of the Covenant, to make the necessary arrangements for a full investigation in case of a dispute between members of the League. His function as administrative head of the Secretariat overshadowed these tasks, however. This was indeed the purpose of the Allied and Associated Powers during the Paris Peace Conference and suited the successive secretaries-general, Eric Drummond and Joseph Avenol, who, unlike the director of the International Labour Office, never personally intervened during Council or Assembly sessions. From 1930 on, the Assembly fixed the term of office at 10 years. The secretary-general was aided by deputy and under secretaries-general. See also LESTER, SEAN. SECTIONS. In May 1920 the Council approved the internal organization of the Secretariat of the League of Nations. The secretary-general, Eric Drummond, devised a scheme that would cover the main activities of the League and divided them into 11 sections and six internal administration departments. Most of the sections were based on articles of the Covenant. The Secretariat had an Administrative Commissions and Minorities Section, a Communications and Transit Section, a Disarmament Section, an Economic and Financial Section, a Health Section, an Information Section, an International Bureaux and Intellectual Cooperation Section, a Legal Section, a Mandates Section, a Political Section, and a Social Questions and Opium Section. In 1933 a Central Section was added. The Internal Administrative Services covered finance, the library, registration, archives and distribution, establishment (shorthand, typing,
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and duplicating), interpreting and translating, and précis-writing. See also LANGUAGES and GENERAL SECTIONS AND SERVICES. SEIPEL, IGNAZ (1876–1932). Seipel was a Roman Catholic priest and twice chancellor of Austria, from 1922 to 1924 and 1926 to 1929. His use of the fascist paramilitary Heimwehr in his struggle against Austria’s Social Democrats led to a strengthening of fascism in his country. SERBIA. Serbia became part of Yugoslavia after World War I. SÈVRES, TREATY OF. The Sèvres treaty was the peace treaty concluded between the Allied and Associated Powers and Turkey. Its main clauses were the transfer of Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Syria to Great Britain and France as mandated territories, the independence of Armenia, and the transfer of Mediterranean islands to Italy. The nationalist government of Mustafa Kemal never recognized this treaty. With this government, a new treaty was concluded in Lausanne in 1923. See also PEACE CONFERENCE, PARIS. SHANGHAI INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE. The committee, also called the Consular Committee, was set up by the secretarygeneral and the Assembly in January 1932 to investigate events in Shanghai, where heavy fighting between China and Japan threatened Western trade interests. Its secretary was Robert Haas of the Communications and Transit Section, who happened to be on the spot. Its reports were signed by Italy’s consul, Galeazzo Ciano. These reports formed a valuable source of information for the Council and the Assembly during the Sino–Japanese War over Manchuria. SHATT-AL-ARAB. In November 1934 a dispute between Iraq and Persia (present-day Iran) arose over the waterway of the Shatt-alArab, which formed the border between the two countries. Iraq claimed sovereignty over the entire waterway, including navigation and police. Persia wanted the frontier to be in midstream. The dispute was brought before the Council by Iraq. Council mediation and
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mutual negotiations eventually led to an agreement between both countries in September 1937. SHIDEHARA, KIJURO (1872–1952). Shidehara was a member of Japan’s Minseito Party and foreign minister from 1924 to 1927 and 1929 to 1931. From 1930 to 1931, he was also prime minister. He represented Japan on the Council and did much to involve Japan in League activities. Shidehara belonged to the moderate wing in Japanese internal politics. SIMON, JOHN (1873–1954). Simon was Great Britain’s minister for foreign affairs from 1932 to June 1935 and led the discussions in the Council on the Sino–Japanese War over Manchuria. He had little belief in the League and preferred to settle important issues, such as Italy’s aggression toward Abyssinia, outside the League. In the beginning of the 1920s, he was chair of the Anti-Slavery Society. SINO–JAPANESE WAR. The first incidents in this war occurred in September 1931, when Japan attacked several cities in Manchuria, officially to guard the South Manchurian Railway. China immediately called upon the Council and demanded action under Article XI of the Covenant. Action of the Council was initially frustrated by the United States, which favored direct negotiations between Japan and China. American interests in the conflict were the upholding of the Kellogg–Briand Pact, the integrity of China, and the settlement of Pacific problems through the Washington Conference treaties, that is, the Nine-Power Treaty. Therefore, in a later stage, the United States for once agreed to send an American representative to the Council meeting of October 1931. It appeared, however, that the United States would not risk war with Japan by taking coercive measures under any article of the Covenant. Japan refused to withdraw but accepted a League commission of inquiry, the Lytton Commission, with rather limited terms of reference. Meanwhile, on 29 January 1932, China invoked Article XV of the Covenant and requested that the issue be considered by the Assembly, not by the Council. The Assembly appointed its own commission, the Shanghai Investigation (or Consular) Committee, with
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Robert Haas as secretary. Its reports were signed by the Italian consul, Galeazzo Ciano. The Assembly, however, decided to await the report of the Lytton Commission, which arrived on 4 September 1932. The report condemned Japan on all essential points, and as a result, Japan announced its withdrawal from the League on 27 March 1933. On 31 May 1933, Chiang Kai-Shek signed an armistice agreement with Japan. In July 1937 Japan launched attacks on several Chinese provinces. In September 1937 China appealed in vain to the signatories of the Nine-Power Treaty and subsequently to the League. Not until 1938 did China demand the application of sanctions under Article XVI of the Covenant, and the Council declared that each member was free to take the necessary measures. But after the disappointing experiences with the Italo–Abyssinian War and appeasement policies toward Germany, no state felt bound by the Covenant. SKYLSTAD, RASMUS (1893–1972). Skylstad was a Norwegian diplomat who had been head of the League of Nations department at Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He entered the service of the League in 1938 and was briefly head of the Minorities Section. SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. During the nineteenth century, anti-slavery movements gained influence and several important agreements were adopted. Among them were the Berlin Act of 1885, which urged the parties to cooperate in the suppression of slavery and the slave trade, and the Brussels Slave Trade General Act of 1890 and the Saint Germain Conventions of 1919, which revised previous conventions. Article XXII of the Covenant expressly forbade slave trade in the C-mandates, and Article XXIII secured the just treatment of the native inhabitants in territories under the control of the signatories. It further upheld the international conventions in this field. Since 1922 the League worked on the refinement of these conventions and set up the Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery. This committee prepared an anti-slavery convention, which was adopted in 1926. SLAVERY, ADVISORY COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS ON. The committee, also called the Temporary Commission on Slavery, was officially established by the Council in 1924, at the request of the
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third Assembly (1922). It consisted of experts, some of whom were also members of the Permanent Mandates Commission. It met five times and prepared the slavery convention of 1926. On 25 September 1926, the seventh Assembly opened the slavery convention for signature; it was signed by 41 states and adhered to by the United States. The convention forbade all kinds of slavery and prohibited all compulsory, non-remunerated labor for all works and services that were not public. SLOVENIA. After World War I, Slovenia became part of Yugoslavia. SMUTS, JAN CHRISTIAAN (1870–1950). General Smuts was an illustrious commando leader during the Boer War (1899–1902) and helped create the Union of South Africa. He was the minister of defense when he joined the British Commonwealth delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He played a major role in the drafting of the Covenant. His The League of Nations: A Practical Suggestion had a significant influence on the framing of Article XXII. From 1919 to 1924, he was South Africa’s prime minister. SOCIAL QUESTIONS, ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON. From 1936 this was the new name for the Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children. SOCIAL QUESTIONS SECTION. This section, part of the Secretariat, was set up in 1919 to implement Article XXIII of the Covenant, in particular its clauses on the traffic in women and children and the traffic in opium and other dangerous drugs. Its name changed from social questions in 1919 to social questions, including health, in 1920. In 1922 it was called Social Section and Opium Traffic Questions. In 1930 women and children and drug questions briefly had separate sections. But generally, it was called Social Questions Section and it operated, until 1930, under the direction of Dame Rachel Crowdy. She was succeeded by the Swedish diplomat Erik Ekstrand. A close relationship existed between this section and the International Labour Organisation. The section served as the permanent secretariat to the Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children; in 1924 the Child Welfare Committee was added. The section did all the research for
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the committee and drew up reports on every aspect of the traffic in women, including prostitution. In 1926 the section established a special Child Welfare Center. The section also prepared the International Convention for the Suppression of the Circulation of and Traffic in Obscene Publications, ratified by some 60 states. It published numerous reports and studies, such as Position of the Illegitimate Child and Child Welfare Councils. The section had a staff of four in 1922 and 12 in 1930. SOKOLINE, VLADIMIR (1896–?). Sokoline was a Russian diplomat who worked at the Soviet Union’s embassy in Paris. In 1937, after the admission of the Soviet Union to the League, he became under secretary-general. He left the Secretariat in December 1939, when the Soviet Union was expelled from the League. SOLOMON ISLANDS. See MANDATES SYSTEM. SONNINO, SIDNEY (1847–1922). Sonnino had been prime minister of Italy from 1909 to 1910. He was foreign minister from 1914 to 1919 and responsible for the Italian participation in World War I. He attended the Paris Peace Conference and succeeded Vittorio Orlando as main negotiator. SOUTH AFRICA, UNION OF. South Africa was a dominion of Great Britain and member of the British Commonwealth. At the Paris Peace Conference, it objected to Woodrow Wilson’s idea not to annex conquered territories, which the dominions thought vital for their security. A compromise was found in the mandates system, which allocated South-West Africa (present-day Namibia) to the Union of South Africa. Its treatment of natives in this territory was regularly scrutinized by the Permanent Mandates Commission and the Assembly. South Africa belonged to the original members of the League and signed the optional clause of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice. During the Italo–Abyssinian War, it opposed Italy and urged the maintenance of sanctions. In 1939 it was one of the few states that actually voted for the exclusion of the Soviet Union during the Russo–Finnish War. See also SMUTS, JAN CHRISTIAAN.
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SOUTH-WEST AFRICA. As a former colony of Germany, SouthWest Africa (present-day Namibia) was allocated after World War I to the Union of South Africa as a mandated territory of the League of Nations. It fell under the category of C-mandates. See also MANDATES SYSTEM. SOVIET UNION. After the Bolshevik takeover in October 1917, the Soviet Union remained internationally isolated for a long time. Its revolutionary government was not recognized by most Western powers, and the White armies tried to reverse the revolution until they were defeated in 1920. Long after the armistice in Western Europe, the Soviet Union was entangled in a Polish–Russian War. The League, from the beginning, tried to adopt a positive policy toward the Soviet Union, and the International Labour Office (ILO) even intended to send a commission of inquiry on industrial conditions. In 1920 these efforts were turned down by the Soviet regime, which regarded the League as an organization dominated by capitalist and hostile nations. It did, however, accept the services of Fridtjof Nansen to repatriate half a million refugees and prisoners of war, and those of Ludwik Rajchman to fight epidemics. Rajchman’s activities led to Soviet participation in the Warsaw Health Conference in March 1922. The Soviet Union also absorbed the attention of the Council through Armenia, the Persian–Russian Enzeli affair, a frontier dispute with Finland, and the Polish–Lithuanian dispute over Vilna. Its first appearance on the international scene was at the Genoa Conference, convened by David Lloyd George in April 1922, which for the Soviet Union resulted in a trade agreement with Germany at Rapallo. The Soviet Union resented the Locarno Treaties, which made Germany a pawn in the hands of Anglo-American capitalism. Instead, it concluded a separate treaty of friendship and non-aggression with Germany in March 1926. The murder of a Russian envoy, Vatslav Vorovsky, in Lausanne in 1923 led to the refusal to ever attend meetings in Switzerland. It remained convinced that the Covenant and its sanctions clause were directed against it. To protect itself against this threat, the Soviet Union concluded treaties with Lithuania in 1926 and Persia in 1927. Though in the 1920s it had given substantial aid and advice to the Kuomintang of China, Chiang Kai-shek broke with the communists in 1927.
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Its decreasing influence in China, its worsening relations with Great Britain, and the advent of Joseph Stalin, who gave up universal communism, made the League an attractive ally. The Soviet Union therefore accepted the invitation to participate in the world Economic Conference of 1927 and sent Maxim Litvinov to take part in the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference. From that moment on, the Soviet Union, like Germany, became an outspoken advocate of general disarmament. The advent of Adolf Hitler and Nazism radically changed its attitude toward Germany and paved the way for its entry in the League. Though in 1933 it refused to cooperate with the Council on the Sino–Japanese War over Manchuria, the Soviet Union considered Japan a potential enemy as well. As a consequence, Soviet membership in the League was strongly recommended by France. Though some smaller member states objected to the admission of a communist country, the Soviet Union was admitted in September 1934. It was granted a permanent seat on the Council, vacant after Germany’s resignation. The Soviet Union would become one of the strongest League supporters and wholeheartedly applied the economic sanctions against Italy during the Italo–Abyssinian War. It opposed any reform of the League when the League’s policy with regard to collective security appeared to have failed. Its anti-fascist position resulted in its sending material and officers to aid the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War, thereby breaking the Western non-intervention front. When it was not invited to the Munich Conference of September 1938, the Soviet Union distanced itself more and more from the Western powers and the League. The change of policy was symbolized by the replacement of Litvinov by Vyacheslav Molotov as foreign minister in May 1939. France and Great Britain tried in vain to conclude an anti-fascist pact with the Soviet Union. Instead, for the time being, the Soviet Union took a chance on arch-enemy Germany and signed the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, also known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, on 27 August 1939. By a peculiar twist of fate, the Soviet Union, one of the most loyal members of the League, became the only country to be excluded after its attack on Finland in November 1939. See also HEALTH COMMITTEE.
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SPAIN. Spain was one of the original members of the League and sat on the Council in 1920. It was reelected for a further term by the Assembly of 1920. Spain contributed to the financial reconstruction of Austria but, during the unsuccessful meeting of naval officers of Council members in 1924, refused to limit its tonnage of ships. In 1926, when Germany demanded a permanent seat on the Council, Spain repeated its request of 1921 to have a permanent seat. When this demand was not met, it sent its notification of withdrawal on 11 September 1926. Since withdrawal could only become effective after two years, in 1928 it was requested to remain a member, and Spain acceded to the request unconditionally. It participated in the Disarmament Conference and its representative, Salvador de Madariaga, acted as a spokesman for other smaller states when he condemned the tendency of big powers to settle things among themselves. De Madariaga sat on the Council’s committee to study the Chaco and Leticia affairs, and Spain was also represented on the Council’s Committee of Five to investigate a peaceful settlement in the Italo–Abyssinian War. Nevertheless, Spain’s right-wing government hesitated to oppose Italy’s conduct during that war. The Republican, popular front government, which came to power in 1936, took the remarkable decision of inserting in its constitution a provision that war would never be declared unless such an act were in accordance with the Covenant. This government defended the Covenant against the general trend for revision. During the Spanish Civil War, the Republican government remained the only recognized government, and in 1938 League officers were sent to investigate the situation, while the Secretariat sent civil servants to assist the many refugees. Some assistance was also provided by France and Great Britain, as well as by the American Red Cross. They could not prevent the victory of Francisco Franco, who in May 1939 announced Spain’s withdrawal from the League. SPANISH CIVIL WAR. On 18 July 1936, Francisco Franco started a military revolt against the Republican government of Spain. From the beginning, Franco was supported militarily by Germany, Italy, and Portugal, while the government received aid from the Soviet Union. At the initiative of France, many European governments adhered to a non-intervention agreement, which forbade the sending of
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arms to either side. A non-intervention committee was subsequently set up in London, in September 1936. In practice, the agreement was ineffective and many volunteers went to Spain to assist the Republican government. Only after Germany and Italy recognized Franco’s regime did Spain appeal to the Council to discuss this foreign intervention. The Council, however, could do little more than condemn the foreign intervention and urge the non-intervention committee to further control all arms deliveries to Spain. In 1937 Great Britain and France summoned a conference in Nyon, which closed with agreements forbidding (Italian and German) naval attacks on merchant ships in the Mediterranean other than those of Spain. The French and British navies would patrol and act if necessary, but neither government did anything to stop the German–Italian intervention. Spain therefore, in 1938, appealed to the Assembly instead of the Council and demanded that an end be put to the foreign intervention and to the non-intervention agreement. The Assembly adopted a resolution that lifted the embargo on the condition that Italian and German troops leave Spain immediately. However, by this time France and Great Britain could not afford an anti-Italian attitude and maintained the non-intervention committee. As a result, Anthony Eden resigned. In February 1939 the British and French governments recognized the government of the victorious Franco. SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS IN AFRICA, CENTRAL INTERNATIONAL OFFICE FOR THE CONTROL OF THE TRADE IN. Set up by the Brussels Act of 1890, the office was put under the control of the League by the Treaty of Saint Germain. It provided the Permanent Mandates Commission with information on importation, distribution, and possession of spirituous liquors in Central Africa. STAFF. Staff members of the Secretariat were chosen for their professional skills and loyalty to the League of Nations philosophy. They were international civil servants, and national governments had no influence on their appointment. The Secretariat, however, was eager not to appoint candidates against the will of their governments. Though no official of the Secretariat was allowed to hold a position
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of a political nature in his own country, Sir Herbert Ames, the first head of the financial administration of the League, only resigned as a member of the Canadian parliament after nine months, and Albert Thomas of the International Labour Office resigned from the French parliament after several years. The Secretariat tried to spread the number of civil servants so as to give each member state some staff members. The League preferred candidates fluent in French and English and with European or American degrees. League officials often acted as intermediaries between the League and national delegations of the Assembly or committees. This custom posed a problem in later years, when the number of nondemocratic governments increased. Since they insisted on having their candidates appointed, the choice of candidates acceptable to the League diminished. The staff was organized according to the character of its duties. The First Division had tasks that dealt directly with decisions of the Council and the Assembly. The so-called members of section fell under this category. The Second Division performed strictly routine administrative duties, and the Third Division consisted of personnel performing manual work. Taking into account that the League was the first worldwide international organization, it had a rather small staff. The number of officials of all categories never exceeded 700 persons (in 1932); after 1932 the economic depression made itself felt. The League started with 121 staff members in 1919 and ended in 1944 with 94. See also BUDGET; SECRETARY-GENERAL; SECTIONS. STALIN, JOSEF (1879–1953). Stalin succeeded Lenin as chair of the Communist party of the Soviet Union. From 1924 he transformed the leadership into a dictatorial regime, eliminating all opposition from left and right. The purges of 1934 to 1938 thinned the ranks of army, party, and government. His fear of an attack by Germany led in 1939 to the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. STATISTICAL EXPERTS, COMMITTEE OF. The Economic and Financial Committees of the League established two additional standing committees, the Fiscal Committee and the Committee of Statistical Experts. This latter committee was set up in 1928, under
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the International Convention relating to Economic Statistics. In 1934 it produced an international classification for trade statistics. Its secretariat was the Economic Intelligence Service. STIMSON, HENRY L. (1867–1950). Stimson had been the American secretary of war from 1911 to 1913 and governor-general of the Philippines from 1927 to 1929. He became secretary of state of the United States in 1929. During the Sino–Japanese War over Manchuria, the United States for the first and only time sat on the Council, on 16 October 1931, to discuss the issue. Stimson’s basic principle was that the United States would only take action under the Kellogg–Briand Pact, not under the Covenant. He issued the Stimson Doctrine, which did not recognize territorial gains obtained by aggression. Stimson also attended the Disarmament Conference in April 1932, but left when France rejected Germany’s proposals. He was succeeded by Cordell Hull in 1933. STOPPANI, PIETRO (1897–?). Stoppani had been a member of Italy’s delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He was a member of the Reparation Commission from 1920 to 1923, before he went to the Economic and Financial Section. In 1929 he became chief of the section and, in 1931, director of the Economic Relations Section. He left the Secretariat in October 1939. STRESA CONFERENCE. This conference was convened by Benito Mussolini and held 11–13 April 1935. Its participants were France, Great Britain, and Italy. Officially, it was convened to discuss the new situation in Europe after Germany’s rearmament plans. The only substantive issue was the common intention to defend Austria’s independence. The official resolution, which was laid before and accepted by the League Council, stipulated that Germany had violated the Covenant and that this act deserved condemnation, that the three governments would ensure European security, the limitation of armaments, and the return of Germany to the League, and that economic and financial sanctions should be imposed on any country that threatened the peace of Europe. The resolution came at a moment when Italy itself was threatening the peace, not in Europe, but in Abyssinia. Its importance was based on the fact
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that neither Great Britain nor France was willing to condemn the conduct of Italy. STRESEMANN, GUSTAV (1878–1929). Stresemann was Germany’s chancellor from August to November 1923, after which period he became the foreign minister until September 1929. In this function he attended many Council and Assembly sessions. He died in October 1929. Stresemann did much to put Germany back on the international political map. Though he shared the frustrations of other Germans concerning the revision of the Versailles Peace Treaty, his meeting in October 1925 with Aristide Briand and Austen Chamberlain, later joined by Benito Mussolini, resulted in the signing of the Locarno Treaties. Stresemann, over the will of the nationalists at home and the Russians abroad, engineered Germany’s admission as a League member state in 1926. He held a separate conference with Briand in Thoiry, in September 1926, which improved German–French relations considerably. The fact remained, however, that Briand wanted the Locarno Treaties extended to Germany’s eastern borders, whereas Stresemann aspired to an Allied evacuation of occupied territories and the end of German military inferiority. Stresemann was eager to remain on a friendly footing with the Soviet Union and signed a treaty of friendship and non-aggression with Moscow in April 1926. The Council session of December 1928 witnessed a clash between Stresemann and Poland’s foreign minister, Auguste Zaleski, over the treatment of German minorities in Upper Silesia, which induced Stresemann to ask for a revision of minorities procedures. He attended The Hague Conference on the Young Plan in 1929 and welcomed Briand’s scheme for a European Union as a means of restoring economic prosperity. In 1926 he received the Nobel Peace Prize, together with Aristide Briand. SUGIMURA, YOTARO (1884–1939). Sugimura, of Japan, was one of the under secretaries-general of the League and head of the Political Section. He was a firm believer in the League idea and resigned when the conflict between Japan and China over Manchuria broke out.
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SUPERVISORY BODY. This body was created under the Limitation Convention (on opium and other dangerous drugs) of 1931. It was responsible for determining the quantity of drugs needed for medical use. SUPERVISORY COMMISSION. This commission consisted of independent advisers who audited the secretary-general’s estimates for the League’s budget. Until 1929 it was appointed by the Council, thereafter by the Assembly. SUPREME COUNCIL. This council was established during the Paris Peace Conference and consisted of the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, and the prime ministers of France, Great Britain, and Italy. After the peace conference and the failure of the United States to join the League, the Council continued to settle certain issues until 1923. See also CONFERENCE OF AMBASSADORS; COUNCIL OF FIVE; COUNCIL OF FOUR. SWEDEN. Sweden was one of the neutral original member states of the League. In 1921 it became involved in a dispute with Finland over the Åland Islands. In 1922 it obtained a seat on the Council and contributed to the economic reconstruction of Austria. In 1926 it voluntarily gave up its seat on the Council in order to facilitate agreement among the Locarno powers on a permanent seat for Germany. As a relatively small state, it regularly objected to the fact that big powers made decisions among themselves. Sweden refused to conclude a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939, and in the same year Sweden and Finland requested the Council’s permission to fortify the Åland Islands against aggression by Germany or the Soviet Union. The outbreak of World War II prevented a Council decision, however. SWEETSER, ARTHUR (1888–1968). Sweetser had been a press officer of the United States’ delegation at the Paris Peace Conference when he joined the Secretariat in September 1919. He served in various capacities until May 1942. Sweetser worked at the office of the secretary-general and often acted as personal adviser to Eric
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Drummond. Until 1931 he also was a member of the Information Section. SWITZERLAND. Switzerland belonged to the original member states of the League. At the Paris Peace Conference, Geneva was chosen as the League’s seat. From time to time, difficulties arose between the Swiss federal government and the League as to the diplomatic immunity of permanent delegations. In 1922 it contributed to the economic reconstruction of Austria. Switzerland opposed the entry of the communist Soviet Union into the League and did not condemn Italy during the Italo–Abyssinian War and the Spanish Civil War. To maintain its neutrality, it obtained permission not to participate in military action when the Council decided to implement Article XVI of the Covenant. During the Italo–Abyssinian War, Switzerland did not participate in economic sanctions either. Because of the position of its chemical industries, it opposed drug manufacture limitations and only signed The Hague Convention on opium in 1925. Switzerland was one of the first countries that started to rearm after the impotence of the Council during the Sino–Japanese War and the Italo–Abyssinian War. In May 1938, even before the Munich Conference, it announced a return to complete neutrality. SYRIA. As part of the Ottoman Empire, Syria was occupied by troops of Great Britain and France during World War I. At the San Remo Conference, in April 1920, the Supreme Council allocated Syria to France as a mandated territory of the League of Nations. After the expulsion of Faisal, who had been chosen as king of Syria by the Syrian National Congress, the French took over the administration. They separated Great-Lebanon from Syria and recognized it nominally as an independent state. Both territories remained mandated areas, however. The French mandate was unpopular in Syria, and the French high commissioners regularly had to deal with uprisings. Though Syria had a constituent assembly in 1928, rival nationalist factions prevented further emancipation. The French–Lebanese and French–Syrian Treaty of Friendship of 1936, which promised both territories independence within three years, were not ratified by the French parliament.
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SZE, ALFRED (1877–1958). Sze was China’s representative on the Council during the Sino–Japanese conflict over Manchuria. In 1932 he was replaced by W. W. Yen. SZENT–GOTTHARD AFFAIR. On 1 January 1928, Austrian customs officials discovered six trucks filled with weapons at Szent–Gotthard on the border between Austria and Hungary. There were strong indications that the weapons came from Italy and were meant for Hungary. Since Hungary, under the Trianon Peace Treaty, was subject to military restrictions, the Council sent a commission, which could not establish the facts. The big powers on the Council thereupon refrained from further investigation, so as not to risk Italian friendship.
–T – TANGANYIKA. This African country, formerly called German East Africa, was allocated after World War I to Great Britain as a mandated territory of the League of Nations. It fell under the category of B-mandates. TARDIEU, ANDRÉ (1876–1945). Tardieu was minister for war and represented France on the Disarmament Conference, where he presented his own disarmament plan, which mainly amounted to restricting the use of dangerous weapons, such as bombing airplanes, battleships, and heavy guns, to the League itself or in self-defense. He further proposed the establishment of an international (police) force, put at the disposal of the Council, and the reinforcement of this force by national contingents if required by the Council; in short, a plea for a League army. He opposed a German plan because rearmament in Germany had already begun. Tardieu left the conference prematurely to save the government in Paris. TARIFF TRUCE. At the suggestion of Great Britain, the World Economic Conference of 1927 initiated treaties between the individual participants for reciprocal tariff reductions. In March 1930 a conference had to define further measures to stabilize existing tariffs and
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prevent countries from raising them. Due to the consequences of the economic depression, the conference ended in failure, mainly because the United States raised its tariffs considerably. Another conference of March 1931 underwent the same fate. Shortly before the opening of the World Economic Conference of 1933, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt urged a revival of the tariff truce. Though the proposal, with many reservations, was accepted by most countries, subsequent events in Europe, such as the advent of Adolf Hitler in Germany, prevented its application. TELECOMMUNICATION UNION, INTERNATIONAL (ITU). The Union was originally established as the International Telegraph Union, the outcome of the International Telegraph Convention, signed in Paris by the 20 founding members in 1865. The ITU refused to subject itself to League control, so there was little connection between the League and the ITU. As a result of sound broadcasting, the International Radio Consultative Committee was established in 1927. At the 1932 Madrid Conference, the ITU decided to combine the International Telegraph Convention of 1865 and the International Radiotelegraph Convention of 1906, to form the International Telecommunication Convention. It was also decided to change the name to International Telecommunication Union. TEMPORARY MIXED COMMISSION FOR THE REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS (TMC). The commission was set up by the first Assembly (1920) to supplement the Permanent Advisory Commission on Military, Naval, and Air Questions. Its members were not government representatives but eminent politicians and experts from the Economic Committee, Financial Committee, and International Labour Organisation (ILO). The commission played a significant role in all disarmament plans, which led to the Geneva Protocol of 1924 and the Locarno Treaties of 1925. It was replaced by the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference, which consisted of government representatives. TERRORISM, CONVENTION FOR THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF. During the Hungarian–Yugoslav crisis of 1934, the Council decided to establish a committee for the prepara-
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tion of a convention on terrorism. Two conferences were held; the last one, of 1937, defined terrorism as: “All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public.” TESCHEN. Teschen was a city and region on the border between Poland and Czechoslovakia. It had rich coal mines, which both newly created nations needed for their economic development. In January 1919 fighting broke out between Polish and Czechoslovakian troops. The Council decided that the bulk of the town should go to Poland while Czechoslovakia should have one of Teschen’s suburbs. This suburb contained the most valuable coal mines and the Poles refused to accept this decision. The two countries continued to argue over the issue for the next 20 years. THIRD DIVISION. See STAFF. THOIRY. Thoiry was the French town near Lake Geneva where Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann privately met in September 1926. The meeting, where the Ruhr, Rhineland, and Saar questions were discussed, did not have practical results, but it was important for Franco–German reconciliation. THOMAS, ALBERT (1878–1932). Thomas was a socialist politician and France’s minister of munitions during World War I. From 1919 until his death in May 1932, he was the director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Used to political battles, Thomas always took the initiative and never waited for the approval of respective governments to propose detailed measures to be taken by his organization. In this way he preserved the autonomous status of the ILO throughout the years. THREE-POWER NAVAL CONFERENCE. The conference was held from June to August 1927 at the initiative of President Calvin Coolidge of the United States and had little to do with the League’s activities on disarmament. Only Japan and Great Britain attended the conference along with the United States. Its aim was to extend the
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agreements of the Washington Conference to cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. The conference failed because of disagreements between the American and British naval staffs. TITTONI, TOMMASO (1855–1931). As Italy’s minister of foreign affairs in 1903–1905 and 1906–1909, Tittoni sought closer ties with the Western powers. He also tried to improve the position of Italy in the Balkans. He was ambassador to France from 1910 to 1916 and again foreign minister from 1919 to 1920. Tittoni represented Italy in the first Council sessions and the first Assembly in 1920. He was responsible for the Tittoni Report, which laid down the details of the League’s connections with minorities. Tittoni resigned in 1920. He became president of the Senate in 1929 and, as a Fascist sympathizer, was nominated by Benito Mussolini to be president of the Italian Academy (1929–1930). TITULESCU, NICOLAS (1882–1941). Titulescu was the finance minister of Romania when he attended the first Assembly in 1920. In 1931 he became its president. He served as foreign minister in 1927–1928 and 1932–1936. A champion of the French-sponsored policy of collective security, he was an architect of the Little Entente and later of the Balkan Entente (1934). He represented his country in the Council at the time of the Locarno Treaties. In 1927 the Council asked him and Robert Cecil to draw up a report on the competence of the Council under Article XVI of the Covenant. The report prescribed the measures the Council was legally entitled to take, including the authorization of naval and air demonstrations or stronger action. It was adopted by the Council and Assembly unanimously and served as a model for the Security Council of the United Nations. When Germany in 1929 proposed a reform of the minorities procedures of the League, Titulescu, as the representative of a country with minorities, strongly objected. In 1935 he was one of the supporters of sanctions against Italy in the Italo–Abyssinian War, on the condition that they were shared by all League members. The fascist Iron Guard forced him to resign as foreign minister in 1936. TOGO. As a former colony of Germany, Togo was allocated after World War I to France and Great Britain as a mandated territory of the
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League of Nations. French and British Togo were listed as B-mandates. See also MANDATES SYSTEM. TRANSIT COMITTEE. The Transit Committee was the executive committee of the Communications and Transit Organization. TRANSJORDAN. As part of the Ottoman province of Palestine, Transjordan was occupied by Great Britain during World War I. After the San Remo Conference of the Supreme Council in April 1920, it was allocated to Great Britain as a mandated territory of the League of Nations. Article 25 of the mandate text for Palestine (1922) gave Transjordan a special status. The stipulations on a Jewish national home were not applicable to Transjordan. A Treaty of Alliance was concluded between Great Britain and Emir Abdullah, who became king of Transjordan. In 1928 a new treaty confirmed the independent status of Transjordan. Foreign, economic, and financial policy would remain under British control, however. TREATY REGISTRATION. See LEGAL SECTION. TRIANON, TREATY OF. The Trianon Peace Treaty was concluded between the Allied and Associated Powers and Hungary. Its main clauses were the transfer of Slovakia to Czechoslovakia, of Croatia and Slovenia to Yugoslavia, and other territories to Romania. See also PEACE CONFERENCE, PARIS. TURKEY. After the armistice of Mudros on 14 October 1918, the Allies occupied Istanbul, Italy took Antalya and Konya, Greece took the Smyrna region, and France took Cilicia. But the Turkish national movement under Mustafa Kemal gradually conquered Turkey. Suppression of Armenia was just one of its goals. Greek forces tried to restore order in Anatolia but were forced to give up Smyrna in 1922. In 1922 the sultanate was abolished, and in 1923 the Turkish republic was proclaimed, with Mustafa Kemal as president. From 1935 he called himself Atatürk (Father of the Turks). Under these circumstances, it was clear that the Sèvres Peace Treaty, concluded with the sultan, could not be upheld. The Allies therefore concluded a new treaty in Lausanne in 1923. Until 1926 Turkey
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negotiated with Great Britain and Iraq on the province of Mosul, which, to the disappointment of the Turks, remained in the possession of Iraq. Though Turkey, by the Lausanne Peace Treaty, had accepted obligations as to the treatment of its minorities, it simply induced the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish communities to give up the right of special treatment. From 1928 Turkey participated in the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference, where it supported Soviet plans for a large reduction of offensive weapons, even though the Soviet Union opposed Turkish membership in the League. In 1930 Turkey was invited to join the deliberations on the European Union. In July 1932 Turkey was admitted as a League member state. It had become a stable, secular state that entertained good relations with former enemies like the Soviet Union and Greece. Turkey’s reaction to the Stresa Conference was that it wanted to revise the Lausanne Treaty as to the regime of the Black Sea Straits, and the Montreux Conference of 1936 gave it the free hand it wanted. In 1935 Turkey became a member of the Committee of Five to study the Italo–Abyssinian War. Though disappointed with the League’s performance in this war, Turkey remained faithful to the Covenant and rejected any revision in 1936. League meetings in Geneva were important to Turkey, and they stimulated the conclusion of a treaty of peace and friendship, also known as the Middle Eastern Pact, in July 1937.
–U– UNANIMITY. According to Article V of the Covenant, all decisions of the Council and the Assembly had to be taken unanimously. The only exception was the clause in Article XV whereby the votes of the parties to a dispute were not to be counted. In 1931 the unanimity rule meant the end of the General Convention to Improve the Means of Preventing War, when it was decided that any preventive action of the Council under Article XI should be authorized by a unanimous vote, including the vote of the parties concerned. Japan, with a permanent seat on the Council, successfully appealed to Article XI during the Sino–Japanse war. In September 1938 the British govern-
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ment tried to restore the meaning of Article XI by proposing that in the Council’s action to prevent war, the votes of the interested powers should not be counted. By then, practically no member state was interested any longer in the application of this article. See also PREVENTION OF WAR. UNDER SECRETARY-GENERAL. Though the function was officially not a political one, the under secretaries-general more or less played the role of ambassador of their respective countries. By 1932 the Italian and German under secretaries-general in particular considered themselves the superior of their fellow countrymen in the Secretariat. The under secretaries-general were advisers of the secretarygeneral and each controlled parts of the Secretariat. The Frenchman Joseph Avenol dealt with the technical organizations (economic, financial, communications, transit, and health); the Italian Marquis Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli Barone controlled the internal administration services; the German Alfred Dufour-Feronce was also head of the International Bureaux and Intellectual Cooperation Section; the Japanese Yotaro Sugimura combined the post with that of head of the Political Section. All other sections fell under the secretarygeneral. After Eric Drummond’s resignation, the Assembly decided that there should be two deputy secretaries-general and four under secretaries-general, including the Legal Adviser (the Argentinian Luis A. Podesta Costa). With the withdrawal of Germany, Italy, and Japan from the League, only two remained. From 1933 the Spanard Pablo de Azcárate, succeeded in 1937 by the Irishman Sean Lester, and the Italian Massimo Pilotti served as deputy secretaries-general. The Briton Francis P. Walters was appointed under secretary-general in charge of the Political, Legal, and Information Sections. From 1934, with the entry of the Soviet Union, the Russian Marcel Rosenberg also became under secretary-general; after his death in 1937, he was succeeded by Vladimir Sokoline. UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA. See SOUTH AFRICA, UNION OF. UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS (USSR). See SOVIET UNION.
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UNITED NATIONS (UN). On 18 April 1946, the Assembly of the League of Nations transferred all functions, possessions, and buildings of the League to the United Nations. The Charter of the United Nations had been signed in San Francisco on 26 June 1945 and entered into force on 24 October 1945. It had been drafted during the Teheran conference of November 1943 and the Dumbarton Oaks conference from August to October 1944. The organization of the UN followed the structure of the League of Nations. The Assembly became the General Assembly, the Council became the Security Council, and the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) became the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The International Labour Organisation (ILO) was maintained. The United Nations took over the League’s reorganization plans of the Bruce Report, whereby the technical services and sections of the League became specialized agencies of the UN and the Palais des Nations in Geneva served as a major location, although the seat was now in New York. UNITED STATES. The United States entered World War I in April 1917, when it declared war on Germany. President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points of 1918 were accepted by the Allies as their war aims. The establishment of a League of Nations was his principal goal at the Paris Peace Conference. Though Wilson played a decisive role in the framing of the Covenant and on the Supreme Council, the United States did not become a League member state. This was the result of an isolationist anti-League campaign headed by Henry Cabot Lodge of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. Despite the fact that the Covenant itself, in Article XXI, had reckoned with possible isolationist opposition by declaring that the validity of international engagements or regional understandings like the Monroe Doctrine would not be affected, the Versailles Peace Treaty, and thus the League of Nations, was rejected by the U.S. Senate on 19 March 1920. The Monroe Doctrine would remain the guiding principle of American foreign policy and made itself felt during the Chaco affair. The United States wanted the affairs of North America and Latin America to be dealt with by the Pan American Union (PAU), which subsequently developed into a rival of the League. For the League, the loss of the most powerful nation was a serious setback from the very beginning. Just one of the problems was that
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sanctions could never be effective when the biggest economic power did not cooperate. But the aloofness of the United States did not mean that it had no ties with the organization. Sometimes it demanded to be consulted when its interests were at stake. The Warren Harding administration even developed a distinctly hostile attitude toward the League, affecting the approval of several mandate texts and the economic recovery of Austria, and discouraged American citizens and Latin American countries from getting involved with the League. America’s first great international undertaking, outside the League, was the organization of the Washington Conference on naval affairs in 1921–1922. The League, on the other hand, for many years cherished the hope that the United States might join. As secretary-general, Eric Drummond in particular continuously invited the United States or some of its experts to take part in League institutions and conferences. Despite its initial aversion, the United States willingly became involved in many League activities. It supported the work of the Health Organization and in 1923 participated in a League conference on economic problems and the general conference of the Communications and Transit Organization. In 1927 it attended the World Economic Conference. In 1934, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United States joined the International Labour Organisation. Americans became staff members of the Secretariat and played important roles as judge of the Permanent Court of International Justice, League Commissioner in Hungary, author of the Memel Statute, and members of several League institutions. The Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Endowment saved many League enterprises from financial ruin. The American embassy in Berne and its consulate in Geneva scrutinized every League initiative. The United States accepted the invitation to participate in the Disarmament Conference and even became a member of its preparatory commission. After the failure of the Three-Power Naval Conference, President Herbert Hoover proposed two plans for the reduction of armaments as a sequel to the Kellogg–Briand Pact. The first plan, however, led to negotiations between the naval powers themselves and was kept out of the League’s disarmament talks. The second plan, for the abolition of certain offensive weapons, failed because the United States was not willing to provide security guarantees. President Roosevelt’s
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announcement that the United States would not hinder the League’s action against an aggressor state came too late to save the Disarmament Conference after Germany’s departure. The failure of the conference only strengthened isolationist tendencies and so did the economic depression, which resulted in high tariff walls and frustrated the League’s economic work considerably. Japan’s attack on Manchuria in the Sino–Japanese War directly affected American interests in China and the Pacific, and though the Council kept it informed of League negotiations, Washington refused to have any part in a League commission of inquiry. Its first—and last—attendance of a Council meeting, on 16 October 1931, was not welcomed by isolationist public opinion. Not willing to risk a war with Japan, its aloofness did much to encourage Japanese aggression. Only after the conquest of Manchuria in 1932 did the United States warn Japan that it would neither accept any Japanese–Chinese agreement which would affect American interests in China, nor any situation contrary to the Kellogg–Briand Pact. The American non-recognition of Manchuria as an independent state subsequently became a League principle. During the renewed Sino–Japanese War of 1937, the United States provided Japan as well as China with war materials. Neither Roosevelt’s sympathy for the League and China nor negotiations between the powers of the Nine-Power Treaty could turn the isolationist tide, however. U.S. aversion to being involved in a European war prevented American action during the Italo–Abyssinian War and was confirmed by the Neutrality Act of August 1935. The aloofness of the United States as concerned the political work of the League was one of the reasons for the Bruce Report on the reform of the League. By this scheme, the social and economic work of the League, in which the United States was fully involved, was to be detached from the Council. Detachment from the League, however, was rejected by the United States itself. Due to the American plans for the United Nations, the social and economic agencies indeed formed part of the new organization. See also ARMENIA; LIBERIA; YAP. UNIVERSALITY. In retrospect, one of the main defects of the League was that it was not truly universal. The failure of the United States, the most powerful nation, to become a member state had always been
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felt by the League as a great loss. The committee set up by the Assembly of 1936 to study a revision of the Covenant and the League recognized this deficiency. Since the main responsibility for military and economic sanctions fell on the big powers, the League could only perform its duties with their cooperation. The fact that three of them, Germany, Italy, and Japan, had other priorities than the fulfillment of the Covenant spelled the end of the League. UPPER SILESIA. Silesia, located in southeast Prussia, was a highly industrialized region and rich in coal and iron. It formed part of Germany before World War I. Upper Silesia had a population of 2 million, two-thirds of whom were Polish and the rest German. At the Paris Peace Conference, it was decided that a plebiscite would be held by which the population could choose between German or Polish nationality. Until that date, the region was occupied by an Allied, mostly French, army. The larger part of the industrial district, including Katowice, passed to Poland. In 1920 the contested city and district of Teschen were partitioned between Poland and Czechoslovakia, to the satisfaction of neither, by the Conference of Ambassadors. The plebiscite of March 1921 showed a large majority in favor of union with Germany. Poland, however, declared the vote fraudulent due to pressure from German industrialists on their Polish workers, and tried to occupy the region by force. The League Council thereupon established a committee of experts, consisting of Paul Hymans, Gastao da Cunha, Wellington Koo, and José Quiñones de Leon, which was asked to draw a frontier satisfactory to all. The problem was the so-called Industrial Triangle of German cities, situated in the eastern part of the region, closest to Poland. The committee cut the Triangle in two and included numerous provisions that would enable the economic prosperity of the region. The settlement would last for 15 years, during which a German–Polish joint commission and a joint tribunal would supervise the arrangements. The Upper Silesian conference in May 1922 resulted in the Geneva Convention on Upper Silesia, which was accepted by Germany and Poland. The convention worked fairly well in economic respects. The Polish and German minorities on both sides of the region, however, constantly appealed to the League because they felt ill-treated.
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Growing nationalism in Germany encouraged these malcontents. Petitions of the Volksbund, representing the Germans in Upper Silesia, sparked a serious conflict between Gustav Stresemann and Auguste Zaleski during the December 1928 Council session. Demands for revision of the minorities protection system were not met by the Council, however. Zaleski was able to settle another conflict, with Julius Curtius, during the January 1931 Council session. As a result of the Munich Conference of 1938, most of Czechoslovakian Silesia was partitioned between Germany and Poland; after the German conquest of Poland in 1939, Polish Silesia was annexed to Germany. URUGUAY. Uruguay belonged to the original member states of the League. It held a seat on the Council from 1922 and was usually represented by its ambassador in Paris. Uruguay remained a faithful member of the League; it signed the Protocol of Geneva and insisted on the expulsion of the Soviet Union during the Russo–Finnish War of 1939.
–V – VENIZELOS, ELEUTHERIOS (1864–1936). Venizelos was prime minister of Greece in 1917–1920 and 1928–1932. He attended the Paris Peace Conference, was a member of the League of Nations Committee, and later participated in the first sessions of the Council. In 1935 he attempted a military coup and was driven into exile. VERSAILLES, PEACE TREATY OF. The treaty was concluded between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany in June 1919 and it had 440 clauses. Part I contained the Covenant of the League of Nations. Parts II and III covered the new frontiers. By it Germany lost Alsace-Lorraine to France; Posen and West Prussia went to Poland; the Memel territory came under Allied sovereignty. In addition, Danzig was made a Free City; the Saar was put under the rule of the League of Nations for 15 years; the three zones of the Rhineland remained occupied for five, 10, and 15 years. In northern
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Schleswig, parts of East Prussia, and Upper Silesia, plebiscites would be held. By Parts IV and V, Germany had to give up its foreign rights and its colonies, which would become mandated territories of the League of Nations. Its army had to be reduced to 100,000 men and Allied commissions would supervise its disarmament. Parts VI and VII covered prisoners of war and war criminals. By Part VIII, Germany was found guilty of provoking World War I and therefore had to pay considerable reparations to the Allies. Parts IX to XIV contained further economic and financial clauses. The German delegation sent to Paris to negotiate the peace terms refused to sign the treaty. Instead, it was signed at Versailles by Hermann Müller and Johannes Bell of the new German coalition government. See also PEACE CONFERENCE, PARIS. VIGIER, HENRI (1886–?). The Frenchman Vigier entered the Secretariat as a member of the Information Section. He moved to the Political Section and became its director in May 1931. He played a significant role as drafter of the Council’s resolutions during the Italo–Abyssinian War. VILNA. Both the Polish and Soviet governments claimed this capital of Lithuania after World War I; it changed hands five times in 1920. In 1923 the city was allocated to Poland by the Conference of Ambassadors but remained a source of enmity between Lithuania and Poland. In 1939 when Russian troops put the clauses of the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact into effect, Vilna once again fell under Lithuanian sovereignty. See also POLISH–LITHUANIAN DISPUTE OVER VILNA. VIVIANI, RENÉ (1863–1925). Viviani had been prime minister of France at the outbreak of World War I. He represented France in the first Assembly in 1920 and was strongly opposed to Germany’s membership in the League. In 1921 he was asked by the Assembly to chair the Temporary Mixed Commission that was to prepare a Disarmament Conference. He strongly believed in a future for the League of Nations and played a role in the deliberations on Armenia. Viviani held the permanent French Council seat when the occupation of the Ruhr was being discussed.
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VOLDEMARAS, AUGUSTINAS (1883–1942). Voldemaras was a Lithuanian nationalist who served as Lithuania’s first prime minister in 1918. He was the leader of the far-right Clerical Party and the “Iron Wolves” movement, inspired by Italian fascism. In 1920 he represented Lithuania on the Council when the Polish–Lithuanian Dispute over Vilna broke out. He returned to power in 1926 as head of a military junta and ruled together with Antanas Smetona as virtual dictator of the country. Voldemaras felt threatened by Poland and appealed to the Council, which was able to initiate Polish–Lithuanian negotiations in 1928. In 1929, while attending a Council session, he was ousted in a coup by President Smetona. Voldemaras attempted to overthrow the government in 1931 and in 1934, for which he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
–W– WALTERS, FRANCIS PAUL (1888–1976). As one of Great Britain’s delegate to the Paris Peace Conference, Walters served as personal assistant to Viscount Edward Grey and Lord Robert Cecil. He entered the Secretariat in 1919, where he was attached to the bureau of the secretary-general. He was appointed under secretary-general in 1933. WAL-WAL INCIDENT. The Wal-Wal area was located at the illdefined border between Italian Somaliland and Abyssinia. It contained wells that were occupied by Italy’s troops since 1928. When an Anglo–Abyssinian delimitation commission arrived, fighting between Italian and Abyssinian troops broke out on 5 December 1934. WAR, PREVENTION OF. See PREVENTING WAR; PREVENTION OF WAR. WASHINGTON CONFERENCE. The conference was meant to end naval competition in the Pacific. Though it was convened outside the League, it would serve as an example to the League’s disarmament activities. The Washington Conference took place from 12 November
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1921 to 6 February 1922. It resulted in the Five-Power Treaty, FourPower Treaty, and Nine-Power Treaty. A setback of the conference was that the maximum limits for cruisers, destroyers, and submarines remained rather high, that Japan was more or less permitted to build naval bases on China’s coast, and that it did not cover land and air armaments. Its significance was that the respective governments had worked together in a good atmosphere and that the United States participated in the first international conference since the Paris Peace Conference. The conference paved the way for unofficial American cooperation with the League. WEIZMANN, CHAIM (1874–1952). Weizmann was the leader of the World Zionist Organization from 1920 to 1931 and 1935 to 1946. See also PALESTINE. WILSON, JOSEPH VIVIAN (1894–1977). Wilson, of New Zealand, entered the service of the Secretariat in 1923. He became a member of the bureau of the secretary-general and in 1933 director of the Central Section. WILSON, WOODROW (1856–1924). Wilson was the president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Prior to going into politics, he had been a professor and later president of Princeton University. He was then elected as Democratic governor of New Jersey and became president on the eve of World War I. Initially he sought to keep America out of the war, but shortly after his reelection in 1916, due to German submarine warfare and other concerns, he joined the Allies and sent troops to Europe. Nonetheless, he believed firmly in peace and “democratic internationalism” and was a strong supporter of the League to Enforce Peace. Wilson made the establishment of the League of Nations one of his primary war aims. His Fourteen Points, the address to the U.S. Congress of 8 January 1918, reiterated his conviction that only a strong international organization could prevent a new world war. As the Fourteen Points were accepted by the Allies as their war aims and imposed on the Axis powers, the League of Nations became one of the issues that had to be dealt with by the Paris Peace Conference.
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As a member of the Supreme Council, Wilson helped to shape the postwar world. He personally presided over the League of Nations Committee, which drafted the Covenant. Wilson’s clause on religious freedom was not accepted, but the mandates system was his idea, and Article XXI on the Monroe Doctrine, though originally suggested by the British delegation, was included in the Covenant at his express wish. It was intended to placate isolationist senators like Henry Cabot Lodge, but without success. Wilson travelled widely and spoke out unceasingly for approval of the League Covenant, which was part of the Versailles Peace Treaty, but it was ultimately rejected by the U.S. Senate on 19 March 1920. WOMEN AND CHILDREN, ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE TRAFFIC IN. Under Article XXIII of the Covenant, the League was responsible for the “supervision over the execution of agreements with regard to the traffic in women and children.” The advisory committee set up to deal with these matters was soon divided into two separate committees, one for the prevention of traffic in and protection of young women, and the other for all international aspects of child welfare. Both committees were known as the Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People and were composed of 12 official national delegates together with a number of assessors: six for the Traffic in Women Committee and 13 for the Child Welfare Committee. The assessors represented the main private organizations already active in these fields as well as the Health Organization and the International Labour Office (ILO). The Social Questions Section of the League served as a secretariat. Important achievements were the acceptance by 50 countries of the 1924 Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child and the disclosure of the methods whereby girls were shipped from Europe to other continents. In 1936 the Advisory Committee was transformed into the Advisory Committee on Social Questions. From then on, it was a purely governmental body. WOMEN AND CHILDREN CONFERENCE, TRAFFIC IN. The conference was held in 1937, on Java (then part of the Dutch East Indies). It recommended the establishment of an Eastern Office to coordinate police and other activities. Though the 1938 Assembly sup-
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ported the initiative, the secretary-general, Joseph Avenol, rejected any further extension of the Secretariat’s duties in this field. WORLD ECONOMIC CONFERENCE. See ECONOMIC CONFERENCE, WORLD. WORLD WAR II, THE LEAGUE IN. As a demonstration of the decline of the League’s importance, Germany’s attack on Poland in September 1939 was not even brought before the Council. Nevertheless, all kinds of committees continued to hold their meetings in Geneva for months. In December 1939 the Council and Assembly met for the last time to discuss the Russo–Finnish war and both decided with remarkable speed on the expulsion of the Soviet Union from the League. Shortly after the outbreak of the war, the staff of the League was drastically cut. When war broke out in the west, in May–June 1940, the Secretariat was isolated from the rest of the world. All technical services, including the Economic and Financial Section, were moved to Princeton University in the United States, and a few months later, the treasury moved to London. The Opium Section left Geneva in 1941 for Washington, D.C., while the International Labour Organisation settled in Montreal, Canada. Joseph Avenol resigned as secretary-general on 31 August 1940 and Sean Lester took over the office. With a skeleton staff and supported by the Supervisory Commission, responsible for the finances of the League, Lester tried to keep the League functioning in such a manner that its work could restart as soon as the war was over.
–Y – YAP. Yap was a naval base and cable center in the Pacific which the Paris Peace Conference allocated to Japan as a C-mandate. Since the American island of Guam depended on Yap for its cable connections, the United States protested—in vain—with the Council against this takeover. In the end, the question was not settled by the League but by the Washington Conference, which concluded a Yap
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treaty between all nations with interests in the cable station. Japan remained the mandatory power of the island. YEN, HUI-CHING, W. W. (1877–1950). Yen was the president of China from May to June 1926, and the first Chinese ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1932 to 1937. He replaced Alfred Sze on the Council in 1932. YOSHIZAWA, KENKICHI (1874–1965). Yoshizawa had been Japan’s minister in China before he succeeded Mineichiro Adatci on the Council in 1930. He defended the Japanese viewpoint in the Council and the Assembly during the Sino–Japanese War over Manchuria. In 1932 he became minister of foreign affairs. In Geneva, he was succeeded by Naotake Sato and Yosuke Matsuoka. YOUNG PLAN. The general wish for revision of the Dawes Plan led to a new reparations conference in the Hague, where in 1930 the Young Plan was approved. According to the plan, Germany had to pay 34.5 billion goldmarks until 1988. Payments could be reduced when the mutual debts of the creditors could be relieved. It was the first time that reparations and war debts were linked. YUGOSLAVIA. Yugoslavia was one of the new states that emerged from World War I, and it owed its existence to the Paris Peace Conference. Therefore, it belonged to the original members of the League and accepted the League’s supervision over the treatment of its minorities. From the outset, it had trouble with its neighbors over borders and other questions. One of them was the dispute with Italy over the port of Fiume; another was its claim on the northern part of Albania. The latter issue was settled by the Conference of Ambassadors in 1921. The Hungarian–Yugoslav crisis, following the assassination of King Alexander in 1934, was in fact a demonstration of Italian and Hungarian revisionism and could be settled by the Council. Yugoslavia felt threatened by Italy and therefore had great difficulty with the League’s sanctions policy during the Italo–Abyssinian War. For its security, it had formed the Little Entente in the early 1920s, with Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Romania, strongly
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urged to do so by France. For this reason, Yugoslavia signed the Protocol of Geneva, but it refused a Franco–Yugoslavian guarantee pact in 1939.
–Z– ZALESKI, AUGUSTE (1883–1972). Zaleski was Poland’s foreign minister from 1926, when Poland had a seat on the Council, to 1932. In 1927 he was able to avoid war with Lithuania but got involved in a dispute with Germany’s foreign ministers, Gustav Stresemann and Julius Curtius, over German minorities in Poland. Zaleski aspired to extend the Locarno Treaties to Eastern Europe, but this foundered on the unwillingness of Great Britain. In November 1932 Zaleski was replaced by Colonel Josef Beck. ZEELAND, PAUL VAN (1893–1973). Van Zeeland was Belgium’s prime minister and foreign minister from 1935 to 1937. He sat on the coordination committee, also called sanctions conference, during the Italo–Abyssian War. See also COMMITTEE OF EIGHTEEN. ZIMMERMAN, ALFRED RUDOLF (1869–1939). Zimmerman was the mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and had been the head of the Dutch delegation to the Financial Conference in Brussels in 1920. In 1922 he was appointed commissioner-general of the League in Austria.
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Appendix A
The Covenant of the League of Nations (Including Amendments adopted to December 1924) The High Contracting Parties, In order to promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war, by the prescription of open, just and honourable relations between nations, by the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct among Governments, and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligations in the dealings of organised peoples with one another, Agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations.
ARTICLE I 1. The original Members of the League of Nations shall be those of the Signatories which are named in the Annex to this Covenant and also such of those other States named in the Annex as shall accede without reservation to this Covenant. Such accession shall be effected by a Declaration deposited with the Secretariat within two months of the coming into force of the Covenant. Notice thereof shall be sent to all other Members of the League. 2. Any fully self-governing State, Dominion or Colony not named in the Annex may become a Member of the League if its admission is agreed to by two-thirds of the Assembly, provided that it shall give effective guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its international obligations, and shall accept such regulations as may be prescribed by 203
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the League in regard to its military, naval and air forces and armaments. 3. Any Member of the League may, after two years’ notice of its intention so to do, withdraw from the League, provided that all its international obligations and all its obligations under this Covenant shall have been fulfilled at the time of its withdrawal.
ARTICLE II The action of the League under this Covenant shall be effected through the instrumentality of an Assembly and of a Council, with a permanent Secretariat.
ARTICLE III 1. The Assembly shall consist of Representatives of the Members of the League. 2. The Assembly shall meet at stated intervals and from time to time as occasion may require at the Seat of the League or at such other place as may be decided upon. 3. The Assembly may deal at its meetings with any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world. 4. At meetings of the Assembly each Member of the League shall have one vote, and may have not more than three Representatives.
ARTICLE IV 1. The Council shall consist of Representatives of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, together with Representatives of four other Members of the League. These four Members of the League shall be selected by the Assembly from time to time in its discretion. Until the appointment of the Representatives of the four Members of the League first selected by the Assembly, Representatives of Belgium, Brazil, Spain and Greece shall be members of the Council. 2. With the approval of the majority of the Assembly, the Council may name additional Members of the League whose Representatives
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shall always be members of the Council; the Council, with like approval may increase the number of Members of the League to be selected by the Assembly for representation on the Council. 3. The Council shall meet from time to time as occasion may require, and at least once a year, at the Seat of the League, or at such other place as may be decided upon. 4. The Council may deal at its meetings with any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world. 5. Any Member of the League not represented on the Council shall be invited to send a Representative to sit as a member at any meeting of the Council during the consideration of matters specially affecting the interests of that Member of the League. 6. At meetings of the Council, each Member of the League represented on the Council shall have one vote, and may have not more than one Representative. ARTICLE V 1. Except where otherwise expressly provided in this Covenant or by the terms of the present Treaty, decisions at any meeting of the Assembly or of the Council shall require the agreement of all the Members of the League represented at the meeting. 2. All matters of procedure at meetings of the Assembly or of the Council, including the appointment of Committees to investigate particular matters, shall be regulated by the Assembly or by the Council and may be decided by a majority of the Members of the League represented at the meeting. 3. The first meeting of the Assembly and the first meeting of the Council shall be summoned by the President of the United States of America. ARTICLE VI 1. The permanent Secretariat shall be established at the Seat of the League. The Secretariat shall comprise a Secretary General and such secretaries and staff as may be required. 2. The first Secretary General shall be the person named in the Annex; thereafter the Secretary General shall be appointed by the Council with the approval of the majority of the Assembly.
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3. The secretaries and staff of the Secretariat shall be appointed by the Secretary General with the approval of the Council. 4. The Secretary General shall act in that capacity at all meetings of the Assembly and of the Council. 5. The expenses of the League shall be borne by the Members of the League in the proportion decided by the Assembly.
ARTICLE VII 1. The Seat of the League is established at Geneva. 2. The Council may at any time decide that the Seat of the League shall be established elsewhere. 3. All positions under or in connection with the League, including the Secretariat, shall be open equally to men and women. 4. Representatives of the Members of the League and officials of the League when engaged on the business of the League shall enjoy diplomatic privileges and immunities. 5. The buildings and other property occupied by the League or its officials or by Representatives attending its meetings shall be inviolable.
ARTICLE VIII 1. The Members of the League recognise that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations. 2. The Council, taking account of the geographical situation and circumstances of each State, shall formulate plans for such reduction for the consideration and action of the several Governments. 3. Such plans shall be subject to reconsideration and revision at least every ten years. 4. After these plans shall have been adopted by the several Governments, the limits of armaments therein fixed shall not be exceeded without the concurrence of the Council. 5. The Members of the League agree that the manufacture by private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave objec-
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tions. The Council shall advise how the evil effects attendant upon such manufacture can be prevented, due regard being had to the necessities of those Members of the League which are not able to manufacture the munitions and implements of war necessary for their safety. 6. The Members of the League undertake to interchange full and frank information as to the scale of their armaments, their military, naval and air programmes and the condition of such of their industries as are adaptable to war-like purposes.
ARTICLE IX A permanent Commission shall be constituted to advise the Council on the execution of the provisions of Articles 1 and 8 and on military, naval and air questions generally.
ARTICLE X The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.
ARTICLE XI 1. Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of the Members of the League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations. In case any such emergency should arise the Secretary General shall on the request of any Member of the League forthwith summon a meeting of the Council. 2. It is also declared to be the friendly right of each Member of the League to bring to the attention of the Assembly or of the Council any
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circumstance whatever affecting international relations which threatens to disturb international peace or the good understanding between nations upon which peace depends.
ARTICLE XII 1. The Members of the League agree that, if there should arise between them any dispute likely to lead to a rupture they will submit the matter either to arbitration or judicial settlement or to enquiry by the Council, and they agree in no case to resort to war until three months after the award by the arbitrators or the judicial decision, or the report by the Council. 2. In any case under this Article the award of the arbitrators or the judicial decision shall be made within a reasonable time, and the report of the Council shall be made within six months after the submission of the dispute.
ARTICLE XIII 1. The Members of the League agree that whenever any dispute shall arise between them which they recognise to be suitable for submission to arbitration or judicial settlement and which cannot be satisfactorily settled by diplomacy, they will submit the whole subject-matter to arbitration or judicial settlement. 2. Disputes as to the interpretation of a treaty, as to any question of international law, as to the existence of any fact which if established would constitute a breach of any international obligation, or as to the extent and nature of the reparation to be made for any such breach, are declared to be among those which are generally suitable for submission to arbitration or judicial settlement. 3. For the consideration of any such dispute, the court to which the case is referred shall be the Permanent Court of International Justice, established in accordance with Article 14, or any tribunal agreed on by the parties to the dispute or stipulated in any convention existing between them.
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4. The Members of the League agree that they will carry out in full good faith any award or decision that may be rendered, and that they will not resort to war against a Member of the League which complies therewith. In the event of any failure to carry out such an award or decision, the Council shall propose what steps should be taken to give effect thereto.
ARTICLE XIV The Council shall formulate and submit to the Members of the League for adoption plans for the establishment of a Permanent Court of International Justice. The Court shall be competent to hear and determine any dispute of an international character which the parties thereto submit to it. The Court may also give an advisory opinion upon any dispute or question referred to it by the Council or by the Assembly.
ARTICLE XV 1. If there should arise between Members of the League any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, which is not submitted to arbitration or judicial settlement in accordance with Article 13, the Members of the League agree that they will submit the matter to the Council. Any party to the dispute may effect such submission by giving notice of the existence of the dispute to the Secretary General, who will make all necessary arrangements for a full investigation and consideration thereof. 2. For this purpose the parties to the dispute will communicate to the Secretary General, as promptly as possible, statements of their case with all the relevant facts and papers, and the Council may forthwith direct the publication thereof. 3. The Council shall endeavour to effect a settlement of the dispute, and if such efforts are successful, a statement shall be made public giving such facts and explanations regarding the dispute and the terms of settlement thereof as the Council may deem appropriate. 4. If the dispute is not thus settled, the Council either unanimously or by a majority vote shall make and publish a report containing a statement
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of the facts of the dispute and the recommendations which are deemed just and proper in regard thereto. 5. Any Member of the League represented on the Council may make public a statement of the facts of the dispute and of its conclusions regarding the same. 6. If a report by the Council is unanimously agreed to by the members thereof other than the Representatives of one or more of the parties to the dispute, the Members of the League agree that they will not go to war with any party to the dispute which complies with the recommendations of the report. 7. If the Council fails to reach a report which is unanimously agreed to by the members thereof, other than the Representatives of one or more of the parties to the dispute, the Members of the League reserve to themselves the right to take such action as they shall consider necessary for the maintenance of right and justice. 8. If the dispute between the parties is claimed by one of them, and is found by the Council, to arise out of a matter which by international law is solely within the domestic jurisdiction of that party, the Council shall so report, and shall make no recommendation as to its settlement. 9. The Council may in any case under this Article refer the dispute to the Assembly. The dispute shall be so referred at the request of either party to the dispute, provided that such request be made within fourteen days after the submission of the dispute to the Council. 10. In any case referred to the Assembly, all the provisions of this Article and of Article 12 relating to the action and powers of the Council shall apply to the action and powers of the Assembly, provided that a report made by the Assembly, if concurred in by the Representatives of those Members of the League represented on the Council and of a majority of the other Members of the League, exclusive in each case of the Representatives of the parties to the dispute, shall have the same force as a report by the Council concurred in by all the members thereof other than the Representatives of one or more of the parties to the dispute.
ARTICLE XVI 1. Should any Member of the League resort to war in disregard of its covenants under Articles 12, 13 or 15, it shall ipso facto be deemed to
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have committed an act of war against all other Members of the League, which hereby undertake immediately to subject it to the severance of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition of all intercourse between their nationals and the nationals of the covenant-breaking State, and the prevention of all financial, commercial or personal intercourse between the nationals of the covenant-breaking State and the nationals of any other State, whether a Member of the League or not. 2. It shall be the duty of the Council in such case to recommend to the several Governments concerned what effective military, naval or air force the Members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League. 3. The Members of the League agree, further, that they will mutually support one another in the financial and economic measures which are taken under this Article, in order to minimise the loss and inconvenience resulting from the above measures, and that they will mutually support one another in resisting any special measures aimed at one of their number by the covenant-breaking State, and that they will take the necessary steps to afford passage through their territory to the forces of any of the Members of the League which are co-operating to protect the covenants of the League. 4. Any Member of the League which has violated any covenant of the League may be declared to be no longer a Member of the League by a vote of the Council concurred in by the Representatives of all the other Members of the League represented thereon.
ARTICLE XVII 1. In the event of a dispute between a Member of the League and a State which is not a Member of the League, or between States not Members of the League, the State or States not Members of the League shall be invited to accept the obligations of membership in the League for the purposes of such dispute, upon such conditions as the Council may deem just. If such invitation is accepted, the provisions of Articles 12 to 16 inclusive shall be applied with such modifications as may be deemed necessary by the Council. 2. Upon such invitation being given the Council shall immediately institute an inquiry into the circumstances of the dispute and
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recommend such action as may seem best and most effectual in the circumstances. 3. If a State so invited shall refuse to accept the obligations of membership in the League for the purposes of such dispute, and shall resort to war against a Member of the League, the provisions of Article 16 shall be applicable as against the State taking such action. 4. If both parties to the dispute when so invited refuse to accept the obligations of membership in the League for the purposes of such dispute, the Council may take such measures and make such recommendations as will prevent hostilities and will result in the settlement of the dispute.
ARTICLE XVIII Every treaty or international engagement entered into hereafter by any Member of the League shall be forthwith registered with the Secretariat and shall as soon as possible be published by it. No such treaty or international engagement shall be binding until so registered.
ARTICLE XIX The Assembly may from time to time advise the reconsideration by Members of the League of treaties which have become inapplicable and the consideration of international conditions whose continuance might endanger the peace of the world.
ARTICLE XX 1. The Members of the League severally agree that this Covenant is accepted as abrogating all obligations or understandings inter se which are inconsistent with the terms thereof, and solemnly undertake that they will not hereafter enter into any engagements inconsistent with the terms thereof. 2. In case any Member of the League shall, before becoming a Member of the League, have undertaken any obligations inconsistent with
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the terms of this Covenant, it shall be the duty of such Member to take immediate steps to procure its release from such obligations.
ARTICLE XXI Nothing in this Covenant shall be deemed to affect the validity of international engagements, such as treaties of arbitration or regional understandings like the Monroe doctrine, for securing the maintenance of peace.
ARTICLE XXII 1. To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilisation and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this Covenant. 2. The best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that the tutelage of such peoples should be entrusted to advanced nations who by reason of their resources, their experience or their geographical position can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the League. 3. The character of the mandate must differ according to the stage of the development of the people, the geographical situation of the territory, its economic conditions and other similar circumstances. 4. Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.
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5. Other peoples, especially those of Central Africa, are at such a stage that the Mandatory must be responsible for the administration of the territory under conditions which will guarantee freedom of conscience and religion, subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, the prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, the arms traffic and the liquor traffic, and the prevention of the establishment of fortifications or military and naval bases and of military training of the natives for other than police purposes and the defence of territory, and will also secure equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of other Members of the League. 6. There are territories, such as South-West Africa and certain of the South Pacific Islands, which, owing to the sparseness of their population, or their small size, or their remoteness from the centres of civilisation, or their geographical contiguity to the territory of the Mandatory, and other circumstances, can be best administered under the laws of the Mandatory as integral portions of its territory, subject to the safeguards above mentioned in the interests of the indigenous population. 7. In every case of mandate, the Mandatory shall render to the Council an annual report in reference to the territory committed to its charge. 8. The degree of authority, control, or administration to be exercised by the Mandatory shall, if not previously agreed upon by the Members of the League, be explicitly defined in each case by the Council. 9. A permanent Commission shall be constituted to receive and examine the annual reports of the Mandatories and to advise the Council on all matters relating to the observance of the mandates. ARTICLE XXIII Subject to and in accordance with the provisions of international conventions existing or hereafter to be agreed upon, the Members of the League: (a) will endeavour to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labour for men, women, and children, both in their own countries and in all countries to which their commercial and industrial relations extend, and for that purpose will establish and maintain the necessary international organisations; (b) undertake to secure just treatment of the native inhabitants of territories under their control;
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(c) will entrust the League with the general supervision over the execution of agreements with regard to the traffic in women and children, and the traffic in opium and other dangerous drugs; (d) will entrust the League with the general supervision of the trade in arms and ammunition with the countries in which the control of this traffic is necessary in the common interest; (e) will make provision to secure and maintain freedom of communications and of transit and equitable treatment for the commerce of all Members of the League. In this connection, the special necessities of the regions devastated during the war of 1914–1918 shall be borne in mind; (f) will endeavour to take steps in matters of international concern for the prevention and control of disease.
ARTICLE XXIV 1. There shall be placed under the direction of the League all international bureaux already established by general treaties if the parties to such treaties consent. All such international bureaux and all commissions for the regulation of matters of international interest hereafter constituted shall be placed under the direction of the League. 2. In all matters of international interest which are regulated by general convention but which are not placed under the control of international bureaux or commissions, the Secretariat of the League shall, subject to the consent of the Council and if desired by the parties, collect and distribute all relevant information and shall render any other assistance which may be necessary or desirable. 3. The Council may include as part of the expenses of the Secretariat the expenses of any bureau or commission which is placed under the direction of the League.
ARTICLE XXV The Members of the League agree to encourage and promote the establishment and co-operation of duly authorised voluntary national Red Cross organisations having as purposes the improvement of
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health, the prevention of disease and the mitigation of suffering throughout the world.
ARTICLE XXVI 1. Amendments to this Covenant will take effect when ratified by the Members of the League whose Representatives compose the Council and by a majority of the Members of the League whose Representatives compose the Assembly. 2. No such amendments shall bind any Member of the League which signifies its dissent therefrom, but in that case it shall cease to be a Member of the League.
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Appendix B
List of Member States
Member
Date of Entry
Notice of Withdrawal Effective After Two Years
Afghanistan Albania Argentina* Australia* Austria Belgium* Bolivia* Brazil* Bulgaria Canada* Chile* China* Colombia* Costa Rica Cuba* Czechoslovakia* Denmark* Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt Estonia Ethiopia Finland France* Germany Great Britain* Greece* Guatemala* Haiti* Honduras* Hungary
September 1934 December 1920
Annexed by Italy, April 1939
December 1920
Annexed by Germany, March 1938
June 1926 December 1920 June 1938
December 1920
January 1925
September 1924 September 1934 May 1937 September 1921 September 1923 December 1920 September 1926
October 1933
September 1922
May 1936 April 1942 July 1936 April 1939 (continued )
217
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Member India* Iraq Ireland Italy* Japan* Latvia Liberia* Lithuania Luxembourg Mexico Netherlands, The* New Zealand* Nicaragua* Norway* Panama* Paraguay* Persia (Iran)* Peru* Poland* Portugal* Romania* Salvador* Siam (Thailand)* Spain* Sweden* Switzerland* Turkey Union of South Africa* Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Uruguay* Venezuela* Yugoslavia* *Original member states
Date of Entry
Notice of Withdrawal Effective After Two Years
October 1932 September 1923 December 1937 March 1933 September 1921 September 1921 December 1920 September 1931
June 1936
February 1935 April 1939
July 1940 August 1937 May 1939
July 1932
September 1934
Expelled December 1939 July 1938
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Appendix C
Secretaries-General Sir Eric Drummond (British) Joseph Avenol (French) Sean Lester (Irish)
28 April 1919 to 30 June 1933 July 1933 to August 1940 August 1940 to 18 April 1946 (Acting Secretary-General)
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Appendix D
Budget of the League (in Swiss Francs) League
Secretariat
Year
Members
Voted Budget
Actual Expenditure
Voted Budget
Actual Expenditure
1921 1922 1923 1924
50 51 54 54
21,250,000 22,238,335 25,328,686 23,328,686
19,586,870 18,129,784 19,556,442 18,636,442
11,700,000 13,238,335 15,093,046 12,298,449
10,426,298 10,074,504 10,226,616 8,028,316
1927
55
24,512,341
22,117,107
13,561,840
11,559,003
1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
56 56 56 56 57 57 59 58 58 58 54 51 48 46 45 45 45
27,026,280 28,210,248 31,637,501 33,687,994 33,429,132 30,827,805 30,639,664 28,279,901 29,184,128 32,273,251 32,234,012 21,451,408 10,659,711 9,647,462 11,388,376 10,089,049 14,868,408
24,117,492 25,338,935 29,029,631 27,225,916 27,258,446 24,950,929 25,589,116 23,938,518 26,168,173 28,180,088 28,193,044 13,238,243 8,111,799 7,807,911 8,364,900 — —
15,011,085 15,631,456 16,757,786 19,174,317 16,969,925 15,566,202 15,041,388 14,591,635 14,842,103 15,929,331 16,188,063 10,771,957 3,729,302 3,446,385 4,434,259 3,127,477 3,126,817
12,853,518 13,641,701 14,737,774 13,364,207 11,988,080 10,905,878 10,974,670 11,137,048 12,280,737 13,565,610 12,498,432 5,474,619 2,762,090 2,447,702 2,450,702 — —
Source: Egon F. Ranshofen-Wertheimer, The International Secretariat: A Great Experiment in International Administration (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1945), 224.
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Appendix E
Organization Scheme of the League of Nations
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Appendix F
Organizations Linked to the League of Nations
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Appendix G
The Organization of the Secretariat 1930 SECRETARY-GENERAL DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL THREE UNDER SECRETARIES-GENERAL: UNDER SECRETARY-GENERAL in charge of Internal Administration
Treasurer
Chief of Internal Services
Treasury Internal Control
Post-Telegraph Office Heating
Accountants Dept.
Restaurant etc. Supplies Service (Economat) Verbatim Reporters Central Stenographic Service Duplicating Service New Building
PrĂŠcis-writing Interpreting & Translating Service Distribution Service Publications & Printing Service
227
Personnel Office
Registry and Indexing Library
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APPENDIX G
UNDER SECRETARY-GENERAL in charge of the Political Section Political Section
UNDER SECRETARY-GENERAL in charge of International Bureaux and Intellectual Cooperation Section International Bureaux and Intellectual Cooperation Section
OTHER SECTIONS Legal Adviser
Director
Director
Director
Director
Legal Section
Information Section
Administrative Commissions & Minorities Section
Mandates Section
Disarmament Section
Director
Chief of Section
Director
Chief of Section
Economic and Financial Section
Communications and Transit Section
Health Section
Social Questions & Opium Traffic Section
Source: Egon F. Ranshofen-Wertheimer, The International Secretariat: A Great Experiment in International Administration (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1945), 88.
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Bibliography
The reader will have to be contented with the fact that many studies on the League of Nations date from the pre–World War II period, or were published shortly after this period. Nevertheless, an attempt has been made to collect as many postwar studies as possible, and preferably written in the English language. To give an impression of the work that has been done in different countries, some titles in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch are also included. For an overview of the works published before the 1970s, H. Aufricht’s Guide to League of Nations Publications: A Bibliographical Survey of the Work of the League 1920–1947 and Victor-Yves Ghébali’s Bibliographical Handbook on the League of Nations are excellent introductions. G. Ottlik’s Annuaire de la Société des Nations (The League of Nations’ Yearbook) provides the reader with detailed lists of participants in Council and Assembly meetings and the composition of the League’s Secretariat, Sections, and Commissions. The archives of the League of Nations in Geneva are the most important source of information. Outside Geneva, the Dutch Vredespaleis (Peace Palace) in the Hague contains invaluable League collections. Certain official documents have also been published. Examples can be found in Ghébali’s League of Nations Documents 1919–1946. Archival sources on the relationship of various member states with the League are also—partly—published. Reference can be made to the Documents Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Documents on British Foreign Policy, and the Documents Diplomatiques Français. In a sense, it is a pity that the most informative studies on the League of Nations are still F. P. Walters’s A History of the League of Nations of 1952 and Egon RanshofenWertheimer’s The International Secretariat: A Great Experiment in International Administration of 1945. For those readers interested in lively descriptions of events and personalities, there is Elmer Bendiner’s A Time for Angels: The Tragicomic History of the League of Nations, published in 1975. Few general works on the League have been published, but one of them is F. N. Northedge’s The League of Nations of 1986. These studies do not provide the reader with details, however. Again, the focus here is on works dealing directly with the League of Nations. Therefore, general studies on the interwar period are not included. The literature mentioned in this bibliography is subdivided into categories. The Official Publications category contains documents published by the League itself.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
The various sections of the League’s Secretariat published many studies and statistics. It is impossible to mention them all, but some important publications are listed here. This category is followed by Reference Works. Titles on the Background of the League refer to earlier ideas on a League of Nations, its establishment, and other issues at the Paris Peace Conference. Subsequent categories deal with general works on the League and its structure. Several categories are devoted to specific activities of the League: peace and security; political, economic; and social issues; mandates, minorities, refugees, health, labor, and legal issues. The bibliography closes with an overview of studies on the relationship between the League and its permanent members on the Council, that is, the major European powers, as well as its most significant non-member, the United States. Studies on U.S. activities in the period before the establishment of the League can be found under the heading Background. Lately the League has even become a subject of fiction. The Australian writer Frank Moorhouse published two novels against the background of the League: Grand Days in 1993 and Dark Palace in 2000. The heroine in both novels is modeled on the Canadian Mary McGeachy, who worked at the information section of the League’s Secretariat. On nearly all subjects, one can find information on websites. The British League of Nations Union, for instance, is covered by the British Library of Political and Economic Science: www.aim25.ac.uk. A League of Nations timeline can be found on http://worldatwar.net. The text of several treaties, such as the Versailles Peace Treaty, is provided by http://history.acusd.edu. But the most important website is www.indiana.edu/~league, which gives an overview of the history of the League of Nations, including a bibliography, photo collection, lists of Secretariat officials, Assembly delegates, foreign ministers of member states, a detailed League timeline, and international conferences. The United Nations Library in Geneva provides information on the archives and literature dealing with the League of Nations, to be found on www.unog.ch/frames/library. Access to the library’s catalogue is possible. This bibliography consists of the following sections: Official Publications Reference Works Background General Works Structure of the League of Nations Peace and Security Political Issues Economic and Social Issues Mandates and Slavery Minorities and Refugees Health and Drugs Labor Legal Issues
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Member States The United States France Germany Great Britain Italy Japan The Soviet Union Other Member States
OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS International Labour Organisation. Proceedings of the International Labour Conference. Geneva: ILO, 1919–. League of Nations. The Aims, Methods and Activity of the League of Nations. Geneva: League of Nations, 1935. ———. Armaments Year-Book. General and Statistical Information. Geneva: League of Nations, 1924–1939/40. ———. Assembly Documents. Geneva: League of Nations, 1920–1946. ———. Committees of the League of Nations: Classified List and Essential Facts. Geneva: League of Nations, 1945. ———. Council Documents. Geneva: League of Nations, 1920–1939. ———. The Council of the League of Nations: Composition, Competence, Procedure. Geneva: Information Section, 1938. ———. The Course and Phases of the World Economic Depression. Geneva: League of Nations, 1931. ———. The Development of International Cooperation in Economic and Social Affairs. Geneva: League of Nations Secretariat, August 1939. ———. Essential Facts about the League of Nations. 10 vols. Geneva: Information Section, 1933–1939. ———. Food Rationing and Supply 1943/44. Geneva: Economic, Financial, and Transit Department, 1944. ———. Handbook of International Organizations. Geneva: League of Nations, 1929. ———. High Commissioner of the League of Nations at Danzig. League of Nations, March 1940. ———. Industrialization and Foreign Trade. Geneva: League of Nations, 1945. ———. International Financial Conference. 3 vols. Brussels: Dewarichet, 1920. ———. Juridical and Administrative Systems in Force on the Frontier Sections of Railway Lines and at Junction Stations. Geneva: Communications and Transit Section, 1935. ———. The League from Year to Year. 10 vols. Geneva: Information Section, 1927–1938.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
———. The League of Nations and the Press: International Press Exhibition, Cologne, May to October, 1928. Geneva: Information Section, 1928. ———. The League of Nations’ Financial Administration and Apportionment of Expenses. Geneva: Information Section, 1923, 1928. ———. Liquor Traffic in Territories under B and C Mandates. Geneva: League of Nations, 1930. ———. The Mandates System. Geneva: Information Section, 1931. ———. Minutes of the 1st–107th Session of the Council of the League of Nations. Geneva: League of Nations, 1920–1939. ———. Monthly Summary of the League of Nations. 20 vols. Geneva: League of Nations, 1921–1940. ———. Official Journal/Journal Officiel. 21 vols. Geneva: League of Nations, 1920–1940. ———. Powers and Duties Attributed to the League of Nations by International Treaties. Geneva: League of Nations, 1944. ———. Present Activities of the Secretariat. Geneva: League of Nations, 1932. ———. Publications Issued by the League of Nations. 4 vols. Geneva: League of Nations Secretariat, 1938. ———. Records of the 1st–21st Assembly: Meetings of the Committees. Geneva: League of Nations, 1920–1946. ———. Records of the 1st–21st Assembly: Plenary Meetings. Geneva: League of Nations, 1920–1946. ———. Report on the Work of the League. Geneva: League of Nations, 1920–1945. ———. Report on the Work of the League during the War, Submitted to the Assembly by the Acting Secretary-General. Geneva: League of Nations, 1945. ———. Saar Valley Commission: Reports. Geneva: League of Nations, 1920. ———. Statistical Yearbook of the League of Nations. Geneva: Economic Intelligence Service, 1931–1935. ———. Ten Years of World Cooperation. Geneva: League of Nations, Information Section, 1930. ———. Traffic in Women and Children: The Work of the Bandoeng Conference. Geneva: League of Nations, 1937.
REFERENCE WORKS Aufricht, H. Guide to League of Nations Publications: A Bibliographical Survey of the Work of the League 1920–1947. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1966. Breycha-Vauthier, A. C. Sources of Information: A Handbook on the Publications of the League of Nations. London: Allen and Unwyn, 1939. Butler, Sir Geoffrey. A Handbook to the League of Nations. London: Longmans, Green, 1928.
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Field, N. League of Nations and United Nations Monthly List of Selected Articles. Cumulative 1920–1970. New York: United Nations, 1973. Ghébali, Victor-Yves. Bibliographical Handbook on the League of Nations. United Nations Library Publications, 1980. ———. A Repertoire of League of Nations Serial Documents. Vols. 1–2. Geneva: United Nations Library Publications, 1973. League of Nations Documents 1919–1946. Micro-films. Woodbridge, Conn.: Research Publications Inc., 1973. Ottlik, G. Annuaire de la Société des Nations. 8 vols. Geneva: Les Editions de Genève, 1927–1938. Rohn, Peter H. World Treaty Index. I: Main Entry Section: League of Nations Treaty Series. Santa Barbara, Calif.: American Bibliographical Center, 1974. Simon, Werner. “The Opening of the League of Nations Archives.” In The League of Nations 1920–1946: Organization and Accomplishments: A Retrospective of the First Organization for the Establishment of World Peace. Geneva: United Nations Library, 1996. Stevens, Robert David, and Helen Stevens. Reader in Documents of International Organizations. Washington, D.C.: Microcard Editions Books, 1973. Treaty Series of the League of Nations: Publication of Treaties and International Engagements Registered with the Secretariat of the League. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1970. United Nations. Guide to the Archives of the League of Nations: 1919–1946. New York: United Nations, 1999.
BACKGROUND Allerfeldt, Kristofer. “Wilsonian Pragmatism? Woodrow Wilson, Japanese Immigration, and the Paris Peace Conference.” Diplomacy and Statecraft 15 (September 2004): 545–73. Ambrosius, Lloyd E. Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition: The Treaty Fight in Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Archibugi, Daniele. “Models of International Organization in Perpetual Peace Projects.” Review of International Studies 4 (1992): 295–317. Armstrong, David. From Versailles to Maastricht: International Organisation in the Twentieth Century. Basingstoke, U.K.: Macmillan, 1996. Bailey, A. Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal. New York: Macmillan, 1945. Baker, Ray Stannard. Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement. 3 vols. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1922. Bartlett, Ruth F. The League to Enforce Peace. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1941.
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Best, Geoffrey. “Peace Conferences and the Century of Total War: The 1899 Hague Conference and What Came After.” International Affairs 75, no. 3 (1999): 619–34. Boemeke, Manfred, ed. The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after 75 Years. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Bonzal, Stephen. Suitors and Supplicants: The Little Nations at Versailles. New York: Kennicat Press, 1946. Boothe, Leon. “Lord Grey, the United States and Political Efforts for a League of Nations, 1914–1920.” Maryland Historical Magazine 65 (1970): 36–54. Clements, Kendrick A. Woodrow Wilson. London: CQ Press, 2003. Conyne, G. R. Woodrow Wilson: British Perspectives, 1912–21. London: Macmillan, 1992. Cooper, John Milton, Jr. Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Curry, George. “Woodrow Wilson, Jan Smuts, and the Versailles Settlement.” American Historical Review 66 (1961): 968–86. Curry, Roy Watson. Woodrow Wilson and Far Eastern Policy, 1913–1921. New York: Bookman, 1968. Dockrill, Michael, and John Fisher, eds. The Paris Peace Conference, 1919: Peace without Victory. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Dubin, Martin David. “The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Advocacy of a League of Nations, 1914–1918.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge 123, no. 6 (1979): 344–68. Elcock, Howard James. Portrait of a Decision: The Council of Four and the Treaty of Versailles. London: Eyre Methuen, 1972. Fleming, Denna Frank. The United States and the League of Nations, 1918–1920. New York: Russell and Russell, 1968. Garcia, Italo. L’Italia e le Origini della Societá delle Nazione [Italy and the Origins of the League of Nations]. Rome: Bonacci Editore, 1995. Gelfand, Lawrence, ed. The Inquiry: American Preparation for Peace, 1917–1919. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963. Hankey, Maurice. The Supreme Control at the Paris Peace Conference 1919: A Commentary. London: Allen and Unwin, 1963. Knock, Thomas. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Langhorne, Richard. “Establishing International Organisation: The Concert and the League.” Diplomacy and Statecraft 1 (1990): 1–18. Lauren, Paul Gordon. “Human Rights in History: Diplomacy and Racial Equality at the Paris Peace Conference.” Diplomatic History 2 (1978): 257–78. Levin, Gordon N., Jr. Woodrow Wilson and World Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.
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Link, Arthur, ed. The Deliberations of the Council of Four (March 24–June 28, 1919): Notes of the Official Interpreter, Paul Mantoux. 2 vols. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992. ———. Wilson: Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 1916–1917. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965. Macmillan, Margaret. Peacemakers: The Paris Conference of 1919 and Its Attempts to End War. London: John Murray, 2001. Marburg, Theodore. Development of the League of Nations Idea: Documents and Correspondence of Theodore Marburg. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1932. Mayer, Arno J. Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at Versailles, 1918–1919. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1967. McKillen, Elizabeth. “The Unending Debate over Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations.” Diplomatic History 27, no. 5 (2003): 711–16. Miller, David Hunter. The Drafting of the Covenant. 2 vols. New York: Putnam, 1928. Moorhouse, Roger. “‘The Sore that Would Never Heal’: The Genesis of the Polish Corridor.” Diplomacy and Statecraft 16 (September 2005): 603–613. Murray, G. The League of Nations Movement: Some Recollections of the Early Days. London: David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies, 1955. Pollock, Carolee. “Feminist Pacifist Ideas, the International Congress of Women and the Foundation of the League of Nations.” In The League of Nations 1920–1946: Organization and Accomplishments: A Retrospective of the First Organization for the Establishment of World Peace. Geneva: United Nations Library, 1996. Schwabe, Klaus. Woodrow Wilson, Revolutionary Germany, and Peacemaking: Missionary Diplomacy and the Realities of Power. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Sharp, Alan. The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking in Paris. London: Macmillan, 1991. Shehadi, Kamal Sameer. Great Powers, International Institutions, and the Creation of National States: A Comparative Study of the Management of Self-Determination Conflicts by the Concert of Europe, the League of Nations and the United Nations. New York: Columbia University, 1995. Smuts, Jan C. The League of Nations: A Practical Suggestion. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1918. Steiner, Zara. “The Treaty of Versailles Revisited.” In The Paris Peace Conference, 1919: Peace without Victory, ed. Michael Dockrill and John Fisher. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Temperley, H. W. W., ed. A History of the Peace Conference of Paris. Vols. 1–6. London: Frowde, 1920–1924. Uhlig, Ralph. “The Interparliamentary Union: Forerunner of the League of Nations?” In The League of Nations 1920–1946: Organization and Accomplishments: A
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Retrospective of the First Organization for the Establishment of World Peace. Geneva: United Nations Library, 1996. Walworth, A. Wilson and His Peacemakers: American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. New York: Norton, 1986. Watt, David. “The Foundation of the Round Table: Idealism, Confusion, Construction.” Round Table: The Commonwealth Quarterly 70 (1970): 425–33. Wilson, Woodrow. Woodrow Wilson’s Case for the League of Nations. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1969. Winkler, Henry R. The League of Nations Movement in Great Britain, 1914–1919. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1952. Yearwood, Peter. “ ‘Real Securities against New Wars’: Official British Thinking and the Origins of the League of Nations, 1914–19.” Diplomacy and Statecraft 9, no. 3 (November 1998): 83–109.
GENERAL WORKS Avenol, Joseph. “The Future of the League of Nations.” International Affairs 13 (March/April 1934): 143–63. Barbulescu, Petre. “La Société des Nations: Une Grande Expérience pour l’Humanité [The League of Nations: A Great Experience for Humanity].” Revue Roumaine d’Etudes Internationales [Romania] 15, no. 1 (1981): 55–67. Bendiner, Elmer. A Time for Angels: The Tragicomic History of the League of Nations. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1975. Bhuinya, Niranjan. International Organisations: A Critical Study of the League of Nations, United Nations and International Court of Justice. New Delhi: Associated Publishing House, 1970. Birn, D. S. The League of Nations Union, 1918–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Bull, Hedley. The Expansion of International Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press, l984. Cecil of Chelwood, Edgar A. R. A Great Experiment. New York: Oxford University Press, 1941. David, Paul. L’Esprit de Genève: Histoire de la Société des Nations: Vingt Ans d’Efforts pour la Paix [The Spirit of Geneva: History of the League of Nations: Twenty Years of Efforts for Peace]. Geneva: Slatkine, 1998. Davis, Harriet Eager, ed. Pioneers in World Order: An American Appraisal of the League of Nations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1944. Dubin, Martin David. “Transgovernmental Processes in the League of Nations.” International Organization 37, no. 3 (1983): 469–93. Dunbabin, J. P. D. “The League of Nations’ Place in the International System.”History 78 (October 1993): 421–42. Egerton, George. “The League of Nations: An Outline History 1920–1946.” In The League of Nations 1920–1946: Organization and Accomplishments: A Retro-
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spective of the First Organization for the Establishment of World Peace. Geneva: United Nations Library, 1996. Fink, Carole. The Great Powers and the New International System, 1919–1923. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000. Gerbet, Pierre, and Victor-Yves Ghébali. Le Rêve d’un Ordre Mondial: De la SDN à l’ONU [The Dream of a World Order: From the League of Nations to the United Nations]. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1996. ———. Société des Nations et Organisation des Nations Unies [League of Nations and United Nations]. Paris: Richelieu, 1973. Ghébali, Victor-Yves. “The League of Nations and the Versailles International Order.” In The League of Nations 1920–1946: Organization and Accomplishments: A Retrospective of the First Organization for the Establishment of World Peace. Geneva: United Nations Library, 1996. Gibbons, Stephen Randolph. International Co-operation: The League of Nations and UNO. London: Longman, 1992. Gill, George. The League of Nations from 1929 to 1946: An illustrated History and Chronology of the Final Years of the League of Nations. Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery Publishing, 1996. Ginneken, A. H. M. van. “Multilaterale Diplomatie, Oud en nieuw [Multilateral Diplomacy, Old and New].” In Diplomatie: Raderwerk van de internationale politiek [Diplomacy: The Wheels of International Policy], ed. J. Melissen. Assen, the Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1999. ———. “Staatsraison en Volkenbond: Het Interbellum [Reason of State and League of Nations: The Interwar Period].” In Humanitaire Interventie en Soevereiniteit [Humanitarian Intervention and Sovereignty], ed. Duco Hellema. Amsterdam: Boom, 2004. Goldstein, Erik. Winning the Peace: British Diplomatic Strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Goodrich, L. M. “From League of Nations to United Nations.” International Organization: Politics and Process (1973): 3–21. Gupta, D. C. The League of Nations. Delhi: Vikas, 1974. Hanotaux, Gabriel. “La Société des Nations (1920–1924) [The League of Nations, 1920–1924].” Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique [France] 94, nos. 1–3 (1980): 111–229. Henig, Ruth Beatrice, ed. The League of Nations. New York: Harper and Row, 1973. ———. Versailles and After 1919–1933. London: Lancaster Pamphlets, 1995. James, Alan. “The United Nations’ Debt to the League of Nations.” In The League of Nations 1920–1946: Organization and Accomplishments: A Retrospective of the First Organization for the Establishment of World Peace. Geneva: United Nations Library, 1996. Jones, Dorothy V. Toward a Just World: The Critical Years in the Search for International Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
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Kennaway, Richard. The League of Nations and the U.N. Sydney: Hicks Smith, 1970. Kleine-Ahlbrandt, Laird. The Burden of Victory: France, Britain and the Enforcement of the Versailles Peace, 1919–1925. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1995. Knipping, Franz. Das System der Vereinte Nationen und seine Vorläufer. Part II: Vorläufer der Vereinte Nationen: 19. Jahrhundert und Völkerbundzeit [The System of the United Nations and Its Predecessors: Nineteenth Century and League of Nations]. Bern: Stämpfli, 1996. Knock, Thomas J. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Kreis, Georg. “Entre deux Etappes de la Diplomatie Multilatérale Permanente: Réflexions et Jugements sur la Société des Nations au Moment de la Fondation des Nations Unies [Between Two Stages of Permanent Multilateral Diplomacy: Reflections and Judgments on the League of Nations at the time of the Establishment of the United Nations].” Relations Internationales 39 (1984): 373–87. The League of Nations 1920–1946: Organization and Accomplishments: A Retrospective of the First International Organization for the Establishment of World Peace. New York: United Nations Library, 1996. Lentin, Antony. “ ‘Une aberration explicable’? Clemenceau and the Abortive Anglo–French Guarantee Treaty of 1919.” Diplomacy and Statecraft 8 (1997): 31–49. ———. Lloyd George and the Lost Peace: From Versailles to Hitler. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave, 2001. ———. Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and the Guilt of Germany: An Essay in the Pre-History of Appeasement. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1994. Lynch, Allen. “Woodrow Wilson and the Principle of National Self-determination: A Reconsideration.” Review of International Studies 28 (April 2002): 419–36. Magliveras, Konstantin. “The Withdrawal from the League of Nations Revisited.” Dickinson Journal of International Law 10, no. 1 (1991): 25–71. Marbeau, Michel. La Société des Nations [The League of Nations]. Paris: PUF, 2001. Mazower, Mark. Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century. London: Allen Lane, 1998. Northedge, F. S. The League of Nations, Its Life and Times 1920–1946. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986. Ostrower, Gary B. The League of Nations: From 1919 to 1929. Garden City Park, N.Y.: Avery Publishing, 1996. Raffo, Peter. The League of Nations. London: Historical Association, 1974. Rappard, W. E. International Relations as Viewed from Geneva. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1925. ———. The Quest for Peace since the World War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940.
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Ridgley, Gillian. “The Covenant of the League of Nations.” British Library Journal 23 (1997) 41–46. Scott, George. The Rise and Fall of the League of Nations. London: Hutchinson, 1973. Sierpowski, Stanislaw. “Le Mouvement de Soutien à la Société des Nations dans les Années 1919–1926 [The Movement to Support the League of Nations, 1919–1926].” Acta Poloniae Historica [Poland] 48 (1983): 165–93. Smith, M. “The League of Nations and International Politics.” British Journal of International Studies 2, no. 3 (1976): 311–23. Toynbee, A. J. Survey of International Affairs. London: Oxford University Press, 1920–1935. Veryha, Wasyl. “The League of Nations: Its Problems and Causes of Failure.” Ukrainian Quarterly 47, no. 3 (1991): 286–304. Walters, F. P. A History of the League of Nations. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1952. Weber, Hermann. Vom Völkerbund zu den Vereinten Nationen [From League of Nations to United Nations]. Bonn: Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen, 1987. World Organization: A Balance Sheet of the First Great Experiment. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Public Affairs, 1942.
STRUCTURE OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS Barros, James. Betrayal from Within: Joseph Avenol, Secretary-General of the League of Nations 1933–40. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. ———. Office without Power: Secretary-General Sir Eric Drummond 1919–1933. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Bentwich, Norman. From Geneva to San Francisco: An Account of the International Organisation of the New Order. London: Gollancz, 1946. Burton, Margaret E. The Assembly of the League of Nations. New York: Fertig, 1974. Carlton, D. “Great Britain and the League Council Crisis of 1926.” Historical Journal 11 (1968): 354–64. Chavez-Pirson, Maria-Elena. The League of Nations and Private International Organizations. Geneva: Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, 1991. Codding, G. A. “The Relationship of the League and the UN with the Independent Agencies.” Annuaire d’Etudes Internationales 1 (1970): 65–87. Dungen, Peter van den. “Sir Eric Drummond: The First International Civil Servant.” In The League of Nations 1920–1946: Organization and Accomplishments: A Retrospective of the First Organization for the Establishment of World Peace. Geneva: United Nations Library, 1996.
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Fosdick, R. B. The League and the United Nations after Fifty Years: The Six Secretaries-General. Newtown, Conn., 1972. Gageby, Douglas. The Last Secretary General: Sean Lester and the League of Nations. Dublin: Town House, 1999. Ghébali, Victor-Yves. La Société des Nations et la Réforme Bruce, 1939–1940 [The League of Nations and the Bruce Reform, 1939–1940]. Geneva: Centre Européen de la Dotation Carnegie pour la Paix Internationale, 1970. Groenen, Jan Henry. The Development of the Political Role of the Secretary-General of the League of Nations and the United Nations, 1919–1953: A Dissertation. N.p., 1973. Heideking, Jürgen. “Oberster Rat—Botschaftskonferenz—Völkerbund: Drei Formen Multilateraler Diplomatie nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg [Supreme Council, Conference of Ambassadors, League of Nations: Three Forms of Multilateral Diplomacy Following World War I].” Historische Zeitschrift [Germany] 231, no. 3 (1980): 589–630. Hill, Martin. The Economic and Financial Organization of the League of Nations: A Survey of Twenty-Five Years’ Experience. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1972. ———. Immunities and Privileges of International Officials: The Experience of the League of Nations. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1972. Jordan, Robert S. “The Influence of the British Secretariat Tradition on the Formation of the League of Nations.” In International Administration, ed. Robert Jordan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. Kinnear, Mary. Woman of the World: Mary McGeachy and International Cooperation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Koeverden Brouwer, Gertjan van. Money and Power: An Economic Game: Theoretical Analysis of the Budget, Its Allocation and the Distribution of Power between the Member States for the United Nations (1946–1995) and the League of Nations (1920–1937). Maastricht, 1996. Langrod, G. The International Civil Service: Its Origins, Nature, Evaluation. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1963. Madariaga, Salvador de. Morning without Noon: Memoirs. Westmead, U.K.: Saxon House, 1974. Phelan, Edward J. “The New International Civil Service.” Foreign Affairs 11 (1933): 307–324. Pink, Gerhard. The Conference of Ambassadors: Paris 1920–1931. Geneva: Geneva Research Center, 1942. Potter, Pitman Benjamin. Permanent Delegations to the League of Nations. Geneva: League of Nations Association of the United States, 1930. Prévost, Marcel Henri. Les Commissions de l’Assemblée de la Société des Nations: Commentaire du règlement intérieur, d’après la jurisprudence de l’Assemblée [The Commissions of the Assembly of the League of Nations: Commentary on Rules of Procedure According to the Jurisprudence of the Assembly]. Paris: Pedone, 1936.
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PEACE AND SECURITY Ahmann, R., and A. M. Birke, eds. The Quest for Stability: Problems of West European Security. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Ardalan, Farajollah. The League of Nations and Disarmament: National Policies and Concepts of Sovereignty, Security and Peace 1919–1934. Akron, Ohio: University of Akron, 1980. Beestermöller, Gerhardt. Die Völkerbundsidee: Leistungsfähigkeit und Grenzen der Kriegsächtung durch Staatensolidarität [The League of Nations Idea: Power and Limits of the Outlawry of War through State Solidarity]. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1995. Bussey, Gertrude, and Margaret Tims. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom 1915–1965: A Record of Fifty Years’ Work. London: Allen and Unwin, 1965. Davies, Thomas Richard. The Possibilities of Transnationalism: The International Federation of League of Nations Societies and the International Peace Campaign, 1919–1939. Oxford: University of Oxford, 2002. Dubin, Martin David. “Great Britain and the Anti-Terrorist Conventions of 1937.” Terrorism and Political Violence 5, no. 1 (1993): 1–29. ———. International Terrorism: Two League of Nations Conventions, 1934–1937. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Microform, 1991.
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POLITICAL ISSUES Ahooja-Patel, Krishna. The Greco–Bulgarian Dispute before the League of Nations, 1925–1927: An Experiment in Peaceful Settlement. Geneva: Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales, 1974. Alexander, Manfred. “Deutschland, Italien und die Tschechoslowakei in der Zwischenkriegszeit [Germany, Italy and Czechoslovakia during the Interwar Years].” Bohemia [Germany] 38, no. 1 (1997): 56–65. Baer, George Webster. Test Case: Italy, Ethiopia and the League of Nations. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1976. ———. “Sanctions and Security: The League of Nations and the Italian-Ethiopian War, 1935–1936.” International Organization 27 (1973): 165–79. Barros, James. The Aaland Islands Question: Its Settlement by the League of Nations. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968. ———. Britain, Greece and the Politics of Sanctions: Ethiopia, 1935–1936. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities, 1983. ———. The Corfu Incident of 1923: Mussolini and the League of Nations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965. ———. The League of Nations and the Great Powers: The Greek–Bulgarian Incident, 1925. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970. Beck, Peter J. “The League of Nations and the Great Powers, 1936–1940.” World Affairs 157, no. 4 (1995): 175–90. ———. “Looking to Geneva for Protection against the Great Powers: The Example of Ethiopia in 1925–1926.” Genève-Afrique 19, no. 1 (1981): 81–102. ———. “Searching for Peace in Munich, Not Geneva: The British Government, the League of Nations, and the Sudetenland Question.” Diplomacy and Statecraft 10, nos. 2–3 (1999): 236–57.
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ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ISSUES Berger, Peter. “The League of Nations and Interwar Austria: Critical Assessment of a Partnership in Economic Reconstruction.” Contemporary Austrian Studies 11 (2003): 73–92. Bosmans, Jacques. “Innen- und Aussenpolitische Probleme bei der Aufhebung der Völkerbundkontrolle in Österreich 1924–1926. [Domestic and Foreign Policy
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MANDATES AND SLAVERY Anghie, Antony. “Colonialism and the Birth of International Institutions: Sovereignty, Economy, and the Mandate System of the League of Nations.” New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 34, no 3 (2002): 513–33. Anker, P. The Mandates System: Origin, Principles, Application. Geneva: League of Nations, 1945. Asbeck, F. M. van. “International Law and Colonial Administration.” Transactions of the Grotius Society 39 (1953): 530–37. Atchebro, Dogbo Daniel. La Société des Nations et la Lutte contre l’Esclavage: 1922–1938 [The League of Nations and the Struggle against Slavery, 1922–1938]. Geneva: Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales, 1990.
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Sakheim, Dov S. “The British Reaction to Zionism: 1895 to the 1990s.” Round Table 350 (April 1999): 321–33. Seiler, John. “South Africa in Namibia: Persistence, Misperception, and Ultimate Failure.” Journal of Modern African Studies [Great Britain] 20, no. 4 (1982): 689–712. Tayeb, Khattou. La Société des Nations et les Mandats français au Levant (1919–1946) [The League of Nations and the French Mandates in the Near East (1919–1946)]. Montpellier, France: Université Paul Valery Montpellier III, 2002. United States Department of State, Division of Near Eastern Affairs. The Palestine Mandate: Collected United States Documents Relating to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, to the Possible Independence of Palestine and to the Need for the Creation of a Separate Jewish State. Salisbury, N.C.: Documentary Publications, 1977. Wasserstein, Bernard. “Clipping the Claws of the Colonisers: Aran Officials in the Government of Palestine, 1917–1948.” Middle Eastern Studies 13 (May 1977): 171–94. Weber, Charles. International Mandate: British Colonialism and Germany. Leiden: Brill, 1992. Wright, Quincy. Mandates under the League of Nations. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968.
MINORITIES AND REFUGEES Adam, Magda. “The Little Entente and the Issue of the Hungarian Minorities.” Etudes Historiques Hongroises [Hungary] 2 (1990): 321–38. Azcárate, Pablo de. The League of Nations and National Minorities: An Experiment. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1972. Babej, Peter. Weimar Revisionism and the League Minorities System: An Analysis of the Interplay between National Objectives and International Institutions. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University, 1994. Blanke, Richard. “The German Minority in Interwar Poland and German Foreign Policy—Some Reconsiderations.” Journal of Contemporary History [Great Britain] 25, no. 1 (1990): 87–102. Chaszar, Edward. “The Problem of National Minorities before and after the Paris Peace Treaties.” Nationalities Papers 9, no. 2 (1981): 195–206. Corsini, Umberto, and Davide Zaffi, eds. Le Minoranze tra le Due Guerre [Minorities between the Wars]. Bologna: L’Istituto Trentino di Cultura, 1994. Fink, Carole. “Defender of Minorities: Germany in the League of Nations, 1926–1933.”Central European History 5, no. 4 (December 1972): 330–57. ———. “The League of Nations and the Minorities Question.” World Affairs 157 (Spring 1995): 197–205. ———. “Minority Rights as an International Question.” Contemporary European History 9 (2000): 385–400.
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Whitehouse, J. Howard, ed. Nansen: A Book of Homage. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1933. Yacoub, Joseph. “Les Assyro-Chaldéens: Une Minorité en voie d’Emergence? [The Assyro-Chaldeans: A Minority on the Way of Emergence?].” Etudes Internationales [Canada] 21, no. 2 (1990): 341–73. ———. “La Question Assyro-Chaldéenne, les Puissances Européennes et la Société des Nations [The Assyro-Chaldean Question, the European Powers, and the League of Nations].” Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains [France] 38 (1988): 103–20. Zarnowski, Janusz. “Le Système de Protection des Minorités et la Pologne [Poland and the System for the Protection of Minorities].” Acta Poloniae Historica [Poland] 52 (1985): 105–24. Zile, Zigurds L. “The Legal Framework of Minorities’ Policies in Latvia: Background, Constitution and the League of Nations.” Journal of Baltic Studies 11, no. 1 (1980): 3–24.
HEALTH AND DRUGS Balinska, Marta Aleksandra. For the Good of Humanity: Ludwik Rajchman, Medical Statesman. Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998. ———. Une vie pour l’humanitaire: Ludwik Rajchman (1881–1965). Paris: Découverte, 1995. Block, Alan A. “European Drug Traffic and Traffickers between the Wars: The Policy of Suppression and Its Consequences.” Journal of Social History 23, no. 2 (1989): 315–37. Borowy, Iris. “Counting Death and Disease: Classification of Death and Disease in the Interwar Years, 1919–1939.” Continuity and Change 18, no. 3 (2003): 457–81. Buell, R. The International Opium Conferences and Related Documents. London: World Peace Foundation, 1925. Burci, Gian Luca, and Claude-Henri Vignes. World Health Organization. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2004. Dimitrov, Todor. Louis-Ferdinand Céline (Docteur Destouches) à la Société des Nations (1924–1927): Documents [Céline at the League of Nations (1924–1927)]. Geneva: Foyer Européen de la Culture, 2001. Hell, Stefan. “Diplomatie gegen Opiumhohlen: Siam und die Bemühungen des Völkerbundes zur Internationalen Opiumkontrolle [Diplomacy versus Opium Dens: Thailand and the Efforts of the League of Nations to Control the Opium Trade].” Periplus 10 (2000): 154–75. McAllister, William B. Drug Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century: An International History. New York: Routledge, 2000. Renborg, B. A. International Drug Control: A Study of International Administration by and through the League of Nations. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1972.
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Saint-Martin, Jean-Philippe. “La Société des Nations et l’Education physique en Europe entre les deux Guerres Mondiales [The League of Nations and Physical Education in Interwar Europe].” Stadion [Germany] 23 (1997): 137–55. Weindling, Paul Julian. International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. ———. “Philanthropy and World Health: The Rockefeller Foundation and the League of Nations Health Organisation.” Minerva 35, no. 3 (1997): 269–82. Willoughby, Westel W. Opium as an International Problem: The Geneva Conferences. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, 1925.
LABOR Akingbade, Harrison Ola. “The Liberian Problem of Forced Labor 1926–1940.” Africa [Italy] 52, no. 2 (1997): 261–73. Alcock, Antony Evelyn. History of the International Labour Organisation. London: Macmillan, 1971. Buell, Raymond Leslie. “Forced Labour and the Mandates System.” Foreign Policy Association Information Service 5 (January 1930): 412–427. Fine, Martin. “Albert Thomas: A Reformer’s Vision of Modernization, 1914–1932.” Journal of Contemporary History 12 (1977): 545–564. Ghébali, Victor-Yves. The International Labour Organisation: A Case Study on the Evolution of U.N. Specialized Agencies. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1989. International Labour Office. The I. L.O. Year-Book. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1931– . International Labour Office. The International Labour Organisation: The First Decade. London: Allen & Unwin, 1931. International Labour Office. Monthly Summary of the International Labour Organisation. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1927–1938. International Labour Office. Subject Guide to Publications of the International Labour Office, 1919–1964. Geneva: International Labour Office, Central Library and Documentation Branch. 1967. International Labour Organisation. The Story of Fifty Years, 1919–1969. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1969. International Labour Organisation and League of Nations Union. Carrying Out the Labour Covenant. 2nd ed. London: League of Nations Union, 1928. Johnston, G. A. The International Labour Organisation: Its Work for Social and Economic Progress. London: Europa Publications, 1970. Kwabena Opare-Akurang, Parry. “Colonial Forced Labor Policies for Road-Building in Southern Ghana and International Anti-Forced Labor Pressures, 1900–1940.” African Economic History 28 (2000): 1–25. Landy, E. A. The Effectiveness of International Supervision: Thirty Years of ILO Experience. London: Stevens, 1966.
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Liang, Oliver.”Governing Globalization: Labour Economic Paradigms and International Labour Standards at the International Labour Organisation, 1919–1998.” Interactions: Regional Studies, Global Processes, and Historical Analysis. Library of Congress. http://www.historycooperative.org/proceedings/interactions/ liang.html Maupin, Francis. Le OIT, la Justice sociale et la Mondialisation [The ILO, Social Justice and Globalization]. Dordrecht (The Netherlands): Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2000. Murphy, Craig N. International Organization and Industrial Change. Global Governance since 1850. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994. Phelan, Edward Joseph, Manley Ottmer Hudson, and James Thomson Shotwell. The International Labour Organization. New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1935. ———. Yes, and Albert Thomas. London: Cresset Press, 1936. Rodriguez-Piñero, Luis. Between Policy and Law: The International Labour Organisation and the Emergence of the International Regime on Indigenous Peoples (1919–1989). Florence, Italy: European University Institute, Department of Law, 2003. Ruotsila, Markku. “ ‘The Great Charter for the Liberty of the Workingman’: Labour, Liberals and the Creation of the ILO.” Labour History Review [Great Britain] 67, no. 1 (2002): 29–47. Shotwell, James T. The Origins of the International Labour Organisation. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1934. Wilson, F. G. Labour in the League System. London: Milford, 1934.
LEGAL ISSUES Bruns, Victor. “La Cour permanente de Justice Internationale, son Organisation et sa Procédure [The Permanent Court of International Justice, Its Organization and Its Procedure].” Receuil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International de la Haye. Vol. 4. Paris: Sirey, 1937. Burgers, Jan Herman. “The Road to San Francisco: The Revival of the Human Rights Idea in the Twentieth Century.” Human Rights Quarterly 14, no. 4 (1992): 447–77. Coplin, W. “The Permanent Court of Justice, The International Court of Justice, the League of Nations and the United Nations: A Comparative Survey.” American Political Science Review 66 (June 1972): 529–55. Johnson, Robert David. “Article XI in the Debate on the United States’ Rejection of the League of Nations.” International History Review 15, no. 3 (1993): 502–24. Lloyd, Lorna. Peace through Law: Britain and the International Court in the 1920s. Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell, 1997.
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Mangoldt, Hans von. “Verrechtlichung?: Vom Haager System zum Völkerbund [Rule of Law?: From the System of the Hague to the League of Nations].” Friedens-Warte 69, nos. 1–2 (1993): 7–38. Oblas, Peter. “Naturalist Law and Japan’s Legitimization of Empire in Manchuria: Thomas Baty and Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” Diplomacy and Statecraft 15 (March 2004): 35–57. Pinto, M. C. W. “Structure, Process, Outcome: Thoughts on the ‘Essence’ of International Arbitration.” Leiden Journal of International Law 6 no. 2 (August 1993): 241–64. Przetacznik, Frank. “The Unlawfulness of War under Contemporary International Law.” Revue de Droit International, de Sciences Diplomatiques et Politiques 67, no. 3 (1989): 183–238. Rosenne, Shabtai, ed. The League of Nations Committee for the Progressive Codification of International Law (1925–1928). Vol. I: Minutes. Vol. II: Documents. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1972. ———. The League of Nations Conference for the Codification of International Law (1930). Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1975. Soons, A. H. A., ed. International Arbitration: Past and Prospects: A Symposium to Commemorate the Centenary of the Birth of Professor J. H. W. Verzijl (1888–1987). Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1990. Spiermann, Ole. “ ‘Who Attempts Too Much Does Nothing Well’: The 1920 Advisory Committee of Jurists and the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice.” British Yearbook of International Law 73 (2002): 187–260. Thirlway, Hugh W. A. “The Role of the International Court of Justice in the Development of International Law.” Annual Conference, African Society of International and Comparative Law (August 1995): 103–44. Verzijl, J. H. W. International Law in Historical Perspective. 12 vols. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969. Zimmern, A. The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 1918–1935. London: Macmillan, 1936.
MEMBER STATES The United States Bouchard, Carl. “Le ‘Plan Américain’ Shotwell–Bliss de 1924: Une Initiative méconnue pour le Renforcement de la Paix. [The Shotwell–Bliss ‘American Plan’ of 1924: A Little-Known Initiative to Reinforce Peace].” Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains [France] 51 (2001): 203–25. Cooper, John Milton, and Charles E. Neu, eds. The Wilson Era: Essays in Honor of Arthur S. Link. Arlington Heights, Ill.: H. Davidson, 1991.
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Deibel, Terry L. Struggle for Cooperation: The League of Nations Secretariat and Pro-League Internationalism in the United States, 1919–1924. Geneva: Graduate Institute of International Studies, 1970. Donnelly, J. B. “Prentiss Bailey Gilbert and the League of Nations: The Diplomacy of an Observer.” In U.S. Diplomats in Europe, 1919–1941, ed. Kenneth Paul Jones. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC Clio, 1981. Kuehl, Warren F. Keeping the Covenant: American Internationalists and the League of Nations, 1920–1939. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1997. Margulies, Herbert F. The Mild Reservationists and the League of Nations Controversy in the Senate. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989. Mugnaini, Marco. “Gli Stati Americani e la Societa delle Nazioni: Un Profilo Storico [The United States and the League of Nations: A Historical Outline].” Politico [Italy] 66, no. 3 (2001): 467–94. Ostrower, Gary B. Collective Insecurity: The United States and the League of Nations during the Early Thirties. Cranbury, N.J.: Bucknell University Press, 1979. Stone, Ralph A. The Irreconcilables: The Fight against the League of Nations. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970. ———, ed. Wilson and the League of Nations: Why America’s Rejection? Huntington, N.Y.: Krieger, 1978. Unterberger, Betty Miller. “The United States Public and the League of Nations.” In The League of Nations 1920–1946: Organization and Accomplishments: A Retrospective of the First Organization for the Establishment of World Peace. Geneva: United Nations Library, 1996.
France Adamthwaite, Anthony. Grandeur and Misery: France’s Bid for Power in Europe, 1914–1940. London: Arnold, 1995. Boyce, Robert, ed. French Foreign and Defence Policy, 1918–1940: The Decline and Fall of a Great Power. London: Routledge, 1998. Brzezinski, Andrzej Maciej. “De l’Histoire du Mouvement Français pour la Société des Nations dans les Années 1916–1919 [The History of the French Movement for the League of Nations, 1916–1919].” Polish Western Affairs 29, no. 2 (1988): 199–211. Davies, Thomas R. “France and the World Disarmament Conference of 1932–34.” Diplomacy and Statecraft 15 (December 2004): 765–81. Dülffer, Jost, and Christa Haas. “Léon Bourgeois and the Reaction in France to His Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1920.” Francia [Germany] 20, no. 3 (1993): 19–35. Hoggee, John Lewis, II. Arbitrage, Sécurité, Désarmement: French Security and the League of Nations, 1920–1925. New York: New York University Press, 1995. Kuzmanova, Antonina. “La France et la Politique de l’Italie Fasciste dans les Balkans la Première Année après l’Avènement de Mussolini au Pouvoir [France
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The Soviet Union Haigh, R. H., and D. H. Morris. Soviet Foreign Policy, the League of Nations and Europe, 1917–1939. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1986. Jacobson, J. When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Khodnev, Alexander S. “The Legacies of Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations in Russia.” World Affairs 158, no. 1 (1995): 18–25. O’ Connor, Timothy E. “G. V. Chicherin and the Soviet View of the League of Nations in the 1920s.” European Studies Journal 6, no. 1 (1989): 1–17. Plettenberg, Ingeborg. Die Sowjetunion im Völkerbund, 1934 bis 1939: Bündnispolitik zwischen Staaten unterschiedlicher Gesellschaftsordnung in der internationalen Organisation für Friedenssicherung: Ziele, Voraussetzungen, Möglichkeiten, Wirkungen [The Soviet Union at the League of Nations, 1934–1939: Alliance Politics between States of Different Societal Outlook in the International Organization for Peace: Goals, Prerequisites, Possibilities, Impact]. Köln, Germany: Pahl-Rugenstein Verlag, 1987. Steiner, Zara. “The Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and the Czechoslovak Crisis in 1938: New Material from the Soviet Archives.” Historical Journal 42, no. 3 (1999): 751–79.
Other Member States Andrews, E. M. “The Australian Government and the Manchurian Crisis, 1931–4.” Australian Outlook 35, no. 3 (1981): 307–16. Azcárate, Pablo de, ed. William Martin: Un Grand Journaliste à Genève [William Martin: A Great Journalist in Geneva]. Geneva: Centre Européen de la Dotation Carnegie pour la Paix Internationale, 1970. Bennett, Bruce. New Zealand’s Moral Foreign Policy, 1935–1939: The Promotion of Collective Security through the League of Nations. Wellington: New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1988. Bisceglia, Louis. “Anglo–American Exclusion of Mexico from the League of Nations.” San Jose Studies 7, no. 1 (1981): 88–102. Bosmans, Jacques. De Nederlander Mr. A. R. Zimmerman als Commissaris-Generaal van de Volkenbond in Oostenrijk, 1922–1926 [The Dutchman A. R. Zimmerman as Commissioner-General of the League of Nations in Austria, 1922–1926]. Nijmegen: Catholic University, 1973.
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About the Author
Anique H. M. van Ginneken, PhD, has since 1989 been an assistant professor at Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands, where she teaches the history of international relations. She also teaches French foreign policy at the Dutch research center Clingendael and the Netherlands Defense College. She studied the history of the twentieth century at the Radboud University in Nijmegen and wrote her dissertation on Volkenbondsvoogdij: Het toezicht van de Volkenbond op het bestuur in mandaatgebieden, 1919–1940 [The League of Nations as a Guardian: The League’s Supervising Machinery and the Administration of Mandated Territories, 1919–1940]. She has published several articles on the League of Nations and its mandates system. Examples are “F. M. Baron van Asbeck: The Permanent Mandates Commission,” in The Moulding of International Law: Ten Dutch Proponents; Volkenbond, VN en Internationaal Bestuur [The League of Nations, United Nations and International Government]; “Het Mandatensysteem van de Volkenbond: Een voorbeeld van collectieve interventie? [The Mandates System of the League of Nations. An example of Collective Intervention?]” in Interventies in de Internationale Politiek [Interventions in International Politics], eds. A.P. van Goudoever and J. Aalbers and “Multilaterale Diplomatie. Oud en nieuw [Multilateral Diplomacy. Old and New]” in Diplomatie. Raderwerk van de internationale politiek [Diplomacy. The Wheels of International Policy], ed. J. Melissen. In 2004, an article entitled “Staatsraison en Volkenbond. Het Interbellum [Reason of State and League of Nations. The Interwar Period]” appeared in Duco Hellema and Hilde Reiding, ed. Humanitaire Interventie en Soevereiniteit. De Geschiedenis van een tegenstelling [Humanitarian Intervention and Sovereignty. The History of an Antithesis].
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Secretary-General Eric Drummond
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Albert Thomas
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