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- These general propositions—collective security, arbitration, economic and social cooperation, reduction of armaments, and open diplomacy—inspired in various degrees the plans drawn up during the war.
www.britannica.com/topic/League-of-NationsLeague of Nations | History, Definition & Purpose | Britannica
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The League of Nations was an international organization formed after World War I, which was meant to prevent future conflicts and encourage cooperation between countries. The idea for the League was primarily championed by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, who included it in his Fourteen Points, a peace proposal presented in 1918.
90 years ago the League of Nations convened for the first time hoping to settle disputes by diplomacy not war. Failure to prevent World War II led to its dissol...
- Ruth Henig
In this lesson, we will investigate the events which led up to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. We will explore the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and start to think about the failures of the League of Nations.
- Overview
- Origins of the League of Nations
The League of Nations was an organization for international cooperation. It was established on January 10, 1920, at the initiative of the victorious Allied powers at the end of World War I and was formally disbanded on April 19, 1946. Although ultimately it was unable to fulfill the hopes of its founders, its creation was an event of decisive importance in the history of international relations.
When was the League of Nations established?
The League of Nations was established on January 10, 1920.
Where was the League of Nations located?
Headquarters for the League of Nations were located in Geneva, Switzerland.
Does the League of Nations still exist?
The central, basic idea of the movement was that aggressive war is a crime not only against the immediate victim but against the whole human community. Accordingly it is the right and duty of all states to join in preventing it; if it is certain that they will so act, no aggression is likely to take place. Such affirmations might be found in the writings of philosophers or moralists but had never before emerged onto the plane of practical politics. Statesmen and lawyers alike held and acted on the view that there was no natural or supreme law by which the rights of sovereign states, including that of making war as and when they chose, could be judged or limited. Many of the attributes of the League of Nations were developed from existing institutions or from time-honoured proposals for the reform of previous diplomatic methods. However, the premise of collective security was, for practical purposes, a new concept engendered by the unprecedented pressures of World War I.
When the peace conference met, it was generally agreed that its task should include the establishment of a League of Nations capable of ensuring future peace. U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson insisted that this should be among the first questions to be dealt with by the conference. The work proceeded with far greater speed than that of territorial and military settlement, chiefly because the subject had been exhaustively studied during the war years. Unofficial societies in the United States, Great Britain, France, and some neutral countries had drawn up many plans and proposals, and in doing so they in turn had availed themselves of the efforts of earlier thinkers.
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Over many years lawyers had worked out plans for the settlement of disputes between states by legal means or, failing these, by third-party arbitration, and the Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907 had held long debates on these subjects. The results had been unimpressive; the 1907 conference tried in vain to set up an international court, and though many arbitration treaties were signed between individual states, they all contained reservations which precluded their application in more dangerous disputes. However, though the diplomatists thus kept the free hand as long as possible, the general principle of arbitration—which in popular language included juridical settlement and also settlement through mediation—had become widely accepted by public opinion and was embodied as a matter of course in the Covenant.
Another 19th-century development which had influenced the plan makers was the growth of international bureaus, such as the Universal Postal Union, the International Institute of Agriculture, and numerous others, set up to deal with particular fields of work in which international cooperation was plainly essential. They had no political function or influence, but within their very narrow limits they worked efficiently. It was concluded that wider fields of social and economic life, in which each passing year made international cooperation more and more necessary, might with advantage be entrusted to similar international administrative institutions. Such ideas were strengthened by the fact that, during the war, joint Allied commissions controlling trade, shipping, and procurement of raw materials had gradually developed into powerful and effective administrative bodies. Planners questioned whether these entities, admitting first the neutrals and later the enemy states into their councils, could become worldwide centres of cooperation in their respective fields.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Sep 22, 2010 · The League of Nations, established post-World War I, aimed at global peace and cooperation but failed to prevent World War II. Despite this, it taught valuable lessons on the need for inclusive participation, enforceable authority, and consideration of economic and political contexts in international governance.
In this lesson, we will examine the global situation which made the work of the League of Nations much more difficult in the 1930s, and go on to explore two examples of the failure of the League of Nations (Manchuria and Abyssinia) which paved the way to the Second World War.
The League of Nations was formed to prevent a repetition of the First World War, but within two decades this effort failed. Economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation (particularly in Germany) eventually contributed to World War II.
