The League had four main aims: to stop future conflicts through “collective security” (Article 10 of the Covenant) meaning that if a member country was attacked then the League would aid their fellow member, to improve people’s lives and jobs by encouraging co-operation in trade and by providing economic and social help, for disarmament as well as to enforce the Treaty of Versailles and encourage international co-operation.
The League quickly proved its value by settling the Swedish-Finnish dispute over the Aland Islands (1920-1921), guaranteeing the security of Albania (1921), settling the division of Upper (1922), and preventing the outbreak of war in the Balkans between Greece and Bulgaria (1925). It also rescued Austria from what could have potential been economic disaster by providing desperately needed financial aid. The League also had a number of social and humanitarian successes in the 1920s. The ILO (International Labour Organisation) a sub-committee of the League was so successful that the USA joined it (despite the strict isolationism they still followed). It worked to improve living conditions, pay and wages and managed to instigate safety regulations, sick pay, pensions, maternity leave, trade union rights as well as restrictions of child labour. Various other commissions such as the mandates commission, health commission, slavery commission and the refugee committee also had numerous successes and managed to address some serious world problems. It did pioneering work in surveys of health and worked to help stop epidemics such as measles, malaria, and leprosy. The Mandates commission under Lord Lugard helped colonies to reach independence. The League also managed to return a lot of refugees to their homeland and repatriated 400,000 Prisoners of War. Drugs traffic closed down and they attacked slave owners in Sierra Leone (managing to free 200,000 slaves) and Burma (now Myanmar). The Transit and Communication standardised passports and visas, and radio codes were also made common, with Mayday internationalised.
The League was also involved in several agreements in the 1920s, which supported their work. These included the Washington Naval Treaties (1921), Locarno Treaties (1925) and the Kellog-Briand Pact (1928). Overall, the League’s successes were simple and primarily involved border disputes as a result of the end of war treaties. This was simply repairing the aftermath of war and addressing social and humanitarian issues that all countries wished resolved. Therefore the League was able to carry out the work with relative ease. The successes met the following aim: to improve people’s lives and jobs. To some extent The League did increase international co-operation through the various treaties signed. Though I feel it was more to do with the foreign ministers (Austin Chamberlain, Briand and Stresemann) and the countries themselves through “power diplomacy” rather then the League. Though the League did settle some conflicts, it also made unpopular decisions (in the Upper Silesia conflict the German population were denied NSD). Perhaps the only reason the weaker countries did not argue with the League was because of their poor economic situations because of the war. No one really wanted to start fighting again and this did not really show that the League could keep peace rather that no could fight back. Though it can be argued that disarmament was also addressed with the Washington Naval Treaties it was only one small step towards the aim of multilateral disarmament and was in fact organised by the USA not the League of Nations, though they were present. All other chances for disarmament (e.g. 1923 – The Draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance and in 1924 – The Geneva Protocol) were rejected by Britain. The disarmament talks (which included the USSR and USA and therefore not the work of the League) were also unsuccessful, as France still felt insecure and would not disarm; this made Germany feel threatened.
Therefore it is clear that the League was unsuccessful in meeting three out of four of its aims. The successes the League did achieve required little power and authority and most nations were willing to co-operate. It was only when major nations began to conflict and an army was needed (which the League did not have- it relied on the military of the major powers: Britain and France, which never actually fought for the League) that the greater weaknesses of the League were revealed. The League’s lack of political influence soon made itself felt. Poland refused to abide by the League’s decision in the dispute, and the League was forced to stand by powerlessly in the face of the French occupation of the Ruhr (1923) and Italy’s bombing of the Greek island of Corfu during the Corfu incident (1923). In this case the League had to refer the incident to the major powers involved, as it could not solve it, which resulted in a somewhat unfair outcome. This does not demonstrate success in promoting peace and international security.
Most of these failures were due to the League having no power to enforce its decisions and no military or police force to command. The only weapons the League had were moral condemnation (which most countries ignored) and sanctions (which countries found their way around). The League could only use force in a dispute in which all of the members agreed. However it can also be considered that the major powers had different aims for the post-war world. The USA wanted isolation from European affairs while France wanted security from German attack. She used encirclement (surrounding Germany with countries that were friendlier to France e.g. Yugoslavia, Rumania, Poland and Czechoslovakia (the little Entente) and re-armed and strengthened her Rhineland border. Britain wanted to recover her wealth and power via trade. Because of this the leading members considered their own interests first. Perhaps this lead to insufficient time being spent on the League of Nations, which did in fact only meet once a year and took an extraordinary amount of time to come to decisions (though this was partly due to the “cumbersome” way it was organised). The major powers did not want to sort out other countries’ problems, when they had their own at home. This was recognised and as the League could not solve major conflicts, other countries began to grow and become more powerful and dictators emerged. (e.g. Mussolini and Hitler in the early 20s).
In conclusion, it is clear that the League of Nations had both successes and failures. How successful it was depends on how you measure success. It was successful when all countries were willing to co-operate and obey the covenant. This led to the solution of many issues and smaller conflicts between less powerful countries. Though the League did not meet all its aims, even if it prevented one conflict it can be considered successful as that could have triggered a similar sequence of events to those that caused World War 1. We must also consider the economic situation Europe and the rest of the world was in at the time, and all the problems the League had stacked against it. After the war, Europe and the rest of the world suffered huge economic turmoil. None of the countries in the League were willing to use their finances to help others when they had their own problems. They were also unwilling to use their armies as they had just finished fighting a world war. The tension caused by the Treaty of Versailles and the other end of war treaties, and the exclusion of the defeated powers, meant that the League was not respected by all. There was also tension between the Leagues’ major powers as Britain and France did not trust each other and often disagreed, and Italy and Japan were upset about the Treaty of Versailles. The League was possibly weak from the start, especially without America, and its organisational system meant that it took too long for major decisions to be made. As a result, other countries saw that the League was weak and had no power and influence. The major powers saw that if they wanted something, the Leagues “weapons” of sanctions were ineffective and its condemnation insufficient, particularly without the USA. It was also pointless to use violence to stop violence. It is therefore not surprising; that the league did have some failures and that dictators were able to come to power. It was however; the first international organisation of any sort attempted and was bound to have problems at the start. Though the League did eventually disband it did lead to the formation and growth of other formal international organizations such as the Red Cross, Hague Conferences and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. These in turn led to significant improvements in international co-operation, and the eventual formation of the United Nations (in June of 1945) based on the League, still in existence today.
