Was the League of Nations doomed to failure from the start?
The league, initially set up to ensure and protect world peace, did not have an easy task. The league had many faults from the beginning and even if we bear in mind the successes, we can still see that the failures out weighed the successes tremendously.
The league succeeded in setting up commissions and committees.
- International Labour Organization was developed and worked to improve working conditions all over the world. They persuaded governments to set maximum working day and week, specify adequate minimum wages and introduce old age pensions, unemployment and sickness benefits.
- Refugee Organization - solved the problem of the thousands of prisoners of war marooned in Russia at the end of the war; about half a million were returned home. After 1933 valuable help was given to thousands fleeing from Nazi persecution in Germany.
- Health Organization - did good work in investigating the causes of epidemics and was particularly successful in combating typhus in Russia which endangered the rest of Europe.
- Mandates - supervised the government of the territories taken from Germany and Turkey according to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
