The League of Nations - Although the League of Nations had several successes, it is considered to be a complete failure because it was a kind of an organization which was created for the benefits of its leader nations, it enforced the provisions of the Tr

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The European nations as well as many other countries around the world had fought in a war that the human history has never seen before. This war caused millions of people to die and was known as the World War One (WWI), or the Great War. The European participants of the war experienced massive economic and social destruction since it was centered on Europe. In the wake of WWI Woodrow Wilson, the president of the United States at that time, outlined his views on peacekeeping with his famous speech called, the “Fourteen Points.” The last point of this speech was the creation of an international body, named the League of Nations (LoN). Its purposes were to maintain peace worldwide and, cooperating with each other (member countries), to improve the economic and social conditions of countries that were damaged after the WWI. Many countries joined the League seeking for their benefits. During its time the League experienced both successes and failures. The League had a small number of minor successes preventing war. Although the League of Nations had several successes, it is considered to be a complete failure because it was a kind of an organization which was created for the benefits of its leader nations, it enforced the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles which was hated by many countries, and ineffectiveness of the League’s sanctions led to its further weakening.

The League of Nations was the older equivalent of today’s United Nations. The League was established right after the Paris Peace Conference. It was the idea of the idealistic leader of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, and his initial aim was to prevent future wars and secure the peace in Europe and in the world. This notion was new to Europeans as they believed fighting was indispensable outgrowth of international relations. The League of Nations would include all independent states in which even the smallest would have a voice. This statement meant that all the countries would be equal in the League. Moreover, all the decisions would be taken with member countries’ vote. The idea of creating a global organization, which would include all the independent states around the world, was seen the most unachievable desire to come true. As Woodrow Wilson points out in his speech on the League of Nations, “For the first time in history the counsels of mankind are to be drawn together and concerted for the purpose of defending the rights and improving the conditions of working people - men, women, and children - all over the world.” The idea sounded great to people as it involved defending the rights of the people. A problem, however, was arising… The U.S. Senate believed the WWI was totally European countries’ fault, and they should not get involved in their affairs. For them, a further involvement in European affairs meant further loss of money and army. In spite of the fact that Wilson introduced the idea, the United States was not allowed to join the League due to the U.S. Senate’s refusal. The absence of a super power, such as the United States, led the League of Nations to a failure step by step. As a result, France and Great Britain became the leaders of the League. They were not competent enough to manage the League and they had other priorities. The leaders determined the outcomes of decisions made by the League as a whole. These leading nations, however, based their decisions on their self-interests. This attitude objected the idea of collective security which is defined as, “a group of nations agree not to attack each other and to defend each other against an attack from one of the others.” The League’s reaction to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (nowadays Ethiopia) in 1935-1936 is a perfect example of such objection to the idea of collective security. Although France and Britain had to protect the weaker and smaller country, Abyssinia against Italy; the leaders worked behind the League’s back stealthily agreed to give two thirds of Abyssinia. The decision on Abyssinia is a proof that the French and British use the smaller and weaker countries in the League to earn benefit and prestige for themselves.

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The Treaty of Versailles was signed with Germany after World War One. The treaty was the harshest peace treaty of the war, forcing Germany to accept the guilt for the war and the Treaty restricted the German army to 100,000 troops with no submarines or airplanes. The Germans were outraged due to the severe provisions of the treaty. Furthermore, Germany was not invited to the peace conference. Isolating Germany at the Paris Peace Conference foreshadowed to the isolation of Germany in the League of Nations. Germany, initially, was excluded from being a member of the international body and, as a punishment with respect to the Treaty of Versailles; therefore, she was not invited to the League. Just as Germany, Russia, also known as USSR, was also excluded from the League of Nations. There was a different reason lying behind Russia’s exclusion and that was due to the adoption of communism in Russia. Not considering the two potentially powerful countries of Europe as part of the League ended up in tension rather than reconciliation. The two found the solution in acting together on their interests. They signed the Treaty of Rapallo which would support their economic recovery after WWI. With the aid of the treaty Germany began training her soldiers in the Russian territory, thus violating disarmament provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. The League was supposed to enforce the reduction of the army sizes of countries and that was another common point between the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles. Violating this common point Germany showed his anger towards the leaders of the League and proved how ineffective their policy was. Germany and Russia were regaining their strength with the agreement which meant a threat to the newly formed small states. Afterwards, USSR and Germany became part of the League. They, however, quitted from the League because of the disagreement about military sizes. Albeit the League supported the disarmament of nations, there were several conflicts and invasions happening. However, there should not have been any conflicts since the purpose of disarmament was to decrease chance of a war. As a result, the exclusion of Russia and Germany brought a weakness to the League, which would end up in taking the League’s last breath. Both the failure of disarmament policy and isolating the potential European major powers demonstrated that the League of Nations was not on a right track.

The League of Nations had three things to do when there was a hassle. These three things were known as the League’s sanctions. The League had and assembly to decide, peacefully, what to do when there was a dispute. The guilty nation was introduced verbal sanctions – warning an aggressor nation that she would need to leave another nation’s territory or face the consequences. If these offender countries disregard the League’s decision, the League could introduce economic sanctions. The aim of economic sanctions is to punish the guilty nation economically, so that the people would revolt against their government and make the government accept the decision of the League. The League telling the member countries not to have any kind of trade relations with the aggressor country was also possible since it bore the intention of pushing the aggressor towards bankruptcy. If economic sanctions did not work, the last thing the League could do was introducing physical sanctions – in order to make the aggressor accept its decision to use military force. At that point, however, emerged a couple of complications. First, when the League put verbal sanctions into practice the aggressor would not give up. Second, when the League introduced economic sanctions not every country would agree with the decision since all countries sought benefits for themselves. Third, the League lacked military to use against any military dispute, but that was its physical sanctions. All these complications contributed to the further weakening of the League. The sanctions’ goal was to avert disputes, but they were so ineffective that they could not accomplish their purpose. For example, physical sanctions are the last step for avoiding a dispute but it was impossible to do so. The League possessed no military, except for the British and French militaries but they were damaged due to the World War One, and thus it could not take actions when there was a controversy. The dictators of Germany and USSR were aware of the League’s weakness and it was the primary reason for them not to compromise on certain issues, such as the German invasion of Poland in 1938 and the Russian invasion of Finland in 1937. It was apparent that the League of Nations was ineffective in keeping peace and influencing on countries. Incapability of the League brought itself collapse and was instrumental to the beginning of World War Two.

The World War One played the biggest role for the establishment of the League of Nations as the League was founded to avoid a future global war. Every single person hoped the creation of an international body could bring peace to Europe and to the world. In the very beginning of its life, the League was wounded when the Republican senate of the US refused to join the League. Apart from establishing peace around the world, the League also hoped to achieve disarmament and cooperation, especially in terms of economy and social life. The League was successful in achieving its goals, but only in the beginning. This success did not last long. The successes of the League were overshadowed by its weaknesses. The weaknesses covered all strong points of the League as if they were not achieved at all. Several examples of its success were solving the conflicts between following countries: Bulgaria and Greece in 1925, Iraq and Turkey from 1925 to 1926, and Poland and Lithuania in 1927. Moreover, the League attained successes in social improvements, such as the problems of refugees and famine relief; and it also controlled drug areas. On the other hand, the weaknesses of the League were very crucial. The absence of the U.S. had negative impacts on the League as the British and the French were not ready to take care of all member countries. Instead of seeking benefits for all the states, France and Britain sought benefits only for themselves which undermined the strength of the League. A great deal of countries thought the Treaty of Versailles was unfair and harsh, still France and Britain were, initially, enforcing the provisions of the treaty. They could not foresee the consequences of their action. If only they knew another global war was coming because of them… Another major failure of the League was its sanctions. They had absolutely no sense. Many people believe, without hesitation, that without sanctions the League would have survived more. Once again the major European powers, France and Britain, proved that their series of mistakes, under the title of “keeping peace;” led to bigger troubles, conflicts, and eventually a future global war. The League of Nations pushes people think that if it had included USA, Germany, and USSR the history would have been written differently. At least, the failure of the League had taught the powerful countries a very important lesson because the United Nations, a new version of LoN which was established after the World War Two, still exists nowadays.

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The League of Nations - Although the League of Nations had several successes, it is considered to be a complete failure because it was a kind of an organization which was created for the benefits of its leader nations, it enforced the provisions of the Tr

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