The refusal to join the League of Nations by the USA was a catastrophic blow to the fledgling organisation. The USA was one of the strongest countries to emerge from the war, especially in terms of ‘military muscle’ and financial support. However it was for these reasons precisely that the USA continued to pursue an isolationist policy; some of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge’s objections to the League of Nations were outlined in his manifesto from 1920; that ‘the United States shall not be obligated to contribute to any expenses of the League of Nations’ and also show the USA’s rejection of disarmament proposals; ‘it reserves the right to increase such armaments without...consent’. Their isolationist policy set an example of selfishness for the rest of the world, unacceptable in a post-war climate. The fact that, despite his admirable efforts, the founder of the League couldn’t convince his own country to join it massively undermined the League; it looked weak from the start and needed to have significant and immediate success handling complicated international affairs if it was going to survive.
A failure to orchestrate international disarmament also contributed to the death of the League of Nations; this was largely due to the fact that they had no mechanisms for following through on decrees, no machinery for collective action and no intention whatsoever of disarming from France and Britain. French delegate M. Noblemaire even went as far as to state in 1921 that ‘we must keep our arms at readiness France is obliged to be military for the present and to continue to be so in order to avoid the resumption of war’ – a clear contradiction of one of the most important parts of the League’s Covenant, that disarmament and cooperation is necessary to prevent any future conflict. With this example set from the leaders of the League, only Germany took steps towards disarming and only did so out of obligation to Versailles. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 had the intention of remedying this, and it supplemented the Covenant of the League and united countries against war. Although it marked the increased involvement of the USA in European affairs, at most American commitment to the Pact was based on moral grounds; were it to be violated, morality has no real strength against guns. Indeed all members of the Pact were still not committed to anything of substance, and the success of the pact to aid disarmament relied upon the good will of Nations, an invariably unreliable thing. The Kellogg-Briand Pact, although like the League in that it was another good idea in theory, failed to translate into practicality and did little to help the disarmament process.
Despite its initial years causing few feelings of optimism, the League of Nations did in fact make some important progress during the latter half of the 1920s. The establishment of the International Labour Organisation, financed by the League, turned out an impressive stream of reports, recommendations and statistics which provided important information from a wide range of industries all over the world, and therefore was helping to solve the international communication problem, the combating of which was one of the League’s major objectives. Other pivotal work included the Health Organisation which was crucial to medicinal development, designed specialist hospitals and increased health education. Further committees advising on issues like the production of opium, prostitution and the abolition of slavery created through the League of Nations also went on to have some success.
Nevertheless, although the areas in which the League made progress were all important, no war would be declared over the design of a hospital; the League of Nations was failing to tackle big international problems. An example of this can be seen in the way in which the league failed to protect Armenia from Russo-Turkish attack and through other territorial disputes. The crux of the problem of the League’s ineffectiveness was that it had little control over the decisions of the ‘Big Four’. In 1923, Italy blocked the organisation’s efforts to intervene in its occupation of Corfu; this highlighted the fact that the League was clearly incapable of taking unilateral action when major powers such as Italy, or France, ignored it – and thanks to the USA’s refusal to provide anything more than a moral barometer, the League had nothing to follow through with; they were, in the words of a French delegate ‘in the ridiculous position of an assembly which considers what steps should be taken, though it is perfectly aware that it is impossible for them to be carried out’.
By 1929, the future of the League of Nations was admittedly bleak. Nevertheless, what condemned it to failure was the wholly uncompromising spirit of countries looking solely to their own interests as the Great Depression hit. Britain, for the sake of its empire and trade relations, continued with the ‘old-school diplomacy’ that Woodrow Wilson had wanted so much to eliminate, and the wide majority of countries failed to abide by the League’s principles. This was in part due to the fact that the atmosphere of 1919 had passed; people no longer felt as much resentment towards Germany and considered the Treaty of Versailles too harsh. Therefore, in a sense the League was doomed to fail as its remit was the ‘peace to end all peace’. Ultimately, in order to succeed, the League of Nations needed to represent all Nations and definitely the major world powers, which it failed to do. All countries needed to fully commit to its work in order for it to be successful; given that the USA was never properly involved, the League did well to make the little international progress that it did. Although its chances of success were severely limited thanks to the lack of support from the USA and lack of commitment from its members, the League of Nations was not a unqualified failure; it allowed the international community to appreciate the potential in such an organisation and a much more successful organisation emerged from its ashes; in the words of Lord Robert Cecil in the last League assembly, ‘the League is dead. Long live the United Nations’.
Ciara Lally
09.03.2010