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Friendship is the only cement
that will ever hold the world together.
Woodrow WilsonInterest does not bind men together:
interest separates men.
There is only one thing that can bind men together,
and that is common devotion to right.
Woodrow WilsonWhat we seek is the reign of law,
based upon the consent of the governed,
and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind.
Woodrow WilsonPolitical liberty can exist only when there is peace.
Social reform can take place only when there is peace.
Woodrow WilsonPresident Wilson had come to Europe
with a program of peace for all men.
His ideal was a very high one,
but it involved great difficulties,
owing to these century-old hatreds between some races.
Georges ClemenceauThe High Contracting Parties,
in order to promote international cooperation
and to achieve international peace and security
by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war,
by the prescription of open, just and honorable
relations between nations,
by the firm establishment
of the understandings of international law
as the actual rule of conduct among Governments,
and by the maintenance of justice
and a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligations
in the dealings of organized peoples with one another,
agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations.
Covenant of the League of Nations, Preamble
At the close of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 the Congress of
Vienna
established a balance of power they called the "Concert
of Europe."
With some popular support from peace societies,
which were founded at that time,
and with a concern for international
law, national leaders were able
to solve many of their differences
by means of arbitration.
Between 1815 and 1900 of the two hundred
cases in which states
agreed to arbitration, not a single case
led to a war.
However, the states had not pledged that they would
submit to arbitration in every international conflict.
The Swiss
humanitarian Henri Dunant initiated a movement that led
to a conference
at Geneva in 1864 that protected the sick and
wounded in land
warfare with the Red Cross convention.
Four years later another
Geneva conference added more articles
for a convention on the
sea, but these articles were not ratified.
Also in 1868 Czar Alexander II invited European diplomats
to
meet at St. Petersburg to outlaw especially cruel weapons.
Another
conference initiated by the Russian Czar led to a
meeting at Brussels
six years later in which representatives
of fifteen European nations
formulated laws of land warfare.
These were influenced by the
General Orders for the United States Army
that President Lincoln
had issued during the Civil War based on the ideas
of the German-born
Francis Lieber, who wrote A Code for the Government of Armies.
However, British diplomats refused to consider naval issues at
this 1874 conference.
In 1890 the United States and ten other
American republics
signed a Pan American Treaty of Arbitration,
but it was not ratified.
In 1899 Czar Nicholas II, concerned that Russia was at a financial
disadvantage
in the armaments competition, proposed a conference
to discuss limitation of arms,
the laws of war, and arbitration
to settle international disputes.
Peace advocates championed the
second Russian circular by calling for a
"Peace Conference,"
and the Dutch government offered The Hague as a meeting place.
Quaker Dr. Benjamin Trueblood
for years had been writing essays
in the American Peace Society's
journal, The Peace Advocate, on plans
by Kant,
Ladd, and others for international organization.
Quaker
Alfred K. Smiley had been inviting peace leaders and prominent
politicians
to his hotel retreat in New York annually since 1895.
The Polish Jew, Ivan Bloch, attended the 1899 conference and gave
delegates copies
of his six-volume The Future of War, which
showed
how war had become so economically ruinous.
The first Hague Conference that began on May 18, 1899 included
26 states
and is considered the first international assembly that
met in peace time
in order to preserve peace instead of to conclude
a war.
The diplomats' meetings went on for ten weeks, and their
official Act
agreed on the following conventions and declarations:
I. Convention for the peaceful adjustment of international differences.
II. Convention regarding the laws and customs of war by land.
III. Convention for the adaptation to maritime warfare of the
principles of the Geneva Convention of the 22nd August, 1864.
IV. Three Declarations:
1. To prohibit the launching of projectiles and explosive
from balloons or by other similar new methods.
2. To prohibit the use of projectiles the only object of
which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases.
3. To prohibit the use of bullets which expand or flatten easil
in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope, of which the
envelope does not entirely cover the core, or is pierced with incisions.1
Although recognizing the regulation of the rules of war for
those nations
agreeing to them, the Kaiser declared most of the
goals utopian because
not a single country was willing to submit
all questions to arbitration.
The "Permanent Court of Arbitration"
that was established
could be used voluntarily to resolve differences.
The first convention on the Pacific Settlement of International
Disputes
provided an instrument for a permanent panel of commissioners.
Each party to the dispute would select two commissioners,
and
the fifth commissioner was to be named by the other four.
In September
1900 ministers of the ratifying countries met to
establish the
administrative council of the Permanent Court.
They included the
eight great powers - Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary,
Italy, France,
Great Britain, United States, and Japan, plus Belgium,
the Netherlands,
Spain, Portugal, Romania, and Siam.
A Pan-American Conference began in October 1901
and agreed
to all three Hague conventions.
Delegates from Argentina, Bolivia,
Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay,
El Salvador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic,
and the host Mexico even agreed to a treaty of compulsory arbitration.
United States President Theodore Roosevelt submitted a dispute
about a Pious Fund
going back to 1697, and on October 14, 1901
the five arbitrators
awarded payments to Catholic bishops in California.
In 1902 Argentina and Chile agreed to a
Convention on Limitation
of Naval Armaments
Britain and France signed an arbitration treaty
in 1903.
Roosevelt followed their example and signed arbitration
treaties
with France, Germany, Portugal, and Switzerland.
He was
negotiating with Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Japan,
and others
when the Senate led by Henry Cabot Lodge insisted on
approving each treaty.
T. R. felt this undercut his efforts and
therefore abandoned them.
An attack by Russian warships on British
fishing vessels while on their way
to fight the Japanese in 1904
was judged a violation in the Dogger Bank case.
Russia
accepted the decision and paid Britain 65,000 pounds.
Theodore Roosevelt supported arbitration and arms limitation
at the second Hague Conference in the summer of 1907
when 44 nations
attended, including 24 from beyond Europe.
A Korean delegation
was turned away because they had not been invited.
Japan forced
the Korean monarch to abdicate and later took over the country.
After much debate the Conference had to announce that they could
not agree
on how to choose judges for the World Court.
The French
favored an obligatory arbitration treaty, but the Germans opposed
this.
As in 1899, the 1907 Conference failed to limit armaments,
and many nations
pushed ahead with their naval construction of
large battleships
despite the efforts of the London Naval Conference,
though the
Declaration of London in January 1909 did clarify issues
of international law.
Ten of the 1907 Hague Conference's eleven conventions were
ratified
and are still in force for those nations.
These include
such legal issues as the opening of hostilities,
laws and customs
of war on land, rights and duties of neutral powers,
status of
enemy merchant ships, conversion of merchant ships into warships,
laying of automatic submarine contact mines, bombardment by naval
forces,
maritime warfare, and restrictions on the right of capture
in naval war.
At this conference three neutrals were added to
each commission of inquiry.
Between 1909 and 1914 the Permanent
Court of Arbitration
made judgments in ten cases.
This method
was used in 1910 to settle a dispute over the
Newfoundland Fisheries between the United States and Britain.
Under President Taft the
United States negotiated arbitration treaties
with the British
and French, but the Germans declined;
in 1912 Taft complained
that the Senate had truncated the treaties with its amendments.
A third Hague Peace Conference was planned for 1915;
but because
of the World War it was not held.
Several years after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,
in
1910 Theodore Roosevelt
spoke to the Nobel Prize Committee about
a League of Peace,
which the great powers could form "not
only to keep the peace among themselves,
but to prevent by force
if necessary, its being broken by others."2
The problem with
The Hague approach, he believed, was
that it lacked an effective
executive police power.
Until that was achieved, he suggested
that peace could be assured by a combination
of powerful nations
which sincerely want peace
and have no intention of committing
aggression.
Roosevelt concluded that the statesman who could bring
this about
would have the gratitude of all mankind.
In 1909 Norman Angell published a pamphlet that was enlarged
to a book
and went through several editions by 1913 as The
Great Illusion.
In this work he endeavored to show that the
development of industry and commerce
had made the use of military
power economically and socially futile because nations
no longer
gain by trying to take over territories beyond their borders.
To tamper with credit and commerce by confiscation is self-injurious
to powers that attempt this, as small nations are able to compete
with them
for trade effectively without having expensive military
power.
Neither do nations impose their moral ideals on other nations
by means of war
because all of the moral and ideological struggles
are occurring within nations
and across political boundaries,
not between nations.
Thus he prophesied that armaments are obsolete
and that the current arms race
between European powers, such as
Germany and England, were self-destructive.
He lamented the failure
of the Hague Conferences to bring about any disarmament
and appealed
to public opinion to see through the current political illusions.
The tragic story of the League of Nations begins with the man
who conceived it
and offered it to the world, who developed its
charter and bore the pains of its
formulation at the Peace Conference
in France, and who broke down in exhaustion
when his own nation,
the United States, refused to ratify it in the Senate.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born December 28, 1856 in Staunton,
Virginia.
His father was a Presbyterian minister, and Woodrow
was a deeply religious man throughout his life.
He was fascinated
by politics and longed to be a statesman
like England's Prime
Minister Gladstone.
He wrote several books on government and
taught
political economy at Princeton University.
As an educational reformer
he was unanimously chosen president of Princeton in 1902.
Wilson
emphasized broad liberal studies more than
specialization and
mere preparation for a career.
In 1910 the Democratic Party nominated
him for governor of New Jersey,
and his persuasive expression
of progressive principles swept him to victory.
His liberal reforms
were successful, and in 1912 he won the
Democratic Presidential
nomination and then a popular plurality
over the divided Republicans
and Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party.
He offered "New
Freedom" and set out to break up the privileges of trusts
and tariffs;
he championed the worker's right to overtime pay
beyond an eight-hour day.
However, his greatest challenges were
to be in foreign policy
after the outbreak of the World War in
1914.
In the spring of 1914 President Wilson sent his close friend
and advisor,
Colonel Edward M. House, to Europe as an unofficial
ambassador for peace.
House met with German officials and the
Kaiser explaining that with the
community of interests between
England, Germany, and the United States
they could together maintain
the peace of the world.
However, England was concerned about Germany's
growing navy.
House went to Paris and then London, where he conferred
with Edward Grey about negotiating with Germany.
Even after the
assassination of Archduke Ferdinand,
the event which precipitated
the war, House returned to Berlin and appealed
to the Kaiser through
a letter that England, France, and Germany
could settle their
differences peacefully.
Many years later the Kaiser admitted that
the mediation offer by Wilson and House
had almost prevented the
war.
However, the German militarists were intent on fighting,
and the war broke out with Austria leading the way.
President
Wilson on August 19 declared that the United States was neutral,
and he requested that the American people be impartial.
He tried
to mediate peace between the European powers through his pacifist
Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, and in January 1915
Wilson again sent House to Europe on a peace mission; but both
efforts failed.
Hamilton Holt and William B. Howland initiated a meeting of
American professors
at the Century Club in New York on January
25, 1915 to discuss a future League
that could guarantee two principles - friendly
settlement of disputes between nations
and protection of the territorial
integrity and sovereignty
of nations against outside aggression.
On April 9 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia the League to
Enforce Peace
was organized, and former President William Howard
Taft became its founding president.
In England a League of Nations
Society was founded in May 1915,
and the idea was supported publicly
by Edward Grey and Herbert Asquith.
In the United States numerous
branches of the League to Enforce Peace
sprang up around the country.
On May 27, 1916 the League to Enforce Peace heard speeches by
President Wilson
and Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.
Lodge
was wary of forming permanent alliances, about which
George Washington
had warned America, but this he felt should not preclude joining
with other civilized nations to diminish war and encourage peace.
In fact Senator Lodge stated strongly that they must find some
way
"in which the united forces of the nations
could be put
behind the cause of peace and law."3
In his speech President Wilson called for a new and more wholesome
diplomacy
and a way for the nations of the world to band themselves
together
so that right may prevail against any selfish aggression.
Civilization is not yet firmly established until nations are governed
by the same code of conduct that we demand of individuals.
He
outlined three fundamental principles:
first, that every people
has the right to choose their sovereignty;
second, that small
nations as well as large ones ought to have the guarantee
of territorial
integrity; and third, that the world and the rights of its people
and nations ought to be protected from disturbing aggression.
He proposed that the United States initiate a movement for peace
calling for a
universal association of the nations to maintain
the inviolate security of the highway of the seas
for the common and unhindered use
of all the nations of the world,
and to prevent any war
begun either contrary to treaty covenants
or without warning and full submission of the causes
to the opinion of the world
a virtual guarantee of territorial integrity
and political independence.4
While speaking to West Point graduates in 1916 Wilson contrasted
the spirit of
militarism to the citizen spirit, and he asserted
that in the United States the
civilian spirit is intended to dominate
the military, which is why the President,
a civilian authority,
is commander-in-chief of all forces.
In September Wilson was
renominated by the Democratic Party,
and in his acceptance speech
he discussed world peace.
America must contribute to a just and
settled peace because
no longer can any nation remain wholly apart
from world turmoil.
Again he appealed to world opinion to establish
joint guarantees
for peace and justice in a spirit of friendship.
President Wilson's re-election was promoted under the slogan
"He
kept us out of war," and he managed to win a narrow victory.
In January 1917 the Germans decided to pursue unrestricted
submarine warfare.
Wilson was trying to get the western allies
and central powers to negotiate peace
with each other, and he
was not informed of the Germans' change in policy
when he delivered
his "Peace without Victory" speech on January 22.
This
was the first time a President had appeared alone before the Senate
since George Washington vowed never to return there.
Wilson expressed
his hope that peace could be negotiated soon,
and he was convinced
that after the war
an international concert of power must prevent
war.
He offered the United States Government in its tradition
of upholding liberty
to serve in using its authority and power
to guarantee peace and justice
throughout the world by means of
a League for Peace.
The President wanted to indicate the conditions upon which
the United States could enter into this process.
First, the war
must be ended and by a treaty of peace that will be universally
approved
and guaranteed by a universal covenant, which must include
the peoples of the New World.
The organized force of mankind protecting
the peace must be greater
than any nation or probable combination
of nations.
Wilson did not believe that the war should end in
a new balance of power
but rather in a just and organized common
peace,
for no one can guarantee the stability of a balance of
power.
Neither side really intends to crush the other; therefore
it must be a peace without victory
so that the victor will not
impose intolerable sacrifices,
which result in resentment and
probably future hostilities.
Equality of nations is the right
attitude for a lasting peace as well as
a just settlement regarding
territory and national allegiance.
Equality of nations means a
respect for the rights of small nations based upon
the common
strength of the concert of nations, not upon individual strength.
A deeper principle yet is
Governments derive all their just powers
from the consent of the governed,
and that no right anywhere exists
to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty
as if they were property….
That henceforth inviolable security of life,
of worship, and of industrial and social development
should be guaranteed to all peoples.5
Peace can only be stable with justice and freedom; otherwise
the spirit rebels.
Wilson asserted the importance of freedom of
the seas
and also the need to limit navies and armies.
He felt
that he was speaking "for liberals and friends of humanity
in every nation ...
for the silent mass of mankind everywhere."6
He suggested that the American principles of the Monroe Doctrine
should be extended throughout the world so that "every people
should be left free
to determine its own polity, its own way of
development,
unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid."7
These
principles of self-determination, freedom, and protection from
aggression
are the principles of humanity and must prevail.
Wilson struggled to keep America out of the war;
but when the
Germans announced submarine warfare even against neutral shipping,
he immediately broke diplomatic relations with Germany.
American
intelligence reports indicated that Germany
was trying to form
an alliance with Mexico against the United States.
Wilson had
considered entry into the war a crime against civilization,
and
he loathed the implications.
Privately he told the reporter Frank
Cobb,
It would mean that we would lose our heads
along with the rest and stop weighing right and wrong.
It would mean that a majority of people in this hemisphere
would go war mad, quit thinking
and devote their energies to destruction.8
However, in March 1917 several US ships were attacked,
and
the President decided to propose a declaration of war to the Congress
on April 2.
He appealed to international law and the freedom of
the seas.
Because of the loss of noncombatants' lives he interpreted
the
German submarine warfare against commerce as "warfare
against mankind."
He did not recommend revenge or the victorious
assertion of physical might
as motives for action but rather the
vindication of human right
and a refusal to submit to wrongs.
Therefore since the Imperial German Government was at war with
the United States,
they must accept the belligerent status thrust
upon them.
Wilson clearly stated that the purpose of America's
role
is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice
in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power
and to set up amongst the really free
and self-governed peoples of the world
such a concert of purpose and of action
as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.9
He declared that a new age was beginning in which nations and
governments
must be held to the same standards of conduct and
responsibility
as the individual citizens of civilized states.
He indicated that America had no animosity toward the German people
and he explained that small groups of ambitious men were using
those people
as pawns under the veil of the private courts of
a privileged class.
Wilson believed that peace could only be maintained
by a partnership
of democratic nations; autocratic governments
cannot be trusted.
Therefore Americans must fight for the liberation
of the world's people,
including the German peoples.
"The
world must be made safe for democracy."10
Peace must be founded
on political liberty.
President Wilson disavowed any desire for
conquest or dominion;
America was to be merely one of the champions
of humanity's rights.
Wilson's speech was greeted with wildly
enthusiastic applause;
later he thought how strange it was to
hear applause
for a message that meant death for many young men.
The United States was involved in the World War,
and it would
be six months before many soldiers would be fighting in France.
That summer President Wilson appointed an Inquiry of several distinguished
experts
to gather information on Europe's oppressed peoples, international
business,
international law, proposals for a peace-keeping organization,
and ideas on repairing the war damage in Belgium and France.
He
said he wanted a basis to decide what would be fair for all
and
prophetically warned that seeds of jealousy, discontent,
and restrained
development could breed future wars.
Utilizing this research by experts, Wilson formulated the war
aims
and peace suggestions of the United States and presented
them before Congress
on January 8, 1918 as his famous Fourteen
Points.
He reiterated that the United States was seeking only
a peaceful world
that is safe for self-governing nations.
His
specific points may be summarized as follows:
1. "Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at" - no secret treaties.
2. Free navigation of the seas outside territorial waters.
3. Equality of trade and removal of economic barriers.
4. "Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments
will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety."
5. Impartial adjustment of all colonial claims weighing equally the
interests of the populations with the claims of governments.
6. Evacuation of Russian territory and the opportunity for Russians
to choose their own institutions, and aid according to their needs and desires.
7. Evacuation and restoration of Belgium under her own sovereignty.
8. Liberation and restoration of invaded French territory and the
return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, correcting the wrong of 1871.
9. "A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected
along clearly recognizable lines of nationality."
10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary should be
freely allowed autonomous development.
11. Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated and restored,
and the Balkan states ought to be established along lines of allegiance and
nationality with international guarantees of independence and territorial
integrity, with access to the sea for Serbia.
12. Turkey itself should have secure sovereignty; and other nationalities
should be freed of Turkish rule and be assured of autonomous development,
and the Dardanelles should be open to all ships
and commerce under international guarantees.
13. An independent Poland should include territories of Polish populations,
have access to the sea and guaranteed territorial integrity.
14. "A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants
for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence
and territorial integrity to great and small states alike."11
The President then declared that the United States was willing
to fight for these principles
to secure liberty and safety for
all peoples under international justice.
Germany was to be allowed
her fair and equal place among the nations,
and Wilson requested
negotiation with representatives of the majority
of German people
rather than the military party and imperialists.
These Fourteen Points were adopted by the Allied statesmen
as a basis for the peace.
Responses to this speech soon came from
representatives of Germany and Austria.
These replies by Count
von Hertling and Count Czernin were answered
by Wilson in a speech
on February 11;
he was especially critical of the German Chancellor
von Hertling.
Peace must be established justly in view of world
opinion and not involving
militarily only the separate states
that are most powerful.
Wilson also pointed out that there were
to be no annexations, no punitive damages,
no arbitrary handing
of people about by antagonists,
but respect for national aspirations
and self-determination.
Wilson again summarized the great ideals America was fighting
for
in a 4th of July speech at Mount Vernon.
Over a million American
men had already been shipped to France.
The four goals he stated
were:
1) destruction of every arbitrary power that disturbs the world's peace;
2) settlement of political and economic questions with the consent
of those involved, not according to the material interests of other nations;
3) consent of all nations to live under common law
and mutual respect for justice; and
4) establishment of a peace organization of the free nations' combined power
to check violations of peace and justice according to the tribunal of
international opinion to which all must submit.
By the end of summer 1918 the Central Powers were breaking
up,
and on September 27 Wilson appealed to the peoples of those
countries
by suggesting more specific peace proposals.
Once more
he emphasized that right must be made superior to might.
The idea
of a League of Nations was beginning to take a more definite shape.
Each government must be willing to pay the price necessary to
achieve impartial justice,
to be made effective by the instrumentality
of a League of Nations.
The constitution of the League of Nations
must be a part of the peace settlement;
for if it preceded peace,
it would be confined to the nations allied
against a common enemy;
and if it followed the peace settlement,
it could not guarantee
the peace terms.
Wilson then outlined five particulars:
1. Impartial justice means no discrimination or favoritism between peoples.
2. No special interest of a single nation should infringe
upon the common interest of all.
3. "There can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants and understandings
within the general and common family of the League of Nations."
4. There can be no selfish economic combinations or boycotts except as
"may be vested in the League of Nations itself as a means of discipline and control."
5. "All international agreements and treaties of every kind must be
made known in their entirety to the rest of the world."12
On October 6 the German government requested an armistice;
President Wilson sent a reply declaring that the armies of the
Central Powers
must withdraw immediately from all invaded territory.
A German response dodged the issue of evacuation, and therefore
another message
clarifying the military situation was sent through
the Secretary of State.
On October 25 Wilson made perhaps one
of his worst political mistakes
when he requested the election
of a Democratic majority in Congress
in order to indicate to the
world American support of the President's leadership.
This intrusion
of party politics into non-partisan foreign affairs was deeply
resented
by Republicans and in fact backfired against Wilson,
as the Republicans won both houses.
Meanwhile the Germans agreed to disarm and relinquish the monarchical
military
leadership and wanted a peace according to the points
made in Wilson's speeches.
Austria-Hungary also accepted the President's
declarations and recognized
the rights of the Czecho-Slovaks and
the Jugo-Slavs.
The Allied Governments agreed to accept the Fourteen
Points and the subsequent
addresses with one reservation by Great
Britain on freedom of the seas.
Poland and Germany each announced
themselves as republics.
Finally on November 11 German representatives
signed
the Armistice Agreement at Marshall Foch's headquarters.
The Germans agreed to an almost total surrender and to the payment
of reparations.
The German Navy was to be dismantled,
and its
Army was to be reduced to 100,000 men.
Conscription was abolished,
and weapons were strictly limited,
allowing no tanks or military
aircraft as well as no submarines.
However, the German General
Staff, which was supposed
to be abolished, merely changed its
name.
If these disarmament conditions had been maintained,
the
second world war in Europe could never have occurred as it did.
On the same day President Wilson read the Armistice Agreement
to Congress
and promised food and relief to a suffering Europe.
He pointed out the disorder in Russia and the
folly of attempting
conquest by the force of arms.
He also asserted,
The nations that have learned the discipline of freedom
and that have settled with self-possession to its ordered practice
are now about to make conquest of the world
by the sheer power of example of friendly helpfulness.13
America must hold the lamp of liberty for the peoples
who were
just then coming into their freedom.
A peace must be established
that will define their places
among the nations and protect their
security.
Wilson decided to attend the Peace Conference in France with
a select group
of experts, such as geographers, ethnologists,
and economists, whom he told,
"Tell me what is right, and
I'll fight for it."14
Unfortunately he did not invite anyone
to attend from the Senate,
which later was to cause irreconcilable
problems.
In Europe Wilson was enthusiastically greeted by
thousands
of cheering people almost as a messiah.
After arriving in France
in December, he visited England and said that never before
in
the history of the world had there been such a keen international
consciousness.
On the same day in Manchester he spoke of America's
desire for peace in the world,
not merely a balance of power or
peace in Europe.
At Rome on January 3, 1919 President Wilson explained
how military force
is unable to hold people together, that only
friendship and good will can bind nations together.
Therefore, our task at Paris is
to organize the friendship of the world,
to see to it that all the moral forces
that make for right and justice and liberty are united
and are given a vital organization to which
the peoples of the world will readily and gladly respond.15
The idealistic American President, who wanted only permanent
peace under
universal justice with no special rewards for his
country, faced an awesome challenge
among the European old-school
diplomats, who were determined to gain
all they could for their
own national interests.
Lloyd George had just been re-elected
British prime minister under the slogan
"Be tough on Germany,"
and Clemenceau of France was even more adamant
about making Germany
pay all she could and leaving her as weak as possible.
The Italians
represented by Prime Minister Vittorio E. Orlando
and the Japanese
wanted control of specific territories, and secret treaties
made
between
the Allies during the war were to emerge and confound
several of Wilson's points.
Against Wilson's protests the conference
news was censored, and what did leak out
to the press tended to
be through the French newspapers controlled by their government.
Meanwhile most of Europe was in turmoil, and many
military
leaders wanted to grab what they could get.
For this reason on
January 24 Wilson published a statement warning those
who would
take possession of territory by force that they would be
prejudicing
their cause, because they were placing in doubt
the justice of
their claims which the Peace Conference must determine.
The next
day he addressed the Peace Conference, which he felt had two purposes
-
not
only the settlements required by the war but also
the secure
establishment
of a means for the maintaining of world peace.
Wilson believed
the League of Nations was necessary for both purposes.
He argued
that settlements may be temporary, but their actions
as nations
for peace and justice must be permanent.
Although they could not
make permanent decisions,
they could set up permanent processes.
Therefore the League of Nations must be made vital and
continuous so that it may be ever watchful and effective.
The idea for a
League as an essential part of the Treaty was adopted
unanimously by the representatives of the 32 states present on January 25,
and a subcommittee for the drafting of a League of Nations Covenant
was selected with President Wilson as chairman.
On January 27 Wilson suggested a solution to the problem
of
what to do about the German colonies.
Because he felt world opinion
was against annexations,
the League of Nations could mandate that
districts be administered
by a mandatory power for the improvement
of the inhabitants' conditions
and without discriminatory economic
access.
General Jan Christiaan Smuts, the leader from South Africa
who had confronted Gandhi, had published a pamphlet,
The League
of Nations: A Practical Suggestion,
calling for a strong and
active League, which would not only prevent wars
but also be a
living and working organ of peaceful civilization.
It must have
general control of international affairs involving commerce,
communications,
and social, industrial, and labor relations.
Smuts proposed the
mandate system by which powerful nations would be assigned
to
oversee temporarily the former colonies of Germany and
the non-Turkish
portions of the former Ottoman empire that needed assistance.
Wilson and Colonel House, the American members of the committee,
managed to get together with the British delegates Smuts and Lord
Cecil,
who also had his own draft, to hammer out what was called
"Wilson's second draft,"
which was revised into an Anglo-American
version.
Although the French and Italians submitted drafts,
this
version was accepted as the basis for discussion.
Working every
night, the committee of fourteen members
turned out its Draft
Agreement after eleven days.
Wilson announced that a living thing
had been born.
A proud President Wilson presented the League of Nations draft
to the Peace Conference with an address on February 14.
The League
was to consist of a body of delegates,
an executive council, and
a permanent secretariat.
Any issue of international relationship
would have free discussion
because that is the moral force of
public opinion.
Nevertheless if moral force did not suffice,
armed
force was to be in the background, but only as a last resort.
The League was designed to be simple and flexible,
yet a definite
guarantee of peace, at least in words.
Securing peace was not
the only purpose of the League; it could be used
for cooperation
in any international matter, such as ameliorating labor conditions.
All international agreements must be registered
with the secretary-general
and openly published.
Wilson believed the mandate policy of aiding
development
was a great advance over annexation and exploitation.
All in all, Wilson felt that they had created a document that
was both
practical and humane, that could serve the conscience
of the world.
The day after the draft was accepted by the plenary
session,
the President departed for the United States.
In Washington Wilson met with Congressional representatives
to discuss the League.
By the time he returned to France in March
1919
American public opinion was insisting on four alterations.
First, the Monroe Doctrine must be explicitly protected.
Second,
there must be a way nations could withdraw from the League.
Third,
domestic disputes must be exempt from League interference,
including
tariffs and immigration quotas.
Fourth, a nation must have the
right to refuse a mandate for a territory.
Wilson felt that these
provisions were not necessary, but he was willing
to get them
put into the covenant for the sake of its acceptance.
However,
he had to compromise in order to do so,
and thus his position
on other issues was weakened.
Colonel House had been compromising on every side at the peace
talks,
such that when Wilson returned to Paris, he felt he had
to start all over again.
This caused an irreparable breach between
the
President and his close friend and advisor.
The Allies were
forcing unbearable reparations and
indemnities on Germany and
the defeated nations.
Wilson did not consider it wise for England
to retain naval supremacy
or for the American and British navies
to patrol the world together.
Militarism on the sea is the same
as on the land.
He felt that power must not be vested in a single
nation or combination of nations;
the sea is a free highway and
should be protected
by a league of all the nations under international
law.
Wilson developed a comprehensive plan for disarmament
to fulfill
one of his most important points.
Armaments were only to be used
to preserve domestic safety
and to maintain international order
according to the League.
Compulsory military service and the private
manufacture of munitions must be abolished.
Disarmament policies
must be worked out after the peace settlement,
be unanimously
agreed upon, and have publicity to assure compliance.
Although
disarmament was temporarily forced upon Germany,
these policies
were never universally carried out.
Wilson persistently argued
for a new attitude of mind and an organization
of cooperation
for peace which considered moral force above armed force.
Returning to the negotiations of the peace settlement,
Wilson
faced intransigent obstacles to his principles.
Several territorial
arrangements had already been agreed upon by the major powers
during the war in such secret agreements as the
Sykes-Picot Treaty
and the Treaty of London.
Wilson spoke up for self-determination,
and at his suggestion a commission of inquiry
was sent to the
Middle East to discover what the peoples' wishes were.
The other
powers verbally agreed but never did send their representatives.
By the time the Americans went and returned with their information,
the issues had been settled.
The French wanted not only Alsace-Lorraine
but also the
coal mining district of Saar and a buffer state in
the Rhineland.
Italy wanted not only the opposite coast of the
Adriatic including Trieste,
which had been promised in the Treaty
of London,
but they also demanded the port of Fiume, which
represented
Yugoslavia's only hope for a commercial port.
England and Japan
had divided up the German colonies in the Pacific Ocean,
giving
Japan those north of the equator and Britain those south of the
equator,
but Japan also wanted Shandong (Shantung) on the mainland.
In early April 1919 Wilson became ill.
He had reached the limit
of his patience and requested that the
ocean-liner George Washington
be prepared to take him home.
The President decided to take his
stand on the issue of Fiume;
it had not been included in the Pact
of London,
because it naturally belonged to the new Jugo-Slav
state.
Wilson consequently went to the public with his arguments,
and the Italian delegation withdrew from the Conference.
With
the Italians already turning their back on the League,
the Japanese
saw their chance to push for control of the Shandong Province
in China.
Wilson backed China's rights and lectured the nations
on their duties toward each other.
However, he did not want Japan
to leave also and
perhaps form an alliance with Russia and Germany;
neither England nor America was willing to go to war with Japan
over Shandong.
Therefore it was agreed that Japan would control
Shandong temporarily,
and Wilson hoped that the League of Nations
would later rectify the situation for China.
Above all, Wilson
struggled to save the League itself.
The Italians never did get
Fiume, but they did return to sign the final Treaty.
By preventing
an unjust decision, a war between the
Jugo-Slavs and the Italians
was made less likely.
Wilson also compromised with the French
on the Saar and Rhineland districts,
and annexations were modified
into temporary mandate agreements.
Germany had been suffering greatly; a food blockade by the
Allies
had been maintained against them for four months after
the Armistice.
Finally at the instigation of Herbert Hoover, President
Wilson convinced
the Allied leaders that the blockade must be
lifted for humanitarian reasons.
The Treaty agreed upon by the
Allies and neutral nations
was presented to the Germans on May
7.
Their response on May 29 repeatedly complained of failures
of the Treaty
to adhere to the "Fourteen Points and subsequent
addresses."
They felt unnecessarily humiliated by the severe
provisions the French had demanded.
However, facing the threat
of Marshal Foch moving the French army in on them,
the Germans
decided to sign the Treaty.
On June 28, 1919 the Treaty of Versailles
was signed by
Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Wilson, and other representatives
of the nations.
When Austria signed the peace treaty in September
1919,
the major powers and several other nations signed the Convention
for the Control of the Trade in Arms and Ammunition,
which prohibited
arms sales in most of Africa and part of Asia.
The Central American
States adopted a
Convention on Arms Limitation on February 7,
1923.
Wilson was greeted by ten thousand people when he returned
to New York.
However, in the Senate there were strong isolationist
sentiments against the Treaty.
Presenting it to the Senate on
July 10, President Wilson wondered forebodingly,
"Dare we
reject it and break the heart of the world?"16
A few "irreconcilables"
were completely against the League.
Many senators favored it,
but ratification of a treaty required two-thirds of the Senate.
A third group led by Senator Lodge demanded reservations,
particularly
to Article 10 of the League Covenant which read:
The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve
as against external aggression the territorial integrity
and existing political independence of all Members of the League.
In case of any such aggression
or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression
the Council shall advise upon the means
by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.17
For Wilson this was the key article; it was the Monroe Doctrine
applied to the world and protected by all.
The President explained
to the senators that this was a moral obligation
but not necessarily
a legal obligation.
Senator Warren Harding asked what good it
would do if it was
only a moral obligation which a nation could
ignore since it was not legally bound.
Wilson pointed out that
because it was not legally binding,
the nation would have the
right to exercise its moral judgment in each case.
Lloyd George
had explained that the Covenant did not necessarily imply
"military
action in support of the imperiled nation" but mainly
economic
pressure and sanctions against the aggressing nation.
Former President
Taft favored ratifying the League Covenant and agreed that
the
chance of getting involved in a war was small because of the universal
boycott,
which in most cases would be effective; only a world
conspiracy would require
the members of the League to unite against
it, and in that case the sooner the better.
Taft, a Republican,
believed the United States could not be forced into a war
against
its will, and to think so was a narrow and reactionary viewpoint.
Nevertheless opposition in the Senate was growing.
Therefore
President Wilson decided to take his case to the people
with a
busy speaking tour across the whole country.
Young Americans had
fought and died in France, and he would not give up
the struggle
for a world of peace without giving all he could.
Wilson argued
that the League of Nations was founded according to the
American
principles of self-government, open discussion and arbitration
instead of war,
a universal boycott of an offending nation, disarmament,
rehabilitation of oppressed peoples,
no annexations but trusteeships,
abolition of forced labor especially of women and children,
rejection
of secret treaties, protection of dependent peoples, high standards
of labor,
the Red Cross, international regulation of drugs and
alcohol, and prohibition of arms sales.
He warned against violent
revolutions such as
had occurred in Russia rather than revolution
by vote.
The United States could be isolated no more, for it has
become a determining factor
in human history and in the development
of civilization.
He declared that peace of the world could not
be established without America.
Seven and a half million men had
been killed in the war;
this was more than all the wars from 1793
to 1914.
He spoke of the children who would have to die in a worse
war
if the League of Nations was not established.
Wilson pushed himself to the limit, traveling 8,000 miles in
22 days and giving 38 speeches.
He had increasingly bad headaches
which became constant
until he finally collapsed in Pueblo, Colorado.
The train took him straight back to Washington, where he suffered
a stroke
that left the left side of his face and body paralyzed.
His wife Edith coordinated his Presidential responsibilities.
The push in the Senate for reservations to the Treaty was strong;
but Wilson refused to give in because it would be repudiating
what each nation had signed.
If the United States demanded changes,
then why could not the Germans also?
Thus the President asked
those who supported the Treaty to vote against ratification
with
the reservations, and consequently the Treaty was never ratified
by the United States.
Wilson hoped, perhaps, to be nominated again
for President in 1920,
but he was a broken man.
The Republican
Harding declared nebulously that he favored some sort of
association of nations, and he was elected for a "return to normalcy."
In Wilson's last public statement on Armistice Day, November 11,
1923
he lamented, "I have seen fools resist Providence before,
and I have seen their destruction."18
He still believed that
his principles would eventually prevail.
He died on February 3,
1924.
On January 16, 1920 President Wilson formally convoked the
Council
in accordance with the League provision for the summoning
of the
first Council and Assembly by the President of the United
States.
It was to be the last official participation by the United
States
in the entire history of the League of Nations.
The League
became a dead issue in American politics, and even Herbert Hoover
and Franklin Roosevelt,
who both had been early League supporters,
could not get the United
States involved during their presidencies.
The League, which the
United States was expected to lead,
lost much of its universal
acceptance and credibility without the American power.
Yet almost
every other nation in the world joined the League.
In addition
to the 32 original members, thirteen neutral states were named
in the annex.
Any self-governing state, dominion or colony could
be admitted to membership
by a two-thirds vote of the Assembly.
States could leave the organization but were required to give
two years' notice.
A member-state violating the Covenant could
be expelled
by a unanimous vote of all the other member states.
The Assembly was composed of three delegates from each member-state.
The League Council was to be made up of the five Allied Powers
that won the war;
but without the United States this became Britain,
France, Italy, and Japan.
Four other nations were to be elected
from time to time to serve on the Council.
Initially Belgium,
Brazil, Spain, and Greece were selected.
Any member could go to
the Council with a concern
and was allowed a vote at the Council
on that issue.
At the top of the Secretariat administration was
the Secretary-General,
and the British diplomat James Eric Drummond
was selected
for that position before the League went into effect.
He served as Secretary-General until June 1933,
when he was replaced
by Joseph Avenol.
League decisions were recommendations for the
states to follow,
but those who refused were subject to the voluntary
sanctions of the nations.
No state could be legally bound against
its consent and
thus maintained sovereignty over its own decisions.
In September 1921 the Permanent Court of International Justice
(PCIJ)
with nine judges was established at The Hague, as the League
Covenant was amended.
The four strategies that could be used by the League to prevent
wars were
1) reducing armaments,
2) settling disputes peacefully
with sanctions against any state refusing to do so,
3) guaranteeing
current boundaries and agreements,
although they could be legally
modified, and
4) settling international conflicts before they
lead to war.
Article 8 required the "reduction of national
armaments to the lowest point consistent
with national safety
and the enforcement of common action of international obligations."19
The Council was supposed to formulate plans for reduction
which
were to be revised at least every ten years.
The League Covenant
acknowledged the problem of private manufacturing of arms,
and
the Council was to advise how to limit it to what members needed
for their safety.
However, a naval arms race between Britain and
the United States occurred
and was dealt with independently of
the League
at the Washington naval conference of 1922.
Disputes were to be settled peacefully by using arbitration,
the International Court (PCIJ)
or by an inquiry before the Council,
which would make a report.
Article 12 prohibited member-states
from going to war until at least three months
after a decision
by the arbitrators, the Court, or the Council.
If a dispute was
not submitted to any of these, Article 15 authorized the Council
to make recommendations, and states were not to go to war
with
other states that complied with its report.
Article 16 declared
that a state disregarding Articles 12, 13, or 15 was to be deemed
to have committed an act of war against all other members of the
League,
which would then sever all trade or financial relations
with the Covenant-breaking state.
Article 11 authorized the Council
to meet and act in regard
to any threat to peace or possible war
as follows:
1. Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting
any of the Members of the League or not,
is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League,
and the League shall take any action that may be deemed
wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations.
In case any such emergency should arise,
the Secretary-General shall on the request of any Member
of the League forthwith summon a meeting of the Council.
2. It is also declared to be the friendly right
of each Member of the League to bring to the attention
of the Assembly or of the Council any circumstance whatever
affecting international relations which threatens to disturb
international peace or the good understanding between nations
upon which peace depends.20
Without the power of the United States the strong guarantees
of Article 10
were left mostly to the British to enforce, and
after the war
they were in no mood to undertake such a burden
alone.
Article 18 called for all treaties to be registered with
the Secretariat, and those
that were not so registered could not
be cited at the International Court (PCIJ).
In the next decade
2,330 treaties were registered with the League,
which published
them in English and French.
Article 22 explained how the former colonies and territories
of Germany and Turkey
were to have their peoples treated as a
"sacred trust of civilization" by the
mandatory powers
responsible for their administration,
and annual reports were
to be submitted to the Council.
A permanent commission of experts
was delegated
to examine the reports and advise the Council.
The
war victors of the Supreme Allied Council in April 1920
at San
Remo actually selected Britain, France, Japan, Belgium,
South
Africa, Australia, and New Zealand as the mandatories.
The secret
Sykes-Picot agreement of May 1916 resulted in
Iraq, Transjordan,
and Palestine being assigned to Britain,
as Syria and Lebanon
were put under France.
Article 23 urged all member nations to "maintain fair
and humane conditions
of labor for men, women, and children, both
in their own countries and
in all countries to which their commercial
and industrial relations extended."21
It also entrusted the
League to supervise agreements regarding traffic in
women, children,
drugs, and arms, to provide for the freedom of communication,
transit, and equitable commerce, and to take steps to prevent
and control disease.
The coal mines of the Saar had been ceded to France in 1919
to compensate
for their mines in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais that
had been destroyed in the war.
Most of the people in the Saar
region spoke German, and in the French mandate
it was stipulated
that after fifteen years a plebiscite would determine who governed
it.
In 1920 the League Council appointed a High Commissioner for
the free city of Danzig.
In June 1921 the Council suggested that
the Aaland islands should belong to Finland,
and with guarantees
protecting the islanders Sweden accepted that decision.
British
power focused by Lloyd George and the League Council persuaded
Yugoslavia to withdraw from Albania by December 1921;
Italy was
authorized to protect the political and economic independence
of Albania.
Lithuania objected to Poland's occupation of Vilna,
but this dispute was not so easily solved.
In October 1922 the
League confirmed the independence of Austria,
and the
British,
French, and Italian governments offered loan guarantees for reconstruction.
That year it became clear that nations were not willing to disarm
until they could trust an alternative system of security.
Resolution
14 of the League Assembly elucidated this principle
that led a
commission to draft a treaty of mutual assistance.
When Germany got behind on its reparation payments, French
and Belgian armies
invaded the Ruhr in January 1923; but a London
conference the next August sponsored
by the MacDonald government
led to the Dawes plan for German reconstruction.
However, unwilling
to commit itself to enforcement, in March 1925 the British refused
to accept the Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International
Disputes.
This Protocol proposed that all disputes related to
international law be submitted
to the world court at The Hague
and be binding on the parties.
Instead, Britain's Austen Chamberlain
proposed "special arrangements" for special needs.
Political
negotiation between the principal powers of western Europe led
in October 1925 to the Rhineland Pact that came to be known as
the Treaty of Locarno
between Britain, France, Germany, Italy,
and Belgium.
Germany accepted the borders imposed by the Versailles
Treaty
and the demilitarization of the west bank of the Rhine.
Germany also agreed to Arbitration Conventions with
Belgium, France,
Poland, and Czechoslovakia.
Germany was then admitted into the
League of Nations in 1926
and was given a permanent seat on its
Council.
At Geneva on June 17, 1925 representatives of 42 nations
and
the British empire signed the Protocol for the
Prohibition of
Poisonous Gases and Bacteriological Methods of Warfare,
although
the United States never ratified the treaty.
Violence broke out
between Bulgarian and Greek troops
on the border on October 19,
1925.
The Bulgarian government appealed to the League, and on
October 23 the Council's
presiding Briand sent a telegram urging
both sides to withdraw from the battlefield.
After the Council
repeated its appeal three days later,
first the Bulgarians and
then the Greeks complied.
After an inquiry the Council recommended
that
Greece pay Bulgaria 45,000 pounds indemnity,
and two officers
from a neutral country were appointed to watch the border.
The
Kurds wanted independence from Iraq; but in December 1925
the
League Council voted unanimously to give Iraq a 25-year mandate
over Mosul;
Iraq's mandatory Britain was supposed to make sure
that the Kurdish minority was protected.
France withdrew its garrison
from the Saar in 1927.
By then France had alliances with Belgium, Poland,
Czechoslovakia,
Romania, and Yugoslavia.
Informal League of Nations support groups
existed in many countries,
and the peace movement was particularly
enthusiastic in the United States.
They urged the Coolidge Administration
to sign a friendship treaty with France.
Wary of a specific alliance,
they came up with the idea
for a multi-lateral treaty renouncing
war.
This Pact of Perpetual Friendship was negotiated by US Secretary
of State
Frank Kellogg and France's minister Aristide Briand,
who was persuaded to accept it with a reservation for self-defense.
This famous Kellogg-Briand Pact or Treaty of Paris was signed
on August 27, 1928
by them and representatives of Germany, Belgium,
Italy, Japan, Poland,
Czechoslovakia, and Great Britain with its
Dominions in
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland,
and India.
This treaty had only three articles,
the third of which
established the ratification procedure.
The first two articles
of the Kellogg-Briand Pact read as follows:
1. The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare
in the names of their respective peoples
that they condemn recourse to war
for the solution of international controversies,
and renounce it as an instrument of national policy
in their relations with one another.
2. The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement
or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature
or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them,
shall never be sought except by pacific means.22
The United States Senate did ratify this treaty as did all
the other signatories.
An additional 31 nations adhered to the
Treaty of Paris
by the time it was proclaimed on July 24, 1929.
Within seven months fourteen more nations had joined.
Brazil did
so two years after that,
but Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador,
and Uruguay never did.
Thus for nearly every nation in the world
this treaty renouncing war became a
landmark in international
law, and it can be argued that any politician since that time,
who has used war as an instrument of national policy, has violated
this Treaty
and committed a crime against international law.
Japan had given up Shandong (Shantung) at the Washington naval
conference in 1922,
but on September 18, 1931 they invaded Manchuria,
claiming that Japanese troops
guarding the South Manchuria Railway
had been fired upon by the Chinese,
though a subsequent investigation
denied this.
China appealed to the League Council, which
on September
22 requested that the fighting stop.
Japanese delegate Kenkichi
Yoshizawa assured the Council
that Japan had "no territorial
designs" on Manchuria.
The Chinese authority withdrew to
Jinzhou (Chinchow),
which the Japanese bombed on October 8.
The
League Council met five days later, and US Secretary of State
Henry Stimson
indicated that the United States "would endeavor
to reinforce what the League does."23
However, the American
Consul-General to Switzerland, Prentiss Gilbert,
who attended
the Council, did little more than offer moral support.
On October
24 Yoshizawa vetoed a Council resolution calling for Japanese
withdrawal.
On January 7, 1932 Stimson announced that the United
States would not recognize
any change in Manchuria that violated
the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
Although the Chinese mayor of Shanghai accepted a Japanese
ultimatum,
on January 27 Admiral Koichi Shiozawa ordered
Japanese
occupation of the Chapei district.
When the Chinese resisted,
Japan bombed Chapei.
On January 29 China appealed to Articles
10 and 15
by taking their case to the League Assembly.
A commission
headed by Victor Lytton began investigating the situation.
Meanwhile
the Council did no more than adopt Stimson's non-recognition policy.
By March 1932 Japan had set up a puppet government in Manchuria
called Manchukuo under the last emperor of China, Pu Yi, using
the name Kangde.
By the time Japan agreed to a cease-fire in May
they had devastated Chapei,
and several thousand Chinese and Japanese
had been killed or wounded.
In September 1932 the Lytton Commission
concluded that Manchukuo
was not established by the will of the
native Chinese
but was a result of Japanese imperialism.
Japan
managed to delay League action for several months;
but on February
24, 1933 the Assembly passed a resolution
agreeing with the Lytton
Commission's judgment.
This was opposed only by the Japanese delegation,
and Yosuke Matsuoka dramatically walked out.
The following month
Japan gave formal notice
that it was withdrawing from the League.
By then the Japanese army had also occupied Jehol,
a border province
between Manchuria and China.
In the London Naval Treaty of April 1930 Britain, the United
States, and Japan
had extended their 1922 Washington arms-limit
agreemen
to include cruisers, destroyers, and submarines.
The
1922 Naval Treaty had set limits the same for Britain and the
United States
with Japan allowed 60% and Italy and France one-third
as much.
After five years of study the League Council's Preparatory
Commission scheduled
a Disarmament Conference for February 1932
in Geneva.
Fifty-nine nations were represented, and Soviet foreign
minister Maxim Litvinov
came to the Disarmament Conference with
a proposal
for a substantial reduction of offensive weapons.
Germany
wanted other powers to reduce their arms to the levels to which
they had been restricted by the Versailles Treaty, and they quoted
that document's call
for "a general limitation of the armaments
of all nations."24
They reminded the French officials that
they had been given assurances that
these limitations would be
"the first steps toward the general reduction of armaments."24
The French, lacking support from Britain and the United States
to protect their national security, were unwilling to make concessions
to Germany.
France proposed that all major offensive weapons be
controlled by the League
and an international force under Council
authority.
German Chancellor Heinrich Bruening demanded equality
for Germany
by having the other powers reduce their arms.
On April 10, 1932 Germans re-elected President Paul von Hindenburg,
but Adolf Hitler got more than thirteen million votes.
Bruening
suggested that Germany be allowed to double its army to 200,000.
On June 2 Franz von Papen replaced Bruening and harshly criticized
the Versailles Treaty.
That month United States President Herbert
Hoover proposed abolishing
offensive weapons and reducing all
others by a third,
but neither Britain nor Japan would accept
the abolition of armored forces and bombers.
The Germans announced
that they would withdraw until they were given equality.
On December
11 envoys of France, Germany, Britain, and the United States
declared
equal rights in a system to provide security for all nations.
On January 30, 1933 President Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor
of Germany.
On March 5 the Nazi party won the election, and with
the nationalists
they held a majority in the recently burned Reichstag.
On March 16 British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald proposed parity
in troops
between France, Germany, Italy, and Poland at 200,000
each
while allowing Russia 500,000, France 200,000 more in her
empire,
and Italy 50,000 more; every power would be limited to
500 military aircraft.
MacDonald then left to consult in Rome
with Benito Mussolini, who proposed
a four-power pact between
France, Germany, Britain, and Italy outside of the League.
On May 16, 1933 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt
declared his support for the British plan.
The next day Hitler
made a speech calling war "unlimited madness" and offered
to disband Germany's entire military establishment if its neighbors
would do the same.
He complained that Germany was being treated
unjustly by the Versailles Treaty;
he threatened that if Germany
was not given equality,
it would withdraw from the Disarmament
Conference and from the League.
The example of Japanese aggression
in Manchuria persuaded most diplomats
that disarmament would be
foolish, and
Britain insisted on keeping its strategic bombing
capability.
France proposed amending MacDonald's plan, delaying
German rearmament
for four years and its equality for eight years.
A four-power power pact was signed by Britain, France, Germany,
and Italy at Rome
on July 15, but this did little but agree to
consider the revision of treaties.
On October 14, 1933 Hitler
announced that Germany was withdrawing
from the Disarmament Conference
and from the League of Nations.
When Hitler put this to a national
referendum on November 12,
about 95% of the German people voted
in favor of his decision.
Although the French and British intelligence
agencies were aware that
Germany had been secretly rearming since
the 1920s in violation
of the Versailles Treaty, no sanctions
were proposed.
In October 1932 the mandate for Iraq had been declared terminated,
and that nation was unanimously admitted into the League.
On July
1, 1933 the French diplomat, Deputy Secretary-General Joseph Avenol,
replaced Secretary-General Eric Drummond.
In March 1934 the German
budget for the next fiscal year revealed a 90% increase
in military
expenditures, persuading France to end negotiations.
In July 1934
Mussolini used four divisions to keep the Nazis
from taking over
Austria after they murdered Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss.
Despite
opposition to admitting a Communist country by Switzerland, the
Netherlands,
and Portugal, the Soviet Union was voted into the
League of Nations
on September 18, 1934 and was given a permanent
seat on the Council.
Nazi threats regarding the impending plebiscite
in the Saar prompted Geoffrey Knox
of the Governing Commission
to request troops from the League Council,
and 1,500 soldiers,
mostly Italian, were sent.
In the 1935 Saar election 90% voted
for reunion with Germany;
less than 50,000 wanted to remain under
the League;
and only 2,214 voted to unite with France.
An undeclared border war had been going on at the Gran Chaco
between Bolivia and Paraguay since December 1928 over rich oil
deposits.
On December 19 that year those governments had informed
Secretary-General Drummond that they had chosen Pan-American arbitration;
52,000 Bolivians and 36,000 Paraguayans were killed in the conflict.
When the Washington Commission of Neutrals failed in 1933,
Bolivia
appealed to the League, which sent a Commission of Inquiry.
An
arms embargo was recommended, and 28 nations agreed to it in May
1934.
The arms embargo was lifted from Bolivia after they accepted
the cease-fire proposal,
but Paraguay did not accept it and resigned
from the League in February 1935.
In May the League gave the Gran
Chaco dispute back to
a South American mediation conference that
included the United States,
and on June 12, 1935 Bolivia and Paraguay
signed protocols ending the dispute.
In January 1935 the United
States Senate had defeated an effort
by the Roosevelt
administration to become a member
of the Permanent Court of International
Justice (PCIJ).
During the 1920s Italy had used troops to suppress native resistance in Somaliland,
and from 1929 to 1932 the Fascists conducted a brutal campaign in Libya,
destroying villages, hanging leaders, and putting civilians in concentration camps.
On December 5, 1934 a clash at the Wal Wal oasis killed over a hundred
Ethiopians (Abyssinians) and about thirty native soldiers under Italian authority.
Italy had been planning war to gain Ethiopia's coal, oil, gold, and platinum
and so rejected arbitration under the treaty they had signed in 1928.
On January 3, 1935 Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie asked the League
to intervene to protect his nation as stated in Article 11.
Mussolini agreed to arbitration in order to postpone the Council's consideration.
Then he disregarded its decision by building up Italian forces in Somaliland and Eritrea.
On March 17 Ethiopia appealed to Article 15; but two days before that,
Hitler had announced compulsory conscription and an
increase in the German army from 10 to 36 divisions.
On April 17, 1935 the League Council condemned German rearmament
as a violation of the Versailles Treaty.
In June Stanley Baldwin became prime minister, and a special poll
of British voters called the "Peace Ballot" showed that they overwhelmingly
supported the League, favoring economic sanctions 15-1 and military sanctions 3-1.
On October 3, 1935 the Italian army invaded Ethiopia, and within a week
both the League Council and its Assembly had condemned Italy for violating
the Covenant, though Albania, Austria, and Hungary opposed the resolution.
After France's Pierre Laval and England's Samuel Hoare endorsed a sanctions regime
that capitulated to Mussolini, it was so unpopular that both foreign ministers
had to resign, Hoare on December 19 and Laval on January 22, 1936.
Ethiopians submitted evidence that the Italians were using mustard gas
in violation of the Geneva Protocol they signed in 1925.
After the French Chamber of Deputies ratified a mutual aid pact with the Soviet Union
in February 1936, Hitler ordered German troops to occupy the Rhineland on March 7
in violation of the Locarno Pact as well as the Versailles Treaty.
French and Belgian diplomats asked the League for
sanctions and military force, but the British opposed.
On May 6 the Italians captured Addis Ababa,
and Mussolini proclaimed his "African victory."
When the Ethiopian delegate attended the League Council on May 11,
the Italian delegate walked out; but Secretary-General Avenol
negotiated with Mussolini and criticized Selassie.
A month later the British government advised lifting the sanctions against Italy.
This decision was bitterly criticized in the House of Commons
as opposition leader Clement Attlee accused them of destroying the League of Nations.
However, this policy of Anthony Eden was also adopted by France.
Selassie was allowed to speak to the League Assembly on June 30 and warned them
that "the very existence of the League" was in danger,
saying "God and history will remember your judgment."25
Four days later the Assembly voted to end the sanctions
as Ethiopia cast the only opposing vote.
After the Ethiopian delegates were allowed to be seated in September 1936,
the Italians no longer attended any meetings.
On November 1, 1936 Mussolini announced the Rome-Berlin Axis.
In July 1936 General Francisco Franco and military officers
tried to take over
the government of Spain by force from the Popular
Front led by Manuel Azaña,
who had been elected on May
8.
Azaña asked for military aid from France and England
while appealing to the League.
France's socialist prime minister
Leon Blum was sympathetic,
but the French parliament feared war
with Italy and Germany,
who were already supplying Franco with
aircraft;
thus the French government prohibited selling arms to
the Spanish republic.
On September 9, 1936 in London 26 European
nations met
as the International
Committee for the Application
of the Agreement for Non-Intervention in Spain.
Attempting to
mollify Italy and Germany, the League's Secretary-General Avenol
blocked the effort of Spain's foreign minister, Julio Alvarez
del Vayo,
to bring up the issue in the League Assembly.
Although
they all accepted the Non-Intervention Agreement,
Italy and Germany
continued to aid Franco's war;
in response the USSR sent supplies
to the Spanish government.
Avenol invited the countries involved
in the crisis to the Council for a mediation effort
but removed
consideration of possible aggression against Spain.
After the
Axis powers recognized Franco on November 18,
Avenol began blocking
League aid to the Spanish republic.
In December 1936 Alvarez del Vayo accused the Fascist powers
of violating the Agreement, and in February 1937 the Non-Intervention
Committee
decided to police Spanish borders and ports to prevent
outside aid and volunteers
to Spain with naval patrols from Britain,
France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Russia.
The next month Italian
troops were captured in the battle of Guadalajara,
proving that
four Italian divisions were fighting.
On April 26 German aircraft
destroyed the city of Guernica.
The Spanish foreign minister accused
Italy again at the League Council on May 28,
and the next day
the Council unanimously passed a resolution
for all non-Spanish
forces to withdraw from the Civil War.
The day after that, 22
of the crew on the Deutschland were killed in an air attack,
prompting the German navy to blast the port of Almeria
and to
withdraw from the interdiction patrols.
In September 1937 the
Mediterranean powers met to stop submarine warfare,
and on the
16th Spanish prime minister Juan Negrin went to the League
and
asked them to protect Spanish ships and condemn Italy for the
losses.
Despite Avenol's continuing efforts to conciliate Italy,
on December 11 Mussolini announced Italy's resignation from the
League.
In May 1938 Alvarez del Vayo asked the League to end the sham
of non-intervention,
but only the USSR voted with Spain.
In October
1938 the international brigades fighting for the Loyalist government
were disbanded; but Franco kept bombing, and a British report
to the League Council
in January 1939 called it "contrary
to the conscience of mankind
and to the principles of international
law."26
The League did arrange aid for the refugees as Franco's
offensive captured Barcelona,
Catalonia, and finally Madrid before
the republican armies surrendered on April 1.
On May 9, 1939 Franco
announced that
Spain was withdrawing from the League of Nations.
Avenol's concessions to try to keep the Fascist powers in the
League had failed.
Fighting broke out between Chinese and Japanese troops at the
Marco Polo Bridge
west of Beijing on July 7, 1937 and spread in
the north and to Shanghai the next month.
On September 12 China
asked the League to help;
but British consul Edmond in Geneva,
Secretary-General Avenol,
and French foreign minister Delbos persuaded
the Chinese delegate Wellington Koo
that League action would prevent
President Roosevelt
from
assisting because of America's neutrality law.
So Koo agreed to
an advisory committee, and on September 27
he did not ask for
sanctions but only requested a review of the bombing issue.
Britain's
delegate Robert Cecil modified Koo's proposal for collective support
from the League for China and deleted the motion to bar aid to
Japan.
Britain over Koo's objections also got the issue given
to the nations
of the Nine Power Treaty of 1922 that had limited
Japanese armaments.
No war had been declared, but in December
1937 Time magazine estimated that
the
Japanese had killed
20,000 Chinese prisoners of war and civilians in Nanjing (Nanking).
In January 1938 Koo again got the run-around that the League could
not act
without the United States, which was waiting for the League.
Koo appealed to the League again in February, May, and in the
autumn of 1938
but still could not get even an embargo against
aiding Japan with arms or loans.
Although he had pledged to respect Austrian sovereignty in
a 1936 treaty,
Hitler announced it would be unified with Germany
on March 12, 1938.
Austria's chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg capitulated
but scheduled a plebiscite for March 13.
Fearing a defeat at the
polls, Hitler ordered his army to invade,
and to avoid carnage
Schuschnigg cancelled the plebiscite on March 11.
British officials
advised against the League trying to pass any ineffective resolutions.
Next Hitler campaigned for the Sudetanland to be returned to Germany;
but on September 22, 1938 Czechoslovakia began mobilizing
and
appealed to France to fulfill its treaty obligation.
At the end
of the month British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and
French
premier Edouard Daladier met with Hitler at Munich
as Czech officials
were excluded.
Chamberlain accepted Germany's terms and was given
a paper by Hitler saying that
it was "the desire of our two
peoples never to go to war with one another again."27
In
March 1939 German troops occupied Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia
as Hitler let Hungary take over the Ruthenian region of what had
been Czechoslovakia.
When its former President Benes appealed
to the League,
Secretary-General Avenol dismissed his request
and began admitting that
the League could no longer make political
pronouncements or maneuvers.
Instead, he hoped that the League
could expand its social and economic services.
On April 7, 1939 the Italian army invaded Albania,
and Mussolini
forced its government to resign from the League.
On August 23
the new Soviet foreign minister Molotov and
Germany's Ribbentrop
announced a Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact.
As German troops
invaded Poland on September 1,
it became clear that Poland had
been divided between them.
Britain and France gave Hitler an ultimatum
and then declared war on Germany.
Avenol and the League did nothing
until the USSR invaded Finland on November 30, 1939.
On December
14 the League Assembly expelled the Soviet Union for violating
its Covenant.
Technical assistance was offered to Finland;
but
it was over-run by Soviet armies by March 1940.
During World War
II the League survived at Geneva,
though Avenol resigned on July
25 and was replaced by Irish Sean Lester.
Finally the League of
Nations itself was replaced and its remaining functions
were taken
over by the United Nations Organization in April 1946.
Perhaps the League had helped to prevent small wars and through
cooperation
brought more collective consciousness into international
affairs,
but its failure had become overwhelmingly obvious when
the aggressions of
Japan, Italy, and Germany brought on a second
world war that many had feared.
1. The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, Volume
2 by James Brown Scott,
p. 77.
2. Advocate of Peace, LXXII (1910), 147 quoted by Calvin
De Armond Davis in
The United States and the Second Hague Peace
Conference, p. 319.
3. Quoted by Page Smith in America Enters the World, p.
615.
4. The Messages and Papers of Woodrow Wilson. Volume 1,
p. 275.
5. Ibid., p. 353.
6. Ibid., p. 355.
7. Ibid., p. 355.
8. Quoted by Arthur S. Link in Wilson: Campaigns for Progressivism
and Peace
1916-1917, p. 398.
9. The Messages and Papers of Woodrow Wilson. Volume 1,
p. 378.
10. Ibid., p. 381.
11. Ibid., p. 468-470.
12. Ibid., p. 524.
13. Ibid., p. 556.
14. Baker, Ray Stannard, Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement,
Volume 1, p. 10.
15. The Messages and Papers of Woodrow Wilson. Volume 1,
p. 597.
16. The Messages and Papers of Woodrow Wilson. Volume 2,
p. 709.
17. The Law of War: A Documentary History ed. Leon Friedman,
Volume 1, p. 424.
18. Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal by Thomas A.
Bailey, p. 350.
19. The Law of War: A Documentary History ed. Leon Friedman,
Volume 1, p. 423.
20. Ibid., p. 424.
21. Ibid., p. 429.
22. Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand
Pact by Robert Ferrell,
p. 266.
23. The League of Nations: its life and times 1920-1946
by F. S. Northedge, p. 147.
24. The League of Nations from 1929 to 1946 by George Gill,
p. 9.
25. Ibid., p. 46.
26. Ibid., p. 64.
27. Ibid., p. 80.
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