The League of Nations

1. The League of Nations Brittany McBryde, Dara Green, Zachary Price, Brooke Carter, Catherine Bizub

2. The League of Nations • Created by Woodrow Wilson • Based on his 14 points • It called for peace keeping and collective security among world powers

3. Treaty of Versailles • Ended the war between Germany and the Allied Powers • The other Central Powers were dealt with in separate treaties • FUN FACT: It was signed exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand • Which was the immediate cause of World War One

4. Treaty of Versailles CONT. • Provisions • Germany had to accept responsibility for causing the war • Germany had to disarm (army weakened) • Germany lost territory • France got Alsace-Lorraine back from Germany • Germany had to pay reparations to certain countries from the Triple Entente

5. Treaty of Versailles CONT. • Provisions • Cost of war reparations: 442 Billion of 2011 US dollars • Germany as of October 4, 2010 made the final payments on WWI reparations (Just a little TID BIT) • Creation of Czechoslovakia

6. Article X • “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.”

7. Peacekeeping • Article X • “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…” • The League was able to arbitrate smaller disputes, but not larger ones because they were not able to control the larger powers • The smaller powers would not resort to violence • The larger powers were more violent • The league was successful in non-violent affairs

8. Peacekeeping CONT. • Successes - Greco-Bulgarian War of 1925(The Stray Dog War) and Upper Silesia. • Failures - Vilna, the Russo-Polish War, the Seizure Fiume and the Ruhr crisis.

9. RUHR CRISIS • Known as the Franco-Belgium war • France and Belgium invaded German mines and factories • France wanted reparations for the war so they invaded Ruhr Germany • They took the products of both factories and mines for compensation for the war • This was prior to the treaty of Versailles

10. Collective Security • Article X • “…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.” • This principle failed because members would have to promise to intervene in a situation which may not involve them and which could cost them more than it was worth, based on the principle of altruism. • Altruism- The principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others

11. Collective Security CONT. • The League of Nations did not have an army • Three major powers were not involved • Germany • Russia aka USSR aka Soviet Union • United State of America • Germany and Russia spent money building factories to create weapons that the members of the League could not

12. Absence of Powers • There were three major absent powers during World War I • Germany • Russia aka USSR aka Soviet Union • United States of America

13. Absence of Russia and Germany • Were left out of the Negotiations • This was because when Russia left the war in 1918 because of their own revolution they made peace with Germany through the Brest-Litovsk treaty • Wanted to recover territory and land that it had lost through the war.

14. Absence of Russia and Germany CONT. • In 1922 Germany and Russia signed the Treaty of Rapallo • the treaty would allow Germany to develop weapons against the treaty of Versailles. This treaty further established the USSR and Germany as “outlaw” states which would act outside of the international agreements made by other powers. • The two states would cooperate outside of the treaty and together fuel resentment for having not been included in the treaty.

15. Absence of the Unites States • Was the strongest economic Power after WWI • The US came out of the war stronger than they had come • In order for the League to function, economic power and strength was needed • The US was the only power strong enough to intervene in disputes between large powers

16. Absence of the United States CONT. • Even though Woodrow Wilson, the United States President at the time, came up with the League of Nations, the United States would not join • This undermined the very purpose of the League • The Unites States would not join the League because they did not want to get involved with foreign entanglements

17. RECAP • Why did the League of Nations not work? • Failure of Collective Security • The absence of three major powers • What were the three major powers • USSR aka Russia aka Soviet Union • Germany • United States • What was the Name of the Article in the Treaty of Versailles that proposed the League of Nations? • Article X

18. Source A • Paper 1: • Source A: The Covenant of the League of Nations, the Charter of the League of Nations. June 28, 1919. • Article X: • “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.”

19. Source B • Source B: One of President Woodrow Wilson's Final Addresses in Support of the League of Nations. • 25 September 1919, Pueblo, CO. • “Reflect, my fellow citizens, that the membership of this great League is going to include all the great fighting nations of the world, as well as the weak ones. It is not for the present going to include Germany, but for the time being Germany is not a great fighting country. All the nations that have power that can be mobilized are going to be members of this League, including the United States… And what do they unite for? They enter into a solemn promise to one another that they will never use their power against one anther for aggression; that they never will impair the territorial integrity of a neighbour; that they never will interfere with the political independence of a neighbour; that they will abide by the principle that great populations are entitled to determine their own destiny and that they will not interfere with that destiny; and that no matter what differences arise amongst them they will never resort to war without first having done one or other of two things - either submitted the matter of controversy to arbitration, in which case they agree to abide by the result without question, or submitted it to the consideration of the council of the League of Nations, laying before that council all the documents, all the facts, agreeing that the council can publish the documents and the facts to the whole world, agreeing that there shall be six months allowed for the mature consideration of those facts by the council, and agreeing that at the expiration of the six months, even if they are not then ready to accept the advice of the council with regard to the settlement of the dispute, they will still not go to war for another three months….”

20. Source C • Source C: Published in “Punch” magazine, 1933.

21. Source D • Source D: Essay as prepared byAnna Costa of the London School of Economics, November 2010. • “Both the Manchurian and the Abyssinian crises represented instances of the failure of collective security as it was framed by the major powers in the interwar period…. this paper argues that the breakdown in enforcement of collective security was ultimately produced by three main causes. The first is a series of problems intrinsic in the formalization of collective security by the League of Nations, namely a loose legal and conceptual formulation and vague terms of enforcement. A second cause is broadly ascribable to the socio-political, economic and security circumstances of the international system between the First and Second World Wars as brought about by the 1929-1933 financial and economic crisis. The third and weightiest cause is a deep contradiction at the level of how individual countries understood collective security. … Collective security, as it was framed by the major powers in the interwar period, was a concept in part oxymoronic and in part empty: it was oxymoronic to the extent that specific national security interests proved irreconcilable with the idea of security for all by all; it was empty to the extent that when perceived national security aims did not openly contradict the principle of collective security the two often did not coincide, a gap that translated into a powerful disincentive to embrace collective security as an ideal and enforce it as a practice.”

22. Source E • Source E: Speech fragments from the Senate Floor. The White House,Washington, 18 November, 1,919. • “Henry Cabot Lodge: 5. The United States will not submit to arbitration or to inquiry by the Assembly or by the Council of the League of Nations provided for in said treaty of peace any questions which in the judgment of the United States depend upon or relate to its long-established policy, commonly known as the Monroe Doctrine; said doctrine is to be interpreted by the United States alone and is hereby declared to be wholly outside the jurisdiction of said League of Nations and entirely unaffected by any provision contained in the said treaty of peace with Germany. • 9. The United States shall not be obligated to contribute to any expenses of the League of Nations, or of the Secretariat, or of any commission, or committee, or conference, or other agency organized under the League of Nations or under the treaty or for the purpose of carrying out the treaty provisions, unless and until an appropriation of funds available for such expenses shall have been made by the Congress of the United States. • Mr. Robinson: ‘Membership in the League of Nations is treated, in the reservations, with so little dignity and as of such slight importance as to authorize its termination by the passage of a mere concurrent resolution of Congress. This attempt to deny to the President participation in withdrawal by this government from the League and to vest that authority solely in the two houses of Congress in disregard of the plain provision of the Constitution displays a spirit of narrow opposition to the executive unworthy of the subject and unworthy of the Senate of the United States.’ ”