League of Nations (after WW1), Appunti di Storia

Scarica League of Nations (after WW1) e più Appunti in PDF di Storia solo su Docsity! Leaque ef Valien The damage and destruction caused by the WW1 affected millions of people economically and socially. The desire to build a better world and to find peaceful ways to end conflicts was stronger than ever before. In fact, the idea of an organisation of states to keep international peace become an important aim of the Triple Entente powers and the key person was US President Woodrow Wilson. After the defeat of the Triple Alliance in November 1918, a conference was set up in Versailles, Paristo discuss arrangements for post-war Europe. It was at this conference that the League of Nation was created. In January 1918 Wilson issued his famous 14 points and the most important ideas were: the rights to self-determination, disarmament, an end to secret treaties and alliances, a “League of Nation” to preserve future peace. In 1918, a number of politicians were proposing a league of co-operating states: Jan Smuts from France, Lloyd George from Britain, Woodrow Wilson form USA. Russia was not involved because had been a communist revolution in 1917 and a bloody civil war was taking place. The League of Nation was born in January 1920 during a conference, which was set up in Versailles (Paris) to discuss arrangements for post-war Europe. They set out the League to guide to peace and they also set out an agreement called the Covenant of the League of Nation: an agreement composed of 26 articles and written as Part 1 of the Peace Treaty. It set out the League’s aim, organisation and how it was to be run. It created the Mandates Commission to deal with the colonies taken from the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. It created also the Permanent International Court of Justice (PICJ) to help to settle disputes and advise on issues of international law. The Article from 10 to 17 dealt with disputes which could lead to war: No aggressive actions against other members (dialogue) Take the disputes to the L.O.N. to solve them Arbitration if discussion failed Economic sanctions if any state refused to accept the decision If all this was not sufficient + military action The League was based in Geneva (Switzerland). Although all members had ultimate authority over the League’s action: the Assembly only met one a year (in September); the Council could be called together quickly if a situation occurred. Only the Secretariat and the PICJ worker all year round. The Assembly was a kind of international parliament where issues affecting international peace were discussed. Every member had one vote in the Assembly and all the decisions had to be agreed by the majority of members. All routine decisions had to be agreed unanimously (means everybody). The Assembly voted on proposals made by the Council and elected the temporary nations that sat on the Council. The Council’s main role was to settle international disputes. Any decisions made by the Council had to be unanimous. There were five permanent members: France, Great Britain, Italy and Japan and then Germany after 1926. When Germany left in 1933 (because of Hitler), its permanent seat was taken by the USSR when it joined in 1934. From the start, the membership of the League was a key weakness. When the Britain and France were the only great powers on the Council, they had the most influence on the League without the USA. Not all countries belonged to the League: Germany could not join until 1926 because it was a defeated country; the USSR could not join until 1934 because it was communist (communism is an extreme form of socialism); the USA was never a member. The League was not strong enough to defend members under threat from more powerful countries, nor could it enforce its decisions. AII decisions taken by the Council had to be unanimous: this meant that, even if action was desperately needed, one member of the Council voting against it meant it would not go ahead. The League needed full co-operation to be successful, especially as it did not have the means to enforce its decisions. Commission were groups set to investigate and deal with specific problems: the mandates and the minorities commission were necessary if the peace agreed after the WW1 was to succeed. This was because the Treaty of Versailles had created many new nations in Europe, so it redrawn the map of Europe, creating new states from old nations and empires. The issues included protecting their culture, language of political rights. Also, the minorities had to make an appeal to the LON before any action could be taken. The first dispute of the LON was the Aaland Islands (in Baltic Sea): these islands were given to Finland when it gained its independence from Russia in 1917. The population was 95 percent Swedish and the Aaland Islanders themselves campaigned for union with Sweden. So, Finland and Sweden claimed the islands and the LON was asked to arbitrate. Finland passed a law in May 1920 that granted them considerable autonomy, but the campaign continued. In June 1920, Finland charged two campaigners whit high treason: the dispute looked like getting worse and was referred to LON. In June1921 the League proposed that the Aaland islands should remain Finnish and guarantee that: Swedish language and customs would be kept; the appointment of Islands’ governor had to be agreed by Islanders; the Aaland Island were demilitarised under the League’s supervision. It was a success for LON. The case of Upper Silesia occurred because of the redrawing of Europe's borders after the WW1. Upper Silesia was rich in coal and industrial resources and had been part of Germany. Upper was on the border between German and Poland and both countries wanted to control of it. Under the terms, what happened to Upper Silesia was to be decided by plebiscite (1920), a direct vote on a specific issue or question. The plebiscite was held in March 1921 and resulted in a 54 per cent majority in favour of being part of Germany. Then, the League's solution was to divide Upper Silesia because many Polish workers claimed to have been forced into voting for German rule: a German-Polish co-operation commission was also established and both sides accepted the solution. Like the Aaland Island, this was a success for the League. On 19 October 1925, after a series of border incidents between Greek and Bulgaria, a small fight broke out in which two Greek border guards were killed. Suspecting that Bulgaria would attack, Greece ordered an immediate invasion. The Bulgarians responded. The League condemned Greece and demanded both sides end their military operations. Both sides agreed and by 29 October 1925 the incident was over. The Council did award Bulgaria 30 million Bulgarian lev as compensation for Greek soldiers taking crops and cattle. This was another success for the League. The refugee crisis after the WW1 was on a scale never before: over a million prisoners of war (POWSs) to be repatriated; over a million refugees fleeing the Russian Revolution and the civil war and thousands living in the “wrong” country. Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen was appointed High Commissioner for Refugees and his priority was repatriating POWs. The largest was caused by Russia's civil war, but there were also Greek, Bulgarians and Armenians. Nansen’ approach was to care for refugees, often working with the ILO to find them employment or settle them permanently; refugees did not have identify papers of passports to enable them to travel so Nansen introduced “Nansen passports” that were accepted by the governments of 50 different nations by 1929. The main targets of the League of Nations’ drugs commission were opium and coca. Opium, which is made by from poppy flowers, and the coca plant can be used to make the drugs heroin, cocaine, morphine and codeine. Although there are some important medical uses forthese drugs, many are grown, made, traded and used illegally around the world. Drugs Commission were successful for the League because countries not in the League, such as the USA, often worked with it and agreed its international conventions and the USA reported a 50 per cent fall in drugs addict in the 1930s. As drug companies became limited by the League's controls, more moved to countries that ignored them; the illegal trade in drugs was hard to control and by the late 1930s fewer countries were co- operating so Japan, Germany and Italy had all left. In 1923, five Italians were murdered on Greek soil. They had been working on redrawing the national borders between Greek and Albania as part of the WWI1 peace settlement. Mussolini’ s Italian government blamed the Greeks and attacked and invaded the island of the Corfu. This was against the covenant of the LON, which Italy had signed. The Greek government brought the matter to LON. Italy was an important member of the League with a permanent seat on the Council and an ally of Britain and France. The Council proposed that Italy withdraw from Greece, but that Greece pay 50 million lire as compensation. Although the crisis was solved peacefully, it does show that the LON could be quite weak when dealing with major powers. Italy had clearly broken the League's covenant by attacking another member state yet. One of the most significant failures of the League of Nations was the Manchuria crisis. In the 1920s Japan's army began losing confidence in its government, which at the time was supporting international disarmament initiatives. At the same time Japan was increasingly suffering economic difficulties. So, the Japanese people became disillusioned with their government. China offered a possible solution to Japan's problem. Politically it was weak with a large supply of raw materials and a vast market for Japanese exports. Manchuria was especially good for farming and rich in coal and iron. Japan already controlled land around the Manchurian railway thanks to a 1905 Treaty. In September 1931 a bomb exploded on the South Manchurian Railway. After the explosion, the Japanese army claimed it needed to restore order and took control of the town of Mukden. China went to the