Politics: The League of Nations

by: Maria Paula Sánchez

The League of Nations began after the end of World War One. The Role of organization of the League was to prevent future Wars, to create a new International order that would make the world safer for democracy, because the only way to avoid World War I, was to maintain world peace and solve International disputes. After the war, this cause was much supported. Because Switzerland was a neutral country and didn´t fight in World War I, The League of Nations was based in Geneva, Switzerland.

It was an International organization, that´s why no one could dispute this choice. If any dispute occurred, the League, it was possible to do a sanction; there would be a call to discuss the problems, in an orderly and peaceful manner, which would took place in the League´s Assembly, this was the League´s parliament which would listen to disputes and come to a decision on how to solve the problem. If one nation was supposed to be the offender in a situation, the League could make some verbal sanctions, like warning the aggressor nation that they would have to leave another nation´s territory or face consequences.

If the aggressor nation didn´t mind about the warning, the Assembly could decide to make economic sanctions; which would be discussed by the League´s Council. This was supposed to bankrupt the nation, so the people in that state would push the government to accept the League´s decision.

The president, Woodrow Wilson, had an idea of League, but America refused to join it, it was the most powerful nation, they refused to got in the league because they wanted to have an isolationist policy throughout the world.

In 1919, Germany was not allowed to join the League, because Germany started the war, and according to the Treaty of Versailles one of their punishments was that this nation was not considered a member of the International community and because of that this nation was not invited to join. This means too that the League would not count with the support of Germany against aggressor nations.

Russia was also not allowed to join because they had a communist government that created fear in western Europe, and in 1918, the Russian royal family, the Romanovs, were murdered. Such a country could not be allowed to take its place in the League.

So, three of the world’s most powerful nations, Russia and Germany played no part in supporting the League. The two most powerful members were Britain and France, both had suffered financially and militarily during the war, and neither was enthusiastic to get involved in disputes that did not affect Western Europe.

The League had a good idea, to end war for good. But, if an aggressor nation was tried to ignore the League’s verbal warnings, the entire League could do was enforce economic sanctions and hope that these worked as it had no chance or enforcing its decisions using military might.