Causes of its Failure:

The League of Nations was the first major attempt as an international organization of state to
maintain peace and promote international co-operation. But it failed. Some of the causes of its
failure are briefly mentioned as follows:
1. The political background of Europe at the time of the birth of the League was not very
conducive to a peace organization. World War I had been fought ostensibly to make the world
safe for democracy, to end all future wars, etc. But essentially it was an imperialist war for the
division and re-division of colonies.
The major powers namely the allied and the associated powers were, no doubt, victorious but
peace as it emerged was an imperialist peace. The secret treaties among major powers were
concluded at the very outset.
The League of Nations was a part of the Versailles peace treaty. But men like Clemenceau (French
P.M.) and Lloyd George never wanted its success. Clemenceau actually ridiculed the idea and said
to Wilson, "I like your League of Nations. I like it very much but I do not believe in it," Thus the
imperialist character of the peace handicapped the League throughout its history.
2. At no stage of its history did the League represent the world balance of forces. The U.S.A. never
became its member and Russia stepped in only in 1934. Thus its effectiveness as an instrument of
the world peace suffered.
3. In absence of Russia and America, it was actually dominated by the Anglo-French powers and
became an instrument of their policy in Europe and since these powers were not interested in
peace so much as in maintenance of their imperialist domination and destruction of Soviet
Union, the League of Nations never had a chance to succeed.
4. The League of Nations was founded on the principle of unani of all the members except those
who were party to a dispute. Thus every single member including the smallest had the right to
veto. This system had two very important consequences.
(i) A small power could very irresponsibly hamstring the League in its action against an
aggressor. For instance aid to Republican Spain and condemnation of Fascist attack against
Spain was prevented by a hostile vote of Portugal. The small powers who could not have the
responsibility of maintaining world peace, could yet wreck it.
(ii) The big powers very often used small powers as stalking horses from behind the veto of a
small member and thus escaped responsibility for a particular decision before their own people
and world public opinion.
5. The world was divided into two social systems-the capitalistic and socialistic. The absence of
Russia created a very real danger that the League might be used against the new socialist state.
Unfortunately this danger proved to be real. The League which condoned fascist aggressions one
after the other, wasted no time in violating its very principles by expelling Soviet Union on the
question of Finland.

6. The spheres of activity of the Council and the Assembly were not clearly

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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1932-10-01/league-nations-successesand-failures
1.

Inter-War Diplomacy. Online.

Internet. http://www.rpfuller.com/gcse/history/4.html Accessed October 4-13 2003.
2. League of Nations. Online. Internet.
<http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/leaugeofnations.htm> Accessed October 413 2003.
3. MSN Learning and Research: League of Nations. Online. Internet.
<http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761560118>
Accessed October 4-13 2003.
4. The League of Nations. Online. Internet.
<http://www.russiannewsnetwork.com/leaguenations.html> Accessed October 413 2003

The Rise of the International Organisation. A Short History by David Armstrong

(Palgrave Macmillan, 1982)

Peacekeeping in International Politics by Alan James (Palgrave, 1990)

Death and transfiguration?

Displaying the UN flag, New York, 1949 Like

the proverbial old soldier,

the League never died, but rather faded away. Between the humiliation of seeing one of
its members, Austria, taken over by Germany in 1938 without even a formal protest, and
the absurdity of expelling the USSR after the outbreak of World War Two in 1939 (an
event that neither the USSR nor the League were involved in), all that remained were
such wraithlike undertakings as the British Mandate in Palestine.
When the Allies finally began to prepare for the end of World War Two, they rejected any
idea of restoring the League, and instead moved to establish a new organisation, the
United Nations (UN). The structure of the United Nations was to give a much stronger

position to the traditional great powers through the UN Security Council; the most
significant thing about its creation, perhaps, is that this time the USA did not back away.
The UN may have almost stumbled sideways into its peacekeeping role.
A significant number of the old League's aims and methods were transmitted into the
new organisation in 1945. Among these were not only such low-key but effective
institutions as the International Court and the International Labour Organisation, but
also the working assumptions of the secretariat, and some key operations - including
those that would soon come to be called 'peacekeeping' operations.
The UN may have almost stumbled sideways into its peacekeeping role, but the motive
and sustaining force in the process was the survival - and the strengthening - of the
expectation of international involvement in the preservation of global security. Gradually
this came to include the defence of human rights as well as the resolution of territorial
conflict. The UN's first attempt to resolve a serious conflict, in Palestine in 1947-8, was
unsuccessful, even disastrous: it failed to implement its own partition plan, and its
special mediator was assassinated.
Dealing with such internal conflict was a far more ambitious...task
None-the-less, UNTSO (the UN Truce Supervision Organisation) opened the gates to a
wave of - often bafflingly labelled - successors: UNMOGIP, UNEF, UNOGIL, UNFICYP,
UNIMOG, ONUMOZ, UNPROFOR. Some, like the observer force in Kashmir, have
remained active for 50 years: not evidence of brilliant success, admittedly, but evidence
of hard necessity and a degree of usefulness at least.
Other UN organisations had a shorter but more spectacular life: notably the Operation in
the Congo (ONUC) from 1960 to 1964, which prefigured the alarming future for missions
to states that were dissolving into civil war. In the Congo, the UN found itself using
military force against Katangan rebels to preserve the unity of the state of Congo - a
departure from the principle of strict neutrality which has usually been thought vital to
the success of its peacekeeping missions.
Dealing with such internal conflict was a far more ambitious and demanding task than
the traditional role of assisting consenting states to observe ceasefires. In effect it
showed that the UN might need to take governmental responsibility in some situations.

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