Why the Need for a League Arose
WORLD WAR I was a four-year holocaust of death and devastation, the likes of which had never before been seen. Split into two opposing alliances, all the great powers of the world, and others, marched off to battle, each side confident of victory, encouraged by the hurrahs of deluded populations that thought war a glorious adventure.
But within a few months, the world learned only too bitterly the terrible price of war. And when it ended, the carnage, the wanton waste of lives and materials, left the world reeling under a gigantic war debt. Something had to be done to prevent such a conflict from breaking out again. Why not an arrangement through which the nations could resolve their disputes peacefully rather than militarily? A new idea? Not really.
Why Previous Efforts Failed
Before World War I, a court had been set up to try to resolve disputes peacefully. It was the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in the Netherlands. In the early 1900’s, many people were hoping that it might become a center where mediation would replace war. But what happened at the Hague Peace Conferences in 1899 and 1907 that led to the establishment of this court, popularly called the Hague Court?
At both meetings the nations represented would not agree to submit to compulsory arbitration, nor would they limit or reduce their stockpiles of armaments. In fact, they rejected any proposal for disarmament and blocked any plan that would obligate them to settle their differences by mediation.
Thus, when the Hague Court finally began functioning, the nations had seen to it that it did not limit their complete independence. How? By a simple expedient: They made optional the bringing of a case before the judges. And countries that did take their quarrels to this court were not obligated to abide by any of the decisions it handed down.
However, this wary shielding of national sovereignty was jeopardizing the peace and security of the world. So the arms race ran on unchecked until it finally flung mankind headlong into the salvos that shattered the world’s peace in the summer of 1914.
It is ironic that as the last minutes of peace were ticking away, Serbia, in her reply to an Austrian ultimatum, expressed her willingness “to accept a peaceful agreement, by referring this question . . . to the decision of the International Tribunal of the Hague.” But since the use of the Hague Court was optional, Austria did not feel compelled to accept this potential “peaceful agreement.” So war was declared to keep the peace—and over 20 million civilian and military corpses paid for it!
Clergy Call for League
In May 1919, Episcopal bishop Chauncey M. Brewster declared at a diocesan convention in the United States that “the world’s hope of a righteous and abiding peace lies in the reconstitution of the law of nations in a new authority. . . . International law must be invested with an authority more binding than the conclusions of the Hague Conference [which set up the Hague Court]. The co-operation of the nations, therefore, must be in some association together having the characteristics of a covenant or league.”
Roman Catholic cardinal Mercier of Belgium was of the same opinion. “It seems to me,” he said in an interview in March 1919, “that the chief duty of Governments toward the future generation is to render impossible a renewal of the crimes from which the world still bleeds.” He called the negotiators of the Versailles peace treaty “reconstructors of the new world” and encouraged the formation of a league of nations to achieve this goal. He hoped that this league would become a perfect preserver of peace.
The front page of The New York Times of January 2, 1919, ran the following headline: “Pope Hopes for Foundation of League of Nations.” Its first paragraph announced: “In a New Year’s message to America, . . . Pope Benedict expressed the hope that the Peace Conference might result in a new world order, with a League of Nations.” The pope did not use the actual phrase “new world order” in his message. However, the hopes he expressed for the League were so grandiose that either the Associated Press or the Vatican Press Office apparently thought the phrase an appropriate one.
Consider these hopes in the context of their times. Beleaguered mankind was crying out for an end to war. Too many wars in too many centuries had taken their terrible toll. And now the greatest of them all had finally ended. To a world yearning desperately for hope, the pope’s words rang out: “May there be born that League of Nations which, by abolishing conscription, will reduce armaments; which, by establishing international tribunals, will eliminate or settle disputes, which, placing peace upon a foundation of solid rock, will guarantee to everyone independence and equality of rights.” If the League of Nations could accomplish all of that, it would indeed create a “new world order.”
Why It Failed
On paper the aims and methods of the League sounded so beautiful, so practical, so workable. The Covenant of the League of Nations stated that its purpose was to “promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security.” Achieving peace and security depended on the nations’ cooperating with one another and on their “acceptance of obligations not to resort to war.”
Thus, if a critical dispute arose, the member nations involved, having pledged themselves to keep the peace, were to submit their case “to arbitration or judicial settlement or to inquiry by the Council” of the League. In addition, the League of Nations had incorporated the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in The Hague, into its peacekeeping system. Surely, it was thought, all of this would eliminate the risk of another great war. But it did not.
According to some historians, one reason why the League did not succeed as a peacekeeper was the failure of many of its “members to recognize the price that had to be paid for peace.” Limiting armaments was an important part of this price. But the nations would pay no such price. So history repeated itself—with a vengeance. The nations once again began an arms race. The League could not convince the nations to cooperate in stopping it. All appeals and arguments fell on deaf ears. The nations forgot a great lesson of 1914: Huge arsenals tend to create a smug sense of military superiority.
Having to recognize the value of “collective security” was another vital part of the price of peace. An attack on one nation was to be viewed as an attack on all. But what actually happened when one of them resorted to aggression rather than negotiation? Instead of working unitedly to stop the conflict, the nations divided themselves into various alliances, seeking mutual protection. That was the same delusion that had sucked them into the 1914 whirlpool!
The League was also weakened by the refusal of the United States to join. Many think that it was “the one great power that had the means to make it effective” and that America’s presence in the League might have given it the degree of universality so vital to its success.
But there were other reasons why the League failed. Consider this negative clause at the beginning of its Covenant: “Any Member of the League may, after two years’ notice of its intention so to do, withdraw from the League.” (Article 1(3)) This option, however well meant, gave the League no sense of stability, and this, in turn, eroded the nations’ resolve to stick loyally to it.
This open door of withdrawal put the League’s life at the mercy of its members, who could quit whenever they wished. The parts became more important than the whole. And so, by the time May 1941 rolled around, 17 nations were no longer in the League. The big guns of World War II were shattering the hope for a “new world order” and causing the League to collapse.
There had to be a better way!
[Blurb on page 7]
The League of Nations failed to prevent World War II
[Picture on page 7]
Cassino, Italy, under bombardment, March 15, 1944
[Credit Line]
U.S. Army