• International Organisation

• The establishment of the International Organisation for the world peace and co-operation was a positive feature of the age of conflict.

• The world realised the futility of constant warfare and felt the need of collective efforts for the peaceful co-operation among the nations. The welfare of the world became the prime concern. The new experiments in internationalism gave birth to the international organisation, the league of nations and the united nations organisation. Let your briefly study this aspect.

•THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS The League of Nations was an International Organisation aimed at maintaining peace in the

world by collective action of Nations. It was set up on 10th January, 1920 and continued to work till the outbreak of the Second World War. Inspite of these efforts World War I broke out in '1914' causing tremendeous destruction. President of the U.S.A. Woodrow Wilson, Considered it in operative to establish a world organisation on a permanent footing for maintaining world peace. Even before the end of the war, he included this pint in his 14 point programme and during the Paris Peace Conference, he urged upon the Ailled nations to set up such an organisation. Ultimately, a committee of experts was set up under the chairmanship of President Wilson to draft the covenant. After weeks of deliberations, the final draft of the covenant was accepted by Allied Nations on 28th April, 1919, and the League held its first session on 10th January, 1920. The league was thus a brain child of President Wilson's idealism.

n The League of Nations came into being after the end of World War One. The League of Nation's task was simple - to ensure that War never broke out again. After the turmoil caused by the Versailles Treaty, many looked to the League to bring stability to the World.

America entered World War One in 1917. The country as a whole and the president - Woodrow Wilson in particular - was horrified by the slaughter that had taken place in what was meant to be a civilised part of the world. The only way to avoid a repetition of such a disaster, was to create an International body whose sole purpose was to maintain world peace and which would sort out International Disputes as and when they occurred. This would be the task of the League of Nations.

After the devastation of the war, support for such a good idea was great.

• League Of Nations.

• Woodrow Wilson

Objective of League Of Nations•

If a dispute did occur, the League, under its Covenant, could do three things - these were known as its sanctions:

It could call on the states in dispute to sit down and discuss the problem in an orderly and peaceful manner.

If this failed the League could introduce economic sanctions, finally if this failed, the League could introduce physical sanctions.

This meant that military force would be used to put into place the League’s decision. (However, the League did not have a military force at its disposal and no member of the League had to provide one under the terms of joining - unlike the current United Nations.)

The US did not want to join, German was not allowed to join (punishment under Versailles Treaty) Russia was not seen as fit to join (communist state). That left Britain & France as leaders (both had suffered financially and militarily during the war - and neither was enthusiastic to get involved in disputes that did not affect western Europe).

It was not long before it failed! . The objectives of the league of nations were explained in the preface of its

covenant. . Those were mainly to promote international deliberation for maintaining territorial

integrity and political independence of member nations and to stop war, secret pact and interference in the internal affairs of other nations. Initially, the covenant was signed by 29 nations and the number went on increasing later

•ORGANS OF LEAGUE OF NATIONS

• The league was to function through three organs, namely the Assembly, the Council and the Secretariat. The headquater of the league was located at Geneva in Switzerland. The Assembly was a body representing all its members. It was to elect on its own president

• The League of Nations was to be based in Geneva, Switzerland. This choice was natural as Switzerland was a neutral country and had not fought in World War One. No one could dispute this choice especially as an international organisation such as the Red Cross was already based in Switzerland.

• Room Of Red Cross.

• Basement Of Red Cross.

• ACHIEVEMENTS OF LEAGUE OF NATIONS

• The league of nation, created as an instrument of world peace, proved

successful in settling certain disputes. It settled the disputes between Sweden and Finland over Aaland islands; protected Albania against Yugoslavia;s invasion; supported Greece against the threat of Italy's invasion and averted war between Greece and Bulgaria. It succeeded in settling boundary dispute between Germany and Poland, and also between Iraq and Turkey. It also performed valuable humanitarian work in suppression of traffic in women, children and opium; worked against slavery and forced labour, promoted educational and intellectual co-operation and co-ordinated activities of various scientific and health Organisations throughout the world.

The agencies did a lot of good work. It was very successful in settling the disputes like the Aaland Islands dispute between Finland and Sweden also the Greek attack on Bulgaria in 1925.

• FAILURES

Failures: Unfortunately, however, it failed in its main purpose of maintaining world piece. It failed to take firm decisions against aggression, when major powers were involved. It just looked at the failure of collective security hopelessly as in the case of Japan's attack on Manchuria. Germany's attack on Czechoslovakia or that of Italy on Ethiopia. It did little to rectify the injustice done to defeated nations by the peace treaties. Nothing much was achieved in the field of disarmament as well. As it failed to provide protection and security to its member nations, they started seeking it outside the League of Nations. The nations lost faith in the principle of collective security which formed its foundation. CAUSES OF FAILURES.

⫠ The tragic failure of the League of Nations threw the world in the harried inferno of the Second World War, within 20years of its inception. Ten reason for its failure did not lie in its basic concept,but in dominating and conflicting self interest of nations, lack of belief in effective international co-operation; lack of co-ordination among its dominant members, U.K. and France, refusal of U.S.A to join the League of Nations and the most important was the lack of military power to enforce its decisions on erring member states. Consequently, the aggressors became more aggressive, the world was again divided into two opposite camps, making another global conflict inevitable.

• 1. Aditya Mhatre.• 2.Kushal Shah • 3.Deval Solanki• 4.Kunjan Parmar• 5.Arjun Ghosh

• 6.Parth Vora.

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