Dan Snow's History Hit - Was the League of Nations Doomed to Fail?

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

102 years ago on the 10th of January 1920, the League of Nations was formed out of the Treaty of Versailles. Its aim was to maintain peace after the First World War. With 58 member states by the 1930s, it had successes e against drug traffickers and slave traders, settling border disputes and returning prisoners of war. But much of the treaty was designed to punish Germany after WWI, creating an environment of disillusionment that enabled Nazi ideology to thrive. Across the rest of Europe, it was working up against economic depression, rising nationalism and a lack of support from the two great nations of Russia and the United States. Its ultimate demise began with Hitler's declaration of war in 1939. Was it too utopian and doomed to fail? In this episode Mats Berdal, Professor of Security and Development at Kings College London, joins Dan to discuss the legacy of the League of Nations, its importance in establishing the Geneva Protocol (prohibition of gas warfare), laying the foundations of the UN and the challenges that led to its ultimate failure.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. We're talking about the League of Nations today, the Thoroughbred of the United Nations. Probably League of Nations, got a bad reputation. Everyone said it was powerless to prevent the start of the Second World War. But just how much of a failure was the League? We will be finding out. After the carnage of the First World War, Woodrow Wilson, the US President, envisaged a global organisation that would be charged with resolving conflicts before they exploded into bloodshed. They had to avoid the horrors they just lived through. It was thought supranational cooperation might achieve this. And you know what? They weren't wrong. We need more of it, not less.

But there we are. The League of Nations was part of his famous 14-point plan, some of it more achievable than others. He delivered a speech, he called his 14-point plan the High Road, and it contained ideas like the League of Nations, freedom for colonies, freedom of the seas, free trade. The League of Nations bit was implemented, I guess partially implemented. It had some successes, there were 58 members by the 1930s. It arbitrated through the Court of International Justice, it could put trade sanctions on countries that went to war. We forget, but it had some successes. It took 500,000 prisoners of war home. It attacked slave traders, drug sellers. It attempted to limit biological

and chemical weapons. It even broke at a World Disarmament Conference, but didn't really become a reality because, well, as you'll hear in my start of the World War II podcast, a few nations had very different ideas about the course that they wished to take. League of Nations obviously catastrophically failed in its main aim, its main duty, and that was to prevent another world war. But how much blame should it have for that? It was an idea of transnational conflict resolution that proved too young, too fragile to stop resurgent nationalism tearing it apart. As well as nationalism, it had to deal with catastrophic economic dislocation, weak illegitimate success estates of the great

empires that had broken up across Europe and the Middle East. And the feeling of humiliation in Germany that followed the First World War. Don't forget the old Treaty of Versailles. It's simplistic to say that it was too harsh on Germany, I think. And in a strange way, it was too harsh to promote reconciliation after the war, but not harsh enough to actually physically stop Germany starting another war. So it fell between two stools. It laid the blame for the war squarely upon Germany. That then provided justification for Germany having to pay over £11 billion in reparations, even though that was reduced very quickly in 1921 to £5 billion.

And in fact, Germany ended up paying not very much at all. Germany was also forbidden from having submarines, air force, tanks. The navy was very, very limited, and our army could have no more than 100,000 men. This was spun as a grotesque infringement of Germany's right, national sovereignty by Hitler and other demagogues that came. Anyway, here's someone much more qualified than me to talk about the League of Nations. It's Mats Berdahl, Professor of Security and Development at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. We had a proper geek out about League of Nations and about interwar politics. You might want to go back and listen to my Outbreak of World War II podcast that I

recorded in September. These two dovetail quite nicely together, so go and have a little search for that. Also, dovetails, very nice, lots of content we got on History Hit TV. As ever, the link is we got on History Hit TV. As ever, the link is in the description of this podcast. Just tap on that little link, get your two weeks free and join the revolution. Come watch us as we go looking for Shackleton in the Antarctic this winter or summer down there. And also lots of other adventures coming up this year as well. So looking forward to having you all along on those. In the meantime though, folks, here's Max Bernalahl from League of Nations.

Enjoy. Max, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. My pleasure. Okay, League of Nations, you've got a gigantic era of imperial competition, nation states fighting each other, greatest war in history. Why is the League of Nations born out of that?

What happens? The League of Nations is born out of the recognition that the horrors of the First World War simply cannot be allowed to be repeated, and that the kinds of slaughter, the kinds of conflict between states, which many felt had come about, if not accidentally, but as a result of long drawn-out processes that had not been properly foreseen, you needed an international body to strengthen cooperation between states and to avoid anything that might precipitate and lead to a renewed kind of conflict. In addition to that, there is also in the League of Nations a sense that

the more states cooperate on a range of issues of mutual interest, what they call sort of technical issues, the greater are the chances that they will develop a vested and common interest in peaceful intercourse and peaceful behaviour. And that is another sort of motivation for the League of Nations. And it is brought into the discussions by the Americans towards the end of the war, and therefore the League of Nations is part and parcel of the final settlement, the Versailles settlement, at the end of the First World War. It's an amazingly daring idea, right? I mean, does it build on historical precedent? I don't know,

I'm thinking almost of the Holy Roman Empire, or I don't know, Treaty of Westphalia. Like, is this like quite a new idea? Has this been dreamt up by utopian political philosophers in the 19th century? Or does this build on something that's gone before? I think there is clearly a stream of thinkers before the First World War that see the virtues and importance of what we might now refer to as internationalism and the need to cooperate more closely. And I think in that sense, the League of Nations is sort of the culmination of that. But I do think the ambition, at least on paper, what the League of Nations tries to do is new and presents a break with what has gone in the past. I think it is important to say, though, that the League of Nations, just like the United Nations, while it is, you know, pathbreaking and important and radical, does not seek to transcend the international state system.

It doesn't, in a way, aim to represent itself as a supranational body that can regulate and intervene directly in the internal affairs of states. And as such, there is continuity with what was passed. But there is this recognition that you need much, much more closer cooperation between states in order to avoid recent sort of calamities, but also to build an international society among states that will be prosperous and peaceful. What is the League of Nations? Is it like a building? Is it the people? Yeah, the League of Nations was based in Geneva. It had a relatively small secretariat, although that was also an innovation, if you like, talking about how this was different from past innovation in the sense that this was a permanent secretariat that was set up in Geneva in order to service the General Assembly and the League Council and to provide continuity between the annual sessions. That was a relatively small body dominated by certain key individuals.

But of course, it is the basis for today's secretariat, which is bigger and has many specialised agencies attached to it. But they were sitting in base, as I said, in Geneva, a small scale. But the idea of an international civil servant, someone who's committed to internationalism or to the organisation, rather than as a member state, also originates from this particular period and with the first office of the permanent secretariat of the League. It was set up by the Americans, Italians, Brits and French at Versailles. Russians aren't there because the Civil War plus communist takeover, they're kind of almost outside the international system. Germany's not initially?

No, that's right. There is a distinguished historian of international organisations who says that, you know, to study international organisations intelligently is to study international politics. And of course, this holds very much true for this particular period. And I think the issue you just mentioned, the fact that the US Senate decides not to ratify and go ahead with Germany being outsided, the US's honour being part, is absolutely critical to the functioning of the organization early on. An attempt, you know, the Russians come in later, but by that time, the situation has become so polarized and the sort of decline in the ability of the organisation to respond to peace and security challenges is considerable. So it is very limited. And so, yeah, it's interesting you talk about the kind of

technocratic demand for it, because there is unprecedented, I never say unprecedented, but there is gigantic dislocation. But how important is the ideas bit? How important is the Wilsonian, slightly more abstract idea that we need to try and prevent these future wars by somehow establishing these transnational institutions? Well, I think that is an idea. The idea that you tie states, individuals together through closer cooperation is one which is given a big boost by the First World War, but then, of course, develops throughout the 1920s and 30s. In the field of international relations, there are writings on so-called functionalism, the functionalist approach to international relations, the idea that the more we cooperate across borders, the more we effectively

reduce the chances of conflict and war. So there is that kind of incentive, but there is also the sense that some issues are genuinely of a transnational character. Drugs, refugees, protection of minorities, and they need to be addressed collectively. And that idea develops. I think the sense that you need about it is perhaps even stronger with the end of the Second World War, partly because of the legacy of the 1920s and 30s. But certainly the First World War reinforces the idea that transnational cooperation is vital across borders. I've never thought about this before, but you're making me feel a bit like a Marxist here. Of course, it receives a massive boost from the war. But given that the global economy was heading into this kind of very interdependent place at the end of the 19th century, maybe political structures were inevitable. Maybe it was about the economy a bit stupid. Yes, I think that. I mean, I think

in some of the revisionist work on the importance of the League of Nations, I think it is important not to overdo it either, that there was really far-reaching thinking and that there was a clear sense of what the structures were going to be like. But I think there was a sense that one needed an intergovernmental body, but wasn't given much teeth to try to regulate issues between relations. But there was still a great deal of scepticism about whether or not this would work. And of course, some of those who pushed for the ideas were in themselves, if you like, an intellectual, literary elite to some extent that have a great deal of faith in it. Some of the major problems with development of

these ideas was that the organisation was hampered very early on by political developments in the real world, as it were. I mean, the United States didn't actually join. Russia, going through the throes of the Russian Civil War and Revolution, was not a member either. Britain and France obviously preoccupied with their empires and concerns about the pressure on those. So, you know, some of the early ideas, some of the early visions quickly gave way to these kinds of international concerns, which can prevent the development of those further. But beneath all of that, a lot of the officials based in Geneva continued to work hard and come up with innovative solutions. And early on in the first couple of years, some specific disputes, you know,

were effectively addressed. And we tend to forget those because they drown in the bigger picture of what happened later. But of course, in 1921, we get the Permanent Court of International Justice, which is set up. And today, that is the International Court of Justice. And I think that's important because it reflects the kind of approach that the League of Nations embodied, which was a very legalistic approach to international affairs. I mean, you did believe that you could resolve disputes between states. You could do that preferably through arbitration, if necessary, through judicial decision. This particular court, like the court today, can only really resolve disputes between states. Those are the ones that can be afforded. But that was the sort of central idea. And I come back to this initial point I made about the belief in public opinion and civilized public opinion and reason

being very, very strong, that if you really brought parties together, these disputes could be resolved. And if you weren't able to do that, your last resort was to have some kind of investigation. And if that failed, there was always the option, ultimately, of resorting to force again. This is Dan Snow's history. We're talking about the League of Nations. More coming up. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga.

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Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. You mentioned some of the successes there in a way, and the struggle to assert itself. Is the fact that it was a product of Paris 1919, the so-called Versailles Treaty.

Did that in some way hamper its legitimacy as that treaty became or was seen as unjust across, well, big swathes of the world? Yes, as increasingly, particularly in this country, there was a sense in which there had been a very, very harsh agreement. Therefore, the whole issue of the League of Nations and its close ties to that had an impact on its wider legitimacy. I think that's absolutely true. I think it's also true to say, though, that the structures of the League were such that the capacity for initiative from the secretariat and from those who ran the organisation was very, very limited. I mean, you had an assembly and you had a league council,

which was effectively a kind of executive committee of the assembly. But the dominant rule was very much the consent of the individual states. And in some ways, the big contrast between the league council and the security council, for example, is that, you know, practically every member of the league council had an effective veto. So the power of initiating action, taking ideas further, was more difficult in the League of Nations than it became later. Is that because the League, every decision had to be unanimous, right?

So anyone could just hamstring the entire process. Yes, exactly. I mean, it was a structure. There is a great quote, actually. It is from the British original official commentary on the covenant, which sort of gives you a sense, and I think it's fairly accurate. I mean, the commentary states that the ultimate and most effective sanction of the organization must be the public opinion of the civilized world. And then it adds, again, rightly, though this also applies to the United Nations, if the nations of the future are in the main selfish grasping and

warlike, no instrument or machinery will restrain them. And there is a fundamental sense that this is really very much the case with the League of Nations. And you see that in the basic structure of its principal organs, the Assembly and the League, and also a very small secretariat. But then you have this mushrooming, if you like, of officers and sections in the technical areas which do manage to develop and strengthen activities in certain areas, which again, as I said, has been neglected by late historians, which naturally focused on the failures

in the field of peace and security in the 1930s. The sort of well-rehearsed demise of the League. Is 1932 Manchuria, is that the real beginning of the end, do you think? weaknesses of its enforcement mechanism. Fundamentally, the League relied upon was, if there was a dispute between states, and if this could, the language of the covenant, lead to a rupture, you would try to resolve it through arbitration. If that wasn't work, you would hopefully have a judicial decision which would be accepted. And if that didn't work, you would ask the League Council to write a report. And while that report was being written, or after it had been written, states should refrain for at least three months before resorting to war.

Now, these were very, very weak sort of mechanisms. And in the case of Manchuria, of course, it was the famous report by Lytton, which the Japanese simply rejected and walked out. And that again revealed the weaknesses of the, if you like, collective security system. And that again revealed the weaknesses of the collective security system. And then soon after that, we have the incident of the invasion of Abyssinia, which also reveals that member states decide what is in their own national interest, the best thing to do, whether or not it ought to be a sanction under the League of Nations. So it begins to crack very soon after that. But I think the big background to that, of course, is the quote I gave earlier from the official commentary that if states are intent upon war, if they are intent

upon resolving disputes by violent means, there is only so much that the League of Nations could do. And that became very apparent, of course, from the early 1930s onwards, when we get the rise of fascism or Nazism and also the general radicalisation of politics in Europe. How do you think we should think about the League of Nations just over a century later? And what is its legacy? The first thing I would say to that is to recognise its inherent limitations. And here, I think there are parallels to the United Nations. This is an intergovernmental organisation made up of legally equal states where some are more powerful than others when it comes to actual resources and

abilities to disturb the peace. And if member states are not prepared to cooperate and work together, there is only so much that League of Nations can do. And that applies also to the United Nations. But once you accept that, I think the League of Nations clearly provides the first sort of sustained effort at cooperation across borders. then there are issues of a transnational, if you like, character, of a global character, that simply cannot be resolved if we stick rigidly to the principle of sovereignty and non-intervention in internal affairs of states. Today, we talk about, you know, the threat of pandemics, transnational organised crime, refugee flows, climate change, not least. These are issues that require cooperation between states. And the first attempt to do that in a more systematic fashion was the League of Nations.

And I think that is an important legacy which is being rediscovered in a way or has been rediscovered to some extent by historians and others over the past 20 or so years. or odd so years. Also, there's a sudden newfound attachment to internationalism among people in a declining hegemon who are a bit worried about being overtaken by a new imperial power, like the Brits in the 1920s. Maybe the Americans will suddenly discover a great love for the UN over the next few decades. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think you're right. There is this sense that if the organisation can be of use, if you can sort of marry principles and interest, that's when it's going to be most effective. I do think there are certain kinds of issues, and I think this is already clear at the League of Nations time, that really do require an international response and that there is this distinction between either self-interest or

between a global commitment shouldn't be drawn as sharply as it sometimes is done. And I think the League of Nations points to some extent the way forward in that respect. It's a crazy dream. It's a crazy dream, Max, that we might get to people to see reason. We're still fighting that 101 years on. Absolutely. And I think, you know, many of those who were very, very critical of its achievements, very distinguished historians and international relations scholar. I mean, A.G.P. Taylor at one point talks of, you know, any study of the organization is essentially a kind of irrelevance and unnecessary, even to consider it. E.H. Carr's withering criticism of the organization in a way in his famous book on the 20-year crisis. I mean, they'd intended to focus on the point about the importance of reason as a mechanism for resolving disputes between states. And if you didn't have that, of course, then there was a limit to what you could reasonably do. Well, Max, thank you very much indeed.

All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Thanks, folks, for listening to this episode of Densetown's History. As I say all the time, I love doing these podcasts. They are the best thing I do professionally. I feel very lucky to have you listening to them. If you fancied giving them a rating review, obviously the best rating review possible would be ideal. It makes a big difference to us. I know it's a pain, but we'd really, really be grateful.

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