Wednesday, May 15, 2013

To know more: The League of Nations


The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference which ended the First World War. It was the first international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace; it was to create the bases of the peace and reorganize the international relationship once the First World War had finished.

Its primary goals were preventing wars through collective security and disarmament, and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration.

It was created on the 16th of January of 1920 and the first assembly was celebrated in Geneva, the League of Nations dissolved on the 18th April of 1946, after the World War 2 and was replaced by the ONU. The League of Nations was a failure because USA didn't join to the League of Nations because the US Senate didn't allow it, although Wilson, the president of USA, was one of the creators. Others reasons for the League of Nations' failure were that the League of Nations couldn't stop the World War 2and because it wasn't a strong organization to stop the Nazi Germany expansion. Other reasons for the League of Nations' failure were that all the decisions had to be unanimous and they didn't have an armed force to intervene to stop wars.

The official languages of the League of Nations were French, English and Spanish.

The League of Nations was structured in this way:

- An Assembly formed by all the members Estates of the League of Nations.

-A council  formed by four permanent members permanently, Italy, France, Japan and the UK and fournon permanent members which were chosen by the Assembly and were renew each three years.

-A Permanent Secretariat. The Permanent Secretariat wrote documents and reports and was in charge of preparing the Assembly and Council’s sessions. Sir James Eric Drummond, Joseph Avenol and Sean Lester were general secretaries of the League of Nations.

During the Spanish Civil War in 1936, the League of Nations, at a request of the government of the Spanish Republic, was in charge of the safeguard of El Prado Museum's patrimony after the fall of Catalonia in February 1939. All the patrimony was in Geneva from February to September 1939, when the works of art were given back to Franco’s government.

Between 1920 and 1946, a total of 63 countries became member states of the League of Nations.

The founder countries were Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, the Brithish Empire (Including Australia, Canada, India, United Kingdom, New Zealand and South Africa), Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmarkc, El Salvador, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Persia, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Siam (Thailand), Spain, Sweden, Switzearland, Uruguay, Venezuela and Yugoslavia.
In 1920, Austria, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Finland, Luxembourg and Albania joined the League of Nations.
In 1921, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In 1922, Hungary. In 1923,the Irish Free State and Abyssinia  In 1924, the Dominican Republic. In 1926, Germany, Mexico in 1913 and Turkey and the Kingdom of Iraq in 1912.  
In 1934, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Afghanistan and Ecuador
In 1937, the Kingdom of Egypt. 

And the members at end of League were Abyssinia, Afghanistan, Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, the Brithish Empire (United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, New Zeeland, South Africa), Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, France, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Ireland, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Thailand, Turkey, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay and Yugoslavia. 

Navy blue-->Members
Light blue-->Colonies of Members
Orange-->Mandates ( Territories of the former Ottoman Empire, which were put under the control of the League of Nations)

Glossary
Navy blue-->Azul oscuro
Light blue-->Azul claro
Goal-->Objetivo
Safe-keeping-->Custodia


I hope you like it.  

3 comments:

Paqui Pérez Fons said...

Hello María,

I think you could add some more information about these contents:

- why the USA didn't join the League of Nations

- why this institution wasn't effective

- what happened with some of its members (such as Germany and Japan) violated the international rules in the 30s

- what was the role of the League of Nations during the Spanish Civil War.

With this additional information, your post would be more complete. I´ll wait until Friday to correct the mistakes.

See you!

Paqui Pérez Fons said...

Sorry, I've made a word order mistake:

what the role of the League of Nations during the Spanish Civil War was.

Self-correction ;)

Paqui Pérez Fons said...

Hello María,

You did a good work, but there is a mistake about the role of the League of Nations during the Spanish Civil War: the League of Nations didn't do anything when the legitimate government asked for help to defend the Republic against the rebels who had staged a coup d'État. The League didn't help the Republic and a Non- Intervention Committee was created to make sure that nobody sold weapons to both factions. But Germany and Italy helped the rebels and this obliged the government of the Republic to buy weapons to the USSR and in the black market.

The only useful thing the League did was to store the works of art of El Prado in Geneva for some months, but later they gave them back to Franco's government.

Other reasons for the League of Nations' failure were that all the decisions had to be unanimous and they didn't have an armed force to intervene to stop wars. You can find other reasons here:

http://www.cssforum.com.pk/css-optional-subjects/group-f/international-relations/15799-causes-failure-league-nations.html

These are my corrections:

-...was to maintain world peace and reorganize the international relationships
once the First World War had finished.

- Its primary goals...

- It was created on the 16th of January (of) 1920... The League of Nations dissolved on the 18th April (of) 1946, after World War 2 and was replaced by the United Nations (UN)


- The League of Nations was a failure because USA didn't join (to)it, because the US Senate didn't allow it , although Wilson, the president of USA, was one of the creators. Other(s) reasons for the League of Nations' failure were that the League of Nations couldn't stop (the second War) World War 2 and because it wasn't a strong organization to stop the Nazi Germany expansion

- The League of Nations was structured in this way :

-(It was formed by) An Assembly,formed by...

- A Council, formed by four permanent members: (they were) Italy, France, Japan and the UK (and the United States) and fournon permanent members, which were chosen by the Assembly and were renewed every three years.

- A Permanent Secretariat. The Permanent Secretariat wrote documents andreports and was in charge of preparing the Assembly and Council’s sessions.

- The League of Nations, at a request of the government of the Spanish Republic, was in charge of the safeguard of El Prado Museum's patrimony after the fall of Catalonia in February 1939. All the patrimony was in Geneva from February to September 1939, when the works of art were given back to Franco’s government.


- the British Empire (including...,... Denmark,... Switzerland

- ...and Albania joined (to) the League of Nations

-... the Irish Free State, ...Germany in 1926, Mexico in 1931...In 1934, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

- ...the British Empire

That's all. See you!