What is the League?

If we are going to do this the right way, we first have to understand what the League of Nations is! The League was proposed by Woodrow Wilson in his 14 Points Speech. The reason that the League was so important to Woodrow was because he believed that one of the only ways to ensure collective security.* It was Woodrow's strong belief that communication was the only way to bring about true collective security, and so it became the main issue that he pushed for at the Paris Peace Conference for the Treaty of Versailles. The Covenant for the League consists of Articles 1-26 of the Treaty of Versailles. ("Versailles Treaty June 28, 1919 : Part I" 2008)


The most common view of the League of nations is a negative one. It had had many failures in this time. For now, we're only going to go into the basics:issues did the League have that lead to major problems. In the next few posts, I'll show you the League's failures. 


The league stated that an attack on one country, or any threat of war on one country was a threat or attack on all countries in the league. This was not upheld by it's members. In fact throughout the existence of the league, there were many times where the League's participants did not move to help a fellow participant. However, this was caused by many factors during the 1920s and 1930s.; the biggest of these factors being the *Great Depression. Because the majority of the word's powers were in economic turmoil, they lacked the initiative to help any other country. 


The second big issue that the league faced was the lack of America's Presence! Wait? Did I not just say that it was Woodrow Wilson's idea to push for the League?  "The League was proposed by Woodrow Wilson in his 14 Points Speech." Huh. I guess I did. So, why was America not present? That's because the United States Congress voted against joining the League.


Now that we have an idea of what the League is about, we can begin our Journey!!

Quote of the Post:

"History is philosophy teaching by example and also by warning." --Lord Bolingbroke 

Vocabulary:

*Collective Security- Under a collective security arrangement, an aggressor against any one state is considered an aggressor against all other states, which act together to repel the aggressor. (Encyclopædia Britannica)
*Great Depression- The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. ("Great Depression" 2013)

Cartoon of the Post:

Sources:

MacMillan, Margaret. Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World. Random House Inc., 2003. (accessed December 12, 2013).

Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "collective security," accessed December 12, 2013, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/125567/collective-security.


"MILESTONES: 1914–1920." US Department of State: Office of the Historian . http://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/league (accessed December 12, 2013).


Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library , "The Versailles Treaty June 28, 1919 : Part I." Last modified 2008. Accessed December 16, 2013. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/parti.asp.


History Learning Site, "League of Nations Failures." Last modified 2013. Accessed December 16, 2013. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/league_nations_failures.htm.


History, "The Great Depression." Last modified 2013. Accessed December 16, 2013. http://www.history.com/topics/great-depression.