The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift in thought from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked an armed force of its own and so depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to economic sanctions which the League ordered, or provide an Army, when needed, for the League to use.
However, it was often very reluctant to do so. Among its successes were its fight against the international trade in opium and sexual slavery and its work to alleviate the plight of refugees, particularly in Turkey in the period up to One of its innovations in this latter area was the introduction of the Nansen passport, the first internationally recognized identity card for stateless refugees.
The onset of the Second World War demonstrated that the League had failed in its primary purpose, the prevention of another world war. There were a variety of reasons for this failure, many connected to general weaknesses within the organization, such as voting structure that made ratifying resolutions difficult and incomplete representation among world nations.
Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Search for:. The League of Nations Learning Objective Explain the ideals that underpinned the forming of the League of Nations. It was the first organization of its kind. Unlike former efforts at world peace such as the Concert of Europe, the League was an independent organization without an army of its own, and thus depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions.
The members were often hesitant to do so, leaving the League powerless to intervene in disputes and conflicts. The U. Congress, mainly led by Henry Cabot Lodge, was resistant to joining the League, as doing so would legally bind the U.
In the end, the U. He demanded Congressional control of declarations of war; Wilson refused and blocked his move to ratify the treaty with reservations.
As a result, the United States never joined the League of Nations. Its primary goals as stated in its Covenant included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. Licenses and Attributions. The struggle to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant in the U. Congress helped define the most important political division over the role of the United States in the world for a generation.
A triumphant Wilson returned to the United States in February to submit the Treaty and Covenant to Congress for its consent and ratification.
Unfortunately for the President, while popular support for the League was still strong, opposition within Congress and the press had begun building even before he had left for Paris. They adhered to a vision of the United States returning to its traditional aversion to commitments outside the Western Hemisphere. Nine months later, Warren Harding was elected President on a platform opposing the League. The United States never joined the League. Most historians hold that the League operated much less effectively without U.
However, even while rejecting membership, the Republican Presidents of the period, and their foreign policy architects, agreed with many of its goals.
To the extent that Congress allowed, the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations associated the United States with League efforts on several issues.
0コメント