International organization founded in 1919 to promote world peace but greatly weakened by the refusal of the United States to join. It proved ineffectual in stopping aggression by Italy, Japan, and Germany in the 1930s.

The League of Nations was an international diplomatic group developed after World War I as a way to solve disputes between countries before they erupted into open warfare.

international organization

International organization founded in 1919 to promote world peace but greatly weakened by the refusal of the United States to join. It proved ineffectual in stopping aggression by Italy, Japan, and Germany in the 1930s. You just studied 7 terms!

The founders of the League of Nations were desperate to avoid a repetition of the horrors of the Great War. The main aims of the organisation included disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation and diplomacy, and improving global welfare.

Why did the Americans not want to join the league of nations? They believed in isolationism and didn’t want to get involved in Europe’s affairs. Many Americans thought the Treaty of Versailles was unfair. Many Americans were opposed to sending troops to solve European issues and 320,000 US soldiers had died in WW1.

What was Wilson’s Fourteen Points and who rejected it? -The people of the USA rejected the 14 point peace plan because they were so used to being a isolationism country and Woodrow’s fourteen point plan threatened that.

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It failed to achieve its aims because of a number of serious weaknesses in its organisation and membership. The League suffered the blow when USA refused to join the League because of its isolationist policy after the First World War.

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.

In addition, the League extended considerable aid to refugees; it helped to suppress white slave and opium traffic; it did pioneering work in surveys of health; it extended financial aid to needy states; and it furthered international cooperation in labor relations and many other fields.

To aid the process of disarmament the League of Nations held a disarmament conference in Geneva, Switzerland. The Disarmament Conference sought to reduce a nations stockpiles of offensive weapons and ensure the independence of many countries.

However, the League also had three great weaknesses. The USA, Russia and Germany were not members; without these powers, the League was too weak to make a big country do as it wished (for instance, Italy over Corfu in 1923). Also, the League’s organisation was a muddle, so when there was a crisis, no-one could agree.

Problems with the structure of the LoN Decisions had to be unanimous (ie everybody agrees) but members couldn’t agree. This slowed up any action that needed to be taken. Each permanent member had a veto-means that one permanent member could stop action even if all of the others agreed. This made the LoN slow to act.

The League of Nations was established with three main constitutional organs: the Assembly; the Council; the Permanent Secretariat. The two essential wings of the League were the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Labour Organization.

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It began with four permanent members – Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan – and four non-permanent members that were elected by the Assembly for a three-year term. The first non-permanent members were Belgium, Brazil, Greece, and Spain. The composition of the Council was changed several times.