The Covenant

With the ground thus well prepared, and under Wilson’s resolute leadership, the conference was able to draw up, in a few days of intensive committee work, a document which it called the Covenant of the League of Nations. This text was published, as a draft, on February 14, 1919. It was subjected to various criticisms, especially in the United States, where Wilson’s star was already on the decline, and also by the European neutrals, who had had no official share in the work. In general, however, it was well received. Although the first great impulse had already weakened and Allied unity had been impaired, a final amended text was adopted on April 28, 1919, by the unanimous decision of the conference. The Covenant was a short and concise document of 26 articles. The first seven articles established the constitutional basis of the new system. Article 1 defined the League’s original members, which consisted of all the Allied signatories of the peace treaties and those 13 countries which had been neutral in the war, if the latter chose to join without reservation. Others could be admitted by a two-thirds majority of the Assembly, and any member could withdraw after giving two years’ notice.

Articles 2–5 created the directing organs of the League: an Assembly composed of representatives of all members and a Council composed of representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan as permanent members, with four others elected by the Assembly. Articles 6 and 7 created a permanent Secretariat, provided for the expenses of the League, and named Geneva as its headquarters. Articles 8 and 9 dealt with armaments. All members undertook to reduce their armaments to the lowest possible level, to suppress the “evil effects” of the private manufacture of arms, and to exchange full information as to their existing armaments and their programs for the future. A permanent commission was provided to advise the Council on all military, naval, and air questions. Articles 10–17 embodied what may be called the central and basic idea of the League: collective security, together with the various procedures for peaceful settlement of disputes. Each member undertook (Article 10) to respect the integrity and independence of all the others and to join in preserving them against aggression. Article 11 declared that any war or threat of war was a matter of concern to all members, whether directly affected or not; every member had the right to demand that the question be considered by the Council and, if necessary, to insist on an immediate meeting. By Article 12, all bound themselves to submit all serious disputes to peaceful settlement or to inquiry by the Council and in no case to resort to war until these procedures had had time to lead to a settlement. Even then, if no settlement were reached, they promised to wait a further three months before going to war. The various methods of settlement—arbitration, legal procedure, or action by the Council or the Assembly—were then set out in some detail (Articles 13–15), and these provisions included the establishment of a permanent international court. Under Article 16 all members promised to join in common action against any other which made war in violation of the Covenant. This action was to take in all cases the form of economic sanctions as its primary coercive mechanism and, if this were not enough, of military intervention. This article also empowered the Council to expel a member which violated the Covenant. Article 17 extended the system so as to provide protection against, and in certain conditions for, nonmember states.

Article 18 was designed to meet the demand for open diplomacy. It required that all future treaties be registered with, and published by, the Secretariat. Article 19 empowered the Assembly to propose changes in existing treaties or situations which might be a danger to peace. By Article 20 all members agreed that any treaty inconsistent with the Covenant was automatically abrogated and undertook not to enter into any such engagement in the future.

Article 22 declared that the Covenant did not affect the validity of the Monroe Doctrine. Article 22 established the mandates system. Articles 23 and 24 corresponded to the proposals for worldwide economic and social cooperation under the authority of the League. Members undertook to act together in such matters as transport and communications, commercial relations, health, and supervision of the international arms trade and to bring existing international agencies, such as the Universal Postal Union, under the direction of the League. They agreed also to set up an International Labour Organization in order to “secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labour.” Article 25 promised support for the Red Cross. Finally, Article 26 defined the procedure for amending the Covenant; an amendment, to be effective, must be ratified by a majority of the members, including all those represented on the Council.

The Covenant purported to cover each of the main proposals which had emerged during the preparatory period—collective security; arbitration and judicial settlement, including the creation of an international court; international cooperation or control in economic and social affairs; disarmament; and open diplomacy. It did not satisfy extreme pacifists, who rejected any use of force (even to resist aggression), or extreme internationalists, who wished the League to have its own military forces and to impose all its decisions by its own political and military authority. In the main the Covenant fully realized the plans made during the war, and in one essential respect, the creation of efficient working institutions, it went much beyond them.

For the next 20 years the Covenant continued to be, in theory, not only the guide and authority for all the activities of the League, but also the criterion by which liberal opinion in many developed countries judged the conduct of their own and other governments. In consequence, its text was minutely and repeatedly studied, scrutinized, and debated by professors, lawyers, and statesmen. This test it bore, on the whole, very successfully. A few minor problems of interpretation were unearthed, chiefly due to the fact that its English and French texts were equally authentic. In the actual working of the League it never failed to provide both the principles and the methods required by each successive question.

This of course is not to say that its principles were always respected or that its provisions were not capable of improvement. Nevertheless, the Covenant system was much more complete and well planned than might appear from the fact of the various failures and final defeat of the League. Before it even started to function, however, it would receive a blow so severe that it was never possible to apply the system as its founders had intended.

The Covenant was in its nature an entirely separate instrument to which neutral states could accede even if they objected to other parts of the peace treaties. It was in form a part of these, however, and when its text was finally settled in April 1919, it could only come into force at the same time as the Versailles Treaty as a whole, on January 10, 1920. Meanwhile, in the United States Senate, the leaders of the Republican opposition, by then implacably hostile to Wilson and all his works, had resolved to return to the policy of isolationism. While they did not formally propose the rejection of the Covenant, they put forward a number of reservations which Wilson was certain to refuse.

For his part, Wilson was convinced that most Americans were in favor of the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations, and there was ample evidence for his conclusion. Thirty-two state legislatures and 33 governors had gone on record in support of the League. Nevertheless, in response to increasing congressional opposition, Wilson undertook an 8,000-mile (12,900-km) speaking tour to solicit public support in an attempt to compel Congress to follow his lead. The trip across the continental U.S., on which the president gave 37 addresses, took a mighty toll on Wilson’s health, permanently impairing him and virtually removing him from the fight for the League. By the end of September 1919, Wilson was so exhausted that he had to cancel the remaining scheduled speaking engagements.

In November 1919 U.S. Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, a Republican from Massachusetts, presented the Senate with a set of reservations to the treaty that would effectively circumscribe U.S. participation in the League. On November 18 Wilson wrote to U.S. Sen. Gilbert Hitchcock of Nebraska, urging loyal Democrats to vote against Lodge’s reservations. The next day, loyal Democrats joined those who were irreconcilably opposed to the treaty to defeat ratification of it with Lodge’s reservations. For the next vote, on the question of ratification without reservations, however, the main bulk of senators changed sides. The irreconcilables again voted against the treaty, but this time they were joined by those, such as Lodge, who opposed an unqualified U.S. commitment. The total of those in favor of the treaty fell short of the two-thirds majority required by the U.S. Constitution for such decisions. In a March 1920 vote, ratification was defeated again in the Senate, and the hope of U.S. membership disappeared, as it proved, forever.

The effect of this event upon the future of the League was, in one sense, decisive, since it ruled out all possibility of collective security as embodied in the Covenant. There was no certainty of a complete economic boycott which, it was confidently expected, would suffice to make even the most aggressive government prefer to settle its disputes by negotiation rather than by armed attack. The other component parts of the system could still function, and did in fact function, though with less effectiveness than if the United States had fully participated therein. The knowledge that the world’s greatest economic power would stand aside from sanctions robbed that part of the Covenant of its main threat for the aggressor and destroyed, in consequence, the confidence that other members could place in it. However, the League was closely interwoven with the fabric of the peace treaties, and there was hope that the Senate’s decision might someday be reversed. Public opinion in many countries would have strongly resisted any proposal to abandon the League. So, in spite of the absence of the United States, the first meeting of the League Council was held immediately after the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. Thus the League entered on the very active, if not always very successful, existence which ended in fact with the outbreak of World War II in 1939, though its formal demise did not take place until April 1946.

Structure of the League of Nations

The League quickly became a large and complex structure. The Assembly and the Council—acting either under the direct terms of the Covenant or on their own initiative—decided the nature, membership, and competence of the rest of the League’s principal organs and institutions, directed their work, and provided their budget. The Assembly consisted of one to three delegates from each member nation, and many countries also sent a large body of substitutes and experts. The makers of the Covenant had expected that the Assembly would meet perhaps every third or fourth year, but at its first session in 1920 it decided to meet every September. Each session opened with a general discussion on the work done during the past year or planned for the next. This discussion often ranged over problems which the speaker considered ought to be dealt with by the members of the League instead of outside it. It then typically settled down to two or three weeks of committee meetings. Since every delegation was represented on each committee, and these groups held their meetings in public, the conclusions reached in committee were usually adopted with no more than a few formal speeches in the plenary Assembly. The Assembly decisions required unanimity among those who voted. Thus, in theory, any member could veto any decision. In practice, such a contingency was exceedingly rare. It became customary for those who disagreed with the proposals of the majority to vote against them in committee, and, having thus put their views on record, to abstain from voting in the Assembly.

Except that it usually refrained from discussing political issues that were being dealt with by the Council, the Assembly’s debates covered every part of the activities of the League. A few matters, such as the admission of new members or the revision of obsolete treaties, were specifically reserved to the Assembly, and from the beginning it insisted on being the sole authority in regard to the budget. It showed much zeal for disarmament, on which the smaller powers, who could there make their voice effectively heard, were dissatisfied with the policy of the great powers and of the Council.

The Assembly was, by general consent, the most successful as well as the most original of the many innovations of the League. It was original in its constitutional nature as a worldwide conference meeting to discuss not some special question but any and all questions of international relations. It was still more original in its spirit, since it gave equal rights and opportunities to be heard to all powers, whether great or small, and sought deliberately to follow the open and direct methods of a parliament rather than the formalities of a diplomatic gathering.

The Council was originally intended to consist of five great powers—the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan—as permanent members, together with four others elected by the Assembly for limited periods. It was expected that Germany and the U.S.S.R. someday might become permanent members and that the nonpermanent membership might be correspondingly increased. However, the United States seat was never occupied, and the number of elected members was increased to six in 1922 and to nine in 1926, so that the intended majority of great powers was never realized.

After the first year, when it met almost every month, the Council held three or four regular sessions a year, though it was not until 1923 that it formally decided to meet at fixed dates in March, June, September, and December of each year. It also met in special session when necessary. In the early years, its members were usually represented either by elder statesmen who had withdrawn from active politics, such as Arthur Balfour or Léon Bourgeois, or by professional diplomats. In 1923 the European members began to send their foreign ministers to each meeting, a change which greatly enhanced the authority and importance of the Council. This continued to be the normal practice until the last days of the League.

The main business of the Council was political. It dealt not only with the major disputes which might endanger peace but with countless small problems arising out of the peace treaties or submitted to it by the states concerned: problems of frontier adjustment; disputes arising from frontier incidents or accusations of wrongs done to minorities; problems concerning particular areas of constant tension, such as Danzig (now Gdańsk) or the Saar territory, where treaty settlements entrusted administrative or arbitral decisions to the council; and reports from committees, such as those dealing with disarmament or with the mandated territories. In any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, the votes of the parties concerned did not count. With this exception, all decisions of substance required unanimity, and all League members concerned in the question under discussion had, for the occasion, the rights of Council membership. Actual cases of veto or deadlock were very few, but without doubt the Council tended, in consequence, toward compromise or delay rather than clear-cut decisions.

In organizing the Secretariat, Sir Eric James Drummond, the first secretary-general (1919–33), struck out on a completely new path. He and his French and U.S. deputies built up a strictly international institution in which it was understood from the first that all officials were to act independently from their own national authorities. If this ideal was not always realized, it is still true to say that it governed the attitude of the Secretariat as a whole and that the latter was rarely if ever accused of partiality on national grounds. As regards its efficiency, the Secretariat early reached a high standard and maintained it. In spite of predictions to the contrary, officials from many different countries were able to work together with zeal and cordiality, and the Secretariat was as proud of its corporate spirit as any national service could be. Its work, however, and that of the League in general, was throughout hampered by poverty. At each Assembly the League members, especially the richest ones, made devoted efforts to cut down its expenditure to the bone. The average annual budget for the League, the International Labour Organization, and the permanent court combined was less than $5,500,00. This covered not only running costs but also capital expenditure, including the great Palais des Nations, which was completed in 1937. Nevertheless, the opponents of the League were able to establish the legend that it was an expensive and extravagant institution.

The Assembly, Council, and Secretariat were the central organs of an extensive structure of auxiliary institutions. These fell into two main categories: those of a legal or political character, set up to assist the League in its duty of preventing tension and settling disputes; and those of a social or economic character, whose advice was often sought in connection with political disputes but whose main function was to organize and enhance international cooperation in social and economic affairs.

The principal organs of the first category were the Permanent Court of International Justice; the Permanent Mandates Commission; the minorities committees of the Council; and the commissions concerned with military affairs and with the problems of disarmament. Of these, the court and the mandates commission were by general consensus highly efficient bodies which rendered valuable service to the League and to peace. The minorities committees were bitterly criticized, as indeed was all the Council’s work on the protection of minorities, on exactly opposite grounds, by the minorities and by the governments concerned. In truth, not a few injustices were redressed, but the Council’s responsibilities in this field were completely disproportionate to its powers.

In the second category, the most important organs were—besides the International Labour Organization, administratively a part of the League but otherwise autonomous—the Economic and Financial Organization, the Organization for Communications and Transit, the Health Organization, and the Intellectual Cooperation Organization. To these must be added those dealing with more strictly humanitarian affairs: the curtailing of the international drug trade, the protection of women, child welfare, the abolition of slavery, and the refugee problem. Several of these were in themselves complex organizations, comprising regular conferences, a standing committee, and numerous subcommittees for special subjects. These bodies undertook a massive amount of work, whether in the form of general agreements and treaties, of advice and assistance to particular countries or regions, or of consultation and exchange of ideas and methods.

This work formed a continuous, often inconspicuous, background to the political action of the League. Though often frustrated by political realities, it represented in total a great contribution to human welfare. It was done without payment; the organizations’ members, usually eminent experts in their own fields, received nothing beyond their expenses.