The League of Nations: Root of U.N. Evil
It seems obvious and beyond dispute to me that the United Nations is a
thoroughly contemptible organization that ranges from wastefully
ineffective to horrifically malevolent in its actions. It has lofty
goals of course but it has no oversight, is not accountable and is rife
with corruption. Moreover, we have since found out for a fact that UN
forces have participated in an unprecedented and disgusting criminal
campaign of rape, child molestation and exploitation in Africa. What
little good it might do is far outweighed by the horrors it has
perpetrated and these good things could be done by other organizations.
It does not prevent conflict, it shelters despicable characters, stops
some countries from doing good and enables others to do evil.
However,
the root of all evil for the United Nations was its predecessor the
League of Nations. The United Nations was originally the primary Allied
nations of World War II, a conflict which the League of Nations had
failed to prevent, and the U.N. was intended to be the League of Nations
but with all of the mistakes that had made it a failure corrected.
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| Woodrow the Worst |
That did not happen of course but maybe, just maybe, that was because
the real mistake was the League of Nations itself. The idea for some
sort of international organization had been advocated for some time by
British leftists, Labour Party members, Fabian Socialists and the like
but the League of Nations that was actually created was born out of the
uninformed idealism of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the end of World
War I. When the former professor turned Democrat politician went to the
Versailles Conference to lecture the nations of the Old World on how to
fix things, Wilson was a failure. He later admitted he did not know
what he was talking about and almost everything he called for was
ignored by his Allied partners. In the end, he sacrificed almost
everything he said he stood for in order to get agreement to his legacy
project which was the League of Nations. The creation of the League of
Nations was the only major goal of Woodrow Wilson that he was able to
see achieved. However, even then, it proved an embarrassment at the
outset when he returned to his own country.
The United States of America refused to accept the Versailles Treaty,
later making its own separate peace treaties with the Central Powers,
and also refused to join the League of Nations. The United States would
be the most significant world power that never joined the League of
Nations but others who had originally been excluded were later admitted
and it reflects the politics of the League and what was deemed
acceptable by the leaders of this new international world order.
Germany, the enemy in World War I, was excluded from the League but,
after the Weimar Republic proved sufficiently subservient and willing to
disarm and not resist the League, was allowed to join in 1926. This
followed the French occupation of the Rhineland in 1919, which caused
outrage across Germany after numerous rapes of German women by French
colonial troops (from the African colony of Senegal) and the 1923
occupation of the Ruhr valley by French and Belgian troops. Soviet
Russia, also initially excluded for being a communist state most
regarded as illegal and illegitimate, was also admitted in 1934. What is
interesting about the timing of that was the fact that Adolf Hitler,
who had always despised the League, had taken Germany out the previous
year.
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| Sinister Stalin |
Ultimately, the League of Nations had decided that having a communist
member was acceptable, even though the Soviet leadership had done
nothing but condemn and castigate the leading members of the League from
‘day one’ as bourgeois capitalists and imperialists. The Soviet Union
was expelled from the League at the end of 1939 because of the Soviet
invasion of Finland. The League was supposed to respond to aggression
with economic sanctions, however, that was never a viable option for the
Soviet Union. At that point, they were still doing business with Nazi
Germany, which was outside the League and would certainly not be
following their orders, and the leading countries such as France and
Britain were at war with Germany by that point and were not looking to
antagonize the Russians. It is interesting to note that the Soviets had
carried out a number of aggressive acts prior to joining the League, and
was only expelled as a result of such aggression after making a pact
with Germany which, under Hitler, had never had much use for the
organization.
If this makes the League seem rather inconsistent and perhaps less than
honest, the first major problem the League was unable to solve shows it
even more. That, of course, was the 1931 occupation of Manchuria by the
Imperial Japanese Army following the Mukden Incident. The Japanese
military, acting independently of the government in Tokyo, moved
quickly, took control of the country and soon set up a client state, the
“State of Manchukuo” (which is simply ‘Manchuria’ in Chinese). By the
time the commission from the League, headed by the Earl of Lytton,
arrived in Manchuria, they were investigating what was already an
accomplished fact, not something that was about to happen or in the
process of happening. Their final report concluded that the Japanese had
acted aggressively and that the State of Manchukuo was not a legitimate
country. Deeply offended, the following year in 1933 the Empire of
Japan officially left the League of Nations. What makes this case smell
of corruption is that few historians doubt that if Japan had pursued an
“Open Door” policy in Manchuria, reducing their own interest and control
in the region to allow in other countries to invest, the commission
would likely have come to the opposite conclusion.
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| The Mild Manchu Emperor |
Such might have been in the best interests of Japan as opening Manchuria
up to other countries would have induced them to recognize the State of
Manchukuo immediately and given them a vested interest in its survival.
However, it is easy to see why Japan did not do this, given that they
had done the work, they had taken the risk and thus they saw no need to
share the spoils. They had a valid point when they asked why there was a
Monroe Doctrine for the Americas but an “Open Door” policy in China.
There seems little room for doubt that the League found against Japan
because Japan cut out the other great powers from having a share of the
profits. It is also clear that the historical argument was on the side
of the Japanese. They had restored the legitimate Manchu ruler to his
ancestral homeland. The League also, contradictorily, branded Japan an
aggressor while not saying anything to refute the claim of the Japanese
military that the Chinese had been responsible for the Mukden Incident
itself. So, they let this accusation stand, that the Chinese had
attacked the Japanese-owned railroad and yet still ruled that the
Japanese had acted aggressively.
In the end, nothing was done by the League and the only result was that
it discouraged most of the international community from recognizing the
State (and later Empire) of Manchukuo as a legitimate country. Putting
sanctions on Japan would have been futile. The deed was already done and
such sanctions would not be able to undo it as the source of most of
the imports Japan relied on was the United States, which was not a
member of the League, not bound by their decisions and which was not
about to cut off trade with Japan over Manchuria. In fact, the President
of the United States, Republican Herbert Hoover, was of the opinion
that, given the Soviet occupation of Mongolia and support for the
Chinese communists, the Japanese occupation of Manchuria was a justified
act of self-defense. Any such action, he felt, would put America on the
road to war with Japan and that he was not about to do. His Democrat
successor, Franklin Roosevelt, would later take the opposite view, would
put sanctions on Japan and would ultimately end up at war just as
Hoover had predicted.
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| The Uncooperative Duce |
The issue of Manchuria, however, was only deemed significant for the
League in retrospect, not at the time. The League was supposed to
resolve international disputes and, with the Japanese occupation being
already accomplished, no major dispute seemed to exist. The Chinese were
upset of course, but they had not been able to put up much of a fight
nor did they feel compelled to go to war over the issue. Basically, the
League wanted to have for itself the power to make the big decisions in
world affairs. Japan had acted without League approval but it had not
acted with League disapproval either because the issue was resolved
before the League became involved. They would not have to wait very
long, however, before the League was faced with a real challenge and one
there would be no way to escape without either showing that they were
the real arbiters of international affairs or that they were ultimately
powerless to enforce their liberal, idealistic vision of the world on
the global community. That challenge can be traced to a single man and
that man was Benito Mussolini.
Most are probably aware of the basic facts. There was an “incident” at
an isolated outpost, Abyssinia (Ethiopia) claimed the outpost had been
built in their territory and a large force attacked it. Mussolini
responded with preparations for war. It would take about a year for
arrangements to be made and Italian military forces to be transferred to
East Africa and so this time the League of Nations had plenty of time
to respond. Once again, they acted against the findings of their own
investigation, at least in a way. They never really said which side was
to blame for starting the trouble, never asserted that the Italians had
not been attacked nor, contrarily, did they show how or why Italian
forces would have attacked an Ethiopian force five times as large
without their own army to back them up. The fact that it took so long to
transfer the bulk of Italian military strength to Africa rather proves
the point that this was not some pre-planned conspiracy. However, the
League of Nations nonetheless condemned Italy as an aggressor,
threatening to place sanctions on the kingdom, if Mussolini did not back
down. A line had been drawn.
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| Haile Selassie, chosen showcase |
This was about power on the world stage and much bigger than Abyssinia.
Liberal idealism had little to do with it. After all, Abyssinia was an
absolute monarchy, no more democratic than Fascist Italy was. It still
practiced slavery on a large scale and this, in fact, had been part of
the reason why it became a member of the League of Nations in the first
place. Ordinarily, such a tribal state would not have been considered
the proper material for a League member but Abyssinia had been brought
in, ironically enough, under the sponsorship of Italy. This was because
anti-slavery societies in Britain had been pushing for British
intervention in the country to end the practice and Italy, not wanting
Britain to gain control of the country as a result, backed the
Abyssinian bid for membership along with a promise to end slavery (which
the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie had promised to do but which was
so entrenched that it had not been accomplished over a decade later).
The status, the power and prestige of the League of Nations was put on
the line when Italy was condemned and sanctions threatened if Mussolini
went ahead with his war. The issue was far bigger than one African
country and Mussolini was more than willing to be the one to accept
their challenge, to call their bluff in a way. After so many years of
portraying himself as the strong leader, the man who was always right,
the modern-day Caesar who was going to re-build the Roman Empire,
Mussolini could not back down. He was also thoroughly disgusted by the
League in general, infuriated by their efforts to overrule him, their
threats of sanctions and was determined to defy them. National pride was
also involved, which ran counter to the internationalism of the League.
Italy had been humiliated in Abyssinia once before, the defeat at Adowa
which had brought down the powerful Crispi regime, Mussolini was not
going to let that happen again. The man who had been fairly popular
around the world, other than in the socialist/communist sectors,
suddenly became a villain as he chose to openly defy the League of
Nations. He warned them in a public address that Italy would respond to
economic sanctions with discipline and to sanctions of a military nature
with war.
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| Mussolini, fashionable strongman to international villain |
Some leaders in Britain and France, not wishing to lose Italy as an ally
against Germany, tried to come to a compromise. Mussolini was receptive
to the idea, war could have been avoided, but when the attempted deal
was leaked to the public, such an outcry arose that it fell apart and
the British and French foreign ministers were forced to resign. This
was, in a wider sense, not so much a conflict between Italy and
Abyssinia but a conflict between Italy and the League of Nations.
Sanctions were imposed which severely hurt the Italian economy but it
did not turn the people against the Duce, rather it turned them against
the League of Nations. Nor were the sanctions strict enough to bring
Italian military operations to a halt. Oil, for example, was not
embargoed. However, once again, even if it had been, that could not have
stopped Italy from buying oil from the United States. Many have pointed
out that the British did not close the Suez Canal to Italian warships,
however, long-standing agreements stated that Britain could not close
the canal to any country except in time of war and a war with Italy was
the last thing Britain wanted, particularly over a conflict in one of
the relatively few parts of the world where Britain had no interests.
The League was confident that they would win. They predicted that it
would take the Italian military at least two years of hard fighting to
totally dominate the huge local population and rugged terrain of
Abyssinia. By that time, the effect of the sanctions would be crippling
and the Italian people would rise up in opposition and remove Mussolini
from power. Of course, it did not work out that way and the sanctions
were actually part of the reason why. The hopes of the League were
obvious to everyone, not excluding Rome, and Mussolini soon replaced the
commander of his forces in Africa who was waging a slow, cautious
campaign to minimize losses, with another commander who had orders to
use any means necessary to win the war quickly. Rather than two years,
Abyssinia was conquered in seven months.
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| Proclaiming the empire, death knell of the League |
Mussolini crowed to his Blackshirts, “…lift on high, legionaries, your
standards, your steel and your hearts and salute, after fifteen
centuries, the reappearance of the Empire on the fatal hills of Rome!”
The mood at the League of Nations, was one of furious dejection. The
organization which has set itself up as the arbiter of world affairs and
the guarantor of the post-Great War world order, the promoters of
internationalism had their illusions shattered by the Kingdom of Italy.
This was far more significant than the fate of Ethiopia. Mussolini had
defied the League of Nations, the supposed ruling class of the world
community, defied their sanctions and, worse, had beaten them. The rest
of the world had seen them beaten. Immediately, even before the conflict
in Africa had been fully resolved, countries began to take notice and
to make changes accordingly. Liberal idealism had failed its test and
pragmatism began to come back into style among some nations. Since the
League had so championed the cause of Ethiopia, they tried to gain at
least some moral support from outside its membership. The Ethiopians
called upon the Empire of Japan, asking for no actual assistance but
simply a show of moral support by condemning the Kingdom of Italy. The
Japanese refused. Given their occupation of Manchuria not so many years
before, it would have seemed rank hypocrisy to do otherwise. Instead,
Japan came to a practical agreement with Italy. The Empire of Japan
formally, and before the western democracies, recognized the King of
Italy as Emperor of Ethiopia. In return, the Kingdom of Italy formally
recognized and established diplomatic relations with the
Japanese-sponsored Empire of Manchukuo.
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| Franco, who stopped the reds in the west |
The League of Nations was officially a “lame duck” and the world soon
saw the evidence with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The
idealists were rendered rather powerless by their own idealism while the
pragmatists made real headway. The League of Nations was appealed to,
the League of Nations studied the problem and finally took no more
action that to offer safe haven in Switzerland for the art treasures of
Spain. The republicans received assistance from Soviet Russia but Stalin
made them pay such a heavy price for it that, had the republicans won,
he would have effectively owned Spain when it was over. General Franco
and the nationalists received some limited, though highly effective,
support from Adolf Hitler and a huge amount of help from Benito
Mussolini. Idealism nor ideology had nothing to do with it, contrary to
what many now say, Franco was not a Spanish Hitler. He was simply an
old-style conservative, not any sort of radical out to change the world
or the course of history. He just wanted his old Spain back. He was not
even very similar to his greatest benefactor Mussolini, other than an
authoritarian streak, use of the Roman salute and a preference for
nationalism over internationalism. Mussolini helped Franco because he
wanted Franco in his debt, he wanted to extend his influence throughout
the Mediterranean area and even hoped of returning the House of Savoy to
the vacant Spanish throne. And, of course, there was a genuine sympathy
among Latin, Catholic Italians for Latin, Catholic Spaniards and the
suffering they were enduring at the hands of the republic.
The League of Nations, rather like a referee that everyone ignores,
simply sat on the sidelines, ineffectively blowing a whistle, while
General Franco and his nationalists won a great victory. Franco did
better than anyone would have likely thought. He won the war, solidified
his hold on power, had sense enough to stay out of World War II and
thus outlived his primary creditors. Spain withdrew from the League of
Nations in 1939 but it mattered little by then as the outbreak of World
War II was the final nail in the coffin. Those powers who tried to be
idealistic in the build-up to that war, ultimately lost everything,
while those who pragmatically and even cynically, took the opportunities
that came, such as Stalin, who would ally with Nazi Germany,
imperialist Britain or capitalist America as it served his interests,
would come out with the greatest gains. Yet, those liberal idealists
seemed to learn very little if anything at all from the demise of the
League of Nations.
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| The Big Three at Yalta |
The fact that no lessons were learned is rather proven by the fact that
the League of Nations never officially died. It did no business after
the outbreak of World War II but legally it still existed until 1943
when the Allies agreed to replace it with a new organization; the United
Nations we still have today. Think about that fact for a moment. An
organization which was intended to stop there being any more wars, was
revived and refurbished during the largest, costliest war in human
history which had broken out on its watch and which it had failed to
prevent. And so the madness continues, only on a larger scale, with a
more entrenched, more corrupt, more power-hungry bureaucracy which has
taken on a life of its own. It also, for a change, had the United States
of America as a founding member this time. That was due to the grip on
power that Roosevelt and the Democrats had at the time. Republicans have
never been nearly so supportive and most conservative Americans
instinctively despise the organization to this day. It has not prevented
any major wars, fought one significant conflict and that mostly because
the communists had gone on strike before figuring out they could
manipulate it to their own advantage as often as not.
The U.N. today is still preaching the same vague, liberal idealism that
the League of Nations preached before, if anything even more
hypocritically, being a worse version of the League. It benefits no one
other than the internationalist, elite class who make fortunes for
themselves by working for it. They spend most of their time jetting
around the world to luxurious resorts in exotic locations to talk about
this or that and congratulate themselves on their own imagined
superiority. Their internationalism and their slavish though always
hypocritical, devotion to liberal idealism setting them apart from all
that has gone before.
That is the important part for readers here to remember. The League of
Nations was the first organization of its kind. The nearest thing to a
precedent that had gone before them was the “Concert of Europe” which
tried to put Europe back together after the French Revolutionary wars
and to keep the peace and maintain the existing order of traditional
authority. That final part, the “traditional authority” part, makes all
the difference. The League of Nations was the first effort at
international cooperation that did not consist of monarchs or the
representatives of monarchs coming together and that makes all the
difference. Monarchs, after all, have a paternal attachment to their
nations which makes them inherently more responsive to practical reality
than some ideology or political idealism. The Congress or Vienna System
of the Concert of Europe was practical and not idealistic. The fact
that the King of Great Britain and Ireland was a constitutional monarch
and the Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias was an absolute monarch
did not matter. The fact that the King of Prussia was a Protestant and
the King of Spain was a Catholic made no difference, they were not
trying to spread some ideal formula for solving the problems of the
world, they were simply trying to maintain peace and stability. History
clearly shows which of these two systems was more successful in
achieving the goals they set for themselves.
