Was the League of Nations a utopian dream doomed to fail?.
Ever since the outbreak of the great war (World War I), many have argued that the causes for this war were the alliance systems and secret diplomacy, thus when the war had come to an end, there were attempts made to prevent such a situation from taking place again. One of these attempts was reflected by Woodrow Wilson in 1918 when he set forth his famous 14 points, one of which (number 14) was the creation of a peace keeping League of Nations. These 14 points where rejected by Germany immediately, thus, another revised version of the 14 points was created which was known as the treaty of Versailles (and other treaties such as Locarno etc.), where some of these points were passed (including the League of Nations one). .
As a short thesis statement, this essay will look at the time in which the League of Nations was created and which factors triggered it's creation including some of the responsibilities the freshly created organisation was given (in which it was successful). Furthermore, examples of the failures will be set forth.
The League of Nations covenant was approved in February 1919. In June of the same year the treaty of Versailles was signed by Germany, even though they considered the Versailles treaty as unfair or a "diktat". The US, however refused to ratify the treaty. The importance of the Versailles treaty was basically that it involved the League of Nations as a peace keeping committee. For example, as it was agreed that the Saar basin (a coal mining area) was to be granted to France for 15 years (for reparations) and was to be under supervision of the League of Nations. In addition the port of Danzing (a German port, but essential for Baltic trade) was declared to a "free city" status and once again under the supervision of the League of Nations (yet it was open to trade). Similarly the city of Memel was placed under League of Nations supervision.