The League of Nations was created in the harsh circumstances of the post-war period. As it was Wilson who gave to life the idea of the League it was discussed greatly at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The US president came up with the idea of the organization and so it was him that produced its regulations, also known as the Covenant. This Covenant decided which situations were of concern and how decisions on these were to be reached. At the same time it also decided how the organization as to act in order to achieve and to secure the aims set out. The league was incorporated into all of the peace treaties of the Paris Settlement and aimed at promoting international co-operating and to achieve international peace and security. It also aimed at promoting what became known as “collective security’ which is the guarantee that the states incorporated in the league would protect each other in case of aggression.

The league faced many obstacles in achieving peace as some countries were not satisfied with the terms of the peace treaties and wanted to change them. On the other hand, the ones who had made gains in the war period wanted to maintain these and so acted in a manner that would not bring disruption. Having said this, nobody could be certain if all of the members of the league were ready to maintain the order that was achieved after the war.

The three main channels of the policy of the League were moral persuasion, economic sanctions and the use of military force. Moral persuasion helped to identify if a country was aggressive and so this would lead to a diplomatic change. If this failed, economic sanctions were then imposed. If again this was not effective then military force would take action through the militaries of the members.

The early years of the League were filled with hope but were by no means easy. Many border disputes were presented before the league which were either unresolved matters or born through the treaties. The League had to settle these through the peace treaties. Examples of these are the Aaland islands, which belonged to Finland but wanted to be riled by Sweden. This was taken in front of the League and they decided not to change the situation while at the same time promising to protect the right of minorities. Vilna is another example that in 1920 was taken before the League as Poland opposed Vilna to becoming, yet again, the capital of the newly independent Lithuania. The Poles invaded Vilna and finally it was awarded to Finland. Furthermore, another example can be seen through the decision to split Upper Silesia between Poland and Germany as it was inhabited by both and although the plebiscite had shown that they favoured Germany, to stop the rioting it was split. Lastly, in 1923 the incident of Corfu, which started with Italian members of delegation being murdered brought Mussolini to blame Greece on the happenings even through it could have been Albanians or Greeks. The Italian President demanded the Greek Government to find those responsible and to execute them, he also wanted compensation. With the Greeks refusal he bombarded the island of Corfu. The League of Nations wanted Mussolini to leave Corfu and that only after investigations it would be decided if Greece would have to pay. Mussolini, not happy with this, threatened to abandon the League and so the matter was transferred to the Conference of Ambassadors who ruled in favour of the Italians.

The Conference of Ambassadors, formed by Britain, France, Italy and Japan, was only supposed to exist when until the League of Nations was ready to operate. However it continued to exist and in some cases, as in the Corfu incident, it even overruled the League of Nations.

Although forty-two countries had joined the league, USA Germany and Russia were not original members of the League. The US never joined, German became a member in 1926 but then withdrew when Hitler came to power and Russia only joined in 1934. The US refusal to sign with the Treaty of Versailles and never becoming a member of the League resulted in them becoming isolated. One main reason for this is that they did not want to be drawn into European conflicts. Having said this, without the USA as a member, the league had reduced the opportunity to succeed, as it would not incorporate one of the major world powers. This is because the USA could have assisted the League both economically and militarily as they had emerged from the war unharmed. Britain and France were the strongest countries in the League but they did not agree on many things. France wanted the League to enforce the treaties so that her security would not be at stake. Britain on the other hand, was mostly interested in her economic situation and did not want to enforce sanctions that might affect it. Another major power that was absent from the League was Russia and this was mainly because France and Britain thought that it would be better to isolate the new Bolshevik state. The Russian view on the League was that it was a ploy to contain the spread of communism. Germany, who was still a strong European nation, was also excluded from the league and this is because they still had the capacity to recover. The League would have benefitted more by making Germany part of the new international order as their exclusion contributed to the image of the League being an organization of victorious countries.

The fact that both Germany and Russia had been excluded from the League of Nations meant hat they were brought closed together. Both of them wanted post-war agreements to be revised. Germany’s motivation was to escape the control of the Allies, whereas Russia’s wanted to focus on their own domestic problems. These two countries signed the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922, which was secretly addressing military co-operation between the two powers. The French never believed that the treaty was not addressing secret military clauses and so this motivated the French invasion of the Ruhr. Having said this in 1923, relations between Germany and the west improved and this brought Germany’s admittance into the League of Nations in 1926. In 1934 the USSR also joined the League as it had changed its negative view on it.