As political scientist Sir Alfred Zimmern – an advocate of the League – once said, “the League of Nations was never intended to be, nor is it, a revolutionary organization,” rather it strategically provided an efficient international institution by accepting the world as it was. Although Zimmern expressed notable concerns about the systematization of pre-war ideas with minimal innovations, he was unable to effectively consider the significant impact that the League of Nations would have on the current world order.1 Emerging from the heart-wrenching bloodshed of World War I, the League of Nations was founded “to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security.”2 This organization was a preemptive measure led by world leaders to diminish the chance of war through collective security, disarmament, and negotiation. The League marked a new era in international relations by inviting global government leaders to find peaceful solutions collectively, rather than through minor alliances or applications of force. The unique political climate of the early twentieth century caused the League of Nations to fail in honoring its Wilsonian ideals and executing its Covenant. However, those unfulfilled ideals prompted a revolutionary advancement in international cooperation and an essential prerequisite to the current world order.
Towards the end of World War I, post-war reconstruction entailed fixing a flawed world order. According to international relations scholar Walter Russell Mead: before the war, except in the most glaring circumstances, states were free to treat their subjects as they wished. Even though governments were expected to abide by the accepted principles of public international law, there was no supranational body responsible for enforcing these standards.3 The horrors of World War I affirmed the need to reconstruct the post-war world by creating a cooperative international system that would prevent war. Nearing the war’s end, Europe’s long trek of conflict increased its need for external rescue. It was in no position to lead the cause to secure world peace. The United States, however, was in a more stable position to “serve humanity,” as President Woodrow Wilson idealistically believed. His nationalist idealism was reminiscent of the America-first ideology that grew the U.S. empire over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As President Wilson aligned American concerns to those of the rest of the world, his succeeding efforts elevated the U.S. as a global leader and allowed American ideals to penetrate the global system.4 Although Thomas Paine had once proposed an international league to secure world peace and American progressives had been urging the United States to lead the reconstruction of the world order since 1914, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s proposal of such a league into the global system was nonetheless revolutionary.5 Wilson introduced a blueprint for post-war peace negotiations in his Fourteen Points, a precursor to the League of Nations Covenant based on Wilsonian idealism.
In his Fourteen Points (1918), Wilson described necessary provisions of peace. He began by rejecting “secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments.”6 This statement was a reaction to World War I trauma that outlined his belief in foreign policy. He blamed problems of the nation and world as the result of “conflict-ridden factional politics brought on by the unenlightened pursuit of self-interest.”7 As a result, Wilson instead desired that “the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation,” like the United States, which “wishe[d] to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression.”8 By hoping to make the world safe for every “peace-loving nation,” or those led by democratic governments, Wilson sought to spread democracy worldwide. This was an extension of his idealism which desired a reinvigorated sense of impartial statesmanship devoted to the common good, both on a national and global platform.9 This was a method of globally transferring American nationalism so that the proprietor of democracy – the United States – may have the extensive influence of promoting and maintaining democracy throughout the world, whether that be during times of war or simply in international relations.
The belief of a sovereign state’s inevitability to be influenced by international affairs fueled Wilson’s desire to correct the world order. In his Fourteen Points, he stated: “All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us.”10 This prime example of Wilson’s belief that interdependence among global nations could not be ignored, caused him to transfer his American nationalism to the succeeding world order. In hoping to solidify American global leadership, Wilson sought to create a system that simultaenously increased dependence on international cooperation while placing the United States at the head of the table. Believing in America’s superiority as well as the strength of the democratic institution, both of which validated his desire “to sustain liberal idealism in a postwar world,”11 enabled Wilson to propose an ideological response to an international problem. He ended his Fourteen Points by coining the idea of a “general association of nations… formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.”12 This influential fourteenth point, in conjunction with previous points that urged public diplomacy, removal of trade barriers, reduction of national armaments, and the adjustment of colonial claims, envisioned a post-war world order fueled by liberal idealism.13 This liberal, or Wilsonian, idealism held that a state’s internal political philosophy, which was democracy for America, was the ultimate goal of its foreign policy.
In his Fourteen Points Wilson merely proposed a world organization for collective security, yet the 1919 Paris Peace Conference signed this organization into fruition; the Armistice that ended World War I was also signed based on Wilsonian ideals. When the victorious powers negotiated Germany’s future and discussed a new international order, Wilson’s America-first solution was incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles (1919).14 His emphasis on America and rejection of all European diplomatic traditions would inevitably fuel European opposition.15 Regardless, the opposition to and failure of the League of Nations would result in its inability to honor its covenant. For instance, the treaty was introduced with the purpose “to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security.”16 One of the obvious, and most significant sources of failure to this purpose, was that the United States neglected to join the League of Nations. The U.S. Senate being unwilling to sign over executive power to an international body “implied a serious loss of credibility … [that deprived] the organization of its main source of inspiration [and] the support of the American’s power.”17 The retracted participation of such a powerful nation weakened the League’s ability to cope with a very dangerous international situation.
America’s absence depleted the organization’s ability to foster a cooperative world order. Wilson’s vision of combining American interests within an idealized organization of international cooperation fell through the cracks. And so, the League of Nations was left to pick up the pieces of international destruction through a broken system. This system was not capable of handling problems such as “unsolved minority problems, serious economic strains, the substantial marginalization of the Soviet Union, and the humiliation imposed on Germany,”18 yet it would be forced to. Despite not being able to enforce solutions efficiently, the League still revolutionized the international obligation to rectify global conflicts.
As stated in Article 8 and 9 of the Treaty of Versailles, members of the League would “reduce [their] national armaments, [including military, naval, and air forces], to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations” in order to maintain peace.19 Controlling individual nations’ armaments for the sake of international cooperation was revolutionary; the unprecedented bloodshed of World War I proved this not to be the norm of the previous world order. In Article 10, the League prioritized the “respect and [preservation of] external aggression [for the] territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League,” which essentially protected the sovereignty of each nation in the League.20 This establishment of sovereignty in conjunction with Article 11’s establishment of a League-wide alliance, officially dissolved the capability of conflicting factional politics to result in war. These examples of revolutionary international cooperation were formed to combat the threat of entangled alliances that would disrupt liberal democracy as Wilson first envisioned.
To make the world safe for democracy, the League did not adamantly prepare to combat a totalitarian force like Nazi Germany. In Article 230 of the Treaty of Versailles, the German government was compelled to take “just appreciation of responsibility”21 for World War I. It went so far as to antagonize the nation for its wartime actions by mandating German monetary reparations, land concessions, and demilitarization, which excluded Germany from having a seat in the new world order. Many Germans felt betrayed by the Treaty of Versailles and all its members: after all, Germany did agree to the Armistice and was willing to peacefully negotiate after World War I. This betrayal permeated Germany for years to come, which most significantly affected Adolf Hitler.
Hitler’s resentment over the war’s end and the continued unfair treatment of Germany caused him to reject collaboration. Before becoming Chancellor and creating his dictatorship under the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (1925). It asserted Hitler’s rejection of the Treaty of Versailles as well as the world order it created. For example, Hitler believed the Treaty subjected “The rest of the world [to look] upon [Germany] only as its valet, or as a kindly dog that will lick its master’s hand after he has been whipped.”22 In order to rectify the antagonization of Germany, Hitler broke the Treaty by incorporating Mein Kampf into German foreign policy i.e. German rearmament, overturning the Versailles system, creating individual alliances, and invading non-German lands. In fear of igniting another world war, politicians allowed Hitler’s radical rule to play out. He was initially viewed as a mere extreme nationalist, yet in the succeeding decade his Nazism proved this to be an understatement.23
The failure of the League to combat Nazi Germany demonstrated its peak fragility. However, the system on which it was built would persevere. The League of Nations lacked the administrative strength and enforcement necessary to stop Hitler. This was made irrelevant when Germany fell to Allied powers, thus reigniting hope in a Wilsonian system.24 When the League of Nations came crashing down, its pieces were used to build the United Nations. In 1945, representatives of fifty countries met in San Francisco at the United Nations conference in order to draw up the U.N. Charter. Since the League proved to be “incapable of stopping aggression,” hopes embedded in a Wilsonian order were high for its successor.
Once again the United States would take the lead in preparing this international organization. Similar to Wilson in 1919, “Franklin Roosevelt had been the key inspiration for the U.N.” but his sudden death propelled Vice President Harry S. Truman to lead the cause. In his Address to the San Francisco Conference (1945), American President Harry S. Truman, despite lacking foreign policy expertise, spoke of his liberal idealist hopes for “mankind’s future and the United Nations’ role in preserving it.”25 He acknowledged that “If we had had this Charter a few years ago– and above all, the will to use it– millions now dead would be alive. If we should falter in the future in the will to use it, millions now living will surely die.” His dig at the League’s failure to stop war fueled his atonement for the sins of the past whereby the United States did not participate in the international organization. In spite of American participation and leadership, Truman assured that this charter would not be “the work of any single nation or group of nations,” instead it would be the result of “tolerance for the views and interests of others.”26 In this mindset, Truman assured that the United Nations would promote peace and justice, defend human rights and fundamental freedoms, and accomplish everything under the pretense that the “United Nations… remain united.”27
Not only did Sir Alfred Zimmern argue that the League of Nations was not revolutionary, he also believed it did “not supersede the older methods. It merely supplement[ed] them.”28 Seeing as the United Nations is the fix for a failed League, the same could easily be said for the U.N. When considering the modern-day implications of a cooperative world system, understanding the foundations of the first international institution is crucial because it gave light to the current world order. The modernized world is enslaved to passionate nationalism and inevitable internationalism, thus making world organizations the safest form of global cooperation. As a result, Wilsonian ideals continue to influence the current world order. Because of its Wilsonian influence, the United Nations should be protected against frail cooperation and ideological threats. After all, Wilson’s dreams could have been accomplished had it not been for “the combination of European obstinacy against the League’s Wilsonian principles and the absence of American postwar leadership.”29 Looking forward to the success of the United Nations entails understanding that “important changes have occurred in the world distribution of power, in the world’s economic and political structure, [and] in the world’s ideological atmosphere.”30 Being subject to these changes, the current world order may or may not be able to live up to Wilson’s ideals successfully. Because of the current United Nations, the success of a Wilsonian international organization is still up in the air. Only time will tell.
1. Leland M. Goodrich, “From League of Nations to United Nations,” International Organization 1, no. 1 (February 1947): 4, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2703515.
2. The Treaty of Versailles, “The Treaty of Versailles (1919),” in Ideas and Identity in Western Thought: Readings in Politics, Economics, Society, Law, and War, ed. Michael Holm (San Diego: Cognella, 2022), 266.
3. Walter Russell Mead, “The End of the Wilsonian Era: Why Liberal Internationalism Failed,” Foreign Affairs 100, no. 1 (January-February 2021), https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A64 5582674/AONE?u=mlin_b_bumml&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=29c17807.
4. Edward M. Bennett and Norman A. Graebner, The Versailles Treaty and its Legacy: The Failure of the Wilsonian Vision (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 11, https://eboo kcentral.proquest.com/lib/bu/reader.action?docID=802976.
5. Michael Holm, The Marshall Plan: A New Deal for Europe, (New York: Routledge, 2017), 2.
6. “President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points (1918),” National Archives, accessed June 24, 2022, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-woodrow-wilsons-14-points.
7. Edward J. Harpham, The American Political Science Review 89, no. 4 (December 1995): 1040, https://doi.org/10.2307/2082562.
8. “President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points (1918).”
9. Edward J. Harpham, The American Political Science Review, 1040.
10. “President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points (1918).”
11. Edward J. Harpham, The American Political Science Review, 1040.
12. “President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points (1918).”
13. Michael Holm, “The Great War and the Great Peace,” (Powerpoint Presentation, Boston University London, London, England, May 30, 2022).
14. The Treaty of Versailles, “The Treaty of Versailles (1919),” 265.
15. Michael Holm, The Marshall Plan, 2-3.
16. The Treaty of Versailles, “The Treaty of Versailles (1919),” 266.
17. Luciano Tosi, “The League of Nations: An international relations perspective,” Uniform Law Review 22, no. 1 (March 2017), https://doi.org/10.1093/ulr/unw055.
18. Tosi, “The League of Nations: An international relations perspective.”
19. The Treaty of Versailles, “The Treaty of Versailles (1919),” 266.
20. The Treaty of Versailles, “The Treaty of Versailles (1919),” 266.
21. The Treaty of Versailles, “The Treaty of Versailles (1919),” 274.
22. “Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler,” Great War, accessed June 25, 2022, https://greatwar.nl/ books/meinkampf/meinkampf.pdf.
23. Michael Holm, “The Interwar Period: The Second World War,” (Powerpoint Presentation, Boston University London, London, England, June 9, 2022).
24. Mead, “The End of the Wilsonian Era: Why Liberal Internationalism Failed.”
25. Harry S. Truman, “Harry S. Truman: Address to the San Francisco Conference (1945),” in Ideas and Identity in Western Thought: Readings in Politics, Economics, Society, Law, and War, ed. Michael Holm (San Diego: Cognella, 2022), 343.
26. Truman, “Harry S. Truman: Address to the San Francisco Conference (1945),” 344-8.
27. Truman, “Harry S. Truman: Address to the San Francisco Conference (1945),” 344-8.
28. Goodrich, “From League of Nations to United Nations,” 5.
29. Michael Holm, The Marshall Plan, 4.
30. Goodrich, “From League of Nations to United Nations,” 21.