The League of Nations

Makers of the Modern World: The peace conferences of 1919-23 and their aftermath
By Ruth Henig

The League of Nations. Published on the 90^thanniversary of the League of Nations' first meeting; January 16th, 2010.

Many of the peacemakers who came to Paris in 1918-19 had thought deeply about establishing an international body of stature and authority to prevent war from breaking out again in the future. Large and small nations were vociferous in their discussions and arguments about the form and role which the League should have. This book looks at how the League was shaped and the multi-faceted body which emerged, and how it was used in ensuing years to counter territorial ambitions and restrict armaments, as well as its role in human rights and refugee issues. The failure of the League to prevent the Second World War would lead to its dissolution and the subsequent creation of the United Nations.

Following the Peace Conference, in the 1920s France and Britain were the two major powers driving the League, and they had very different approaches to peacekeeping and to the prevention of disputes. The book examines initiatives such as the Draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance and the Geneva Protocol, and analyses the succession of crises which the League had to deal with, from the Italian invasion of Corfu in 1923, to the Greek invasion of Bulgaria in 1925, the dispute between Bolivia and Paraguay in 1928, the Manchurian Crisis of 1931-3, and the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935.

Dr Ruth Henig CBE is an academic historian and Labour Party politician. She was awarded a PhD in history from Lancaster University in 1978, where she was a lecturer in Modern European History. She served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities from 1997 to 2000 and in April 2006 she was one of six people to receive the first Honorary Fellowships of Lancaster University. She specializes in 20th-century international history. She has written three Lancaster Pamphlets, on the origins of the First and Second World Wars, Versailles and After: 1919-1933, on the Treaty of Versailles and international diplomacy in the 1920s, and The League of Nations (1973). Her other books include (with Chris Culpin and Eric Evans) Modern Europe 1870-1945 (1997), (with Simon Henig) Women and Political Power: Europe Since 1945 (2000) and British Government and League of Nations 1919-40 (2001). Henig was a Labour member of Lancashire County Council from 1981 to 2005. She was awarded a CBE in 2000 for services to policing, and in 2002 was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant for Lancashire. She was made a life peer on 8 June 2004 as Baroness Henig, of Lancaster in the County of Lancashire. In December 2006 she was appointed Chair of the Security Industry Authority.