Welcome in, everyone. Pull up a chair. Yes. So
glad you could join us today. It is Monday, March
9, 2026, and we are just so happy you are here
at the table with us. We really are. We've got
a great one today. We do. So for this deep dive,
our mission is to explore a comprehensive Wikipedia
source detailing the history of the League of
Nations. Right. Now, I know I know what you might
be thinking when you hear that name. Sounds a
bit dry. Exactly. A century -old diplomatic organization.
It sounds like the absolute dustiest of history
lessons. Oh, but it isn't. Not at all. No, I
promise you. What we have in these sources is
anything but boring. It really is a captivating
story when you dig into it. Because when you
look at the raw history, it is essentially the
tale of the world's very first incredibly ambitious
startup for global governance. That is such a
great way to look at it. Right. Think of it like
the ultimate wildly idealistic tech startup.
Yeah. But instead of trying to disrupt, you know,
taxi cabs or food delivery, they were trying
to disrupt the very concept of war itself. Which
is a massive undertaking. Huge. And look. Everyone
knows this startup ultimately failed to stop
World War II. Right, that's the headline everyone
remembers. But the secret hidden in these documents
is that it actually shaped the modern world you
live in right now. In ways most people don't
even realize. We are talking about the foundation
of the eight -hour workday, the creation of global
health networks, and even the invention of international
passports. It serves as a perfect almost cinematic
study in how grand philosophical ideas collide
with the messy, complicated reality of human
nature. And national interests, of course. Oh,
absolutely. Yeah. We had a lot of fascinating
ground to cover today. OK, let's unpack this.
Let's do it. Where does an idea of this massive
even come from? I assume it didn't just appear
out of thin air right after the First World War.
You would be correct. The source actually traces
the intellectual blueprint all the way back to
1795. Wow, that early. Yeah, a philosopher named
Immanuel Kant wrote an essay called Perpetual
Peace. Kant, okay, I remember him from college
philosophy. Right, and Kant wasn't advocating
for some massive dictatorial global government.
Good to know. Rather, he envisioned a league
of free states that would respect each other
as fellow rational entities. Okay, but an idea
is just an idea until something forces it into
reality. Exactly. And in this case, it took the
unprecedented mechanized trauma of World War
I to finally push the world to act. Because the
previous way of doing things had just completely
failed, right? Yeah, spectacularly failed. Before
World War I, Europe operated on something called
the Concert of Europe. The Concert of Europe.
Yeah, you can think of it as a VIP club of empires.
OK. They relied on shifting alliances and these
secret backroom diplomatic deals to constantly
balance each other's military power. Sounds incredibly
fragile. It was. And once that system collapsed
into the absolute slaughter of the Great War,
people finally realized that allowing sovereign
states unchecked freedom to wage war well, it
was literally going to destroy the world. So
who were the people actually pushing to change
this? Was it just, you know... Politicians in
suits sitting in drawing rooms? Not at all. And
that is a crucial part of the story here. You
had incredibly passionate grassroots groups springing
up everywhere. Really? Like who? Well, in the
UK, you had the Bryce Group and the Fabians.
The Fabians? Right. They were essentially British
intellectual societies advocating for gradual
democratic reform rather than violent revolution.
OK. In the US, there was the League to Enforce
Peace. which was actually championed by former
president William Howard Taft. Oh, interesting.
But perhaps the most remarkable push came from
women's groups. What were they doing while the
war was still going on? It's amazing, really.
In 1915, while the trenches were still completely
active, over 1 ,000 women from neutral nations
managed to gather at The Hague. In the middle
of a global war. Yes. This was coordinated by
organizers like Mia Boisevain, Aletta Jacobs,
and Rosa Manos. Okay. And it was directed by
the famous American social worker Jane Addams.
I've heard of Jane Addams, so they hold this
conference. But they didn't just hold a conference
to go home, that's the thing. What did they do?
They actively dispatched delegations to meet
face -to -face with reluctant European heads
of state. You're kidding? No, they went right
to them, demanding a neutral mediating body.
This effort eventually formed the Women's International
League for Peace and Freedom, or Will .P .F.
That is incredible. They are literally crossing
war -torn continents to lobby kings and prime
ministers. Exactly. So how does that grassroots
energy finally translate into the official League
of Nations? It ultimately found its champion
in American President Woodrow Wilson. Ah, Wilson.
Right. He took these idealistic concepts from
the public, combined them with drafts written
by British and South African statesmen. Like
who? Specifically, Lord Robert Cecil and Jan
Smuts. Got it. And Wilson... made the creation
of the League his single biggest objective at
the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Which brings
us to what might be the most massive glaring
historical irony of this whole endeavor. It's
a big one. Woodrow Wilson is the chief architect.
He literally wins the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize
for his role in creating the League. But the
United States never actually joins it. Never.
How does the architects own country back out?
It came down to a bitter political fight over
sovereignty. Back in the U .S. Senate Republicans
led by Henry Cabot Lodge pushed back hard against
Wilson. They didn't want any part of it. They
were terrified that joining the league would
force the U .S. military into European conflicts
without Congress having a say. So a constitutional
issue. Exactly. They demanded a reservation ensuring
only Congress could take the U .S. into war.
And Wilson. Wilson, being notoriously stubborn,
refused to compromise a single word. Wow, not
a single word. Nope. So the Senate voted it down
and the U .S. stayed out. Just incredible. If
we connect this to the bigger picture, that American
absence was a foundational crack in the League's
architecture. Because they needed the U .S. power.
Precisely. The League didn't have its own standing
army. It was entirely dependent on the major
powers to enforce its resolutions. So by missing
the sheer economic and military weight of the
United States, and this is important by initially
banning the defeated Germany and the newly communist
Soviet Union from joining up. Oh, they banned
them at first. Yes. So by doing all that, the
League's credibility was crippled from day one.
Many smaller nations just viewed it as a league
of victors looking out for themselves. A league
of victors. That paints a really vivid picture
of the starting line. It wasn't a great start.
So let's look at the actual mechanics of this
global startup. How did it function day to day?
The operational structure was laid out in its
covenant, which was signed as part one of the
Treaty of Versailles. Okay. It had three main
parts. First, you had the assembly where every
member state had a seat and a vote. Like the
UN General Assembly today. Very similar. Then
you had the council, which acted as an executive
body dominated by permanent major powers. Okay.
And finally, a permanent secretariat, which was
basically the civil service keeping the lights
on. And they were based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Correct. And Geneva makes sense given their long
history of neutrality and the fact that the International
Red Cross was already set up there. Exactly.
It was the perfect neutral ground. But reading
through the source, There seems to be a massive
glitch in how the assembly and the council actually
voted on things. Yes, you are referring to the
principle of unanimous voting. Yes. For any major
resolution to pass, every single member voting.
had to agree. Unanimous. Entirely unanimous.
Just trying to get everyone in a 50 -person office
to agree on where to order lunch is impossible.
How are they supposed to settle a border dispute?
It sounds absurd to our modern ears. It really
does. It does. But it reflected the League's
deep, almost paranoid belief in protecting the
sovereignty of its member nations. I guess that
makes sense after the war. Right. They wanted
solutions by mutual consent, not... Dictation.
They didn't want a global superpower telling
a small country what to do. Okay, noble idea.
Noble, yes. But in practice, this meant that
if a single country disagreed, nothing happened.
Nothing at all. It essentially gave every single
member veto power. which, as you can imagine,
created endless diplomatic gridlock when it came
to major political crises. But here's where it
gets really interesting. Oh yes. Because while
the political arm was getting hopelessly bogged
down by that gridlock, the League was quietly
achieving massive, largely forgotten triumphs
in other areas. They really were. I want to spend
some time on this, starting with the International
Labor Organization or the ILO. The ILO is a great
example. They were technically autonomous, but
fully funded by the League. And their work was
revolutionary. Truly. They actively campaigned
for and convinced several countries to adopt
an eight -hour workday. Which is standard now,
but back then... Back then it was groundbreaking.
And a 48 -hour work week. They fought to end
child labor globally. Amazing. They even successfully
pushed to restrict the addition of lead to paint.
And the source highlights one specific project
that blew my mind, the Tanganyika Railway in
Africa. Yes. That is a staggering humanitarian
achievement. Can you walk us through those numbers?
Before the League's intervention. The death rate
of workers constructing that railway was an appalling
55%. 55 %? More than half the workers were dying
from brutal conditions and disease. That is just
horrific. It was. So the League stepped in, demanded
better working conditions, instituted medical
care, and provided strict oversight. And what
was the result? They successfully dropped that
mortality rate down to just 4%. From 55 down
to four. Yes. It's hard to even fathom how many
lives that saved. Thousands upon thousands. And
they didn't stop at labor. Let's talk about the
health organization. Another huge success story.
Because long before we had the WHO, these folks
were out there launching international campaigns
to exterminate mosquitoes, to fight malaria and
yellow fever. They were pioneers in global public
health. They set up research centers for leprosy.
And perhaps their most surprising diplomatic
was partnering with the Soviet government. Right,
because the Soviet Union wasn't even in the League
at this point. Exactly. Remember, they were banned
initially, and the West was deeply suspicious
of them. So how did that partnership happen?
The health organization recognized a simple truth.
Diseases do not respect political borders. Right.
A virus doesn't care about a treaty. Exactly.
So they partnered with the Soviets to launch
a massive education and sanitation campaign.
To fight what? Typhus. And it successfully prevented
typhus epidemics from sweeping across Europe.
They proved that public health could and really
must be managed internationally. That is a phenomenal
point. And speaking of people crossing borders,
we have to talk about the refugee crisis after
World War I. Yes. And a man named Fridtjof Nansen.
Nansen. He led the Commission for Refugees. And
the scale of the problem he faced was just daunting.
How bad was it? At the end of the war, there
were an estimated two to three million prisoners
of war dispersed throughout Russia, facing starvation
and disease. Millions of people just stranded.
Stranded. Yet within just two years, Nansen's
commission helped 425 ,000 of them return home.
That is incredible logistical work. They set
up camps in Turkey to feed refugees and aggressively
fought the spread of cholera and smallpox in
those camps. But the thing that really stands
out to me in the source is the creation of the
Nansen passport. What exactly was that? OK, imagine
being caught in the aftermath of a fallen empire.
Like the Ottoman Empire or the Austro -Hungarian
Empire? Exactly. The country you were born in
literally no longer exists. Wow. Which means
you have no citizenship. no passport, and therefore
no legal right to cross a border to find safety
or work. You're just trapped. You are completely
stateless. So what did Nansen do? He created
an internationally recognized identity card for
these people. If you didn't have a country anymore,
this piece of paper gave you a legal identity
and the freedom to move. It was revolutionary.
It absolutely was. So these technical and humanitarian
side quests were incredibly successful. Highly
successful. They are quietly building the infrastructure
of the modern world while nobody is looking.
Exactly. While the League's political machinery
was failing to prevent war, These auxiliary agencies
were so effective that they were directly inherited
by the United Nations after World War II. They
survived the collapse. They did. They eventually
became the institutions, you know, today, like
the World Health Organization and the modern
ILO. OK, so they were transforming global health
and labor. But we have to address their main
job, preventing another world war. Right. The
political side. To understand how that unraveled,
we need to look at how they handled territory.
It was a very complicated issue. The Paris Peace
Conference left a lot of messy borders, and the
empires that lost the war had to give up their
colonies. How did the League handle that? They
created something called the Mandate System,
which was a very messy compromise. Between who?
Well, on one side you had Woodrow Wilson. He
insisted that the former colonies of the German
and Ottoman empires shouldn't just be swallowed
up by the winners. OK. He wanted them assisted
toward eventual self -governance. And the other
side? On the other side, you had Britain, France,
and South Africa, who very much wanted to annex
those territories to protect their trade routes
and expand their empires. Of course they did.
So how did they compromise? By creating Class
A, B, and C mandates. Break those down for us.
Class A territories were deemed nearly ready
for independence, needing only administrative
advice. OK, so a light touch. Right. Class B
mandates required more direct intervention. And
Class C. Class C mandates like Southwest Africa
or certain Pacific Islands were essentially handed
over to be administered as integral portions
of the conquering nations territory. Wait, so
basically? Basically, they were treated as colonies.
As the source points out, this structure deeply
enshrined racial hierarchies and effectively
prevented actual decolonization for decades.
It sounds like a bureaucratic way of putting
a new label on old imperialism. That's exactly
how many historians view it today. But when it
came to actual sovereign nations shooting at
each other, did the leagues ever step in and
actually stop a war? They did, actually, but
with a major caveat. It only worked when the
countries involved were relatively small. Interesting.
Give us an example. Well, in the early 1920s,
there was a fierce dispute between Sweden and
Finland over the Eiland Islands. The League stepped
in, investigated, and ultimately left the islands
with Finland. But did Sweden just accept that?
They did because the League strictly guaranteed
demilitarization and language protections for
the Swedish -speaking islanders. It was a peaceful,
accepted resolution. And there was a border clash
in 1925, right? Between Greece and Bulgaria.
Yes. An incident involving border sentries escalated,
and Greek troops actually invaded Bulgaria. A
full invasion. Yes. But the League immediately
condemned it. Greece actually listened, withdrew
its troops, and paid compensation to Bulgaria.
Wow. They even managed to step into South America
in the early 1930s. What happened there? Business
leaders from the Peruvian rubber industry organized
an armed takeover of a border town called Leticia.
Leticia, OK. Which had been ceded to Colombia.
The Peruvian army backed them up, but the League
mediated. They actually took provisional control
of the territory. The League took control. Temporarily,
yes. Yeah. And brokered a final peace agreement
where Leticia was returned to Colombia. So the
system could work? Arbitration was actually possible.
It was possible for the sparrows. The sparrows.
As Benito Mussolini famously called them. Mussolini
once stated regarding the league's attempts to
enforce rules that the league is very well when
sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles
fall out. And those eagles were about to fall
out in a spectacular way. They were indeed. Let's
talk about the major powers going rogue, starting
with Japan in 1931. This is the Mukden incident.
What happened? The Japanese Kwantung Army, acting
completely rogue and contrary to orders from
Tokyo, lightly damaged a section of their own
railway in the Chinese region of Manchuria. Their
own railway? Yes. They used this staged sabotage
as a pretext to invade all of Manchuria and set
up a puppet government. How does the League respond
to a major power just taking over a massive region
of another country? They sent observers and issued
the Lytton Report. which firmly demanded Manchuria
be returned to China. Did the assembly vote on
it? The assembly voted 42 to 1 to adopt the report.
The single dissenting vote was, of course, Japan.
Right. So they voted, but what did they actually
do? Nothing. Because the League had no army and
the other major powers were too preoccupied with
the Great Depression to send their own troops,
there was no enforcement. So Japan just ignores
it. Worse. Yeah. Rather than submit to the judgment,
Japan simply walked out of the assembly and withdrew
from the League of Nations altogether. They just
left. Just packed up and left. And once Japan
showed that the League was essentially a paper
tiger, the other Eagles took notes. They absolutely
did. Which brings us to Italy in 1935 and the
invasion of Abyssinia, which is modern -day Ethiopia.
Right. Mussolini sent 400 ,000 troops into Abyssinia.
And the details provided in the source are just
horrific. They are. The modern Italian army didn't
just fight a conventional war against them. What
did they do? They used mustard gas, poisoned
local water supplies, and deliberately targeted
undefended villages and Red Cross medical dens.
Pure atrocities? Yes. The emperor of Ethiopia,
Hale Selassie, actually traveled to Geneva. To
speak to them directly? He spoke to the assembly
in person. giving a heartbreaking appeal for
the League to protect his country as they had
promised in the Covenant. Did the League do anything
to help him? They condemned Italy and imposed
economic sanctions, but here is the critical
failure. The sanctions were disastrously weak.
How weak? They purposefully did not ban the sale
of oil to Italy. Wait. Nor did they close the
British -controlled Suez Canal to Italian supply
ships. Wait. If they're trying to stop a mechanized
invasion, cutting off the oil seems like the
most obvious and effective lever to pull. Why
would they leave that off the table? Because
of profound political self -interest. Britain
and France were terrified that imposing truly
crippling sanctions would anger Mussolini so
much that he would form an alliance with Adolf
Hitler in Germany. Oh, I see. They tried to walk
a middle path to keep Italy somewhat friendly.
Imagine knowing the exact lever to pull to stop
a war, but refusing to pull it because you are
scared of the political fallout back home. That's
exactly what happened. And the result of that
middle path is that Italy conquers Abyssinia
anyway and the League loses whatever shred of
credibility it had left. Precisely. The weak
sanctions were quietly lifted in 1936, and Italy
formally withdrew from the League in 1937. At
this point, it sounds like a mass exodus. It
was. Japan and Germany had both left in 1933,
Italy in 37, Spain left in 39. By the late 1930s,
the membership was just plummeting. What about
the Soviet Union? Weren't they in by then? Interestingly,
yes. The Soviet Union, which had finally been
allowed to join in 1934, holds a unique distinction
here. What's that? They were the only member
to ever be formally expelled from the League.
Expelled? What? Which happened in December 1939
after they unprovokedly invaded Finland. Wow,
so they actually kicked them out. What's fascinating
here is the core contradiction of collective
security. Say more about that. The League's entire
foundational premise was that an attack on one
member was an attack on all. Right, all for one,
one for all. But this required nations to act
against states they considered friendly or to
risk their own national treasury and the lives
of their citizens to support a country they had
no historical affinity for. It is the ultimate
test of theory versus reality. Exactly. Because
it is easy to sign a piece of paper in Geneva,
but it is entirely different to tell your own
citizens they have to go die to protect a border
thousands of miles away. Especially following
the immense unmatched bloodshed of World War
I. You have to remember, Britain and France were
gripped by a profound societal pacifism. Nobody
wanted another war. The British Prime Minister
at the time, Stanley Baldwin, observed that collective
security ultimately failed because no country,
except the aggressor, was actually ready or willing
to go to war. Because the League lacked an independent
military force. Exactly. The major powers were
simply unwilling to use their own militaries
to enforce the rules. And so the fences fall
down and the world slides inevitably into the
absolute devastation of the Second World War.
It was unavoidable at that point. What happens
to the League while WWI is actually raging? It
was largely inactive. Its massive headquarters
at the Palace of Nations in Geneva sat mostly
unoccupied for nearly six years. Just a big empty
building? Pretty much. Finally, when the dust
settled in April 1946, delegates from 34 nations
gathered in Geneva for one last somber session.
What was their goal? Their job was to liquidate
the League entirely. Wow. They transferred their
massive archives and about 22 million U .S. dollars
in assets to the newly formed United Nations.
A passing of the torch. Yes. And at the final
session, Lord Robert Cecil, one of the original
architects who had directed the documents back
in 1919, addressed the room and delivered the
epitaph. What did he say? He said, The League
is dead. Long live the United Nations. Shills.
So what does this all mean? It's a heavy question.
When you look back at this sweeping, complicated
story, how does it change your view of history?
Because growing up, it is so easy to just label
the League of Nations as a total failure because
World War II happened. Sure, it's the easy narrative.
But digging into these sources, the truth feels
so much more layered. It absolutely is. Contemporary
historians widely agree that the League wasn't
just a failed peacekeeper. What was it then?
It was a completely necessary prototype. Before
the League, the idea of an international public
sphere barely existed. It was just empires fighting
empire. Right. The League normalized the very
concept of international law. It proved that
incredibly complex global issues like labor standards,
disease control, and refugee crises could actually
be managed on a transnational scale. Things we
take for granted today. Furthermore, It gave
smaller nations a voice on the world stage for
the very first time, permanently changing the
dynamics of global diplomacy. It paved the way.
It really did. It showed the world what was possible,
and the United Nations was designed specifically
to address the structural weaknesses of the League.
Exactly. Like restricting veto power only to
the five permanent members of the Security Council
to keep the major powers at the table. And ensuring
the UN had more robust enforcement mechanisms.
This raises an important question. Let's hear
it. The League of Nations ultimately collapsed
because individual countries refused to prioritize
collective global security over their own immediate
self -interested national security. They wouldn't
sacrifice. They desperately wanted the benefits
of peace without the sacrifice required to actually
enforce it. Right. When we look around at the
complex, deeply interconnected global crises
we face today. From regional conflicts to massive
environmental changes, have we actually learned
the ultimate lesson of the league? That is the
big question. Or a century later, are we still
just a world of sparrows trying desperately to
negotiate with eagles? That is a very heavy,
very real thought to hold onto as we look at
the news today. It gives you a lot to think about.
It really does. Thank you so much for joining
us at the table for this deep dive. We hope you
walk away with a totally new perspective on the
hidden history of how our modern world was built.
Until next time, take care.