Key Terms You Must Know

📖 Key Terms You Must Know

Collective security: The principle that all League members would unite to defend any member that was attacked. If one country suffered aggression, all others would respond together — making the aggressor face the combined power of the international community. This was the League's central idea. In practice, it failed because member states were unwilling to act when their own interests were not directly threatened.

Sanctions: Penalties imposed on an aggressor country to force it to change its behaviour. The League could use three types: (1) Moral sanctions — publicly condemning the aggressor and blaming them for the crisis; (2) Economic sanctions — refusing to trade with the aggressor, cutting off imports and exports; (3) Military sanctions — sending armed force against the aggressor. The League's weakness was that it rarely used economic sanctions fully and never used military force.

Disarmament: The process of reducing or eliminating weapons. One of the League's four main aims was to persuade countries to disarm — on the logic that fewer weapons meant less capacity for war. In practice, the major powers were deeply reluctant to disarm while international tensions remained high. The World Disarmament Conference (1932–34) collapsed without agreement.

Mandate: A territory placed under the administration of a League member state, on behalf of the League. After WW1, Germany and the Ottoman Empire lost their colonies; the League assigned these territories as "mandates" to Britain and France to govern. In theory, the mandate power was meant to prepare the territory for self-government. Critics argued it was simply empire-building under a different name.

Covenant: The founding constitution of the League of Nations, included as Part One of all the Paris Peace Treaties (including Versailles). It set out the League's aims, structure, rules, and the obligations of membership — including the collective security commitment. The Covenant had 26 articles. The US Senate's refusal to ratify the Treaty of Versailles meant they rejected the Covenant too, keeping America out of the League.

Unanimous: Requiring the agreement of every member present. The League's Assembly operated on a rule of unanimity — every member had to agree for a resolution to pass. This meant any single country could block a decision. The practical effect was that the League could rarely reach agreement on any controversial matter, since countries with different interests would simply veto proposals they disliked.

Veto: The power of a single member to block a decision by refusing to agree. In the League's Assembly, unanimity was required — giving every member an effective veto. In the Council, the four permanent members (Britain, France, Italy, Japan) each had a veto over Council resolutions. This meant that when a permanent member was itself the aggressor (as Italy was during the Corfu Incident, 1923), it could block any action against itself.

Isolationism: The American foreign policy belief that the USA should avoid "entangling alliances" and stay out of European affairs. Rooted in the Monroe Doctrine (1823) and strengthened by the experience of WW1, many Americans felt they had been dragged into a European quarrel at great cost. The isolationist-dominated Senate blocked US membership of the League in November 1919 (vote: 55–39, falling short of the required two-thirds). Isolationism meant Wilson's own creation was stillborn without its main champion.