War and the League of Nations
I
THE Great War had scarcely begun when societies were formed in many countries to consider the prevention of future conflicts by means of a League of Nations. The principal body for the purpose in this country was the League to Enforce Peace. The name signified its attitude, for it differed from those formed elsewhere because, while their plans usually provided that if war broke out the representatives of the nations should meet to consider what action to take, our society urged automatic sanctions, the countries agreeing, as it were by a universal alliance, to take part against the nation resorting to war.
The proposal of the League to Enforce Peace was based upon four assumptions, or rather three assumptions and a hope.
The hope was that all nations whose adherence was needful would join a league of this kind.
The first assumption was that, having made such a mutual treaty, they would carry it out strictly.
The second assumption was that, in face of such an agreement for summary and irresistible action, no nation, however strong, would venture to resort to arms without submitting its case to judgment or arbitration.
The third assumption, or belief, was that only by such an agreement to take part with the nation attacked could war by an aggressor be effectively prevented.
How far those assumptions were, or were not, justified has a profound significance, because on their validity turns much of the history of the League of Nations, and no small part of the recent anxiety over hostilities and armaments.
The hope was in part fulfilled, for the League of Nations was formed at Versailles, most of the small nations joining it, and all but three of the Great Powers. One of them, Germany, came in later, while for Russia internal conditions and external relations rendered it out of the question for the time; and the United States, foremost in framing the pact, failed to ratify it by a two-thirds vote in the Senate. The Covenant provided, in Article 16, for economic sanctions of a universal and automatic nature; and as these, if in practice applicable, would either be conclusive in themselves or result in war, the essential point, the deterrent effect of overwhelming power, seemed amply secured.
The League of Nations has done a great amount of good in manifold ways. By creating the Permanent Court, it has settled many disputes that would, indeed, probably not have led to war, but might well have left bitter feelings, and perhaps open sores. In its earlier years it helped to prevent smaller wars that might have spread; through the system of mandates it has been a moderating influence; and it has collected much valuable information about labor and other matters. Moreover, at the times for meetings of the Council, it has brought together the foreign ministers of great nations to discuss questions of general interest. But in the primary object of removing from mankind the scourge of war its path has not been smooth; and this involves our first assumption that the Members, having agreed on the outbreak of war to certain measures, would strictly and unanimously apply them.
Formed under the shadow of the most vast of wars, the League had its inception at a time when there was a strong sentiment in favor of sanctions needed to prevent the recurrence of such a catastrophe, but it had scarcely got to work before reluctance appeared; and difficulties in determining who was the aggressor, what was war, and how the sanctions would affect non-members. From the outset there were two conflicting motives: one, the desire for security, and hence effective guaranties against war; the other, hesitation to commit one’s nation in advance to any definite course of action, and still more to the direction of any authority not its own.
An example of the divergent points of view came in the early years, when Canada proposed first to delete from the Covenant Article 10, whereby the Members of the League agreed to preserve against external aggression one another’s territorial integrity and political independence; and later to substitute a modification of the article believed to weaken it. The replies to the proposal by various Members of the League declared Article 10 the key of the Covenant; and Poland stated that the willingness of the Members to accept interference by the League was conditional on this article, and that they could not ‘ be required seriously to contemplate the question of the reduction of armaments unless they were assured of their territorial integrity and political independence.’ The proposal to amend Article 10 was, of course, dropped; but I mention it here because it illustrates the perplexities by which the League has been confronted throughout its life.
The final form of Canada’s proposal raises a question which must be understood at the threshold of any discussion of sanctions under the Covenant. It was an addition to Article 10 in these words: ‘no Member shall be under the obligation to engage in any act of war without the consent of its Parliament, legislature or other representative body.’ Of course no nation can or ought to go to war contrary to its own constitution, which often requires the consent of its representative body; yet that body is sometimes so bound by treaty that it is under the strongest moral obligation to vote for war. This is the case in all treaties for mutual alliance and defense, and when the occasion provided for arises the nation is pledged to act. It must, indeed, always decide for itself, not what it wants to do, but only whether or not the case falls within the provisions of the treaty. If it were not so, such treaties would be little more than scraps of paper. In the Great War, France decided that her alliance with Russia obliged her to declare war on Germany; Great Britain that her treaty to maintain the neutrality of Belgium obliged her to do the same; while Italy did not think that the case came within the terms of the Triple Alliance, and hence she was not bound to take part with Germany. Now the proposal of Canada, although not perfectly clear, seems to remove the pledge altogether by saying that ‘no Member shall be under the obligation to engage in any act of war without the consent of its Parliament, legislature or other representative body.’ Mark! Neither here nor in any other part of this article is there the slightest intention of judging any action as wise or unwise, right or wrong; and in fact any country is perfectly right in limiting its engagements with the consent of everyone else concerned, and that is all Canada proposed to do.
II
Let us look at Article 16 of the Covenant, for on that much of the following remarks will turn. The first paragraph is as follows: —
Should any Member of the League resort to war in disregard of its covenants under Articles 12, 13 or 15, it shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other Members of the League, which hereby undertake immediately to subject it to the severance of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition of all intercourse between their nationals and the nationals of the covenant-breaking State, and the prevention of all financial, commercial or personal intercourse between the nationals of the covenant-breaking State and the nationals of any other State, whether a Member of the League or not.
As early as October 4, 1921, the Assembly asserted the automatic principle in the following resolution: —
4. It is the duty of each Member of the League to decide for itself whether a breach of the Covenant has been committed. The fulfillment of their duties under Article 16 is required from Members of the League by the express terms of the Covenant, and they cannot neglect them without breach of their Treaty obligations.
Now the object of Article 16 was to bring to bear such an irresistible and overwhelming threat that any intending aggressor would desist and turn to the methods of adjudication or conciliation provided by the Covenant. But this clearly involves unanimous concerted action, and, what is more, such certainty thereof that every Member can rely upon it with confidence. The framers of the document assumed that the fact of resorting to war would be self-evident; and, indeed, had they supposed it would be a matter of doubt and difference of opinion, perhaps no country would have been willing to commit to any Council or League power to involve it in sanctions against another nation which it did not itself deem guilty.
The meaning and effect of Article 16 engaged the attention of the League from the outset. In fact, the Council took the matter up before the first meeting of the Assembly in 1920; whereupon the question of how to secure among all the Members a common opinion on the facts calling for the economic sanctions, and common action in applying them, became at once prominent; and both of these bodies concurred in the appointment of an International Blockade Committee to study the problem. In its report this committee suggested that all cases of alleged violation of the Covenant should be referred as a matter of urgency to the Council, which should summon, not only the parties to the conflict, but also the States most interested therein; that it should thus examine the circumstances and determine whether or not a breach of the Covenant had been committed. Although the Committee was perfectly aware that the opinion expressed would be only an opinion, not binding upon the Members of the League, yet it thought that ‘a decision taken under such conditions could not fail to exert the greatest influence on the other Members and also to make a deep impression on the Covenant-breaking State.’
The League was, in fact, on the horns of a dilemma, as appears clearly in the comments of a committee of the Assembly on this report. It said: —
Article 16 does not recognize that any organization of the League of Nations has the power to decide, in such a way as to bind all the other Members, that a given Member is a treaty-breaking State. Such a power would not be consistent with the sovereign rights of the various States.
On the other hand, this principle certainly does not mean that the Members of the League may of their own free will withdraw from the obligations incurred in virtue of the Covenant. When cases provided for by Article 16 arise, and as soon as a Member of the League is convinced that a breach of the Covenant has occurred within the meaning of Article 16, it is bound to cooperate in the application of the sanctions provided for in this article. . . .
It is therefore a question of reconciling the liberty and independence of the States in the determination of a breach of the Covenant on the one side, with the obvious necessity, on the other, of arriving at an agreement between Members of the League as to the existence of a substantive breach of the Covenant within the meaning of Article 16 and of co-ordinating their action on the basis of a joint plan.
Later the Report went on: —
It is the great moral authority of the Council, strengthened by the presence of the States concerned, which must confer upon its opinion that convincing force which is essential for bringing the Members of the League into agreement, and for inducing them to take joint action. Faced with the Council’s opinion, deeming a State to have broken the Covenant, it will be very difficult for the Members of the League to evade the fulfilment of their engagements.
This point of view was in substance adopted by the Assembly and Council; and thus a consultation was substituted for instant action, a procedure less terrifying to an aggressor. Perhaps, if not certainly, the League could have come to no other conclusion; but, if so, it was because the conception of the framers of the Covenant was impracticable. We shall see what effect the method of consultation had in the case of Japan.
In its deliberations the International Blockade Committee met another lion in the path. Recognizing that ‘unanimity is . . . the very essence of the action contemplated,’ they felt that the sanctions must be applied by the Members at the same time, and that a date ought to be fixed by the Council at which this should be done. Now Article 16 says that the economic sanctions shall be in force ‘immediately,’ and although setting a future date when all will be ready may be in most cases the best and wisest procedure, it must entail delay, perhaps enough for the aggressor to contrive a fait accompli on which to negotiate. This also happened in the case of Japan.
Moreover, some of the smaller States urged that they, especially if bordering on the aggressor, might be exposed to disproportionate danger if they tried to enforce the boycott on the date fixed; so it was agreed that the Council might postpone action in their case — another relaxation, though not a very serious one, in the principle of the Covenant.
The International Blockade Committee touched upon another kindred subject, more fully elaborated by other committees to which their report was referred. That was a gradation of the economic sanctions under Article 16 — to begin with milder measures, and become, if these were not effective, more stringent under the advice of the Council. Naturally this also might give the aggressor more time to occupy and negotiate; and we must not forget that it is one thing to deter a nation from resorting to war, and quite another to take territory away from a victorious conqueror.
The Assembly adopted all the foregoing suggestions in a series of Resolutions on October 4, 1921; but the Amendments to Article 16, which it proposed to give them effect, have not been ratified by the Members of the League. Nevertheless the discussion has shown a weakness in the Covenant as it stands, as well as an unwillingness by the Members of the League to remedy its defects. Referring five years later to the gradation in sanctions,— on behalf of a committee of the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference, — M. de Brouckère remarked: —
To say that ambassadors only will be recalled under an article which definitely requires the breaking-off of all personal relations; to say that certain commercial relations will be gradually severed when the text demands that they should all be broken off forthwith is to make an almost ridiculous use of a clause in which the peoples most exposed to aggression see their supreme safeguard. It means weakening it dangerously and at the same time weakening the whole League.
Two other remarks from reports of subcommittees of the same Preparatory Commission may be quoted here. From M. Politis: —
The degree of security thus provided [by Articles 10 and 16], however, is not generally regarded as adequate, because the guarantees on which it rests are left indefinite in their principle and uncertain in their application.
From M. Rutgers: —
The great question would be whether the principle of Article 16 was or was not a living reality. To carry out the grave obligations contained in Article 16, States would have to be inspired by the spirit of responsibility and solidarity which is at the root of Article 16 and of the whole League of Nations.
III
That the security provided by the Covenant was inadequate the League saw when its proposed Amendments to Article 16 were not ratified, and it made two attempts to supply the deficiency. First, by the Draft Treaty for Mutual Assistance in 1923; but, after learning the views of twenty-five of its Members, this was abandoned, and the next year the second attempt with a similar object was made. It is known as the Geneva Protocol, and sought to avoid the difficulty of determining the aggressor by providing that, when hostilities break out, any State that has refused to submit the dispute as required by the Covenant, etc., ‘shall be presumed to be an aggressor, unless’ the Council shall decide otherwise. It also gave the Council power to order the sanctions. But this again failed of the ratifications needed to bring it into being, and Article 16 was left unsupported, with its original uncertainties and those that discussion had gathered about it. Thus another well-intended resolution was added to the traditional pavement — for, as General Sherman said, war is hell.
Since the discussions in 1921 a further doubt has arisen about Article 16, which, as you will remember, begins,
‘ Should any Member of the League resort to war in disregard of its covenants under Articles 12, 13 or 15.’ In the earlier drafts of the Covenant it read: ‘Should any of the States Members of the League break or disregard its covenants under Article XII’; and the change was made by a redrafting subcommittee between March 26 and 31, 1919. But motives for the alteration need not concern us here, because David Hunter Miller, a member of that subcommittee, tells us in his book on The Drafting of the Covenant that it was done because of a change in the articles referred to; and certainly it had no connection with the question since raised about what is a resort to war.
Now M. de Brouckère, in his excellent report already mentioned, took up the meaning of these words, and was of opinion that, apart from a case where the aggressor has formally declared it, two conditions are necessary to constitute a resort to war. First, that one country must have committed an act of war against another; and second, that the country attacked must have admitted the existence of a state of war. Both of these conditions have led to a weakening in the security designed by the Covenant.
The first, that the aggressor must have committed an act of war, has provoked much discussion about the use of military force less than war. It has long been recognized in international law that reprisals for injury done, pacific blockades, and even the occupation of territory, may take place without creating a general state of war with the country so chastised. If so, such action may not be an act of war, and the nation that does it may not have resorted to war. Authorities on such matters have, in fact, claimed that this is true of any use of force less than war — that is, of hostilities with a limited objective, as distinguished from the aim of vanquishing another nation by all the means employed in war; and Japan made use of this principle in maintaining that her occupation of Manchuria was not a resort to war. It has even been argued that since at the Conference at The Hague, in 1907, the Convention on the Opening of Hostilities provided that no nation should go to war without declaring war, no hostilities can amount to war unless there is such a declaration. Could it not be argued also that, since another Convention at the same Con-
ference forbade any nation to use in war poison or poisoned arms, therefore any gas actually used cannot be poisonous?
The second condition mentioned by M. de Brouckère — that, if the aggressor does not declare war, its actions do not constitute war unless the nation injured admits the existence of war — places that nation in a lamentable dilemma. It must either forfeit its claim to protection by the League or open all its ports and territories to attack — with the added danger that by proclaiming a state of war, which is very near declaring war, it might itself be regarded as the aggressor. For these reasons China did not venture to assert the fact of war, or withdraw her ambassador from Japan.
The framers of the Covenant would seem to have used the words ‘ resort to war’ without careful thought of a distinction between war and lesser forms of hostility. In fact, in Article 10 they speak of preserving one another’s territorial integrity against external aggression, probably meaning the same thing. To ask what terms they would have employed had they considered the matter is as futile as asking, ‘If you had a brother, would he like cheese?’ Littera script a manet, and they used the expression ‘resort to war’; yet the refinements and interpretations placed on these words, if generally accepted, would make it possible for any powerful nation to work its will on a much weaker one without incurring the sanctions of Article 16.
IV
After reviewing all these discussions about that Article, which have surely lessened confidence in its application, and therewith its moral force, we may ask ourselves whether in a clear case the Members of the League would, in fact, put it into effect. To answer would be in the nature of prophecy, to which no wise man can make a claim. One can only base a guess on what has already happened. In the case of Manchuria, the Council tried every means of bringing about a settlement, until finally the Commission headed by Lord Lytton was sent out to investigate the facts. Following its report, the Assembly resolved in substance that Japan, without justification, had forcibly seized a large part of Chinese territory, and implied that in doing so she violated Article 12 of the Covenant. But the resolution did not formally state that Japan had resorted to war, or ask for the use of sanctions; and in fact the Members of the League silently abstained from action. Contrary to the expectations of the International Blockade Commission, this opinion, for it cannot be called a decision, did not exert any influence on the Members, or make a deep impression upon the Covenant-breaking State.
The conflict between Paraguay and Bolivia over the Chaco is another case where the League has refrained from putting Article 16 into effect. Of course in each of these cases there were peculiar conditions making the sanctions difficult, but so there always will be. If war should break out between Japan and Russia, is it not probable that the other Great Powers would meet to consult, not how to stop it, but how to preserve their own neutrality?
A similar conflict of motives has arisen on the question of disarmament. The preamble to the Resolution on the subject by the Assembly on September 26, 1927, contained the words ‘being convinced that the principal condition of this success is that every State should be sure of not having to provide unaided for its security by means of its own armaments and should be able to rely also on the organized collective action of the League of Nations.’ That condition would appear to be selfevident; and the next year M. Politis, for a Committee on Arbitration and Security, referred to an even earlier resolution of the Assembly, which, he said, had made absolutely clear the interdependence of disarmament and security. He drew the logical conclusion: ‘Thus security under the Covenant is subject to too many elements of uncertainty for States which feel themselves threatened to be able to decide, in the present situation, to diminish to any considerable extent the guarantees which they find in their armaments.’ Such has always been the attitude of France; and mark! — security means a sense thereof on the part of the nation urged to disarm, not on the part of others. M. Politis went on to say that, a general agreement among the Members of the League with a view’ to greater security being impossible at present, it should be sought in separate or collective agreements. This had, in fact, been done by the treaties negotiated at Locarno, the most important of them, for our purpose, being the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee, whereby Germany, Belgium, France, Great Britain, and Italy guarantee the frontiers fixed by the Treaty of Versailles between Germany and Belgium and Germany and France — including the demilitarized zone on the German side of the Rhine. By the same document Germany and Belgium and Germany and Franee ‘ mutually undertake that they will in no case attack or invade each other or resort to war against each other,’ the Council of the League to decide whether a breach has been committed. Moreover, the Treaty provides that if the Council decides a breach has occurred the signatory Powers severally agree that ‘they will each of them come immediately to the assistance of the Power against whom the act complained of is directed.’
So far so good, but a fear that Germany will attempt to recover territory from France or Belgium is not in itself serious, nor is it the primary source of difficulty in disarmament. Trouble may arise in another form. Germany claims that the provisions limiting her military forces were associated with the agreement for general disarmament and virtually contingent thereon; while France is convinced that disarmament was to depend upon security, which she does not enjoy because of the growing uncertainty of the sanctions of the League, and because of the failure to ratify the treaties for her protection negotiated with Great Britain and the United States at Versailles. Having been three times within a century invaded by German troops, she is not inclined to reduce her arms without adequate security; and the recent attitude of Germany under Hitler does not make her more disposed to do so. She is now seeking a treaty with England, for a guaranty that Germany shall not exceed any armament that may be allowed her. But such a treaty between these two nations would be a very different thing from the one at Locarno. That was mutual; it purported to protect Germany against France as well as France against Germany; but this would be more like the former treaties of alliance against outsiders.
V
The sanctions of the Covenant seem to have been slowly fading away, and with the United States, Russia, Japan, and Germany not in the League, it is hardly possible at present to carry out the provisions of Article 16. All the world is now arming, or refraining from disarmament, and so far as the prevention of war is concerned we appear to have returned to much the same position as before the great conflict.
Some people still believe that the public opinion of mankind will prevent war. There are two kinds of idealists, those who strive for a great end by making use of the real conditions and turning them in the right direction, and those who aspire without looking at the facts. At times we have all been of this last class, and those who rely upon public opinion to preserve peace are in danger of finding themselves there now. Public opinion may even promote strife, or it may have no effect at all. In the World War it had an effect, not in stopping the war, but, rightly or wrongly, in arraying other countries against Germany. Never was the opinion of mankind more nearly unanimous than in condemning Japan’s conduct in Manchuria, and it had no effect whatever.
As our Spanish War was about to break out, it was said that one of our diplomats in Europe was approached by a high official of a foreign government who told him that the European nations were proposing to send a remonstrance to this country. Our diplomat, we were told, advised against it on the ground that we should pay no attention to it. What, pay no attention to the general opinion of Europe! No, none whatever. Instead of being chagrined, even those of us who disapproved of the war thought this answer worthy of our nation. Our people were not to be deterred from what most of them thought the noble cause of intervening in behalf of the maltreated Cubans because Europe did not. see it as we did. What was then true of us is true of others, of Japan, Paraguay, and Bolivia. If Japan and Russia should come to blows, it will be on each side a holy war. Every people not only thinks itself in the right, but is usually terribly in earnest in thinking so when it takes up arms.
Now what about our relation to the League of Nations? The fact that sanctions — and therewith the active prevention of war — have lost much of their substance is no ground for our not joining it; although it is an excellent reason why we should not assume obligations which the present Members no longer seem to feel bound to carry out. We should consult with the League, of course — consult with any association of nations that discusses matters of interest to ourselves as well as to the rest of the world; and do so fully and openly, not clandestinely or with excuses, as if we were a little ashamed to be seen in such company, not as Americans did with their bootleggers in the days of prohibition. But the question of joining the League as a full Member may depend upon what its future is to be. If it shall recover its lost partners, and again become a convention of almost all the nations upon earth — Yes, by all means. But if it is to be a partial body, dominated by England, France, and Italy, in contrast with other countries whose interests may be divergent, then it will resemble former alliances of some States against, rather than with, others, and the question assumes a different aspect.
The aspirations men cherished, at the close of the World War, of an organization powerful, united, and determined enough to suppress aggression, by force if necessary, have so far failed of fulfillment. Yet if the spirit of nationalism has at the present time overpowered the desire for common action among nations for the welfare of mankind, we must not, we cannot, abandon the attempt to prevent war; for if civilization does not remove this scourge in its terrific modern forms, it is lying in wait to destroy civilization. But peace among nations will never be achieved by sentimental self-deception, by phrases that soothe the spirit and mean nothing, but only by looking facts boldly and steadily in the face.