[lit-ideas] France and the League of Nations

From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 23:17:03 -0800
When the EU constitution was still potentially a possibility, I thought the
desire (perhaps primarily France's desire) for a super-national EU with
teeth ("teeth" being an army), alarming - as did many others.  Such nations
as Britain were not about to give up their national sovereignty to such
super state.  I was interested to find that same argument being debated back
in 1919 in regard to the League of Nations.  On page 92 MacMillan writes,
"In the league commission meetings, the French representatives fought
against both the British and the Americans to give the League teeth . . . .
Bourgeois [dean of the faculty of law at the University of Paris and one of
Clemenceau's representatives] argued that the League should operate like the
justice system in any modern democratic state, with the power to intervene
where there were breaches of the peace and forcibly restore order.  In other
words, if there were disputes among League members, these would
automatically be submitted to compulsory arbitration.  If a state refused to
accept the League's decision, then the next step would be sanctions,
economic, even military.  He advocated strict disarmament under a League
body with sweeping powers of inspection and an international force drawn
from League members.  The British and Americans suspected that such
proposals were merely another French device to build a permanent armed
coalition against Germany.  In any case, they were quite out of the question
politically.  The U.S. Congress, which had enough trouble sharing control of
foreign policy with the president, was certainly not going to let other
nations decided when and where the United States would fight.  The
Conservatives in Lloyd George's government, the army and the navy and much
of the Foreign Office preferred to put their faith in the old, sure ways of
defending Britain.  The League, said Churchill, is 'no substitute for the
British fleet.'  It was all 'rubbish' and 'futile nonsense,' said Henry
Wilson, chief of the Imperial General Staff.  Britain could be dragged into
conflicts on the Continent or farther afield in which it had no interest."

 

We know that Wilson was not able to get support for the League from
congress, but perhaps we didn't realize that France was to some extent to
blame for this.  The French dearly wanted the League of Nations to have an
Army.  Given their justified fear of Germany, we can understand why, but
they didn't help their cause by criticizing Wilson.  The League would have
been stronger with the US in it.  MacMillan writes, "It did not help that
the French press was starting to attack Wilson or that Clemenceau gave an
interview in which he warned that France must not be sacrificed in the name
of noble but vague ideals. . . ."

 

"On February 11, three days before Wilson was due to sail, the League
commission met for most of the day.  The French brought up amendments to
create a League army.  'Unconstitutional and also impossible,' said Wilson."
But this was but one more reason for those in the American congress to
mistrust the League.

 

Lawrence
[lit-ideas] France and the League of Nations

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