League of Nations

The League of Nations was an international organization founded after the First World War at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The League's goals included disarmament; preventing war through collective security; settling disputes between countries through negotiation and diplomacy; and improving global welfare. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift in thought from the preceding hundred years. The old philosophy, growing out of the Congress of Vienna (1815), saw Europe as a shifting map of alliances among nation-states, creating an equilibrium of power maintained by strong armies and secret agreements. Under the new philosophy, the League was a government of governments, with the role of settling disputes between individual nations in an open and legalist forum. The impetus for the founding of the League came from Democratic U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, but, along with many other countries, the United States never joined the League of Nations.

External links

• Covenant of the League of Nations
• League of Nations Photo archive
• League of Nations Article from Factmonster/Information Please
• Proposed flags for the League
• League of Nations article at Spartacus
• Background of the League of Nations
• Map of League of Nations members
• League of Nations timeline
• Table of Assemblies Dates of each annual assembly, links to list of members of each country's delegation
• Woodrow Wilson's Appeal for Support of the League of Nations 1919 speech
• Wilson's Final Address in Support of the League of Nations Speech made 25 September 1919
• Senator Henry Cabot Lodge speaks out against the League of Nations August 1919 speech
• Jonathan Pagel's League of Nations rap MP3 (4.66 Mb)
• leagueofnations (History Learning Site)