THE WARTIME EXPERIENCE OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, 1939-47 by Emma Mary Edwards THESIS FOR THE DEGREE OF PhD DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH Supervisors of research: Professor Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses and Dr. Denise Dunne September 2013 Table of Contents Declaration ................................................................................................................... ii Abstract ...................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... iiv List of Abbreviations.................................................................................................... v List of figures ........................................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter one: The League’s place in the international system upon the outbreak of war: its political identity and technical role. .............................................................. 23 Chapter two: The impact of war on the Secretariat and technical organisations of the League, 1939-40 ................................................................................................... 78 Chapter three: Wartime challenges for a nascent international civil service: the League as a barometer of declining Eurocentrism and rising Atlanticism, 1940-3 .................................................................................................................................. 127 Chapter four: The League’s wartime relations with member states and its place in a shifting international landscape, 1940-4 .................................................................. 180 Chapter five: The dissolution of the League of Nations and the transfer of assets and functions to the United Nations Organisation, 1945-7............................................. 242 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 309 Appendices ............................................................................................................ 322 Bibliography ..........................................................................................................326 i Declaration I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of Doctor of Philosophy, is entirely my own work and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my own work. Signed: ____________________ (Candidate) Date:______________________ ii Abstract This thesis explores the wartime experience of the League of Nations. It analyses the League’s ability to serve as a touchstone for international political, economic and social cooperation in a period of intense crisis for liberal internationalism. It demonstrates that the League’s political identity retained a relevance to a world at war, despite the failure of its diplomatic role. The thesis chronicles the efforts of League officials and of member states as they strove to maintain, in the League’s international civil service, a nucleus of liberal idealism in contradistinction to fascist expansionism. It determines the impact of geo-political factors on the integrity of the League apparatus and documents how the League’s ideological baggage determined its wartime social and economic work. The League did not remain a static entity in its final years and this work highlights the adaptation of League officials to an evolving political landscape with the League’s wartime experience providing a bridge between pre-war internationalism and its post-war variant. The successes and failures of the League’s political and technical organs were a reflection of the course of international affairs with its wartime history serving as a barometer of the diminished Eurocentrism and rising Atlanticism of international cooperation. This period was emblematic of the challenges of internationalism with the League’s international civil service splintering under the weight of internal and external pressures. The League’s wartime experience also underscored the reality that internationalism was a contested concept. The League’s brand of internationalism, with its aim of universalising the values of liberal democracy, was increasingly out- of-step with a war-weary preoccupation with security. League officials fought to preserve technocratic unity between the old organisation and the U.N.O. within an international order increasingly dominated by the two emerging superpowers; neither of which enjoyed a straightforward relationship with the League of Nations. iii Acknowledgements I would like to express my thanks to all the staff of the History Department for their support. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my supervisors, Professor Filipe de Meneses and Dr. Denise Dunne; without their tireless advice and guidance this thesis would not have been possible. I would like to express my deep gratitude to the National University of Ireland for the award of a two year the Postgraduate Travelling Studentship which enabled me to conduct research overseas. I would like to thank all the archivists and staff at the John Paul II Library (N.U.I. Maynooth), the National Archives of Ireland, the U.C.D. Archives, the National Archives of the United Kingdom, the British Library and the Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I am particularly grateful for the kind assistance of Mr. Jacques Oberson of the League of Nations Archives, Geneva. His astonishing knowledge of League sources was an immense help to my research. I wish to thank An Foras Feasa for providing me with a workstation within the postgraduate research laboratory which was an invaluable aid to me in the completion of my thesis. Many thanks to Dr. Valerie Heffernan of the German Department, N.U.I. Maynooth, for her generous suggestions on approaching Swiss wartime history. Lastly, I would like to thank my mother, father, grandmother and sisters for their unflinching support and endless kindness. Without the encouragement of Wayne Nolan this thesis would not have been written. iv List of Abbreviations A.F.M.A. Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs B.C.P. British Cabinet papers B.L. British Library CAB British cabinet papers CAP Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union C.C.P. Cecil of Chelwood papers (Personal papers of Viscount Cecil) C.F.L.N. French Committee of National Liberation C.H.F Swiss franc DFA Department of Foreign Affairs files (Irish) DO Dominion Office (British) D.S.B. Drug Supervisory Body of the League of Nations ECOSOC Economic and Social Council of the United Nations Organisation E.E.C. European Economic Community E.F.O. Economic and Finance Organisation of the League of Nations E.U. European Union F.A.O. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations FO Foreign Office files (British) FP Federal paper (Swiss federal archives) FRUS Foreign relations of the United States series G.B.P. Great British Pound H.O. Health Organisation of the League of Nations H.C. House of Commons H.L. House of Lords I.C.I.C. International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation I.C.R. International Committee on Refugees I.I.I.C. International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation I.L.O. International Labour Organisation I.L.O.C.P. International Labour Organisation, Century Project I.R. International relations theory L.N.A. League of Nations Archives, Geneva v L.N.U. League of Nations Union of the United Kingdom N.A.I. National Archives of Ireland, Dublin O.A.C. Opium Advisory Committee of the League of Nations O.I.C. Organisation of Intellectual Cooperation O.S.G. Office of the Secretary-General files (Geneva) PPA Agh Private papers of Thanassis Aghnides (Geneva) P.P.S.L. Private papers of Seán Lester (Dublin) P.S.O.B. Permanent Central Opium Board of the League of Nations S.L.P. Seán Lester papers (Geneva) SDD Swiss diplomatic documents T Treasury Office (British) T.N.A. The National Archives of the United Kingdom (Kew) U.C.D.A. University College Dublin, Archives U.N. United Nations (alliance) UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation U.N.H.C.R United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees U.N.O. United Nations Organisation UNOG United Nations Office, Geneva (Library, Records and Archives Unit) UNRRA United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration W.F.T.U. World Federation of Trade Unions W.H.O. World Health Organisation vi List of figures Fig 1 Structure of the League of Nations and its specialised bodies 2 vii Introduction A product of the Paris Peace Conference (1919), the purpose of the League of Nations was to regulate international diplomacy and to serve as a forum where member states, through mutual and voluntary contract, agreed to abide by the terms of a Covenant. This Covenant, evoking the language of a sacred biblical promise, bound each state to respect and guarantee the independence and territorial integrity of its fellow member states. The League was intended as an alternative system to the closed-door and exclusive diplomacy practised during the antecedent Concert of Europe system; instead member states formally prescribed to ‘open, just and honourable relations