Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 8-17-2021 1:00 PM Making the Mandates System Benjamin Gladstone, The University of Western Ontario Supervisor: Vance, Jonathan F., The University of Western Ontario A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the Master of Arts degree in History © Benjamin Gladstone 2021 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Diplomatic History Commons Recommended Citation Gladstone, Benjamin, "Making the Mandates System" (2021). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 7988. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/7988 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract After the First World War the international order was reorganized by the victorious powers, including the creation of the League of Nations, and under its supervision the mandates system. This system was designed to manage the colonies detached from the defeated Central Powers and to mitigate the worst effects of colonialism through international oversight and the imposition of conditions on the rule of these territories. This paper investigates the origins of this system, tracing it back through earlier precedents and discerning between different variations of colonialism practiced by different empires. This analysis shows that the mandates system was an Americanized version of colonialism, created through compromises between President Wilson’s ideology and European and colonial politics. This paper utilizes diplomatic documents to analyze the precedents for the system and to understand how the United States changed European colonialism in the captured territories to match its preferred colonial methodologies. Keywords: Colonialism, Mandates, League of Nations, Paris Peace Conference, First World War, Diplomatic History, Woodrow Wilson, Imperialism, International Relations ii Lay Summary After the First World War the international order was reorganized by the victorious powers, including the creation of the League of Nations, and under its supervision the mandates system. This system was designed to manage the colonies detached from the defeated Central Powers and to mitigate the worst effects of colonialism through international oversight and the imposition of conditions on the rule of these territories. This paper investigates the origins of this system, tracing it back through earlier precedents and discerning between different variations of colonialism practiced by different empires. This analysis shows that the mandates system was an Americanized version of colonialism, created through compromises between President Wilson’s ideology and European and colonial politics. This paper utilizes diplomatic documents to analyze the precedents for the system and to understand how the United States changed European colonialism in the captured territories to match its preferred colonial methodologies. iii Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................... ii Lay Summary ......................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ................................................................................................................... iv Introduction: .......................................................................................................................... 1 Sources and Methodology .............................................................................................................. 2 Chapter Summary and Structure of Argument ............................................................................. 9 Chapter 1: The Origins and Precedents of the Mandates System ........................................... 11 Colonial Areas with Existing Governments: China and Morocco ................................................ 19 Wartime Discussions ..................................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 2: The Design and Meaning of the Mandates System ............................................... 33 The Design of the Mandates System at the Paris Peace Conference ............................................. 47 Chapter 3: Implementation of the Mandates System .............................................................. 57 From Wilsonism to Self-Interest ................................................................................................... 58 The Allocation of the Mandates .................................................................................................... 61 The Case of Iraq ............................................................................................................................ 79 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 86 Appendix 1 ............................................................................................................................ 91 Appendix 2 ............................................................................................................................ 92 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 93 Primary Sources: .......................................................................................................................... 93 Secondary Sources: ....................................................................................................................... 97 iv 1 Introduction: After the First World War, the great powers reconstructed the international order by creating a new international institution, the League of Nations, with explicit norms and rules to direct and manage international relations. This revised international order saw the creation of new states in the territories of the defeated Central Powers in Europe. The League of Nations and the concept of self-determination were the underpinnings of this new order and both bore the clear impress of American support for democracy and law as the foundations of international order, stated most clearly in Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points speech. American influence and ideas also influenced the creation of the mandates system, whereby colonial powers administered the former colonial territories of the German and Ottoman empires. Ostensibly designed to serve the interests of the indigenous populations of these territories and with the goal of achieving self- government, the mandates system perpetuated imperial relations, dynamics, and hierarchies. Although the United States was never a mandatory power, its influence on the creation of the system is evident in the internationalization and legalization of the mandates system, the application of the open-door principle, and in making self-government a central and achievable goal of the system in the not distant future. The effects of Americanization were contradictory, simultaneously perpetuating imperial systems and setting in place conditions for the end of empire. American ideas about the mandates system emerged from the country’s own experience as an imperial ruler in the American West and the Philippines, and in its neo-colonial relations with Latin America and China. American colonial thinking was distinctive in its focus on the application of open trade and the principle of self-government, though there was a great deal of overlap with the imperial ideologies of European states. The belief that the United States would civilize peoples perceived as less developed and sophisticated echoed the French mission 2 civilatrise and the British concept of the white man’s burden, though with a distinctive focus on self-government as the primary goal of the American civilizing mission. Ideas about race and race-thinking informed these concepts of civilizing missions for both the Americans and Europeans, based on assumptions of the superiority of white peoples and their civilizations over their counterparts in the colonial world. Here one finds little to differentiate American colonialism from its European equivalents, there being a shared conception of white superiority and a vaguely defined hierarchy of races that generally placed Asian peoples in an intermediate position, and African and Pacific peoples at the bottom. One finds clear indications of these shared concepts in the design of the mandates system through its three-tiered structure that followed the perceived racial hierarchy in levels of civilization. Despite the overlapping beliefs that legitimized their roles as colonial powers and defined the conception of civilizing missions, it is possible to discern a discrete American influence on the mandates system both through their forceful position at the negotiating table and through the influence of their distinctive strain of colonial ideology and rhetoric. Sources and Methodology My analysis relies on a number of primary sources from the United States, Britain, and the League of Nations, most of which are available digitally. Because of the closure of archives and prohibitions on international travel I have also had to