In conclusion, ‘the failure of the League to deal effectively with deliberate acts of aggression could hardly inspire confidence for the future.’[xlviii] The institutional impotence over a relatively small matter such as the Corfu occupation would no doubt have disseminated the message to national leaders that they could potentially get away unchecked with acts of aggression and conquest in the future. ation of the community of nations to prevent war, and ingenious authors have gone back to Sully, or sometimes to Plato, for anticipations of the League of Nations. The issues and themes he developed continue to have relevance to modern day concerns with power and its distribution in the international system. Article 10 of the League, for example, was established to preserve the status quo, whilst Article 19 was concerned with review of the status quo. [v] Edward A. Harriman, ‘The League of Nations a Rudimentary Superstate’, The American Political Science    Review, 21, 1 (1927), p. 138. On the other hand, as the analysis of the  inner workings of the League develops a different perspective emerges: ‘it is true that the Court does not have compulsory jurisdiction over all the members of the League, and that the great powers have refused to submit to such compulsory jurisdiction.’[vi] This is a major indicator of trouble for the League, there is an acute lack of central authority and ‘the duty of enforcing the laws of the League is left to the individual members.’[vii] Despite this early indicator of institutional weakness and contradiction, Harriman concludes that the League is ‘one of the most important events in all history.’[viii] He fully expects that the League will naturally evolve into a rudimentary superstate and will iron out its problems as the goal of an international utopian world united in peace is too great to let fail. Webster investigates further the claim of the existence of a ‘League spirit’ helping opposing nations overcome their own differences and self interest, but concludes this expectation ‘went mostly unfulfilled.’[lxiii] Lord Robert Cecil speaking at the final session of the League Assembly in April 1946 reminisced of the ‘atmosphere of Geneva’, however in reality that spirit did not manifest into a new international community. [xxx] Stone, The Irreconcilables: The Fight Against the League of Nations, p. 182. Focusing on the effects of the depression and the seeming end of the golden years of liberalism Carr looked without hesitance to strong leaders like Stalin and Hitler as inspirations, they did not succumb to weak utopian visions, which Carr felt belonged in another time. saw politics as involving moralquestions. Carr's book is not a sustained attack on the Toynbees and Zimmerns; they are used Perhaps the optimism for the League in the interwar years was itself a symptom of the very idealism that Carr bemoaned – an optimism that maintained faith in the League despite its deep flaws and continued inept performance – as the alternative to its failure was too desperate to contemplate. Despite this, it remains one of the 20th century’s most significant histories of revolutionary Russia. This site is created and maintained by Alpha History. This inevitably resulted in the League being used as a tool, or a cloak, for national interests. Most importantly, he asks whether relations among states towhich power is crucial can also be guided by the norms ofjustice. French prime minister. [lvi] Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919-1939, p. 239. [x] Potter,  ‘The Present Status of the Question of Membership of the United States in the League of Nations’, p. 360. [xxxvi] P. Raffo, The League of Nations, (London, 1974). Birn states that common perception amongst the union members only recognised the possibility of the failure of the League itself when Japan and China declared open war with each other and the outbreak of World War Two was imminent. 12-13.. 3 Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis, p. 62. Upon researching the wealth of scholarship on this issue, it became clear that a definite contrast could be observed between academic opinions published in the interwar years during the life of the League of Nations, and subsequent research written some time after World War Two with the benefit of hindsight. [xii] N.C. Smith and J.C. Garnett, The Dawn of World Order: An Introduction to the Study of the League of Nations, (London, 1932), p. 1. [xxi] Despite these developments however, as the events leading up to war unfolded, it seems Carr had a valid outlook. The three strands were never woven together and the revolution was easily put down at the cost of some largely unreal constitutional concessions.”, “[In 1917] the Russian bourgeoisie, weak and backward in comparison with its western counterparts, possessed neither the economic strength nor the political maturity, neither the independence nor the inner coherence necessary to wield power.”, “[The popular revolution in 1917] was a mass movement inspired by a wave of immense enthusiasm and by Utopian visions of the emancipation of mankind from the shackles of a remote and despotic power. Carr’s Search or Meaning, 1892-1982’, in Michael Cox (ed. One writer, E.H Carr, would certainly adopt such a stance. E. H. Carr was Woodrow Wilson Professor of International Politics there from 1936 to 1947. [xv] Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, (London, 1940), p. 287. Morgenthau, Hans. Carr and the Crisis of Twentieth-Century Liberalism', pp. He relies on the fact that war (which the League sought to relegate to history) was often, and remained, very profitable. Born in 1892 into the Victorian haute bourgeoisie, educated in classics at Merchant Taylors’ School and Trinity College, Cambridge, Carr spent 20 years at … support open access publishing. This irony, coupled with Avenol’s disregard for reform and strengthening of the League makes for pessimistic reading in light of the fate of the League. Carr wrote prolifically through the 1930s and during World War II was an assistant editor at The Times. URL: https://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/historian-e-h-carr/ Many thanks! Tradition and diplomacy were well established before the League, and the authors were convinced that as the League was continually bypassed for more traditional and direct channels between members, through the course of its existence the League was doomed. It all centres on national interest and by 1933 it is painfully obvious that the League was incapable of acting as a bulwark to power politics. Thorne places more emphasis on the rise of Hitler and his selfish determination to conquer territory as a key cause of the outbreak of war. 35-36. [lv] Carr would undoubtedly support Wilson’s interpretation as the treaties that Japan were apparently violating in its aggression ‘lack moral validity’[lvi] in the sense that treaties are used as a weapon by strong nations to maintain supremacy over weaker nations. ‘The pursuit of disarmament was central to the work of the League of Nations throughout its existence’, but it ‘was never able to overcome the more powerful imperatives of national self-interest.’[lxi] It is a bitter post mortem for an institution set up to promote disarmament, as expressed in Article 8 of the League Covenant to instead oversee an eventual escalation in arms build up culminating in another world war. [lii] The League, despite the Japanese propaganda offensive called for a peaceful settlement of the Manchurian occupation, but no firm action was taken to back this up. [xliii] Northedge, The League of Nations: Its Life and Times 1920-1946, p. 287. Clemenceau. Carr was born in North London to a family of liberal-progressive views and educated at Merchant Taylor’s School and Trinity College, Cambridge. ‘The atmosphere of Geneva still never induced the delegates charged with carrying it out to forget the nation whence they came’[lxiv] If the League had come into existence in a situation where there was little discontent, less oppression and no imperial ambition then disarmament and unity of purpose may have been possible. For more information on usage, please refer to our Terms of Use. [xlvi] Ruth Henig, Versailles and After 1919-1933, (London, 1984), p. 41. [xxxi], Stone’s thesis is one that will repeat ad infinitum through the post 1945 historiography, that the collapse of the League was inevitable from the outset or became inevitable after a series of events early in its life. [xviii] Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919-1939, pp. It may not be entirely wrong to suggest at this point that a healthy dose of propaganda was being employed by the idealist writers of the time in order to patchwork the institutional problems of the League. Nationality: English. James Barros offers a unique insight into the inner workings of the League and particularly the Secretary General between 1933-1940: Joseph Avenol. [lxv] F.H. Henig asserts that far from the League being doomed from day one, the entire philosophy of the post-war settlement encapsulated in the Versailles Treaty was misplaced and the contributing factor to the outbreak of World War Two. Before you download your free e-book, please consider donating to Many nations were bitterly unhappy with the status quo, after Versailles had crudely redrawn the real estate of Europe, and it seems viscerally obvious that aggrieved players would make plays for a redress of the international spoils in the absence of an equal opposing force. Britain wanted the League ‘less onerous and more flexible’, whilst the French ‘sought to strengthen League obligations and make them more binding on member states.’[xlvii] This was a recipe for disaster from the start. The notion of centralised authority was tacitly rejected. All future aspiration centres squarely around the new international system. Initially, Carr favoured Poland, urging in a memo in February 1919 that Britain recognise Poland at once, and that the German city of Danzig (modern Gdańsk , Poland) be ceded to Poland. 106-107. [lxviii] Barros, Betrayal from Within, p. 260. Because of these attempts to walk a straight line, Carr was often accused by liberal-conservatives of being ‘soft’ on communism, an admirer of Vladimir Lenin and an apologist for Joseph Stalin. The League, in Carr’s analysis was no more than an example of a treaty based on international ethics, not law. Stalin was the most ruthless despot Russia had known since Peter, and also a great Westerniser.”, “If the goals [of the Stalinist regime] could be described as socialist, the means used to attain them were often the very negation of socialism. Legally he remained a peasant… He lacked the degree of industrial skill and education which bred in the west the growing class of ‘labour aristocracy’ interested in the profits of capitalism, and, being subject to almost unlimited exploitation, provided fertile soil for revolutionary propaganda.”, “The first Russian Revolution of 1905 had a mixed character. [xliii] Pointing to the contradictions of the League Convention, Northedge shines some light on the inner illogicality of the organisation. [xxxv] Duncan and Elizabeth Wilson, Federation and World Order, p. 34. Britain was waiting for American support for sanctions, which was not forthcoming and France, already stretched militarily, was not keen on being engaged so far from home. The Twenty Years’ Crisis: 1919-1939 by E.H. Carr (Macmillan, 1939).. [vi] Harriman, ‘The League of Nations a Rudimentary Superstate’, p. 138. [liii] The end result, perhaps not surprisingly was Japanese withdrawal from the League and by 1933 direct Japanese occupation of Manchuria. It was blatantly obvious to Carr, and to the historians looking back on the events, predominantly of the 1930’s, that the League was failing and the march to a serious conflict was underway. (1961). However, Thorne clearly asserts, that the events of 1931-1933 did not cause the downfall of the League. Carr’s book occupies a special place in the field of IR for two reasons. “In Marx, there is no trace of attempts to create Utopias, to guess in the void at what cannot be known. Certain American idealists adopted this philosophy, principally Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 proclaiming ‘the great powers had the force necessary to prevent war as well as make it’[i] and ‘certain immortality awaited the statesman who could inaugurate a League of Peace’. [xxxix] Raffo, The League of Nations, p. 24. Citation information However, they develop their argument labelling the League as an ‘impotent’[xxxiv] body interfering in the affairs of great powers. Any Through such events, from the departure of Germany and Japan from the League in 1933 to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 the League was tested, and failed to rise to the challenge. Webster points out that the League ‘failed to achieve either quantitative disarmament, through substantial reductions in the military forces of states, or qualitative disarmament, through regulation of the production and use of certain types of weapon.’[lxii] An abject failure, one that is incrementally tied to the prevailing focus on national interest and the discontent many nations felt with their share of the status quo. Carr was excused from military service for medical reasons. Rather than Carr, who condemned the League at its inception, Raffo concludes that the League in effect killed itself and by 1934 had become ‘a futile exercise.’[xli], F.S. Your donations allow us to invest in new open access titles and pay our It was a revolt of bourgeois liberals and constitutionalists against an arbitrary and antiquated aristocracy. Scholars in Great Britain in the interwar years are similarly idealistic and in favour of the League of Nations. Published in , on the eve of World War II, it was immediately recognized by. Ultimately Carr’s realist critique of utopianism is convincing because of the limitations of realism which he himself recognises and reconciles with his conception of utopia. They lauded Carr’s close knowledge and attention to detail – but also his balance. [xl] Raffo, The League of Nations, p. 18. The discrepancy between the two approaches and the reasons for this apparently polar opposite before and after approach will form the bulk of this study. Of course, this is a noble outlook, but the dose of reality that E.H. Carr dealt to the idealists was significant and timely. Potter, writing five years later in 1932 is more subdued in his optimism for the League, perhaps the passage of time and the rising instability occurring in this period economically and politically are accountable for this. I welcome questions, comments, or concerns about the material contained in this video.] To borrow the words of Marx to sum up this issue; ‘impotence is a single expression: the maintenance of the status quo.’[lx] This was certainly a viewpoint felt acutely by many nations during this time period. In fact, the preface to the first edition is dated September 30, 1939, a … 41 Michael Cox, 'E.H. The western factory worker still possessed some of the skills and other characteristics of the small artisan. Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace . The verdict 50 or 100 years hence, if my work is still read then, will be more interesting.”. The American phrase ‘manifest destiny’ was used to encapsulate the culmination of the process of the expansion of the early American nation into Florida, California and Texas; the Japanese harnessed this philosophy voicing their ‘biological necessity’ to expand. In a conclusion similar to that of Carr, the balance of power relations and national sovereignty are seen as unshakable forces that the League was ill equipped to replace or challenge effectively. Still later, on the verge of another war, E. H. Carr took a 1. 1 E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1939), p. 19. Addressing their recognition of the harsh treatment of Germany and the inevitable ineffective nature of the League, ‘they were right to question it as the panacea claimed by so many of its defenders’. The work of Carr is not as it first appears bitter and negative. Carr’s search for meaning, 1892-1982’, p. 27. [xxiii] Haslam, ‘E.H. THE LEAGUE OF PEACE AND FREEDOM AN EPISODE IN THE QUEST FOR COLLECTIVE SECURITY By E. H. Carr, C.B.E. [xxxvi] Raffo holds little hope for its survival. In the context of the peace settlement of the First World War, it is perfectly understandable that commentators would be swept up in the utopian visions espoused by the elite statesmen of the day. Much has been written about past schemes for the organis? A good illustration of Carr's mainstream image appears in the E. H. Carr Memorial Lecture delivered by John Mearsheimer at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 2004. According to Carr, ‘international politics are always power politics; for it is impossible to eliminate power from them.’ The League of Nations was from the very beginning paralysed by the fact that it lacked the membership of three of the world's most … He joined the academic staff at Oxford University after the war and remained there until his death. George Orwell, for example, once identified Carr as a potential Soviet sympathiser. The United Nations’ COVID-19 Dilemmas: Towards a Budgetary Crisis? For two decades between 1916 and 1936, Carr served in the British Foreign Office. Following this incident the major powers, rather than unite and address the aggression of a fellow League member, reverted to their own national interests. Profession: Historian, historiographer, academic, diplomat. [xxxviii] Raffo, The League of Nations, p. 8. [xli] Raffo, The League of Nations, p. 22. 1 E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1939), p. 19. https://saass.fandom.com/wiki/Carr,_The_Twenty_Years'_Crisis_(XXI) [xlviii] Henig, Versailles and After 1919-1933, p. 43. 527-528. [viii] Harriman, ‘The League of Nations a Rudimentary Superstate’, p. 140. His History of the Peloponnesian War is in factneither a work of political philosophy nor a sustained theory ofinternational relations. Copyright: The content on this page may not be republished without our express permission. 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