The League of Nations Commissions

Question 1

What was a mandate?

Answer 1

A territory that had been transferred from the control of one country to another (e.g. from German’s control to the League’s)

Question 2

What was the Mandates Commission?

Answer 2

A team of expert advisers who ensured Britain and France acted in the interests of the people of that territory, not its own interests

Question 3

Why was the Mandates Commission necessary?

Answer 3

Germany’s overseas colonies had been taken over the League of Nation (in reality, Britain and France)

Question 4

Did the Mandates Commission just focus on territories in the hands of Britain and France?

Answer 4

No - it also protected minorities, particularly in states that had been created as part of the peace treaties of 1919-23 (e.g. Czechoslovakia)

Question 5

Why was there a need for the Refugees Committee?

Answer 5

WWI had left hundreds of thousands of people trying to get home - if they still had a home to get to

Question 6

Which areas had the largest numbers of refugees?

Answer 6

Former Russian territories (the Balkans, Greece, Armenia and Turkey)

Question 7

How many people did Nansen and his team help return home?

Answer 7

450,000

Question 8

How was the Refugee Commission considered?

Answer 8

As a tremendous success for helping deal with a huge refugee crisis (one of the largest the world had ever seen)

Question 9

What did the Slavery Commission work to do?

Answer 9

Abolish slavery around the world - particularly in East Africa

Question 10

How many slaves did the Slavery Commission manage to free?

Answer 10

200,000 (from Sierra Leone)

Question 11

How many prisoners of war did the League help return home?

Answer 11

400,000

Question 12

What was the Nansen passport?

Answer 12

A passport to stateless refugees, which allowed them to travel around the world. (Named after Fridtjof Nansen, the explorer.)

Question 13

How was the Health Organisation regarded?

Answer 13

As one of the most successful of the League’s agencies

Question 14

What did the Health Organisation achieve in the USSR?

Answer 14

It helped prevent a typhus epidemic in Siberia by organising a public health campaign

Question 15

What did the Health Organisation begin with relation to mosquitoes?

Answer 15

An international campaign to exterminate them

Question 16

What impact did the campaign to exterminate mosquitoes have?

Answer 16

It helped reduce the spread of malaria and yellow fever

Question 17

What did the Health Organisation help establish in London, Copenhagen and Singapore?

Answer 17

Research institutions that helped develop vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus and tuberculosis

Question 18

What other successes did the Slavery Commission have?

Answer 18

Its persistent campaigning helped lead to Nepal, Iraq and Jordan outlawing slavery completely

Question 19

Why was the Slavery Commission not a total success?

Answer 19

It failed to end ‘white slavery’ - where young girls and women are forced into prostitution. This problem still persists in some advanced countries today.

Question 20

What was the aim of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)?

Answer 20

To generally improve working conditions around the world

Question 21

How successful was the International Labour Organisation (ILO)?

Answer 21

Not very. Although it did raise awareness and popularise certain issues - like a 48 hour working week and a minimum employment age - few countries adopted these practices until the 1930s and 1940s.

Question 22

How successful was the Disarmament Commission?

Answer 22

The least successful of the League’s commissions. It managed to organise the Washington Naval Conference of 1921, which led to the USA, Britain, Japan and France agreeing naval limitations. But the next conference was in 1932 - and it was a complete failure.

Question 23

Why was the failure of the Disarmament Commission so significant?

Answer 23

It made it easy for Hitler to argue that the former Allies (Britain, France, USA) were not really interested in disarming.

Question 24

when a refugee crisis hit turkey in 1922 what did the league do?

Answer 24

the league acted quickly to stamp out cholera, smallpox and dysentery in the camps.

Question 25

what did the ILO do?

Answer 25

• banned poisonous white lead f rom paint.
• limit the hours that small children were allowed to work
• campaigned strongly fro employers to improve working conditions generally.
• maximum 48 hour a week of work but people thought it would raise costs in their own industries.

Question 26

what did the league do for drugs?

Answer 26

they blacklisted large German, Dutch, French and Swiss companies which were involved in illegal drug trade.

Question 27

what did they do with the high death rate railway production?

Answer 27

they challenged the use of forced labour to build the tanganyika railway in africa, where the death rate was 50% but the league brought it down to 4%.