International organization of major world powers, established 1919.
The League of Nations was created after World War I in an attempt to prevent the possibility of another conflict of world proportions.
The initial discussions involved the major Allied Powers (Great Britain, France and Russia) and the United States of America as an Associated Power. A league covenant was signed by the Allied Powers as part of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 that ended the war.
The covenant contained the principles of collective security through joint action of the League against threats to world peace, arbitration of international disputes, arms reduction, and a ban on secret diplomacy. It established the League's organs:
It also set up a mechanism to deal with colonial possessions, under which colonies in Asia and Africa were to be redistributed and allocated to Allied Powers as mandates.
The aim of the League of Nations was to guarantee world peace by maintaining the status quo established through World War I. Although many nation states were accepted as new members during the following years, the League never achieved this aim. The USA refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles and as a consequence could not become a League member. In the 1930s, when Germany, Japan and Italy embarked on an attempt at redistribution of the world, the major powers refused to enforce the League's covenant, and the League was paralized.
The outbreak of World War II spelled the end of the League of Nations. But the global nature of human society in the 20th century requires a political system of global proportions. The United Nations, the successor organisation to the League of Nations after the end of the war, took the structure of the League as its model.