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How Did the League of Nations Mandate System Actually Work? - Sacred Trust and Imperial Practice in the Post-WWI World | Sleepy Facts About History · Sleepy Facts About History

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  Welcome to Sleepy Facts About History. In the
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  winter of 1919, diplomats in Paris faced unprecedented
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  question. What should happen to the colonies
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  of the defeated German and Ottoman empires? Rather
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  than simple annexation, the victorious powers
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  created the League of Nations Mandate System,
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  a framework designed to hold imperial rule answerable
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  to international language. Territories would
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  be held in trust, guided towards self -government
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  by advanced nations and overseen by a new diplomatic
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  body in Geneva. This episode examines how the
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  mandate system actually functioned. It explores
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  the A, B and C classifications that determined
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  the pace of self -government, the bureaucratic
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  operations of the Permanent Mandates Commission,
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  and the specific ways colonized peoples learned
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  to use the system's own promises of tutelage
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  to challenge their rulers. From land seizures
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  in Tanganyika, to the Syrian revolt and the incorporation
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  of Southwest Africa, the gap between the language
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  of international accountability and the reality
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  of imperial practice became increasingly difficult
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  to ignore. I wanted to understand why a system
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  designed to justify colonial administration ended
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  up creating new channels for colonized peoples
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  to document their grievances. The mandate system
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  did not end colonialism, but it established a
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  vocabulary of international accountability that
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  its designers could not entirely control. In
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  the winter of 1919, as the diplomats at Paris
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  invented a new language to describe the oldest
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  form of power, they believed they were building
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  something unprecedented. They spoke of the sacred
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  trust of civilization. They spoke of the tutelage
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  of advanced nations. What they actually built
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  was a machine that would allow colonized peoples
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  to challenge their rulers with the system's own
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  words. At the same time, it ensured those challenges
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  could not succeed. In the winter of 1919, as
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  diplomats gathered in Paris to remake the world,
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  They faced a question that had never been answered
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  at an international conference. Germany and the
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  Ottoman Empire had lost the war. Their territories
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  across Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific
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  lay in the hands of the victorious powers. The
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  question was not simply who would control them.
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  The question was whether control itself could
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  still be described in the old way. For centuries,
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  empires had taken territory and called it their
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  own. Now, for the first time, a new language
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  was being proposed. The territories would not
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  be annexed. They would be held in trust, guided
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  towards self -government by advanced nations
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  acting on behalf of something called the international
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  community. The peoples who lived there would
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  be wards, not subjects. The administration would
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  be temporary, not permanent. The goal would be
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  tutelage, not exploitation. This was the Mandate
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  System. And if you have heard of it at all, you
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  have probably heard it described as a failure.
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  A brief experiment before the real business of
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  decolonization began after the Second World War.
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  But the Mandate System was something more specific
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  and more interesting than that. It was the first
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  attempt to make empire answerable to international
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  language. It created new channels through which
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  colonized people could challenge the powers that
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  ruled them, and it designed into its very structure
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  the reasons it would not work. To understand
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  what it actually was, we need to begin with the
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  moment of its creation. Not as an inevitable
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  outcome, but as a contested compromise between
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  very different visions of what should happen
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  to the defeated empire's lands. The First World
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  War ended with the collapse of two empires. Germany,
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  which had held colonies in Africa and the Pacific,
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  was stripped of its overseas territories. The
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  Ottoman Empire, which had governed vast Arab
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  territories in the Middle East for centuries,
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  was dismantled. Britain and France had already
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  divided much of the Ottoman Arab world between
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  themselves in secret agreements during the war.
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  The Sykes -Picot Agreement of 1916 negotiated
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  in secret between British and French officials,
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  had drawn lines across the Middle East that would
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  determine the post -war map. South Africa, Australia,
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  New Zealand and Japan had occupied German colonies
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  and expected to keep them. The United States,
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  entering the war late and arriving at the peace
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  conference with unprecedented moral authority,
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  had a president who spoke of self -determination.
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  This was the right of peoples to choose their
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  own governments. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points,
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  announced in January 1918, had included a call
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  for open diplomacy and impartial adjustment of
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  colonial claims. But Wilson's self -determination
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  was never intended to apply to all peoples equally.
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  He meant it for Europeans, for the subject nationalities
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  of the Austro -Hungarian and Ottoman Empires.
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  When it came to Africa and the Pacific, even
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  Wilson assumed that European guidance would be
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  necessary for the foreseeable future. The question
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  was not whether outside powers would administer
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  these territories. The question was what language
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  would describe that administration and what constraints,
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  if any, would be placed upon it. The compromise
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  that emerged was Article 22 of the Government
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  of the League of Nations. It described the mandate
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  system as a sacred trust of civilization. Peoples
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  who were not yet able to stand by themselves
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  under the strenuous conditions of the modern
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  world would be placed under the tutelage of advanced
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  nations who would guide them toward independence.
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  The League of Nations would oversee this process.
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  Mandatory powers would report on their administration.
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  and the inhabitants of mandated territories would
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  have a channel, however limited, to appeal to
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  the international community. This language was
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  genuinely new. No previous colonial arrangement
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  had required imperial powers to justify their
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  rule in international forums, to submit annual
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  reports on their administration, or to receive
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  petitions from those they governed. But the language
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  of tutelage also carried assumptions that would
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  shape the system's operation in ways the diplomats
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  may not have fully examined. The very concept
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  of not yet able presumed a hierarchy of peoples.
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  It presumed a ladder of development, along which
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  different populations had advanced to different
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  rungs. Someone would have to decide who stood
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  where, and the same powers that wanted to retain
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  the territories would make those decisions. The
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  mandate system divided territories into three
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  categories. This classification reveals the assumptions
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  embedded in the system's design. The categories
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  were not merely administrative conveniences.
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  They encoded beliefs about which peoples were
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  closer to civilization and which would require
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  longer, more intensive guidance. PLAS -A mandates
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  covered the former Ottoman territories in the
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  Middle East, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Transjordan
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  and Iraq. These were described as having reached
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  a stage of development where their existence
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  as independent nations can be provisionally recognized.
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  The mandatory power would provide only administrative
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  advice and assistance until the territories could
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  stand alone. Britain held the mandate for Palestine,
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  Transjordan and Iraq. France held the mandate
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  for Syria and Lebanon. The path to independence,
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  in theory, was shorter. Class B mandates covered
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  the former German colonies in Africa, Togoland,
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  Cameroon, Tanganyika, and Rwanda Urundi. Here
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  the language changed. These territories would
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  be administered under conditions that guaranteed
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  freedom of conscience and religion. The conditions
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  prohibited the slave trade and arms traffic.
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  They restricted military training to police purposes.
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  The mandatory power governed more directly. There
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  was no provisional recognition of approaching
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  independence. Class C mandates covered the former
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  German territories in the Pacific and Southwest
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  Africa. These included German New Guinea, Samoa,
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  Nauru, and the Micronesian Islands. They could
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  be administered under the laws of the mandatory
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  as integral portions of its territory. The justification
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  was their sparse population, small size. remoteness
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  or proximity to the mandatory power's own possessions.
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  In practice, this meant near -complete incorporation
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  into the administering empire. The classification
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  was presented as a response to objective conditions,
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  but it mapped neatly onto racialized assumptions
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  about different populations' capacity for self
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  -government. Arab peoples of the Middle East,
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  with their long history of statehood, and their
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  role in the wartime Arab revolt against the Ottomans,
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  were placed in Class A. African populations,
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  despite equally long histories of political organization,
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  were placed in Class B. Pacific Islanders and
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  the peoples of Southwest Africa were placed in
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  Class C. They were treated as the most distant
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  from the capacity for independent statehood.
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  This mattered because the classification determined
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  not only the level of oversight, the pace and
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  meaning of self -government. A Class A mandate
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  might, in theory, become independent within years
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  or decades. A Class C mandate might never be
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  intended for independence at all. The system
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  that promised tutelage towards self -government
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  had built into its architecture the presumption
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  that different peoples were capable of different
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  futures. The mechanism designed to oversee this
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  system was the Permanent Mandates Commission.
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  Established in Geneva in 1921, the PMC was composed
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  of experts. They were not government representatives,
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  though they were appointed by League member states.
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  Its task was to review the annual reports submitted
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  by mandatory powers and to examine petitions
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  from inhabitants of mandated territories. Picture
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  the Commission at work. In meeting rooms in Geneva,
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  commissioners sat across from representatives
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  of the mandatory powers, thick documents spread
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  between them. The commissioners were not diplomats
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  in the traditional sense. They were appointed
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  for their expertise, drawn from countries both
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  with and without mandates of their own. Yet they
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  depended on the League's member states for their
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  positions, and the mandatory powers were among
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  those states. Across the table sat the representatives
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  of Britain, France, Belgium, South Africa, Japan,
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  Australia and New Zealand. These were men who
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  administered the very territories they were now
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  asked to explain. The commissioners could question
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  them directly. They could ask for clarification,
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  press for details, note discrepancies between
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  report and reality. But they could not enter
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  the territories themselves. They could not compel
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  answers. They could only ask, record, and recommend.
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  The annual reports were thick, bureaucratic documents,
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  filled with statistics and administrative language,
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  designed to demonstrate progress toward self
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  -government. Mandatory powers describe their
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  administration in detail. Economic development,
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  public health, education, infrastructure, legal
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  systems, political institutions. The reports
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  were framed in the language of progress and improvement.
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  They were performances of accountability in bureaucratic
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  form. The PMC could question mandatory power
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  representatives about these reports, ask for
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  clarification and make recommendations to the
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  League Council. Petitions were the other channel.
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  They arrived in.