Over thirty serious disputes were brought to the League of Nations during the 1920’s. Most of them were solved in a peaceful way!

Upper Silesia 1919-22

The mineral rich area of Upper Silesia had been left undecided by the peace treaties as it contained a mixed population. A plebiscite of March 1921 was indecisive – the industrial areas voted for Germany and the rural areas voted for Poland (in this plebiscite, 700,000 voted for Germany and 500,000 for Poland). French and British troops kept order at the polling boths but the close result resulted in rioting between those who expected Silesia to be made part of Germany and those who wanted to be part of Poland. The split was taken into consideration and the Conference of Ambassadors referred the matter to the League of Nation to settle this dispute. After a six-week inquiry, the League decided to split Upper Silesia between Germany and Poland. The partition was then handed over to a Committee of experts. Germany received a larger part of Silesia, but Poland won areas rich of mineral. The League’s decision was accepted both countries and by the people in Upper Silesia.

In January 1920, at the Paris Peace Conference, negotiators from France, Britain, and Greece agreed to divide Albania among Yugoslavia, Italy, and Greece as a diplomatic expedient aimed at finding a compromise solution to the territorial conflict between Italy and Yugoslavia. The deal was done behind the Albanians' backs and in the absence of a United States negotiator.
Members of a second Albanian National Assembly held at Lushnjë in January 1920 rejected the partition plan and warned that Albanians would take up arms to defend their country's independence and territorial integrity. The Lushnjë National Assembly appointed a four-man regency to rule the country. A bicameral parliament was also created, in which an elected lower chamber, the Chamber of Deputies (with one deputy for every 12,000 people in Albania and one for the Albanian community in the United States), appointed members of its own ranks to an upper chamber, the Senate. In February 1920, the government moved to Tirana, which became Albania's capital.
One month later, in March 1920, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson intervened to block the Paris agreement. The United States underscored its support for Albania's independence by recognizing an official Albanian representative to Washington, and in December the League of Nations recognized Albania's sovereignty by admitting it as a full member.
The border between Albania and Yugoslavia remained in dispute. This created an unstable situation with Greek troops repeatedly crossing into Albanian territory on military operations in the south and Yugoslavian forces occupied some Albanian territory 1921. After clashes with Albanian tribesmen, the Yugoslav forces invaded farther. The League sent a commission of representatives from various powers to the region. The commission found that the frontiers of Albania should be the same as they had been in 1913 with three minor changes that favoured Yugoslavia. Yugoslav forces withdrew a few weeks later, albeit under protest. War was prevented.

Aaland Islands (Åland/Ahvenanmaa) 1921

Sweden and Finland argued over the control of the Aaland Islands (located between Sweden and Finland). The Aaland movement (Ålandsrörelsen) wanted Aaland to reunite with its old mother country Sweden (Finland and Aaland belonged to Sweden before 1809). The movement gathered signatures from over 7000 inhabitants of legal age at the Aaland Islands in 1917 (that was about 96% of the population) - they all supported a union with Sweden. When Finland became independent (December 6th 1917) Sweden wanted a plebiscite about the future of the Aaland Islands to solve the problem. Finland refused and argued that the Aaland Islands had always been a natural part of Finland - even when Finland was under Swedish rule. Sweden appealed to the League of Nations referring to the right of the population to determine which country they should belong to. After studying the matter closely the League of Nations ruled in favor of Finland. The Swedish Prime Minister said he didn’t accept the verdict but he also said that Sweden was not going to use military force to get their claims. Aaland remained Finnish!

Mosul, a province in northern Iraq, is rich in oil deposits and serves as a transit center for trade with Turkey and Syria. In 1916, the Sykes-Picot Agreement between England and France designated Mosul as a French zone. In 1920, the San Remo Conference transferred Mosul to the British, with the stipulation that France would have a share in the Turkish Petroleum Company.
Mosul became a point of contention between Turkey and Britain in the early 1920s. Turkey claimed that Mosul was part of its territory because the majority of inhabitants were Ottoman non-Arabs and because Mosul had not been in the hands of Britain when the Mudros armistice pact was signed in 1918. Britain wanted Mosul to be part of Iraq for many reasons. It believed Mosul had substantial oil deposits and could be used as a bargaining chip with the newly established government of Iraq to extend Britain's mandated power over that country. Faisal I, the newly crowned king of Iraq, wanted Mosul to be part of his country in order to strengthen his authority and influence over nationalistic elements who opposed Britain's continued interference in Iraq's domestic affairs.
The dispute between Turkey and Britain continued for several years. The two countries failed to resolve their conflict when the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1923 was signed by the Allies and Turkey, and again at the special conference convened at Istanbul in 1924. They finally agreed to settle the dispute through the League of Nations. The League appointed a fact-finding commission to visit Iraq, survey public opinion in Mosul, and meet with officials on both sides. On 16 July 1924, the commission's report to the League called for the inclusion of Mosul in Iraq, retaining the Brussels line as the border between the two countries. Additional conditions attached to the recommendation included (1) allowing Iraq to remain under the British mandate for twenty-five years; (2) recognizing the rights of the Kurds to use their language in educational institutions and administration of justice, and (3) encouraging the hiring of Kurds as administrators, judges, and teachers. Iraq welcomed the decision. Mosul was one of the few issues that united the full spectrum of public opinion.
Turkey rejected the recommendation of the League of Nations and vowed to use any means necessary, including military action, to stop the implementation of the resolution. On 5 June 1926, however, Turkey signed a tripartite agreement with Britain and Iraq confirming Mosul's inclusion in Iraq. Iraq agreed to give a 10 percent royalty on Mosul's oil deposits to Turkey for twenty-five years. On 19 January 1926, Iraq had signed a new treaty with Britain, despite opposition from nationalist elements, to extend the mandate period for twenty-five years, as stipulated by the League's resolution. This treaty was ratified in January 1928, on the condition that Britain would recommend Iraq for membership in the League of Nations at four-year intervals for the next twenty-five years. If admission was approved, the British mandate would end.

Bulgaria 1925 (border dispute between Greece and Bulgaria 1925)

In October 1925 Greek troops invaded Bulgaria after an incident on the border in which a Greek soldier was killed. Bulgaria appealed to The League of Nations for help. The League condemned the Greek action. It ordered both armies to stop fighting and that the Greeks should pull out of Bulgaria. The League then sent experts to the area and decided that Greece was to blame and fined her £45,000. Faced with the disapproval of the major powers in the League, the Greek government obeyed the League, although they did complain…

At the conclusion of World War I, the Triple Entente included in the Treaty of Versailles a plan for reparations to be paid by Germany. The amount of these initial payments (226 billion German Gold Marks) proved to be too great for the fledgling German economy and in 1923 Germany defaulted. In response to this, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr River valley inside the borders of Germany. This occupation of the centre of the German coal and steel industries outraged the German people, who, in response, passively resisted the occupation by the French troops, thus leading to a further strain on Germany's economy, which was significantly responsible for the hyperinflation that followed. To simultaneously defuse this situation and increase the chances of Germany resuming reparation payments, the Allied Reparations Commission asked Dawes (Charles Gates Dawes was a US banker and politician (republican). He served in the First World War, was U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, the first director of the Bureau of the Budget,when he was asked to put together a committee). The Dawes committee, which was urged into action by Britain and the United States, consisted of ten informal expert representatives, two each from Belgium, France (Jean Parmentier, Edgard Allix), Britain, Italy, and the United States. It was entrusted with finding a solution for the collection of the German reparations debt, which was determined to be one hundred thirty-two billion gold marks, as well as declaring that America would provide loans to the Germans, in order that they could make reparations payments to Britain and France. Here are the main poiunts of the Dawes Plan (August 1924);

1. The Ruhr area was to be evacuated by Allied occupation troops.
2. Reparation payments would begin at “one billion marks the first year, increasing to two and a half billion marks annually after five years"
3. The German Reichsbank would be reorganized under Allied supervision.
4. The sources for the reparation money would include transportation, excise, and custom taxes.

The plan was accepted by Germany and the Triple Entente and went into effect in September 1924. Although German business rebounded and reparation payments were made promptly, it became obvious that Germany could not continue those huge annual payments for long. As a result, the Young Plan was substituted in 1929. The Dawes Plan provided short term economic benefits to the German economy. It softened the burdens of war reparations, stabilized the currency, and brought increased foreign investments and loans to the German market. However, it made the German economy dependent on foreign markets and economies, and therefore problems with the U.S. economy (e.g. the Great Depression) would later severely hurt Germany as it did the rest of the western world, which was subject to debt repayments for loans of American dollars. After World War I, this cycle of money from U.S. loans to Germany, which then made reparations to other European nations, which then used the money to pay off their debts to America, locked the western world's economy on that of the U.S. Dawes was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925, in recognition of his work on the Plan.

Many years before 1920, Vilna had been taken over by Russia. Historically, Vilna had been the capital of Lithuania when the state had existed in the Middle Ages. After World War One, Lithuania had been re-established and Vilna seemed the natural choice for its capital. However, by 1920, 30% of the population was from Poland with Lithuanians only making up 2% of the city’s population. In 1920, the Poles seized Vilna. Lithuania asked for League help but the Poles could not be persuaded to leave the city. Vilna stayed in Polish hands until the outbreak of World War Two. The use of force by the Poles had won.

The Treaty of Versailles had ordered Weimar Germany to pay reparations for war damages. These could either be paid in money or in kind (goods to the value of a set amount). In 1922, the Germans failed to pay an installment. They claimed that they simply could not rather than did not want to. The Allies refused to accept this and the anti-German feeling at this time was still strong. Both the French and the Belgians believed that some form of strong action was needed to "teach Germany a lesson". In 1923, contrary to League rules, the French and the Belgium’s invaded the Ruhr – Germany’s most important industrial zone. For the League to enforce its will, it needed the support of its major backers in Europe, Britain and France. Yet France was one of the invaders and Britain was a major supporter of her. To other nations, it seemed that if you wanted to break League rules, you could. Few countries criticised what France and Belgium did. But the example they set for others in future years was obvious. The League clearly failed on this occasion, primarily because it was seen to be involved in breaking its own rules.