Talk:Member states of the League of Nations

Untitled

could you tabulate the values? with countries organized by year? 141.213.66.162 06:21, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Switzerland

Was Switzerland a founding member? German wikipedia states the opposite.. -- Firefox13 (talk) 21:32, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

South and Central America

Why did so many nations in Latin America leave the League? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davetoms (talk • contribs) 19:04, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

founder members

I hope by changing these to "founding members" I didn't offend any local dialect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.102.210.163 (talk) 23:36, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Map is mistaken (Argentina)

Argentina left in 1921 after the failure of a resolution, and resumed full membership in 1931. Map must be changed. Tazmaniacs (talk) 16:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Done --Canuckguy (talk) 20:04, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

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Endreus (talk) 22:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)I think there's an error on the map and also on the list, because Ethiopia became an Italian colony in 1936, so I think it must be specified if the former Negus keep it while he was not on charge. Or it need to be changed in left in 1937 as Italian colony also in the map, it never has the colony color. To check just search here on Wikipedia any Italian history link.

Ethiopia was actually a member prior to the Italian invasion, so it should not have the colony marker but instead have the nation marker. The Italian attack on Ethiopia and the League's unwillingness to defend Ethiopia (but willingness to supply Italy) was one of the biggest markers of the League's failure as an organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.92.220.115 (talk) 07:44, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Withdrawal/expulsion of members

An edit late last year added some incorrect information about the expulsion of Finland. Finland was never expelled from the LoN, and certainly not for "aggression against the USSR". Apart from the editor's unverifiable 'source', there is no other evidence for this claim. A primary LoN document dated from 1944, hosted on a university website, includes Finland on the list of members. It also includes Albania, Denmark and Luxembourg, so I have removed their withdrawal dates as well. Having said that, I did only cursory checks before doing so, so if someone can cite their withdrawals, then fine. (Would a withdrawal under duress/invasion count though? e.g. Free French did not recognise Vichy France's withdrawal. Could those countries' resistance movements have done the same?) -- Tankman182 (talk) 12:34, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I think you are correct re. Finland. On the question of who was or was not a member, the League itself should be the ultimate arbitrator. If it listed 'France' as a member, then it was, wherever the recognised government was based. RashersTierney (talk) 14:30, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia was present at the last meeting of the Assembly in 1946 (see for list of attending member states; above cited list from 1944 also mentions Czechoslovakia), so I added it to the respective list (members at end of League). Czechoslovakia never formaly left League until its final dissolution. However, pure legal continuity between pre-war and post-war Czechoslovakia is another question...--Pavlor (talk) 00:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Kingdom of Hejaz, and other founding members

Hejaz appears to be missing from this list and the map. See p.13 of this. The list of founding members in the article is not consistent with this source (the Treaty of Sèvres. Oncenawhile (talk) 13:06, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Another source showing the same problem:

Oncenawhile (talk) 13:20, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Conquered and annexed

A usual problem is the two-standards one. For instance, Austria appears as "ceased to exist" or Czechoslovakia as "occupied (by Nazi Germany)", and the Baltic Republics as "conquered and annexed (by the USSR)", which at the mininum is confuse. The plain fact is all these states ceased to exist to be annexed by others (and of course in the former cases reverted to the original situation sooner), and any of the three chosen sentences can be applied to any of the cases. The difference of course is in the case of Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic or Austria the matter is far away in historical terms, and with the Baltic Republics I imagine the problem is near enough to play a political useful role to many people. But I don't think this was a NPOV, nor useful for the Wikipedia itself.91.117.8.27 (talk) 20:07, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

What solution you propose? Eg. Czechoslovakia ceased to exist in its home territory in 1939, but was later reconstituted as sort-of government-in-exile which gradually gained recognition - even by the League (post-Avenol). As you see membership of these countries is rather complicated...Pavlor (talk) 12:13, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Newfoundland

Newfoundland ceased to be a colony of anyone in 1907. It might have let the UK handle foreign policy, but it was a Dominion, the same status as Canada. Newfoundland did not seek to join the League of Nations, so should be indicated as a nonmember. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 01:43, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Even after 1934 establishment of Newfoundland Commission of Government? Pavlor (talk) 09:20, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

It did not revert to colony status. It was technically still a Dominion. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 15:13, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I don´t know precise legal aspects of Newfoundland´s Dominion status, but lack of self-government voids comparison to Canada. Question is, was Newfoundland independent enough in view of international law to become member? Note the Dominion of Newfoundland never adopted the Statute of Westminster. On the other hand, British empire had separate membership for India... Pavlor (talk) 15:36, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article Dominion of Newfoundland says "After the war, Newfoundland along with the other dominions sent a separate delegation to the Paris Peace Conference but, unlike the other dominions, Newfoundland did not sign the Treaty of Versailles in her own right, nor did she seek a separate membership in the League of Nations." That same article says, referring to the Commission of Government, "Newfoundland remained a dominion in name only"which implies that it still legally was a dominion. The question of Commission of Government would still leave the period before 1934. And the interesting question of the non-adhesion to the Statute of Westminster would still leave Nfld in the same situation as Canada before 1931. Richardson mcphillips (talk) 02:08, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Feel free to change whatever you want, I don´t mind. Pavlor (talk) 06:08, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll wait a bit to see if anyone else wants to chime in. In the meantime, I can't figure out how to edit a map so it might stay this way for a while. Richardson mcphillips (talk) 21:48, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

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Irish Free State, India, and the map...?

Hello, can somebody please fix the incorrect status of the Irish Free State, which joined in August 1923, separate from the other Dominions completely, and was not automatically included due to Great Britain's - or the British Empire's - membership in 1920 as is implied by its complete omission?

India was never separately represented, as it was never a Dominion and remained a Colony in all but name until independence in 1947? The link to some Archive Machine is also wrong regarding its list of states and inductions.

The transitional map also misrepresents these facts.

Nürö ^{G'DÄŸ MÄTË} 08:03, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

That map is a mess (eg. inconsistency of WW2 changes - Czechoslovakia not included, Poland included). As of India, membership and representation are two different concepts. What changes you have in mind? Pavlor (talk) 09:06, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Conflicting join and leave dates

Unfortunately, the sources linked by this article have contradictory join and leave dates for several of the members. When I tried to reconcile them with reliable sources, I found even more contradictions. Some look like typos while others don't. For transparency, I'm outlining everything here.

I'm using the following sources:

1. https://www.thegreenpapers.com/ww/LeagueOfNations.phtml
2. https://www.worldstatesmen.org/International_Organizations.html#League
3. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv13/ch10subch1
4. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2188357?seq=1 (Membership in the League of Nations JSTOR article from 1924)
5. https://treaties.un.org/Pages/Content.aspx?path=DB/LoNOnline/pageIntro_en.xml
6. https://www.ungeneva.org/sites/default/files/2022-01/sdn_chronology_0.pdf

Note:

• Because the Assembly didn't meet until November 1920, several sources (including the more reliable ones) just assume that everyone listed in the original Covenant must have joined on exactly 10 January 1920, when the Covenant entered into force, instead of between January and November. This assumption is inaccurate; all instances of 10 January 1920 have been deliberately omitted from the table below to reduce visual clutter (because the point of the table is to note contradictions).

Methodology:

• The last four sources (US State Dept., JSTOR, UN official sites) are probably more reliable than the first two. (Yes, even the two different UN official sites disagree with each other.) The first two sources were originally linked by this article.
• If there's a plurality among the reliable sources, use that date.
• If the more reliable sources tie, use the first two sources as tiebreaker (otherwise several withdrawals including Haiti, Romania, Chile etc. would all tie). If still tied, then note the deadlock in the article.
• The reliable sources tend to omit de facto withdrawals and only note de jure ones. De facto dates are well documented and can be used. If one source lists a de jure date and another lists a de facto date, use the de jure date (usually a state issuing a withdrawal under duress, followed by the League not recognizing the withdrawal).
• The reliable sources tend to only mention the date a country actually de jure withdrew its obligations, not the date 2 years earlier when it quit and stopped participating in the League. Since there isn't enough reliable information on the earlier date for all the members, it's being omitted from the article table.
• One source says that Finland formally withdrew, 2-year notice period and all, during WW2. This doesn't seem to be backed up by anything?

Join dates

Member state	Source 1	Source 2	Source 3	Source 4	Source 5	Source 6
Belgium
Bolivia
Brazil
British Empire
China	16 July 1920	16 July 1920	16 July 1920	16 July 1920	16 July 1920
Cuba	8 March 1920	8 March 1920	8 March 1920	8 March 1920	8 March 1920
France
Greece	30 March 1920	30 March 1920	30 March 1920	30 March 1920	30 March 1920
Guatemala
Haiti	30 June 1920	30 June 1920	30 June 1920	30 June 1920
Honduras	3 November 1920	3 November 1920	3 November 1920	3 November 1920
Italy
Japan
Liberia	30 June 1920	30 June 1920	30 June 1920	30 June 1920	30 June 1920
Nicaragua	3 November 1920	3 November 1920	3 November 1920	3 November 1920
Panama		25 November 1920	25 November 1920	25 November 1920	25 November 1920
Peru
Poland
Portugal	8 April 1920	8 April 1920	8 April 1920	8 April 1920	8 April 1920
Romania	4 September 1920	7 April 1920	14 September 1920	14 September 1920
Yugoslavia	10 February 1920	10 February 1920	10 February 1920	10 February 1920	10 February 1920
Thailand
Czechoslovakia
Uruguay
Argentina	18 July 1919			18 July 1919
Chile	4 November 1919			4 November 1919
Colombia	16 February 1920	16 February 1920	16 February 1920	16 February 1920	16 February 1920
Denmark	8 March 1920	8 March 1920	8 March 1920	8 March 1920	8 March 1920
Netherlands	9 March 1920	9 March 1920	9 March 1920	9 March 1920	9 March 1920
Norway	5 March 1920	9 March 1920	9 March 1920	5 March 1920	9 March 1920
Paraguay	26 December 1919			29 October 1919
Iran	21 November 1919			21 November 1919
El Salvador	10 March 1920	10 March 1920	10 March 1920	10 March 1920
Spain
Sweden	9 March 1920	9 March 1920	9 March 1920	9 March 1920	9 March 1920
Switzerland	8 March 1920	8 March 1920	8 March 1920	8 March 1920	8 March 1920
Venezuela	3 March 1920	3 March 1920	3 March 1920	12 January 1920
Austria	16 December 1920	15 December 1920	15 December 1920	15-17 December 1920		15 December 1920
Bulgaria	16 December 1920	16 December 1920	16 December 1920	15-17 December 1920	16 December 1920
Costa Rica	16 December 1920	16 December 1920	16 December 1920	15-17 December 1920
Finland	16 December 1920	16 December 1920	16 December 1920	15-17 December 1920	16 December 1920
Luxembourg	16 December 1920	16 December 1920	16 December 1920	15-17 December 1920	16 December 1920
Albania	16 December 1920	17 December 1920	17 December 1920	15-17 December 1920	17 December 1920
Estonia	22 September 1921	22 September 1921	22 September 1921	22 September 1921	22 September 1921
Latvia	22 September 1921	22 September 1921	22 September 1921	22 September 1921	22 September 1921
Lithuania	22 September 1921	22 September 1921	22 September 1921	22 September 1921	22 September 1921
Hungary	18 September 1922	18 September 1922	18 September 1922	18 September 1922		18 September 1922
Ireland	10 September 1923	10 September 1923	10 September 1923	10 September 1923	10 September 1920
Ethiopia	28 September 1923	28 September 1923	28 September 1923	28 September 1923	28 September 1923
Dominican Republic	29 September 1924	29 September 1924	29 September 1924		29 September 1924
Germany	8 September 1926	8 September 1926	8 September 1926		8 September 1926	8 September 1926
Mexico	12 September 1931	12 September 1931	12 September 1931		12 September 1931
Turkey	18 July 1932	18 July 1932	18 July 1932		18 July 1932
Iraq	3 October 1932	3 October 1932	3 October 1932		3 October 1932	3 October 1932
Soviet Union	18 September 1934	18 September 1934	18 September 1934		18 September 1934	18 September 1934
Afghanistan	27 September 1934	27 September 1934	26 September 1934		17 September 1934
Ecuador	28 September 1934	28 September 1934	28 September 1924		28 September 1934
Egypt	26 May 1937	26 May 1937	26 May 1937		26 March 1937	26-27 May 1937

Withdrawal dates

Member state	Source 1	Source 2	Source 3	Source 5	Source 6
Brazil	12 June 1926 -	14 June 1926 13 June 1928	- 13 June 1928	- 13 June 1928	14 June 1926 13 June 1928
France	19 April 1941 16 April 1943	19 April 1941 15&16 April 1943	19 April 1941 15&16 April 1943
Guatemala	13 May 1936 -	26 May 1936 25 May 1938	- 25 May 1938	- 25 May 1938	26 May 1936 25 May 1938
Haiti	8 April 1942 -	8 April 1942 7 April 1944	- 7 April 1944	- 8 April 1944
Honduras	22 June 1936 -	10 July 1936 9 July 1938	- 9 July 1938	- 9 July 1938	10 July 1936 10 July 1938
Italy	11 December 1937 -	11 December 1937 10 December 1939	11 December 1937 10 December 1939	- 10 December 1939	11 December 1937 -
Japan	27 March 1933 -	27 March 1933 26 March 1935	- 26 March 1935	- 27 March 1935	27 March 1933 27 March 1935
Nicaragua	26 June 1936 -	27 June 1936 26 June 1938	- 26 June 1938	- 16 June 1938	27 June 1936 -
Peru	8 April 1939 -	9 April 1939 8 April 1941	- 7 April 1941	- 8 April 1941
Romania	11 July 1940 -	11 July 1940 10 July 1942	- 9 July 1942	- 10 July 1942
Czechoslovakia	15 March 1939de facto	15 March 1939de facto
Argentina	4 December 1920de facto 1933	4 December 1920de facto 26 September 1933
Chile	2 June 1938 -	2 June 1938 1 June 1940	- 31 May 1940	- 1 June 1940	2 June 1938 -
Denmark	9 April 1940de facto -	19 July 1940 1945
Paraguay	24 February 1935 -	24 February 1935 23 February 1937	- 23 February 1935	- 23 February 1937	23 February 1935 23 February 1937
El Salvador	10 August 1938 -	10 August 1937 9 August 1939	- 8 August 1939	- 9 August 1939	26 July 1937 -
Spain	8 September 1926 22 March 1928 9 May 1939 -	8 September 1926 22 March 1928 9 May 1939 8 May 1941	- - - 7 May 1941	- - - 8 May 1941	8 September 1926 22 March 1928 - -
Venezuela	11 July 1938 -	11 July 1938 10 July 1940	- 10 July 1940	- 11 July 1940	12 July 1938 -
Austria	13 March 1938de facto	10 April 1938	18 March 1938	18 March 1938	18 March 1938
Costa Rica	24 December 1924 -	24 December 1924 31 December 1926	- 31 December 1926	- 1 January 1927	24 December 1924 1 January 1927
Finland		17 June 1941 16 June 1943
Albania	12 April 1939de facto	13 April 1939	after 7 April 1939de facto
Estonia	3 August 1940de facto	6 August 1940de facto
Latvia	3 August 1940de facto	5 August 1940de facto
Lithuania	3 August 1940de facto	3 August 1940de facto
Hungary	11 April 1939 -	11 April 1939 9 April 1941	- 9 April 1941	- 10 April 1941
Germany	21 October 1933 -	21 October 1933 20 October 1935	19 October 1933 20 October 1935	- 19 October 1935	21 October 1933 21 October 1935
Soviet Union	14 December 1939	14 December 1939	14 December 1939	14 December 1939

Zowayix001 (talk) 04:35, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Finally figured out why everyone disagreed on the withdrawal dates: it often took a day or multiple days between the member sending the withdrawal notification, the League Secretariat receiving it, and the League Assembly receiving it. When these dates differ, it looks like even the reliable sources kept switching which of the three dates they picked across various members. I've finally added sources for the withdrawal notification dates to the article, picking the earliest date as that's the one most prominently highlighted by the League documents. Note that this was only done in a reasonable time since withdrawals are their own separate documents with dates in the metadata (contrast joins, whose dates are buried within journals). Zowayix001 (talk) 06:22, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Good work so far. May I ask, why you use the name "Czecho-Slovakia" (used only in 1938-1939; informaly also before 1920) and not Czechoslovakia (used for most of the 20s and 30s and at the time of the League's dissolution)? Pavlor (talk) 10:25, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

The first two-thirds of the membership table is deliberately arranged to match the Covenant, which alphabetizes "Czecho-Slovakia" under S. If more people think this is unacceptable, I can change it and add an extra footnote. Zowayix001 (talk) 23:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, Czechoslovakia is a common name for Czechoslovakia (just look into use by secondary sources), I don't think the form used in a primary source is appropriate here. Just from my POV/experience, I never saw Czechoslovakia alphabetized under S. Pavlor (talk) 05:10, 29 July 2024 (UTC)