Genf 1920: Das Mandatssystem des Völkerbunds: Demokratie oder Kolonialismus?

Was war - was wird

Der Historycast des Verbandes der Geschichtslehrerinnen und Geschichtslehrer Deutschlands

Staffel 1: Wurzeln und Wege der Demokratie

Folge 6: Genf 1920: Das Mandatssystem des Völkerbunds: Demokratie oder Kolonialismus?

Folge 6: Almut Finck im Gespräch mit Susan Pedersen

FINCK: Woodrow Wilson, the American president during the First World War, he entered the war in order to fight for a world made safe for democracy. And that Wilsonian ideal was inscribed in the Covenant of the League of Nations which was part of the Versailles Treaty. Now, the tale of that League of Nations has often been told. It goes like this, usually: The League of Nations emerged from the horrors of World War One. It could not prevent the atrocities of World War Two. Therefore, conclusion drawn, it failed. It completely failed. Now, Professor Pedersen, you look at it from a different angle and that's how your story comes up a little bit differently. What is your different assessment? Are there lessons to be learned at all from the League when it comes to democratization?

PEDERSEN: The ethos of the League, I think, wasn't democratic per se because it did hold to a kind of civilizational idea that was very hierarchical. States were ordered according to what were thought to be civilizational hierarchies, only some states were thought of as equal. What the League is interesting for - well, two things are particularly important. It was an arena for norm construction, and it was also an arena for experimentation. So, a lot of pressing problems were addressed by the League simply because states, and particularly the great powers, didn't want to address them. Some of the most important kind of experiments of the League and some of its most lasting legacies fall into what was wrongly called at the time technical work, which is things like cross-border traffic, health care, child welfare, epidemic disease, all the things that actually right now we think of as very, very pressing global problems. The League's largest and probably most important and most lasting sections were the economic and health sections and those are things that have direct legacies today. So it was that kind of work forcing states but also experts and peoples to look beyond issues of sovereignty, beyond the nation state, to think instead about things that were global problems, that could not be dealt with simply through bilateral negotiations between states. It’s that sort of thing that today makes us look back to the League. So many things grew out of those early experiments and so many of the institutions. Things like the World Health Organization grew directly out of League bodies. So partly I was interested in that, even though I was looking at something rather different, which was how the League affected this very fraught and complex transition from an imperial order to a nation state order.

If you want new answers, you have to ask new questions. That's always the case. You looked at something that was often overlooked: the Commission, the Permanent Mandates Commission. Can you explain to us: What is that?

If you want new answers, you have to ask new questions. That's always the case. You looked at something that was often overlooked: When the peace settlement was worked out, the former Ottoman and German territories were taken away and the allied powers agreed that they would not be given back. There was, however, a great deal of popular and public opposition to those simply being annexed by the states that had conquered them. There was supposed to be a peace without annexations. You'll remember that,

If you want new answers, you have to ask new questions. That's always the case. You looked at something that was often overlooked: Wilson …

Yes. The idea was they would be governed in some new way as a, quote, “sacred trust of civilization.” That's that civilizational language again. So even though some of those territories were effectively promised and thought they would be given independence they were not given independence, but they were to be governed instead in trust. So the question was: Who should be the trustee? That was a legal question that was never resolved through the whole life of the League. There were fights about it all the time. But the League, after quite a long battle, did agree that whoever was sovereign in the mandated territories – the mandatory power, the power granted the power of administration, was not sovereign. Sovereignty was basically either held by the League, nobody quite liked that answer, or held in abeyance until the territory would become independent. But the actual right of administration was handed over to the powers essentially that conquered them. So the imperial powers were given the right of administration and in some ways possession. You know, the imperial powers tended to think possession is nine tenths of the law. They'd be able to do what they wanted. What stood in the way of that are really two things. One is this Permanent Mandates Commission. Initially that was supposed to just be a kind of council of the great powers who were administering things. But because the Americans pulled out and it had to be reconstituted and because the powers couldn't get along the League itself set up the Permanent Mandates Commission. It’s a body that was not to administer those territories, but it was to oversee the administration of those territories. It could call for reports annually, and those were sent by the mandatory power to the League. The Mandates Commission then reviewed those reports called in representatives from the mandatory powers and sometimes governors from the territories were called in to Geneva and sent to answer questions. And what that did – and this is where we get to the second important point which is publicity – what that did is amplify and kind of expose to public light how these territories were being governed. Minutes of evidence were published, they were sent out, anyone could write to Geneva and say he wanted to have all the records of the Mandates Commission and the public material would be sent. It went to all kinds of libraries, all of a sudden people started writing dissertations about mandatory administration and the things that were happening were covered in the newspapers. So when there were scandals, when there was malfeasance of various kinds – not everything, of course, came to public notice – but it was possible to use the League as a kind of megaphone or a kind of spotlight, amplifying things that went on. The Mandates Commission sometimes tried to damp down public interest. These were not radical figures by any means, they were, on the whole, quite conservative. But they took their task quite seriously. And simply the mechanism – it’s not so much what they did and said as the fact that they introduced this aspect of publicness into the arena. One of the most innovative things about the Mandates Commission is that ordinary people, people either living in the territory or just outsiders who thought something was being done that was bad, could petition the League for redress. Now those were very narrow rights because you could only petition if the mandate wasn't being upheld. The mandate said: people aren't ready to govern themselves. So you couldn't petition for self-government because the Mandates Commission would just throw that out. But when the French bombed Damascus there were tons of petitions saying this was a complete abuse, that it was brutal, that it showed that France shouldn't hold the mandate, all kinds of things like that.

Yes. The idea was they would be governed in some new way as a, quote, “sacred trust of civilization.” That's that civilizational language again. So even though some of those territories were effectively promised and thought they would be given independence they were not given independence, but they were to be governed instead in trust. So the question was: The Commission was able check if the mandatory powers behaved according to the rules of the game, but they could not change the game itself.

Yes. The idea was they would be governed in some new way as a, quote, “sacred trust of civilization.” That's that civilizational language again. So even though some of those territories were effectively promised and thought they would be given independence they were not given independence, but they were to be governed instead in trust. So the question was: That's right. They couldn't change the game itself. What they did, I think, is open up to international contestation basically the practices of imperial rule. Imperial administration is full of scandals. But this was a mechanism that turned that into an international question. The Portuguese thought we can hang on on our own forever. No, they can't. Once it's an international norm, once the whole system kind of changes, everything's going to change. It'll be slow. It might be protracted …

Yes. The idea was they would be governed in some new way as a, quote, “sacred trust of civilization.” That's that civilizational language again. So even though some of those territories were effectively promised and thought they would be given independence they were not given independence, but they were to be governed instead in trust. So the question was: The Commission was sort of a publicity machine. It opened up a stage.

That's right. And that's why … one of the kind of amusing parts of doing this research is to watch everybody kind of scramble for position. Foreign offices and colonial offices in France and Britain, Belgium, all of these are mandatory powers, do exactly what you’d expect. They try to chip away at the margins. They try to say: really, we don't need to publish the records of the Mandates Commission. These reports shouldn't be publicly available. They're trying to make as much of the work secret as possible (…). They try to chip away at petitioning, and there are points at which all the mandatory powers gang up and take a few pot shots at the Mandates Commission. What is interesting about that is because the Mandates Commission is full of ex imperial governors they’re not the kind of guys who are used to being seen as problems by their own nation states. So they don't take that well. The Mandates Commission tends to kind of hit back when it feels its powers are being encroached upon and it will, you know, talk about its duty, its responsibility, they're sorry they're causing offense, but they become very legalistic about what they're supposed to do.

That's right. And that's why … one of the kind of amusing parts of doing this research is to watch everybody kind of scramble for position. Foreign offices and colonial offices in France and Britain, Belgium, all of these are mandatory powers, do exactly what you’d expect. They try to chip away at the margins. They try to say: All of a sudden they had to legitimize what they were doing and they didn't like that. But if they do that because, let's say, the French want the British to accept what they are doing, they want to feel that they are doing the right thing, and they want to be recognized for doing the right thing – isn’t that merely a replacement of what was going on before the First World War, the European competition, the race for colonies? Now it's a different kind of competition, a different race?

That's right. And that's why … one of the kind of amusing parts of doing this research is to watch everybody kind of scramble for position. Foreign offices and colonial offices in France and Britain, Belgium, all of these are mandatory powers, do exactly what you’d expect. They try to chip away at the margins. They try to say: Yes, I think the difference is that this is a kind of competition that calls the legitimacy of alien and imperial rule itself into question. One thing that people often forget about the whole mandate system is the very critical role that Germany played within it. Now, Germany ostensibly should play no role at all. It doesn't hold mandates. It is not an imperial power in this period. But precisely because it had its territories taken away and basically all parts of the political spectrum in Germany are very irritated about that, except for the communists, German politicians are united in causing as much trouble for any imperial power governing a former German territory as possible. They all would like those territories back. If they can't get them back they would like international oversight made as strong as possible and those norms about non sovereignty made as strong as possible. They're the ones who go on and on and on about the powers of the League precisely because that's the only way in which they can imagine exercising a serious role within territories that used to be German territories. And interestingly, the British were kind of sympathetic to that, and they did let German settlers back in. The French thought this was madness. But German settlers go back into German territories. German capital goes very heavily back into former German territories. So, and out of basically pressure, one of the conditions of German entry into the League is to have a role on the mandate's commission. So a member of the Mandates Commission is then German. And not coincidentally, that is a salaried official of essentially the Confederation of German Industries who is devoted 24/7 to opening up former colonial territories to German investment, expansion, settlement and so on.

That's right. And that's why … one of the kind of amusing parts of doing this research is to watch everybody kind of scramble for position. Foreign offices and colonial offices in France and Britain, Belgium, all of these are mandatory powers, do exactly what you’d expect. They try to chip away at the margins. They try to say: The benefit for the Germans to be in the League was also that they had access through the open door, right?

That's right. And that's why … one of the kind of amusing parts of doing this research is to watch everybody kind of scramble for position. Foreign offices and colonial offices in France and Britain, Belgium, all of these are mandatory powers, do exactly what you’d expect. They try to chip away at the margins. They try to say: Exactly. Because the mandated territories are supposed to be internationalized in a sense one of the conditions of holding them is the open door. In other words, there should be open bidding, international bidding for contracts, there should be rights for all League states to investment, to settlement and so on. That was not the case for what were called the sea mandates. In other words, the Pacific mandates. And also it was very contested in Southwest Africa. But for the rest of the territories some ways they are a sort of harbinger of what is to come. Because what you can see is …

That's right. And that's why … one of the kind of amusing parts of doing this research is to watch everybody kind of scramble for position. Foreign offices and colonial offices in France and Britain, Belgium, all of these are mandatory powers, do exactly what you’d expect. They try to chip away at the margins. They try to say: Neoimperialism. Isn’t it?

That's right. And that's why … one of the kind of amusing parts of doing this research is to watch everybody kind of scramble for position. Foreign offices and colonial offices in France and Britain, Belgium, all of these are mandatory powers, do exactly what you’d expect. They try to chip away at the margins. They try to say: Exactly. It's an attempt to try and govern through economic power instead. And there are some consequences to this. Japan is able to basically destroy the Syrian silk industry, Germans take over plantations in the British sections of Cameroon and Togo. It’s that kind of economic power that becomes very important. Plantations in Tanganyika are open to German investment. And the Mandates Commission, they defend these international rights. They're not defending the interests of the indigenous people. One of the things that they agree is that contracts made under mandatory rule will hold in a post mandate period. You can see how dangerous that is for states once they achieve independence because they're gonna be bound into all these contracts

That's right. And that's why … one of the kind of amusing parts of doing this research is to watch everybody kind of scramble for position. Foreign offices and colonial offices in France and Britain, Belgium, all of these are mandatory powers, do exactly what you’d expect. They try to chip away at the margins. They try to say: That’s exactly what the Germans were hoping for. And that's why they so strongly supported the idea of slowly letting those mandatory territories achieve independence because they were so sure that once they were independent they'd gladly turn to the Germans for help and advice.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: We want these territories back, they’re ours. that's the language. In that middle period, what you can see is a kind of bid for a sort of order that we will see elements emerging of after 1945.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: When you talk about the opening up of a discursive field that allows for ordinary people in the territories to petition, that allows for the mobilization of protest movements, at some point you talk about the women's movement being fueled by that – It’s all nice. It's all nice and good. But if we look at the results isn't that what someone like Greta Thunberg today would call, you know, the famous blah blah blah? Isn't that just blah blah blah?

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: It depends what your time frame is. Historians are always kind of looking at the longue duree. I think of this in terms of political learning and I always have in mind the concept of unintended consequences. The Syro-Palestinian Congress petitioned a great deal both about administration in Palestine and about administration in Syria. That petitioning accomplishes basically nothing. And so you see a movement away from petitioning towards popular risings and mobilizations after there’s a kind of understanding that this is not working. But it is a process – of mobilizing, of learning, of establishing an office in Geneva, of developing diaspora networks – all of those things are very important. There's only one case where I think petitioning is really extraordinary. That’s in Samoa, where there are these petitions to the League that are very politely framed but basically say, please get rid of these New Zealand overlords. They don't understand anything about our place. We are perfectly capable of governing ourselves, and they say we're accustomed to being a protectorate, not a colony. Obviously, we're not going to have our own navy, but we are used to self-government. Those petitions were signed by 90 percent of the male population and they went to everyone. The German Foreign Ministry archives, they have copies of the petitions Those petitions exist in the U.S. National Archives. I mean, they’re petitioning anyone. They're petitioning the League as well.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: And yet it was dismissed. The 90 percent were dismissed as a few …

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: That’s right.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: … a few people and it was only because they're so gullible and not to be taken seriously.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: I am not saying that what we learn from looking at the League is always a pleasant story. Some of the things we learn from the League have to do with the intense mobilization of racial hierarchies and racial language. That certainly was the case in Samoa. There's a lot of dismissal of the Samoans who have very elaborate representative structures as childlike and unready to govern themselves and all this sort of thing. So yes, I mean,

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: That’s even part of the Covenant. It says “People not being able to stand for themselves.“ If that's not racist, what is?

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: That's why I don't wanna write this as a kind of story of some kind of upward climb. It was written that way in the past. That's not what's significant about it. The significance is that you need to look at aspects of the history that are new. That international arena and that international publicity is new. And then the aim is to track what effects that has. The main effort, always, for the mandatory powers is to legitimate alien rule. That's what they’re after. But there are also unintended consequences which is this kind of contestation that I think does have an impact.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: For somebody who is not as much into the whole subject as you obviously are it still sounds a bit abstract when you say it had unintended side effects. Could you give us a few examples of when publicity did indeed have an effect?

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: Well, … I don't know if you'd call it an unintended consequence but certainly Palestine is a very interesting case. There's rival mobilizations and rival attempts to use the League both by the Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Palestine and by Palestinian organizations, including the Zero Palestinian Congress, and also, there's a great deal of petitioning from Palestine. What you see there is the use of League oversight to essentially delay and displace decision making to Geneva and the subordination of local interests of all kinds to the interests of the great powers which are being hammered out in Geneva. So that's a case where the British actually thought about changing course a couple of times. They don't change course to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine, they don't change course not just because of mobilizations within Britain or effects in Palestine but also because of interpretations made by the Mandates Commission that very much underscore the obligation of Britain to promote Jewish immigration to Palestine. And the Mandates Commission very much hammers away at that. And there's a surprising degree of unity on the Mandates Commission about that, partly particularly in the late thirties, because it coincides with the interests of various League powers to essentially extrude their Jewish populations. So, there's a story to be told there as well about the kind of developments in Palestine that has to do with the independent effects of what's going on in Geneva.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: Could the Mandates Commission or the League have done something differently in Palestine? I'm asking that question because Palestine still is one of our biggest fields of conflict.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: I think the League has an effect in dragging out a process of the British understanding that they cannot reconcile antagonistic interests. They start by saying of course we can. Through economic development we can reconcile antagonistic interests. And they can't. And it takes them a long time to realize that. And that period of realization is lengthened because of the work of the Mandates Commission.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: That's a very modest result if we want to talk about what we can do, what we can achieve in terms of value spreading, of values, norms, democratization. Do we have to content ourselves with that?

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: Well, I would never say that the Mandates Commission was a great success story. It absolutely wasn't. It basically taught people that international administration of territories didn't work very well. It, in the end, pushes people more towards independence, including the mandatory powers. It kind of taught the mandatory powers that administration under League oversight is a huge pain in the neck. That's why the Iraq case is in there and that's why it's important. Because the British realized it's a lot easier to govern Iraq essentially through neo colonial interests, in other words, through economic contracts, by tying up their oil fields, by allying with the ruling powers, by essentially neo colonial treaties, bilateral treaties So, both the imperial powers learned that they can operate in other ways and incipient nation states continue to protest against what to them looks just like imperialism in disguise It doesn't feel like a different kind of rule. There is no evidence that imperial powers actually ran mandated territories better or more gently than they ran any place else.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: That’s exactly what is being held against the system up until today.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: That's exactly right. And it is true that administration under mandate does have some differences from, say, international trust. The League had no army. It had no peacekeeping forces to speak of. It did administer Danzig and a few other places but it had very minimal capacities. Leagues capacities compared to the capacities of, say, the U.N. are very, very minor. It had a staff of 700 at its height. It is small So you can't look at it and say, could the League have run this, that or the other thing, it just doesn't have the capacity to do that. It can articulate norms and to some extent it can make states or not follow those norms, sometimes not. But it does not have the capacity to govern territories or something like that. So it is not a precedent in that sense. You can't look at it and say, okay, could the U.N. govern Afghanistan based on what the League did? There's no comparison. The League had no capacities.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: I'd like to pose a personal question. You spent years scrutinizing the archives and reading letters and tons of documents. What prompted you to do that?

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: It’s kind of madness, isn't it? I think historians are just kind of like that. They get curious about something. And the League was very enveloping. So, when I decided to start working on the League I took a kind of pledge to myself, methodologically, that I would not just see the international as a projection of British norms and powers. So what I was trying to do was figure out what difference does it make if there is an arena where states are forced to talk together as if they were equals? And that's why Geneva, rather than London, is the center of the story. The question is not what did Britain do here or there? The question is what difference does it make that not just British practices in mandated territories, but also French and Australian and South African and Japanese, that all of those had to bump up against each other in the arena of Geneva? And so that's what I was after to try and think through and write a model for international history.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: The legacy of the League or the echo of the League – If I understand your argument the legacy is less with global governance or the European Parliament or the international courts (…), it's more with NGOs, it's more with grassroot movements, human rights watch organizations that learned from the League that there is a stage they can use for their purposes. Is that correct?

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: I think you're pointing to three things rather than two. One is the legacies for international powers and administrations. The legacies of the League there are quite limited and in fact negative. And there the example of the Italo Ethiopian war is absolutely critical. That was the case where the handling of a major international conflict was passed to an international organization. Sanctions were put in but they were undermined by great power activity. They were ineffective and great powers negotiated behind the scenes, they offered an impossible settlement. The result of that, I think, is that that discredited the League as a peacekeeping organization and even more as an effective guarantor of the rights of member states. After that, small states all over the world looked around and thought, Oh, help, who's gonna guarantee our security If the League can't do it and the great powers undermine the League. So that was very discrediting.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: That said, I don't think it's just NGOs because they were parts of the League when the security apparatus failed. Organizations like Carnegie, Rockefeller started putting a lot of money, a lot of money – half the League's health budget came from the Rockefeller Foundation. This is not NGO work, it's the work of the League of Nations Health Organization which became the World Health Organization. So I think what you see is a kind of international governance of things that states are sort of willing to cede because they simply can't do it. Who's gonna decide air traffic control rules? You don't wanna have dozens of individual states coming to bilateral agreements over how their planes are gonna take off and land. So it's that kind of stuff that got a real boost with the League. And as the security arrangements failed those sorts of things became more and more important to the League and more and more central. And some interesting political thought came out of this. Particularly functionalism. People saying you should stop working on peace by trying to come up with security arrangements. What we need are entanglements of the practical things that only the international can do that act then to restrain the belligerence of states.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: May I ask you a question about today, about Afghanistan? Because that brings us back to our initial question of how actually can we do this? How can we achieve anything in terms of democratization, in terms of spreading norms and values? The Americans and the Europeans spent a fortune, for 20 years, in Afghanistan, they alimented all sorts of relief organizations. They had a military presence. And yet they failed. It didn't work. We have a disaster. It's tragic. So what remains? What can we do?

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: I think there's a way of thinking about political and international crises that is kind of ahistorical in a way. Thinking about external forces solving things is ahistorical. The international community is not going to solve Afghanistan. There are things that I think are essential to do, keep people from dying, have food aid. But I am not particularly optimistic about this idea that an external power can come in. I think NGOs have more credibility with local populations than international alliances do.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: With respect to the League it was so important for you to emphasize how there was the creation of a discursive field where people could learn and experiment. With respect to Afghanistan – is that maybe something that we could more concentrate on?

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: I think in all kinds of places in the world today one thing to think about is that there's a lot of voices in the room. I am a little uncertain who the “we” is. I think Western powers are very quick to say “we.” And what they really mean is the West. People are also very quick to say the international community. I'm a pessimist by nature. My bottom line for success is much lower than other people’s. I think if people aren't killing each other we're doing good. And one of the reasons why I thought the League was worth looking at was precisely because people said it failed because it just talked. And I thought that was a very odd thing to say because what states do if they don't talk is they shoot. So talking is good. What you're trying to do is prolong conversation. The only guide then is that engagement is good (…). Engagement is important. Because it keeps people talking. And if they don't talk they start killing each other.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: Susan Pedersen, thank you very much.

Yes. I mean, this is only in this middle period of the League when the Germans are actually in the League. Once Hitler comes to power the colonial lobby reverts to its usual language which is entirely about territorial control: You're welcome.