The Mandate System of the League of Nations

The Mandate System of the League of Nations

The mandate system was a system established after World War I to administer former territories of the German and Ottoman empires. It was established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, entered into on 28 June 1919.

However, it was created to manage the conquered territories of the Central Powers; specifically the former German and the Ottoman empires, with the hope of their ultimate goal that they would eventually achieve independence as Democracies. This goal was tempered, some would argue, by the fact tat mandates were awarded with full consideration of both public and secret agreements made during the war.

Three categories of mandates were created depending on how socially or economically developed each territory was. Class A mandates were recognized as independent most developed territories, but were under Allied administrative control until they were able to stand on their own as countries. These countries included Syria which was assigned to France, Mesopotamia, which was assigned to Iraq and Palestine to Britain. Moreover, these territories were once all former Turkish territories. Classes B mandates were those that were far away from being able to qualify for independence and were completely under the responsibility of the mandates, but were subject to certain regulations designed to protect the rights of the mandates' native peoples. These countries were the former German colonies if German East Africa, which Tanganyika, Togoland and the Cameroons, and Rwanda-Burundi. The allies in charge of these countries were Britain, France and Belgium respectively. Class C mandates were those whose best interests were to be served by integration into the territories of the mandatory power, due to the sparseness of population, isolation, and size. These included: Namibia (allocated to South Africa), New Guinea (allocated to Australia), Samoa (allocated to New Zealand), and the islands north of the equator in the western Pacific were allocated to Japan.

The decision to establish the mandate system was implemented only after considerable disagreements amongst the Allied leaders. Some of the British Dominions – South Africa, Australia and New Zealand – wanted to annex respectively German South-West Africa, New Guinea and Samoa. Japan demanded to right to annex Germany's colonies, which were north of the equator ( a demand secretly approved by the British government back in 1917). A disagreement regarding the legal status and the portion of the annuities to be paid by the "A" mandates was settled when an Arbitrator ruled that some of the mandates contained more than one State. Furthermore, there were disagreements over controlling Iraq's newly discovered oil resources and the British established a monarchy in Iraq where they had been none before. The same year Iraq became part of a