On Monday, the 26th, the Council met in Paris. The situation of immediate danger, viz., the presence of Greek troops on Bul garian territory, was at once dealt with. Evacuation was demanded within a time-limit of 6o hours, and an assurance that the neces sary orders had been given was asked within a time-limit of hours. The same day orders were telegraphed to British, French and Italian military attaches to proceed from Belgrade and Athens to supervise the evacuation. The attaches received their instruc tions on Tuesday, proceeded immediately by special trains, and arrived on the scene of action about 2 P.M. on Wednesday, Oct. 28. There followed one of the most dramatic and significant scenes in history. The attaches at once summoned the two commanders and gave them detailed instructions in the name of the League of Nations as to the evacuation, prescribing the time at which the evacuating troops should move and the interval which was to elapse before Bulgarian troops might enter the abandoned terri tory. Within about 1 r hours of the officers' arrival, and eight hours before the expiration of the time limit, the last Greek soldier left Bulgarian soil.
The Council proceeded to deal with the question of reparation and of safeguards against the recurrence of similar incidents. They appointed a commission, under the chairmanship of Sir Horace Rumbold, and including French and Italian generals and Dutch and Swedish civilian members. The commission reported to the Council at Geneva at its meeting in the first week in Decem ber. Its findings (see BULGARIA) were approved by the Council and accepted by the two Governments. The incident was closed and future security in the Balkans substantially increased.
The League in this case acted with promptitude and efficacy. The spirit expressed and developed at the recent Locarno con ference, the relative weakness of the countries directly concerned and the fact that this was the kind of problem with which the League was designed to deal, and was not complicated by the difficulties of incompletely defined treaty provisions, all doubtless contributed to this result.
These cases have been chosen as best illustrating the character of the political problems with which the League was faced during the years 192o-5, and its method of working. Other disputes were brought before the League : between Hungary and Rumania, about the compensation of certain Hungarian nationals expropriated in Transylvania (an intricate question which has appeared on the Council's agenda for over two years without so far any settle ment being reached) ; between Hungary and Austria about the Burgenland; between Hungary and Czechoslovakia about a fron tier delimitation ; between Finland and Russia about Eastern Karelia; a frontier dispute (Jaworzina) between Poland and Ciechoslovakia, and a dispute between France and Great Britain with regard to the nationality of persons born of British parents but resident at Tunis.
Two Comments.—In reviewing the League's action in these political disputes as a whole, two comments at once suggest themselves : I. The extent of the League's power to act effectively neces sarily varies with the general international relations of the govern ments in and outside the League. After Locarno the Council dealt promptly and decisively with the Graeco-Bulgar trouble. With the Vilna incident, which occurred when the relations between the principal Powers were difficult and complicated by many diver gencies of policy on other questions, the action is slow, indecisive and unsuccessful.
2. The League, whose normal task is to preserve peace on the basis of treaties fully concluded, is placed in a difficult position when it is asked to complete the work of settling terms of peace. In the Upper Silesia, Memel, Vilna and 'Iraq cases this was a com plicating factor. In such cases the treaties are either incomplete or ambiguous; they may be complicated by obiter dicta in the course of the negotiations ; the League is held responsible by public opinion not only for a decision within the limits of its mandate but for the character of the mandate which it has had no power to vary; and by the very fact that it is continuing the work of making terms imposed by a victor its impartiality is corn promised.
The reduction of armaments is the first of the specific tasks im posed by the Covenant. There is none on which the League has achieved so little direct and tangible result, for armaments remain, in the world as a whole, at a level not very substantially lower than in 1913, and no reduction is directly traceable to League action. But the indirect results have been of great importance. For it at once appeared that reduction of armaments required an increased sense of security ; and the search for methods of obtain ing this led to the growth of a belief in all-inclusive arbitration, the most notable and fruitful political development since the Covenant.
The first action of the League was to appoint a "temporary mixed commission" to prepare the way for armament reduction. This commission, consisting partly of politicians (though not representing their Governments), partly of military and other technical experts, and partly of persons representing special classes of public interest (e.g., working-class opinion), finally elaborated a draft treaty of mutual assistance. The basic principle was a combination of a general and special guarantees. Within the cadre of a general treaty, groups of States would enter into detailed arrangements to support each other if attacked, and as a condi tion of being entitled to this support they would agree to pro portional disarmament. The proposal was criticised on the ground that the detailed plans for reciprocal military support contem plated would be unlikely in fact to lead to reduced armaments and, above all, that the authorised grouping of friendly States against prospective enemies was in conflict with the essential spirit of the League. At the 1924 Assembly, when it was clear that these objections would be fatal to the draft Treaty, the whole problem was reviewed on another basis. In a month the "Geneva Protocol" was elaborated and unanimously agreed for recommendation to the Governments (see SECURITY). This second scheme also failed to win acceptance, the new Conservative Government of Great Britain taking the lead in its rejection as the previous Labour Government had led the opposition to the earlier treaty. Great Britain was not prepared to accept the unlimited obligation of arbitration in her own disputes, or the responsibility of assisting the enforcement of such arbitration over an unrestricted range of other countries who might accept the obligation.