Joseph Avenol

Joseph Avenol (1932)

Joseph Louis Anne Avenol (born June 9, 1879 in Melle , France , † September 2, 1951 in Duillier , Switzerland ) was a French politician and diplomat. He was Secretary General of the League of Nations from 1933 to 1940 . Avenol was often exposed to severe criticism because of its policies, which in some cases were intended to serve the supposed interests of its home country France rather than those of the Geneva Confederation. He is also accused of being too close to the Axis powers and the Vichy regime .

Life

Ascent

Avenol, who came from a middle-class Catholic family, had worked as a finance inspector for the French Ministry of Finance since 1905 and received the coveted post of general inspector of finances in 1910. During the First World War he was from 1916 delegate for financial questions at the French embassy in London. At the same time he served as a representative of France in the Inter-Allied Food Council and in the Inter-Allied Commission for Reconstruction . After the war ended, he was sent to the Standing Committee of the Supreme Economic Council in 1919 . After the peace treaty with Germany he became a member of the economic and financial organization of the League of Nations and represented France at several international conferences. In 1922 he was sent to Geneva as a financial expert to the League of Nations, and in early 1923 he succeeded Jean Monnet as Deputy Secretary General of the League of Nations, with little political experience , in order to control the organization's finances. He played a bigger role in the economic reconstruction of Central and Eastern Europe and was also sent on a mission to China in 1928/29.

In 1932 it became apparent that the Secretary General, the Scot Eric Drummond , who had been acting since the founding of the Geneva Confederation , no longer wanted to run for an extension of his term of office. Although Drummond was looking for a successor among the smaller neutral members to prevent Avenol, France was able to push through its election. This was achieved on the one hand because of a secret agreement between London and Paris in 1920, which in exchange for supporting Drummond's candidacy that year appointed a Frenchman as his successor. On the other hand, Avenol secured the support of the four other great powers who were members of the League of Nations at the time by promising to fill four of the five most important posts in the administration of the federal government with officials from Italy , Japan , the United Kingdom and Germany .

General Secretary of the League of Nations

Avenol took office at a time when the League of Nations was under severe pressure. A few months earlier, Japan had resigned from the League of Geneva due to the condemnation of the Japanese invasion of northern China during the Manchuria crisis , while the anti-League Nazi regime prevailed in Germany and also - within six months of Avenol's assumption of office - withdrew from the League should explain.

During the crisis in Manchuria it became apparent for the first time that the League of Nations was largely powerless to take effective action against violations of its principles. This impression of powerlessness was later reinforced by Avenol's inability and unwillingness to protect the rights of the Federation and its members.

This became apparent for the first time at the beginning of Italy's war against the Empire of Abyssinia (today's Ethiopia), both members of the League of Nations, in 1935, when Avenol tried to keep the League of Nations officially neutral. However, he was open to the establishment of an Italian protectorate over Ethiopia, officially because the East African Empire still tolerated slavery , but actually because he feared that Italy would leave the League of Nations on the model of Japan and Germany and he did not isolate Italy as a possible ally of France wanted to drive to the Germans. Only strong protests by the smaller League members, at the head of which the USSR sat, led to timid and ultimately ineffective economic sanctions. With the annexation of Ethiopia by Italy in the summer of 1936, the League of Nations lost its last moral authority. Italy left the country at the end of 1937.

Avenol later made sure that the League of Nations reacted to the annexation of Austria by the German Empire only by removing Austria from the list of members and dismissing Austrian League employees. The German attack on Poland and on the mandate of Danzig were accepted and not even officially dealt with by the federal bodies.

Even before the victory of the German Wehrmacht in France, Avenol began to lay off massive staff; Immediately after the armistice of June 22, 1940 , he dismissed the remaining British employees of the Federation and addressed an address of allegiance to the Vichy regime under Henri Philippe Pétain , to whom he offered his resignation.

Resignation and death

After France's defeat in the western campaign in 1940 , Avenol remained in office until the end of August 1940, which he described in his resignation as obsolete and no longer needed. He also stated that his future successor, the Irishman Seán Lester , had effectively headed the League of Nations since the end of July 1940. After his resignation, Avenol went to Vichy to offer himself to the regime there.

On New Year's Eve 1943, however, he had to flee back to Switzerland for fear of being arrested by German troops. As a collaborator , he was unable to return to France after the end of the German occupation, but remained in exile in Switzerland, where in April 1946 he witnessed the self-dissolution of the Geneva League. Avenol eventually died of a heart attack in late summer 1951 .

Publications

• together with Jan Christiaan Smuts : The future of the League of Nations. Radio messages spoken on the League of Nations broadcaster "Radio Nations". SdN, Geneva 1938.

literature

• James Barros: Betrayal from Within. Joseph Avenol, Secratary-General of the League of Nations, 1933-1940. Yale University Press, New Haven CT et al. 1969.
• Arthur W. Rovine: The first fifty years. The secretary-general in world politics 1920–1970. Sijthoff, Leyden 1970, ISBN 90-218-9190-5 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bob Reinalda: Joseph Avenol, second Secretary-General of the League of Nations.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. IO BIO Project, Radboud University Nijmegen, 2012.  
2. ^ Dividend & Avenol , TIME magazine, December 19, 1932 issue; in the online archive of time.com ( English ;. html).
3. ↑ Cornelia Fuchs; “ From League of Nations to World Government ”, Part 1: 1918–1940; in the online archive of stern.de ( German ;. html).
4. ^ William L. Shirer : Berlin Diary. The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941. Hamilton, London 1941, p. 351.
5. ↑ James Barros: Betrayal from Within. 1969, p. 255 ff.
6. ^ Abbreviated obituary, TIME magazine, September 15, 1952 issue; in the online archive of time.com ( English ;. html).

Web links

• Literature by and about Joseph Avenol in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Joseph Avenol in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Short biography with photo on rulers.org ( English )