Mandate system

The system was adopted at the Paris Peace Conference as a compromise between Wilson's principle that conquests should not be annexed and the demands of the great powers and the dominions, which wanted to keep territories occupied during the war. Jan Smuts developed the idea, and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations called the care of the peoples of these lands "a sacred trust of civilisation". The mandatory power submitted annual reports to the League Council, which were examined by the Permanent Mandates Commission.

Class A mandates, considered close to independence, covered the Arab lands: Syria and Lebanon went to France, Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan to Britain. Class B covered former colonies in Africa: Togoland and Cameroon, divided between France and Britain, Tanganyika and Belgian Ruanda-Urundi. Class C, governed as part of the mandatory's own territory, included South West Africa, New Guinea, Samoa and the islands north of the equator, awarded to Japan. In practice many mandates resembled colonies. The term does not cover a mandate in the ordinary, electoral sense.