Article X

Article X (of the League of Nations)The tenth article of the League of Nations Treaty obliged each member nation to defend all other nations from armed aggression or other threats to its independence. The Senate made it legally unenforceable by adopting Henry Cabot Lodge’s reservation that the US would not uphold its provisions unless Congress specifically approved US involvement. Because Woodrow Wilson viewed it as “the heart of the Covenant,” its evisceration was the most important consideration which led him to order Senate Democrats to vote against the treaty if Lodge’s reservations were attached, even at the cost of the treaty’s defeat.