Having narrowly escaped extinction at pro-Vichy secretary-general Avenol's hands on July 1940 and with only Britain remaining of the powers (Free France claimed the French seat but only gained power 20 months before the League's demise), the League wasn't in much of a position to achieve much diplomatically in connection with the war, beyond expelling the USSR (something that had never been done to Germany, Italy or Japan) in December 1939 in response to the Soviet campaign against Finland. But it did help to lay the foundations for the UN and its agencies by maintaining institutional continuity and informing discussion of the postwar order, in the process of which it produced some fabulous books. The world organisation and vision that emerged after 1945 was in no small part down to the League, perhaps its greatest accomplishment.