<P> As the situation in Europe escalated into war, the Assembly transferred enough power to the Secretary General on 30 September 1938 and 14 December 1939 to allow the League to continue to exist legally and carry on reduced operations . The headquarters of the League, the Palace of Nations, remained unoccupied for nearly six years until the Second World War ended . </P> <P> At the 1943 Tehran Conference, the Allied powers agreed to create a new body to replace the League: the United Nations . Many League bodies, such as the International Labour Organisation, continued to function and eventually became affiliated with the UN . The designers of the structures of the United Nations intended to make it more effective than the League . </P> <P> The final meeting of the League of Nations took place on 18 April 1946 in Geneva . Delegates from 34 nations attended the assembly . This session concerned itself with liquidating the League: it transferred assets worth approximately $22,000,000 (U.S.) in 1946 (including the Palace of Peace and the League's archives) to the UN, returned reserve funds to the nations that had supplied them, and settled the debts of the League . Robert Cecil, addressing the final session, said: </P> <P> Let us boldly state that aggression wherever it occurs and however it may be defended, is an international crime, that it is the duty of every peace - loving state to resent it and employ whatever force is necessary to crush it, that the machinery of the Charter, no less than the machinery of the Covenant, is sufficient for this purpose if properly used, and that every well - disposed citizen of every state should be ready to undergo any sacrifice in order to maintain peace...I venture to impress upon my hearers that the great work of peace is resting not only on the narrow interests of our own nations, but even more on those great principles of right and wrong which nations, like individuals, depend . </P>

When did the league of nations ceased to function as a viable organization