League of Nations

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League of Nations
The leaders of the three victorious countries
arrive at Versailles to discuss the fate of
Germany.
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• The League of Nations was introduced after being
  proposed by American President Woodrow Wilson at
  the T.O.V in 1919.
• Came into operation on January 20th 1920
• It was the 14th of his 14 points and the only one
  to be acted upon.
• It set out with the ambitious intention of
  creating world peace and preventing any further
  conflict.
• In order to achieve this, the League had certain
  goals.

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The Aims of the League

• Its aims were to
• Prevent any future wars, especially European
  wars
• Actively encourage countries to disarm.
• Tackle the growing problems of disease as well as
  improving peoples conditions in the workplace.
• Overall, to make the world a safer, healthier
  place to live

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How was this going to be achievable?

• In order to achieve this, the League had various
  organisations within it, as well as various hard
  hitting sanctions which could be applied.
• The main body responsible and answerable to,
  within the League, was the Court of International
  Justice

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• This Court had the power to deal with countries
  who had broken the terms set by the League
  members and impose various sanctions such as
  trade embargos
• It could also act as an arbitration council with
  countries who were in danger of going to war.

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Benefits/Strengths of the League

• Every nation present at Versailles had signed up
  for the League. (except 1)
• As time passed more nations saw the benefit of
  the League and joined up (58 by 1930)

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Weaknesses of the League

• The L.O.N had far more weaknesses than strengths
  and fascist leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini
  were well aware of this.
• The League had NO army to settle disputes
• The League relied on arbitration to settle any
  issues
• The USA, who proposed it, were not members
• Germany and Russia were not allowed to join at
  first.
• Germany felt ostracised as they found themselves
  surrounded by League members prepared to protect
  each other.
• All decisions had to be agreed by a unanimous
  decision

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• More importantly, the stronger more aggressive
  nations who did not agree with the Leagues
  decisions, simply left, leaving it a broken
  dream.

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Issues the League faced

• In January 1923 French and Belgian troops
  occupied the Ruhr after reparation payments from
  Germany stopped
• In the summer of the same year, Italy bombed the
  Greek island of Corfu.

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Actions of the League

• As the League had no army to forcibly remove or
  stop these actions it was virtually powerless
• When the league of nations discussed these 2
  events, the governments of France and Italy
  threatened, if sanctions were applied, to
  withdraw from the organization.
• Result The League decided to take no further
  action against France or Italy

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Consequences

• Countries who were members soon became
  disillusioned by the weakness of the League.
• More importantly, non members and Fascist leaders
  soon realised these WEAKNESSES and could plot
  their next moves without fear

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Further failings of the League

• One of the main objectives of the League was to
  seek disarmament.
• They failed in this objective for many reasons.
• France had a long standing fear, hatred, of
  Germany, therefore were not prepared to disarm
  whilst the Germans were still a threat.
• France will only disarm physically when Germany
  disarms morally

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Further failings of the League

• France had secured their position by fortifying
  the Maginot Line a defensive stronghold between
  French/German border.
• France also provoked anger by making alliances
  with Germanys neighbours, Poland and
  Czechoslovakia this encircled (surrounded)
  Germany
• France were seen as being unwilling to cooperate
  in disarmament.

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Further failings of the League

• Germany it seemed were willing to cooperate.
• The Locarno Treaty of 1925 witnessed Germany
  accepting most of the terms of Versailles
• Land lost to France and Belgium would remain with
  those countries
• The Rhineland, a demilitarised buffer zone
  between France and Germany would remain this way
• The Rhineland had always belonged to Germany, it
  was demilitarised for French safety!!!

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• Land lost by Germany in the East was not however
  discussed at Locarno.
• The French were very concerned about this
  (remember this fact when studying Hitlers
  Foreign Policy)
• With France seemingly unwilling to disarm, Hitler
  in 1932 visited the Disarmament Conference in
  Geneva
• He stormed out of the conference after other
  nations refused to disarm instead wanting Germany
  NOT to rearm

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Further failings of the League

• The L.O.Ns were weakened by two further
  invasions.
• The Japanese invasion of Chinese Manchuria in
  1931.(both League members)
• The Italian invasion of the African country of
  Abyssinia in1935 (both League members)
• See further slides for more details.