The League of Nations

The League of Nations was Woodrow Wilson's great hope: an international body to settle disputes peacefully and prevent another world war. Founded in January 1920, headquartered in Geneva, it had real successes in the 1920s but failed catastrophically in the 1930s when major powers defied it. Its collapse paved the way for World War II.

Aims of the League

• Discourage aggression — no country should attack another; the League would investigate and apply sanctions.
• Encourage disarmament — reduce arsenals to lower the risk of war.
• Improve living and working conditions — through specialist agencies on labour, health, refugees.
• Promote international co-operation — economic, social, scientific.

Structure

• Assembly — every member; met annually; one country, one vote. Key decisions required unanimity (a major weakness).
• Council — small executive body. Permanent members: Britain, France, Italy, Japan; later Germany (1926) and USSR (1934). Met 4–5 times/year.
• Secretariat — civil servants in Geneva drafting reports.
• International Court of Justice at The Hague (1922) — settled legal disputes between states.
• Specialist agencies — International Labour Organisation (ILO), Health Organisation, Refugee Commission, Commission for Slavery, Mandates Commission.

Membership

• 42 founding members in 1920 (Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Belgium, etc.).
• USA never joined — Senate rejected the treaty in 1919; Republican isolationists feared overseas entanglements.
• Germany joined 1926 (after Locarno). Withdrew 1933 under Hitler.
• USSR joined 1934. Expelled 1939 after invasion of Finland.
• Japan and Italy withdrew 1933 and 1937 respectively.

The League's authority was undermined by the absence of the USA, USSR (until 1934) and Germany (until 1926).

Successes in the 1920s

• Aaland Islands (1921) — Finland-Sweden dispute; League gave them to Finland with autonomy. Sweden accepted.
• Upper Silesia (1921) — League partition between Germany and Poland after a plebiscite.
• Bulgaria (1925) — Greek invasion stopped by League pressure; Greece withdrew.
• Refugees and slavery — successes by specialist commissions, including freeing 200,000 prisoners after WWI.
• Health Organisation — campaigns against typhus and leprosy.
• ILO — improved labour standards in member states.

These wins shared a feature: the disputes involved small powers, where the League's moral authority and economic pressure were enough.

Failures

• Vilna 1920 — Polish forces seized the Lithuanian capital. League told Poland to withdraw; France blocked action because it was friendly with Poland. Poland kept Vilna.
• Corfu 1923 — Italy bombarded the Greek island after a border dispute. Mussolini ignored League rulings; Britain and France gave in to avoid antagonising Italy.
• Disarmament conferences (1932–34) — endless wrangling, no agreement; Germany walked out 1933.

These failures revealed the League's structural weakness: when major powers were involved, no enforcement was possible without British or French military action, which neither wanted.

The Manchurian crisis 1931

• Japan staged the Mukden Incident in September 1931 — a fake railway sabotage as a pretext to occupy Manchuria.
• China appealed to the League.
• The Lytton Commission (Sept 1932) condemned Japan's aggression and called for withdrawal.
• In February 1933 the League adopted the report 42–1 (Japan dissenting).
• Japan withdrew from the League rather than comply.
• No sanctions were imposed; Britain and France would not block Japanese trade for fear of damaging their own.

This was a watershed: the world saw the League could not stop a major power.

The Abyssinian crisis 1935–36

• Mussolini wanted Abyssinia (Ethiopia) for an Italian empire and revenge for an 1896 defeat.
• Italy invaded October 1935 using mustard gas, tanks, aircraft against poorly armed Abyssinians.
• The League declared Italy the aggressor and imposed economic sanctions — but excluded oil, coal and steel, the very items that would have hurt Italy.
• The Suez Canal stayed open to Italian shipping (Britain feared losing trade).
• Hoare-Laval Pact (Dec 1935) — secret deal by British and French foreign secretaries to give two-thirds of Abyssinia to Italy. Leaked to the press; both ministers resigned.
• Italy completed the conquest May 1936.

The League was finished. Hitler used the crisis as cover to remilitarise the Rhineland in March 1936. By 1939 the League had no authority left; it formally dissolved in 1946 and was replaced by the United Nations.

Why did the League fail?

• Membership gaps — USA absent throughout; major powers came and went.
• No army — no way to enforce decisions.
• Slow decision-making — annual Assembly, unanimity required.
• British and French self-interest — both put national priorities above collective security.
• Sanctions impractical — only worked if all major economies cooperated.
• Economic Depression — destroyed appetite for foreign trade restrictions.

A high-level answer judges that the League "did good when good was wanted, but failed when stopped by powerful aggressors."