How far do David Low’s cartoons show the reasons for the failure of the League of Nations?

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Andrew Redfern 032                                                                    Aloha College D 0577

Andrew Redfern 032

Aloha College D 0577

History Coursework May 2002

How far do David Low’s cartoons show the reasons for the failure of the League of Nations?

David Low was born in New Zealand, of Scottish parents in 1891, he decided to become a cartoonist when he came across a pile of Punch Magazines and was impressed by the work of the cartoonists.  By the age of 15 his cartoons were being published in New Zealand newspapers and magazines. By 18 he was working for the Sydney Bulletin in Australia and it was here that his work was recognised which resulted in him being offered a job at the London Star in 1919.  It wasn’t till 1927, eight years later that Lord Beaverbook, whom controlled one fifth of the London circulation, coaxed him to the Evening Standard to what was to be his most celebrated period.

Low’s cartoons were very critical of the British government, its policies and it leadership, but it was not only the British government he was critical of, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, the USA and the League of Nations all had to deal with themselves being portrayed in an amusing but ill light.  His cartoons were often very controversial and contradictory to Britain’s current policies but nothing could stop him showing them.  And one reason, maybe, why he exposed it so effectively was because his cartoons were published in the newspapers most read in the innermost precincts of the English Establishment.  The Evening Standard was at the time the house journal of the London West End.  It was read in every club, every top hotel, every embassy and every government department.  When Low joined the Evening Standard he was promised precise guarantees about presentation and Beaverbook very rarely interfered with the content of the cartoons, allowing Low to express his radical political ideas.  Beaverbook was a supporter of the conservative party and agreed with the policy of appeasement so he did not always meet eye to eye with Low, but he knew that if he did not publish his cartoons others would.

The League of Nations was a part of President of the USA Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points that he proposed at the Treaty of Versailles.  The fourteenth point was for an international body to be set up, later to be called the League of Nations.  He believed that nations should cooperate to achieve world peace.  In 1919 he took personal charge of drawing up plans for the League.

The plan formed the basis of the Covenant of the League of Nations, the 26 articles served as operating rules for the league and its members to follow.  The main points were that major nations would join the League, they would disarm, if they had a dispute with another country they would take it to the league, promise to accept any decision made by the League, promise to protect one another if one was invaded and if any member did break the Covenant and go to war, other members would stop trading with it and send troops if necessary to force it to stop fighting.

Critics suggested there was some woolly thinking and Wilson acted as if he knew the solutions to Europe’s problems.  Even so people were willing to give the plan a try, under the hope that no country would dare invade another knowing that the USA and other powerful countries would stop trading with them or send force in to stop them.  With the United States at the driving seat people thought that the League could form a powerful peace making organization.

This was the Leagues first problem. The US Congress did not approve of the Treaty of Versailles and seeing as the League was a part of the Treaty it was never signed and the Americans therefore never joined the League.  Americans feared about the economic cost of joining the League. America had become a powerful country through isolationism and if they were to join the League, economic sanctions against a country would surely be at a loss to the US. Also Americans did not want to see US troops sent around the world to settle every little conflict.  So when the opposition to Wilson campaigned for America to be isolationist, the Republican Warren Gamaliel Harding won the elections by a landside.  Therefore when the League opened for business on the 15th of November 1920 the American chair was empty. This was a major blow to the League and was in the future going to severely undermine its capability.

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The aims of the League were fairly straight forward but proved very difficult to achieve.  To discourage aggression from any nation, to encourage countries to cooperate, to encourage nations to disarm and to improve the living and working conditions of people around the world.  The structure of the League may of seemed strong in the early years but in the 1930’s the underlying problems would be revealed.  The Council was a small group made up of the permanent member whom in the 1920’s were Britain, France, Italy, Japan and with Germany joining in 1926 and temporary members, which were ...

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