The Most Important Factor for the Failure of League of Nations was Abyssinia

        But this was not the LON’s only failure in the 1930’s. The Manchurian incident occurred in 1931-33, between Japan and Manchuria, a northern province of China. Japan wanted to control Manchuria, and owned the South Manchurian railway. On the 18th September, there was an explosion on the railway near the city of Mukden. The Japanese said the Chinese did it, which China denied, and fired at a Chinese patrol. The Japanese military started to take over Manchuria. The Japanese government disagreed but were powerless.  China asked the LON for help, and the LON told the Japanese to get out of Manchuria, but they ignored them, and the LON was powerless. The LON set up the Lyton Commission to investigate the situation, and declared that Japan was in the wrong. Japan ignored the report and left the LON. IN 1937, Japan invaded China.

        There were also several failures of the LON in the 1920s, which contributed to the situation. In 1923, Italy and Greece clashed over Corfu, but the LON backed down before Italy’s power. In 1920, Poland took over the Lithuanian capital of Vilna. The LON was weak and useless. There were also the Memel and Ruhr situations of 1923.

        The LON also had many drawbacks at that start, which were bound to trip them up sooner or later. These included their lack of an army, their failure of disarmament, and their disorganisation. They excluded several powerful countries from the start, such as Germany, the USSR and the USA, yet they depended on the support of their powerful members-mainly Britain, France and Italy. Their idealism and lack of effective sanctions, were also cracks in the system.

        In conclusion, I think that Abyssinia was the most important factor of the failure of the LON, although the other factors played and important part also. They were all building up towards the failure of the LON. With failure after failure, it was only a matter of time before someone stood up and actually accused them of it. This somebody would be Haile Selassie, furious at the LON’s treatment of the invasion of his country. The leakage of the Hoare-Laval Plan to the press meant that the public began to distrust them as well.