The League was powerless to do anything-without the USA it could not discuss any real economic sanctions, s it was Japan’s main trading partner. Britain seemed more interested in keeping up relations with Japan than agreeing to sanctions. Member counties could not even agree about banning arms sales to Japan. They were worried Japan might retaliate, escalating a war. There was no prospect of Britain or France risking their navies or armies in a war with Japan.
It was agreed by all that this was a League failure, but there were many excuses offered. Firstly Japan was so far away, and t did have a point when it claimed that China was itself in a state of anarchy. Whatever can be said the Manchurian crisis was of obvious significance. Japan had been a blatant aggressor – it had got away with it. The League was powerless if a strong nation decided to pursue aggressive policy. In this case however, the League was able to keep face, Japan was indeed ‘special case’, and most could understand the dilemma involving something so far away – next time the League would have less leverage.
The next big failure of the League was involving disarmament. It had had little success in this matter in the 1920’s, but relations had been better and this had not seemed to matter as much. In the 1930’s there was an increased pressure for disarmament. The Germans had long been sour over the fact that they had been forced to disarm after the First World War while no other countries had. Many countries were spending more on armaments than they had before the war!
At the wake of the Manchurian crisis the League finally realised the seriousness of the problem and the long-promised disarmament conference finally began in February 1932. By July of that year resolutions prohibiting bombing of civilian populations, limiting artillery size and tonnage of tanks and prohibiting chemical warfare were produced. The problem was there were very little resolutions to show how these limits would come under way. For example along with prohibiting civilian bombing should have been the abolishment of planes capable of bombing, but this was defeated. Also the proposal to ban chemical warfare was defeated.
The bigger problem was what should be done about Germany, who had been in the League for six years. Most people felt they should be treated more fairly than the Treaty of Versailles had decided – the question was whether or not everyone should disarm to the level of the Germans or whether Germany should be allowed to rearm to a level closer to that of other powers. The first option was a non-starter, but there was a great reluctance from the League to allow the second option. In July Germany tabled proposals that other countries should disarm to it’s level-when the conference failed to agree on this principle, Germany walked out. After more dispute a settlement was finally reached to treat the Germans with equality. With Hitler as the new Chancellor Germany promised to disarm if all other nations did within five years. In October 1933 Hitler drew out of the Disarmament Conference and soon after drew out of the League all together.
All powers knew that Hitler was secretly aiming to rearm Germany, so they began to build armaments themselves. The conference finally ended in 1934.
People say the Conference was doomed from the start as no countries ever took the idea of disarmament very seriously. Britain and France were divided in the issue, with Britain feeling it would allow Germany to rebuild its navy to a certain extent and the French totally against Germany. This failure is an example of the League’s lack of unity. It was unable to agree on anything and each country was solely interested in itself, making the very reason the League was brought about meaningless.
In 1896 Italian forces had attempted an invasion of Abyssinia, but a poorly equipped army of tribesman had defeated them. Mussolini, with his idealistic leadership style, echoing that of the Romans, had often talked of restoring the glory of the Roman Empire that Italy ‘truly deserved.’ For this he needed victories, and he wanted revenge for the humiliating Adowa defeat of the last century. He also had his eye on the mineral wealth and fertile lands that Abyssinia boasted. Mussolini’s excuse was the ‘Wal-Wal’incident- a dispute between Italian and Ethiopian soldiers - 80km inside Abyssinia. Mussolini then claimed this was Italian territory and he demanded an apology and began preparing for an Italian invasion. Haile Selassie, the Abyssinian emperor appealed to the League for help.
From January 1935 to October the League played for time. Mussolini, while superficially negotiating with the League to settle the dispute, was, meanwhile shipping a vast army to Africa and inspiring the Italian people to go to war. France and Britain failed to take the situation seriously and were desperate to keep relations with Mussolini good-being their strongest ally against Hitler. At the Stresa Pact, a signed agreement formalising a joint protest of Germany’s rearmament, the Abyssinia dispute was not even brought up. It is suggested by historians that Mussolini took this as a promise that Britain and France would turn a blind eye to the dispute in return for his joining the Stresa pact. Later that year, there was a public outcry at Italy’s behaviour and a ballot taken by the League Nations suggested that the majority of the British people backed military force to settle the incident. Hoare, the British foreign minister made a grand speech to the League emphasising the value of collective security and there was much negotiating. Coming down to it, however, the League never actually did anything to discourage Mussolini. Pierre Laval, France’s foreign minister more or less had given Mussolini signs that he would not intervene, and despite mush talk from the British they never backed what they said.
There were two things that the League could have done. Had they strongly opposed Mussolini, i.e. with strong diplomatic signals pre the invasion and sanctions or even military intervention post the invasion, Mussolini would have probably backed off. On the other hand they could have allowed the Invasion and not condemn it, i.e. go along with Mussolini, hence maintaining good relations with him, separating him from Hitler. Although this option is morally wrong, it would have been a good long-term option. Doing nothing, however, having condemned Mussolini’s actions distanced Mussolini, and also showed Hitler that the League was weak and that they would never intervene. The incident can be thought of as a fatal blow to the League, unlike with Japan, Italy was a neighbour – there was no excuse and the League had failed at this test.
