How Much Was The Great Depression To Blame For The Failure Of The League Of Nations?

Where the blame lies for the poor handling of this incident is fairly obviously with the League for moving slowly to reach a decision and then failing to reinforce it. But without the economic crash, the invasion may never have happened. Prior to the crash, Japan’s main trading partners were China and the USA. After the crash, both of these countries put up tariffs, which threatened to completely destroy Japan’s industry. In order to save the economy, Japan looked to expand their empire and Manchuria was the perfect acquisition, with rich farmland and raw materials that Japan had had to import before the invasion.

The League’s second crisis of the decade came in January 1935. Italy’s fascist leader Mussolini was looking, like Japan, to solve his country’s economic problems by building an empire. A dispute between Italian and Abyssinian soldiers in Abyssinia led to a full-scale invasion of Abyssinia by Italy. The League was once again called upon and once again acted slowly, although it imposed arms, loans, metal, rubber and tin bans. The League delayed an oil ban however, particularly as the other sanctions were already damaging the economic interests of important members such as Britain. The USA lost confidence in the League at this point and, as its own trade affairs were already in a mess due to the Depression; it resumed exporting oil to Italy. This encouraged Italy’s campaign and escalated the situation. After the first sanctions were imposed, very little was done to depress the invasion.

Britain did not really want to punish Italy that harshly as every trade ban that was put on Italy meant that Britain was deprived of a trade partner for another export, which damaged the already crushed economy. Britain simply had too many problems of its own to be dealing with international problems. Because of the unemployment and poverty in Germany, the Nazis were elected, a party France felt were a major threat as their leader, Adolph Hitler, was an outspoken critic of the Treaty of Versailles and was intending to recapture lost German territory. This meant that France was looking for allies and therefore did not want to upset Italy by supporting military action or sanctions.

In conclusion, although the League of Nations was flawed in very basic ways, the dilemmas it faced in the 1930s were of tremendous importance as they both involved large members of the League and they both had the possibility of escalating into a larger war, which they did eventually in 1939. The only reason the Manchuria and Abyssinia crisis even happened was down to the Depression. Both Italy and Japan were searching for answers to their economic problems in building empires. As well as this the League’s response was affected by the economic crash. Countries were wary of imposing import/export bans because of the fragile economic state; they couldn’t afford to be losing trade partners. If the Wall Street Crash had never happened the 1930s might have continued like the 20s with small-scale incidents. The League might even have existed today, as WWII would not have happened. The Depression hammered the final nail into the League of Nation’s coffin and caused the rise of the Nazis and, therefore, WWII.