Source D shows how the League were regarded in the media, and with the media being the primary source for the worldwide public to base their opinions on, for the media to portray the League as an ‘easy walkover’ was bound to start a downward spiral. And with the lady representing the League of Nations to be laying on the ground in the cartoon shows how weak and pathetic the media considered the League to be.
Source H is an insight into the on goings of the League, (i) shows how they had a good idea of the sort of punishment should be placed on the fascist government; this proves that they knew they needed to place sanctions on these administrations. However, (ii) demonstrates how poor they were at actually imposing them, clearly the procedure had not been thought through, failing to impose effective sanctions on the appropriate materials. Source H also highlights the embarrassing lack of support from its own members for its decisions, clearly a sign of a lack of communication. The statement in (ii) says it all: “the incomplete membership of the League made it impossible to make all sanctions effective,” the admission from the foreign secretary of the League that shows just how powerless they really were, and how, due to a lack of support the League was crumbling from within and slowly rendering itself feebly ineffective.
Source I is a simply statement that emphasizes yet further the weaknesses of the League. “(The) next day it was an empty sham, everyone scuttling from it as quickly as possible,” this testimony shows how once the League had shown its first signs of weakness, its members aligned themselves away from the League without any hesitation, clearly they had the foresight to see the direction in which it was falling; simply this source gives it how it was, straight forwardly, the League became a mess.
Source J shows how much power the League had over other nations; the cartoon shows the League as “a bulldog without any teeth.” What this symbolises that the League was an alliance of some of the most powerful nations in the world, all united together sharing a common goal, to try to free the world of wars and conflict. The League had the potential to be the biggest dog in the yard; but just like a bulldog without any teeth, the League had no muscle or dominance over the other nations, they had all lost their power and with that they had lost their influence and the respect from the other nations who they were meant to be looking over.
Together these sources can come together and provide an accurate depiction of the League, they all agree that while the League had all the right principles and all the right intentions, the League could not act upon them, this lost the League its respect and after that it was not long before the League was to become a forgotten power, whose ideas may have lived on, but whose name was forever destroyed.
