Was the League of Nations a Success in the 1920's?

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Introduction: I am doing an essay on whether the League of Nations was a success or not, and why. The Americans set up the League of Nations after World War One. The League of Nations was designed to make nations settle their disputes peacefully, rather then going to war to settle their disputes and having another world war. Every one wanted World War One to be the last of all wars and to have world peace. This is one of the main reasons why the League of Nations set up. It was an idea in one of Woordraw Wilson’s fourteen points towards world peace that was accepted by the main powers.

  1. The League of Nations wanted there to be a place were nations could discuss world issues or problems this was to be achieved by having a world parliament. This was one step nearer to settling problems peacefully but the bad thing was that there were to many countries and disputes to settle. International peace and security was set up to encourage trade between countries it was also to stop war and aggression between countries. It was also to encourage disarmament because if there was world peace no countries should worry about being attacked. The theory was that this would convince most of the world should disarm. International co-operation was to encourage Nations to work together but also to help towards disarming Nations. The closest that the League of Nations got to disarming was when they disarmed Germany in the Treaty of Versailles. Here is how far the big three got to disarmament. The French did not want to disarm because they feared Germany. When France did eventually disarm they expected Britain to defend them against Germany, as Britain did not sign the treaty of Guarantee. Britain did not disarm because they needed their navy. So Britain did not sign the Treaty of Guarantee. As for America they did not disarm because they were not in the League of Nations. There was some concern though with avoiding conflict in the Far East so the League of Nations made up some treaties. Signed by USA, Britain, Japan and other countries. There were three different treaties; these were called the Washington Treaties. The first treaty was to respect each other’s possessions; the next one was to leave China alone and a naval ratio 5:5:3. The League of Nations had a number of agencies to sort out such problems like this one.
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  1. Disarmament: the League failed to bring out disarmament because most of Europe did not trust each other were as Germany were the only ones to disarm because they were forced to disarm. So most of Europe disagreed with disarming. But peaceful settlements were used to sort out problems such as the Dawes plan, the Locarno treaty and the Kellog-Briand Pact. The Dawes plan was to avert a terrible economy crisis in Germany. The Locarno treaties were to make Germany accept their borders with France and Belgium that were laid out in the Treaty of Versailles. Britain and ...

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