Another reason that their realistic dreams of peace did not work was because they got started during an economical stump. The aftermath of the war left many countries with little money and trying to maintain perfect peace with no supplies was hard for many to do. The goals of League of Nation were not complete quixotic, but they were just brought about in the wrong time, with the wrong forces behind it.
The Locarno treaty was very significant in the fact that it showed peace almost to be possible. Signed in 1925, the treaty was a reinforcement of the Treaty of Versailles. It seemed to secure peace between Europe’s two biggest enemies; France and Germany. Germany decided to join the League of Nations after the signing of this treaty, putting her back into international community. The League believed that after the signing of this treaty, a new era o peace would begin. Yet, each had a weakness that proved to be it’s fatal flaw. The treaty of Locarno was quite important in the fact that it showed th League of Nations dreams to somewhat realistic. Although they had problems, for one moment in time, there was peace between worst of rivals. This shows that even though the League, to many, failed, it accomplished to demonstrate the kind of peace they were aiming for, even if it was only for a split second.
The economy collapse and the following of the Wall Street crash hit the League very hard. Each countries factories were damaged because of this, all fighting to make enough money to survive. This also had an effect on international relations. Overseas trade was no longer possible, because each country needed what they had for themselves. Also, the duties were very high because of the crash.
In 1931, President Hoover, of the US, proposed one-year payments for each country. In June of the next year, representatives met because they were unhappy wit this proposition. This caused hostility between nations. The collapse caused problems for America and Germany as well. Germany had debts of $10000 million to pay but when the Great Depression began; Germany refused to pat the rest, after only giving $3000 million. These issues caused conflicts between many of the countries of the League of Nations, creating hostility that was doomed for failure.
The League of Nations did not prevent Japan from invading Manchuria, because they were too busy analyzing the situation when they should have been taking action. In early 1932, 70000 Japanese troops were set up in Shanghai and forced the Chinese to stop their boycott on Japanese goods. The League began to examine the situation, first of all too late and then spend too long doing it.
In January 1932, six months after Japan first entered Manchuria, the United States creates sanctions, once knowing that Japan was not attacking out of self-defense. They did not take military actions against Japan, because they were not sure of the reasons behind their invasion. In 1933, the sanctions were given to Japan, who rejected and withdrew from the League. The reason that the League did not work on the crisis sooner was because they were too busy creating beautiful sanctions and analyzing the situation to its fullest. If they simply would have acted quicker and maybe listen to Japan’s reasons for attack, then their resignation could have prevented and Manchuria would not have had to kept ‘hostage’ for so long.
Perhaps after learning from their slow actions in the Japanese crisis, the League would have acted quicker in the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. This time, they did investigate the situation quicker, but still did not take military action, because they knew it would start war. Instead, the League thought it would be best to negotiate, but again they were wrong. Mussolini did not agree with their ideas and pulled out of the Nation. The two main reasons that the League did not take military action was because they thought it might cause a war. Instead, they tried to negotiate, but both cases, lost a member. This was not necessarily a bad choice on the League’s behave, but they simply had a closed mind and did not believe to attack Italy or Japan, mostly out of the fear of war and defeat.
