I will now go into detail on certain points of the Discussion.
Representatives from big countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Italy signed the treaty of Locarno. It was designed to stop other countries in Europe from fighting or going to war again. Its main purpose though was to keep peace between Fance and Germany (But then in the 1930s this changed because of Hitler’s coming to power!)
Other successes were ones such as the Kellogg Briand Pact, this was signed by about 15 nations in 1928. This Pact was designed to disarm the countries and to stop any future wars.
The League failed because they couldn’t act on certain things such as the invasion of Abyssinia and then Japans invasion on Manchuria. This is where the phase “Lion with no teeth” came from as they could only tell people what to do but if the country chose not to do as the league said then the league couldn’t do anything!
Abyssinia was a piece of land full of raw materials. In 1896 Italian troops failed to invade Abyssinia and so Mussolini wanted revenge against them. In 1934 there was an argument between Italy and Ethiopia in a place called Wal-wal Oasis in Abyssinia and Mussolini said it was Italian territory and demanded an apology. So with Mussolini preparing to attack them the Abyssinians asked the league for help.
A lot of things happen between then and 1935 then in September the league put forward a plan to give part of Abyssinia to Mussolini but he rejected it! Then in October Mussolini’s army prepared to invade the Abyssinians but the Italians were no match for them.
This means that they did not take any notice of the League of Nations and just done what they wanted.
The main reason to me that the league failed was ignoring Hitler coming to power in Germany. Hitler thought the Germans were treated badly after World War 1 and so he wanted revenge over all the countries that took advantage of Germany.
From looking at all this information I would say that there is no main reason for the League of Nations being called “a Lion without teeth”. They all add up together to be one big one, e.g. Hitler’s coming to power, the Locarno treaty and the Kellogg Briand Pact etc as they all come together. I think that if the League could have had a big army and fighting power then they could have made sure people done what they said and just been called the lion.
Overall I thing the League was a good idea but they needed fire power to make a difference.
