The invasion in Manchuria (china) by the Japanese was one of the biggest failures at that time for the League of Nations in 1931. Japanese troops invaded Manchuria (a part of china) and the League let this happen, the leagues main aim was to prevent conflicts and to solve them. They did not do so in this case and let Japan invade, this encouraged other countries more, as it proved that he League could not do anything. This was also one of the Leagues biggest mistake, if it was punished in 1931 than the later acts of offensive would have been stopped. As this told other countries that the league is not hat strong enough without the US’s help.
For example
A sample of writing from Richard Overy, the road to war (1989)
“Britain and the united states had huge investments in both china and Japan…the western government did not want to invite retaliation by precipitate action over Manchuria….a letter tot he British foreign secretary, sir John Simon from an old friend, the master of peterhouse, Cambridge ..”This I know sounds all wrong…Japan is flouting the league of nations but she has had provocation, she must long ere expand somewhere for goodness sakes (rather encourage it) let her do what she wants to”
This shows the reasons why the League of Nations did not want to stop Japan as if they did. They would stop the trading and the letter from the master of penthouse shows how much he encourages Britain not to stop them. In the end, the master of penthouse got his wish but this proved that he league of nations were helpless and couldn’t do anything at all.
The invasion on Abyssinia by Italy was done purposely to see whether the League of Nations could stop this fighting or whether they were helpless, it proved that they were helpless and just watched everything happening. One reason to this was that they did not have enough powers to stop this sanction.
Some evidence to support is the speech Mussolini gave in 2 October 1935
“Instead of recognizing the just rights of Italy, the League of Nations dares to speak of sanctions. Until proof to the contrary, I refuse to believe that the free people of Britain want to spill blood and push Europe on the road to catastrophe in order to defend an African country, universally stamped as unworthy of taking its place among civilized people”. What Mussolini said proves the fact that he is threatening the League of Nations and that they will not stop him against this invasion, as it will lead to another war. They did not stop the Italians and The League was quite, sat back, and watched everything happening. This proved that The League were helpless against other big powers and not small one such as Greece, Finland and Sweden which they had to handle with earlier.
Than Germany in March 1936 reoccupied Rhineland and broke the laws of the treaty they signed, this showed that they broke the treaty of Versailles and hardly cared what the League of Nations thought of it. They also invaded Poland, as the league of nation encouraged them more when The League did not do anything after Germany took over Rhineland.
Some evidence showing that Hitler did attack Poland
Hitler’s comments to senior army commanders, 23 may 1939, quoted in Noakes and pridham, Nazism a document.
“The problem “Poland cannot be dissociated from the showdown with the west…there is therefore no question of sparing Poland and we are left with the decision: to attack Poland at the first suitable opportunity,…this will be a war our task to isolate Poland, success in isolating her will be decisive”
The word he has used clearly states the fact that Poland was attacked against the League of Nations wishes and in the end. The sad part here is that the League did not stop Germany at all and let them continue. Therefore, if there are invasions going on and the league is just watching everything what is the point of having formed a League of Nations in the first place.
Although there were many events, which had shown the collapse of the League of Nations, one has to admit they had a good early start and came up with resolutions for many conflicts, invasion and social crises. Such as the war were the Greek attacked Bulgaria in 1925, the league stopped this war and said Greece would pay for the damage and Greece did so. The conflict over the Aaland Islands between Sweden and Finland ended and Finland was given the land while Sweden excepted this fact. There were also many more conferences and early disputes solved but unfortunately this didn’t last for long when it came to bigger powers such as Germany, Italy and Japan. In 1920 The league
Overall, the League of Nations turned out to be an absolute failure especially in the end. However, I have to admit that if it had an army and the US in its sides, it could have prevented World War 2. So it was good but lacked many things. Another part is that the League of Nations should have taken at least some actions when the Poland was attacked, or when Italy invaded Abyssinia, or japans attack on china. The League of Nations in the end collapsed and the US took its place and the US was the one who solved all the conflicts later.
