Discuss the strengths and the weaknesses of the League of Nations and explain whether you agree that 'its soul should go marching on.'

Source C (i) is a map which focuses on far eastern Asia, although this map has been used to show the Japanese empire it also highlights the presence of the League of Nations all across the globe, Britain and France both have territories in the far east, this helps put the League across as a worldwide force, not just one restricted to Europe and parts of Asia. The effect of this is likely to be great, this means that the large majority of nations have the League watching over them, this presence is likely to put some nations off going into an invasion which they would normally proceed with if it were not for the League, this is one example of the League securing its goal of preventing military warfare.

Source H (i) shows the League acting as they had intended, they are acting swiftly but still with due thought, the council have evidently offered their full support and action was taken promptly. The League wanted to act quickly and they did, they were able to put forward all their sanctions very hastily and make obvious their condemnation of the fascist government. This is evidence that even 15 years after its induction, the League still keeps to its covenant, a clear sign that it has proved to be a highly effective treaty. Of course there could be some argument over the accuracy of this source, it is after all just one person's memoirs, but nonetheless there is no opposition to this article and so it would seem to be fairly accurate.

Following on from the collapse of the League of Nations, source J is a cartoon that shows the League of Nations as being a bulldog without any teeth. For the League to be compared to a bulldog shows the potential that the League had, the bulldog (a dog which is traditionally the dog that represents British authority) without teeth represents the League and how much potential it had, the League was full of good ideas but they were poorly executed, hence the bulldog having no teeth. While the intentions of this cartoon were, in the artist’s opinion, to show why the League collapsed, it also gives a good reflection of what the League of Nations could have been.

Many sources however show the weaknesses of the League, weaknesses that eventually crippled the League of Nations. The first example of this comes in source D, this cartoon shows how the League allowed countries like Japan to walk all over it, the League could not control Japan, it allowed their military to seize the Chinese state of Manchuria without little resistance. Japan was broking one of the covenants of the League, as promised the League imposed some sanctions but they were ineffective and in the end it was Japan who left the League when really the League should have punished and excluded Japan from the League. This pathetic performance by the League heavily damaged its reputation and saw Japan eventually enter into the ‘Tripartite pact’ with Germany and Italy, and allegiance that members of the League would eventually fight against in the Second World War.

Source G (i) furthers the idea of Source J, while the League may have looked and acted as if they were powerful, they never backed up their claims with any sort of resistance other than ineffective sanctions and timid verbal warnings. Source G (ii) describes the beginning of the end for the League, after the Japan/Manchuria crisis the League’s reputation was heavily tarnished in Europe. This provoked a giant loss in confidence from the European nations and it was not long before in the words of source I “everyone (was) scuttling from it as quickly as possible.” Source G (iii) gives the Chinese’s opinion of the League, his statement that “might is right” implies that to have the power the League needs to act powerfully, if in this case the League had used military action against Japan, and successfully prevented the invasion of Manchuria then the League would then have the might and have the power and would have truly deserved it; as things went though they did nothing and lost all their power and with that, crucially, the respect of other nations. The Leagues failure to act at times when it was most needed is surely its biggest weakness, it was the loss in confidence of the League that destroyed it and this loss came from the lack of military support for countries like Manchuria when they really needed it, had the League been stronger then they could have saved the day and become heroes, but Britain and France’s ambition to preserve their own empire on top of the League of Nations cost them.

Source H (ii) shows how despite having appeared to have the situation covered, the League’s action over the fascist government was actually a shambles, the sanctions were useless and the lack of full support rendered them useless anyway, this lack of backing was also a tell-tale sign of the downfall of the League. Source I shows how everyone ran away from the League once they saw its weaknesses exposed in the flesh, the in ability to even try to handle the Manchuria situation lost them nearly all of their respect. The depiction of the League in source J demonstrates the main weakness of the League, the incapability to act in an important situation, the lack of teeth in the bulldog symbolises this feebleness of the Leagues actions and adds further insult to injury on the League.