One of the main reasons the League of Nations failed was the fact that the USA was not a member of the League. The main problem with the absence of America was the implementation of the ‘three stages’. The Moral condemnation would be less effective as the countries would feel less threatened without the presence of America. The economic sanctions are almost useless without America this is because they were the worlds leading trading nation so if the League of Nations would not trade with a country then they would just trade with America instead. The Military sanctions will also be jeopardised, as the American army was the strongest in the world so if any action was without them it would be weaker and also their army had not really been affected by war as the European armies had.
Two other major powers had not joined the League of Nations Germany and Russia. This was another factor towards the leagues failure as these two powers could become bitter at being left out of the League of Nations and this could also cause future wars. Also these nations were weak at the time but they will both be stronger later and so will be needed in the League of Nations to prevent future wars.
The biggest reason that that the League of Nations was a failure was probably shown in Corfu when they proved that they could not deal with the major powers. The conflict started as a dispute between Albania and Greece over Corfu. The League of Nations sent a team to investigate lead by an Italian man called Tellini. But whilst on Greek soil he was ambushed and killed. Mussolini the Italian leader blamed the Greeks and demanded compensation. The Greek police did not know who the killers were so the Greeks did not pay any compensation. Mussolini was angry and he attacked the Greek island of Corfu. By complete chance the League of Nations was in session so could act quickly. Their ruling was accepted by both countries. The ruling was that Greece does pay compensation but it is only to be paid when Tellini’s killers are found. This seemed to be a success but Mussolini used his influence on the assembly to change the council’s decision. The Greeks now had to apologise and pay compensation. This was disastrous for the league as Mussolini was able to undermine their authority. The League of Nations showed that they could not control the major powers.
Another factor towards the League of Nations being a failure was when they had a chance to improve the League with the Geneva Protocol, a contract that says that members had to obey the decision of the League of Nations. This contract confirmed that the League was failing, as if there wasn’t a problem with the league and countries were obeying it then a contract would not be needed. The contract never came in to place any way as the British government was too selfish to sign the Geneva Protocol as it may not be in its best interests to be agreeing with the League all the time.
Greece attacked Bulgaria in 1925. The League of Nations stepped in and ordered Greece to withdraw. The Greeks did but they did complain saying that there was one rule for large nations such as Italy and another one for smaller countries like themselves. This shows that many nations felt that the larger nations could do what they liked so the League was a failure.
The league did do some good work in the fields of Refugees, Working conditions, Health, Transport and social problems. But not all people’s troubles were solved, as the world was too big to be able to solve all the problems. For example there were still many areas where the drug trade and prostitution were still common. Also certain schemes were not compulsory. This would be a problem when dealing with business, they would not take up schemes that will cost them money like giving their workers better working conditions.
Disarmament was one of the leagues biggest failures. The self-interest of individual countries meant the league did not achieve disarmament. The countries would not disarm if other countries around them wouldn’t. An example of the League of Nations failure on disarmament is that they tried to organise a conference on disarmament. It took them five years to even agree what it was about and when it did meet it achieved nothing. The League of Nations failure to disarm was made worse by two factors, firstly there were many peace initiatives that should have made it easier to disarm but the League of Nations still could not achieve disarmament. Secondly there was a real air of pacifism, a desire to avoid war in 1920. The vast majority of people did not want war as they had just suffered the horror of it first hand with World War One. With this willpower to avoid war the League of Nations should have been able to gain disarmament.
There are a lot of reasons that say that the League of Nations was a failure but there were some successes by the League. Firstly in the conflict over Upper Silesia an industrial district on the German-Polish border in 1921. Both Germany and Poland wanted control and the population consisted of both nationalities. The League of Nations organised a Plebiscite so that the Silesians could vote on their nationality. The industrial areas voted mostly for German nationality while the rural areas voted to be Polish. The League of Nations divided the region along these lines but it built in safe guards to prevent future disputes. Both countries accepted the decision. This was important, as the League of Nations had to recover from their bad start in Vilna. Success here was vital because if the League of Nations had failed again then all faith and respect in its decisions would have been lost.
The League of Nations did probably its best work on the field of refugees. They did tremendous work in returning refugees and former prisoners of war back to their homelands. It is estimated that 400,000 prisoners were returned to their homes by the Leagues agencies in the first few years after the war. This cannot be considered as failure. When a refugee crisis hit Turkey in 1922, hundreds of thousands of people had to be housed in refugee camps. The League of Nations quickly acted to stamp out cholera, smallpox and dysentery in the camps saving hundreds of lives.
With the International labour Organisation the League of Nations was able to ban poisonous white lead from paints. Also it managed to limit the hours that small children could work. This is vital as child labour was common in many countries. The International Labour Organisation also campaigned generally for better working conditions for all workers. A resolution was introduced for a maximum forty-eight hour week, and an eight-hour day, but only a minority of members adopted it because they thought it would raise industrial costs. This is just another example of how the countries in the League of Nations were always so selfish and self centred.
The Health committee (later the world health organisation) was another committee of the League of Nations. They worked to defeat the dreaded disease leprosy. They also started a global campaign to exterminate mosquitoes; this had a huge impact on cases of malaria and yellow fever in later decades. Even the USSR took the health committees advice on preventing the plague in Siberia and they were opposed to the League of Nations. So overall on health the League of Nations was a success dealing with many deadly illnesses very effectively.
Another area of success for the League of Nations was transport. The league made recommendations on marking shipping lanes. Also they wrote the first international Highway Code for road users, which would have saved many lives on the roads.
The League of Nations did a lot of work in solving social problems in the world. The league blacklisted four large German, Dutch, French and Swiss countries, which were involved in the illegal drugs trade. The League of Nations organised the freeing of 200,000 slaves in British owned Sierra Leone. It organised raids against slave owners and traders in Burma. The League of Nations challenged the use of forced labour to build the Tanganyika railway in Africa, where the death rate among the African stood at a massive fifty percent. Through League of Nations pressure this figure was brought down to four percent still too high but a good achievement by the league.
In conclusion the League of Nations was a failure in th1920s as it couldn’t control major powers such as Italy and it could not achieve disarmament at all, although there were some good successes by the league like their work on Health, refugees and working conditions.
