The Mudken (Manchurian) incident marked various list factors that made the League appear weak and useless. In 1932, Japanese forces in Machuria invaded China and the league was appealed for action. One full year later, a report was sent to the Japanese containing verbal sanctions. However the Japanese refused to withdraw and announced to invade more of China. Japan later resigned from the League on 27 March 1933.
Member countries acted upon their own interest in the League. Sanctions appeared utterly useless since it lacked cooperation. Economic sanctions were useless because the USA (Japan’s main trading partner) was not a member. Britain wanted a good relation with Japan, so its role in agreeing sanctions was not much. When the league discussed banning arms, member countries refused the idea, since Japan could repel all these sanctions and start an arm race instead. Moving a final step, military action was suggested. But member countries such as the USSR, Britain and France did not want to risk their own armies and battleships on Japan. Therefore no action was made.
Another incident that marked the beginning of the end of the League was the Abyssinia crisis. During the mid 30’s there was tension between the allies (Britain and France) and Hitler. Italy was a major ally for Britain and France. They did not want to lose Italy as an ally, so they turned a blind eye for their actions.
Italy invaded Abyssinia in 1935 to distract the people from major conflicts at home. The Abyssinian emperor appealed the League for help. But instead of helping the Abyssinians, the League turned a blind eye for their actions. The British and French even signed the Stresa Pact with Italy, which the British and French would turn a blind eye towards all actions made in Abyssinia in return for joining them against Germany.
However, the public opinion was seeing things badly. Britain was in elections, and the parties tried to cover out the issue by promising collective security. Still, there was no action made against Mussolini and they even released a plan to give Mussolini part of Abyssinia, but Mussolini rejected it.
Actions later in 1935, demonstrated that the League did actions that helped Italy for the invasion and that supported them in order to win their alliance. They banned arms, loans, rubber tins, metals and imports to Italy. However, they did not ban oil. Italy could be quiet off with oil. They did not close the Suez, which could stop the invasion. Behind the scenes, the British and the French were dealing with the Hoare-Laval plan, which consisted giving Italy 2/3 of Abyssinia. This proved the disastrous corruption between members. Terms like collective security were broken and the League encouraged members to act on their own interest. Later on, the Abyssinia case was even dismissed because of the major issues that Britain and France were dealing with Germany.
To sum this up, these two cases marked the beginning of the end of the League of Nations. After the Abyssinian crisis, a third in a series of major failures followed. It also demonstrated that member countries acted upon their own interest rather than help each other to solve disputes. These two cases also included characteristics that eventually led to the collapse of the League of Nations. Dominant powers such as Britain and France were not interested on disputes and only used them to solve their problems (e.g. Blind eye for Italy for alliance). The League’s decisions were very slow and it encouraged the aggressor to maintain its plan (e.g. Manchurian Crisis). Because of its actions towards disputes, countries started to lose faith on the League and followed the example from many countries, to act upon their own interest.
