League of Nations

Do you think your results suggest that the League was a complete waste of time?

I wouldn’t say that my results suggest that the League was a complete waste of time, because after all, the League managed to increase the welfare across several borders which were one of the League’s main aims. But still, the list of ways in which the League of Nations did not help progress in international relations is fairly longer and contains more serious content of the list of ways in which the League of Nations can be said to have helped progress in international relations, because for example the decision-making relating to the different disputes weren’t any serious threat to world peace, but the wrong decision-making related to Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia had disastrous results. It van to some extend by concluded from the lists that the League of Nations were too weak to fulfil the first of its two aims; to maintain peace through collective security: if one state attacked another, the member states of the League would act together, collectively, to restrain the aggressor, either by economic or military sanctions.

(b) Section 3.4 has suggested some reasons why the League failed to preserve peace. Which of them were:

(i) Long term causes of its failure; It became a French/British affair, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the failure of the World Disarmament Conference in 1932-33, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in October 1935.

(ii) Short term causes? It was too closely linked with the Versailles Treaty, the lack of both Germany and the USSR in the first years, (the USSR first entered when Germany left), and the rejection by the US, the weaknesses in the Covenant, the Conference of Ambassadors was an embarrassment and also the world economic crisis.

        

(c) Show how the various causes were inter-linked:

Too closely linked with the Versailles Treaty ------- Italian invasion of Abyssinia: because the fact that the League was too closely linked with the Versailles Treaty could have given Mussolini and Hitler further reasons for their unwillingness to be totally involved in the League, and therefore the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, which the League tried to force Italy to stop by “smaller” sanctions in a way that they could keep Italy as an ally, but Mussolini got offended any way. And also the fact with the League being too closely interlinked with the Versailles Treaty is that Italy was disappointed and Germany’s population was divided into different nations such as Poland and Czechoslovakia.

The lack of Germany and The USSR in the first years of the League/ the rejection of the League by the US ---- is inter-linked with the fact that it became a French/British affair and also as mentioned before the lack of involvement from Italy, and Germany wasn’t allowed entering before 1926 and the USSR first entered when Germany left in 1934 together with the fact that the US rejected both the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations.

The weaknesses in the Covenant/ the world economic crisis/ the rejection of the League made by the US ----- the Japanese invasion of Manchuria: because first of all the weaknesses in the Covenant because it didn’t state clearly that other members of the League should “fight” when against the aggressor, they could choose for them self’s if they wanted to, which made the League of Nation rather weak in this case since the League didn’t had any military force of its own, and economic sanctions were out of the picture since France and Britain had economic problems (which can be referred to the world economic crisis) and a trade boycott of Japan could led to war which they were ill-equipped to win, especially without American help.

(d)Which do you think were the two most important causes of this failure? Explain your answers fully.

In my opinion the one the two most important causes of the failure of the League is that it from start lacked many of the major nations such as Germany, The US and the USSR because it made the work of the League rather unbalanced, to provide a peacekeeping environment the League would need as many nations as possible, and also the fact that Britain and France tried to make Italy an ally against Germany all though Italy actually to some extend defied the League and ended up joining Hitler instead of being the ally of Britain and Germany.

And beside this I believe that another one of the two most important causes of the failure of the League is that the will-power of the League started to decrease through the years, especially after the world economic crisis which made all the of the previous failures made by the League come into the surface, like the weaknesses in the Covenant, the lacking of the US which could have been a support financially especially in this period. So the leading powers in the League showed how strong the League itself were, and since both Britain and France had serous economic problems it led to a major decrease in will-power, actually you can turn this around and say that the economic crisis affected the will-power and therefore the exposed the League’s weaknesses, and the world economic crisis also led to extreme right-wing governments in Japan and Germany, and in particular Mussolini, and they all refused to play by the rules and their actions also revealed the major weaknesses of the League.

2 The League and its problems – Study Sources A-E below, and then answer the question which follow.

(a)(i) What point is the cartoonist in Source B trying to make? Use Section 3.4(h) and Source E to help you decide.

The cartoonist is trying to point out how much the League of Nations lost its face when Japan invaded Manchuria and how Japan successfully defied the League by showing the League lying down getting powdered by the figure representing Britain, and he is using a ‘face saving outfit’, which symbolises how Britain had a major role in keeping the League looking stronger outwards than it really was. The cartoonist also points out how the US allowed the extreme rights to break down the League because the League was too weak without the US and this is showing the marching man is walking over the League into the Geneva building where the US is almost greeting him, which shows how they stood by while the extreme rights broke down the League.

(ii) Which of the participants in the Manchuria crisis do you think the cartoonist most sympathises with? Explain your answer.

I believe that the cartoonist most sympathises with is Britain, France and Manchuria. Since both France and Britain had to pick of the pieces of the League when Japan successfully defied the League, because he shows how Britain is doing the most humiliating job, which is trying to save the face of the League, and I also believe that the cartoonist sympathises with Manchuria since they were the once trapped in this dispute, especially because the League could have gotten their way if the US had been a member of the League, by using either sanctions of boy-cut against Japan, but Britain and France were both too weak.

(iii) How well do you think the cartoonist gets his message across?

In my opinion the cartoonist gets his message across quite well since he manage to show the invasion of Manchuria, the failure of the League, Britain that is trying to save the face of the League and the extreme rights that is marching into Geneva and getting what they want because the US is being passive. But the cartoonist could have shown the US better to some extend, because what the person kneeling in the door haven’t got the same features as the others that make it obvious what they are representing.

(b) Read again carefully what Sir Samuel Hoare said (source D) about Britain’s attitude towards the Abyssinia crisis. Does the information in section 3.4(j) and in Source E(ii) mean that Hoare was lying, or is there some other explanation?

It doesn’t necessarily mean that Hoare is lying; his speech can be used as an example of propaganda to increase the will-power in the League as a hole, since Churchill in Source E(ii) was a speech directed toward Britain and not the League, and also given that the British most likely didn’t want to have to save the face of the League again and that they should look towards a bigger threat, Germany. Also the time of the two speeches can give an explanation for why Hoare’s speech is based on how Britain is willing to support the League. Because it was before the escalation of the fear of is Italy should move towards Germany, since they thought that they could keep Italy as an ally and still showing the “power” of the Covenant. And a month later the escalation of the crisis could have meant that Italy was becoming more and more unstable as an ally and the fear of Germany was growing.

(c) How useful is each of the Sources A to F for explaining why the League of Nations failed to preserve peace?

Source A is the Covenant of the League of Nations, useful source in the way of showing the weaknesses of the Covenant, but for explaining why the League failed to preserve peace, it is one of the reasons for the failure of the League so it can be argued that it explain why, but it can also be argued that it is one of the reasons but not why, and that is the argument that relating to this question is the most valuable. Source B is an cartoon from 1931, when the failures of the League started to show, and the cartoon manages to interpret the situation and thereby explaining the weaknesses of the league that further led to the failure in preserving peace, but the main limitations of this source is rather large since the origin is not properly stated, so the validity of the source Is rather low and together with the fact that it has no political status, like a speech or a letter.

Source C on the other hand manage cope with the limitations that source B has since it is a speech by Maxim Litvinov, and also the use of the speech relates well to the explaining why the League failed to preserve peace since it is the Soviet Foreign Affairs Minister whom is speaking to the League at Geneva in 1934 where the USSR entered the League after Germany left. It explains well the cause and Litvinov managed to predict what were the reasons why the League failed to preserve peace.

Both source D and E are speeches, but E manages to explain why the League failed to preserve peace better than D, since E is a comparison of two speeches by Churchill with a difference of two years, 1933-1935, and how the situations according to Churchill might could have been dealt by the League, but by saying that E is better than D doesn’t necessarily mean that source E is explaining clearly why the League failed to preserve peace, because it doesn’t to extend since it shows how the Conservative Britain dealt with the League and not how the League functioned. To return to source E which is an speech by the British Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare to the League at Geneva in 1935, and Hoare point out the British support for the League and the fact that the League is under a massive pressure because of the Abyssinia crises, which was one of the main failures of the League, but it doesn’t explain as such.

Source F is both lacking origin, since it is from a book by Harry Hansen without year, and value, because source F is rather subjective especially in the last line where it says:” If a nation can sit in sackcloth and ashes, the United States should do so for its selfish rejection of the League.”. And the purpose of the source is to show how selfish the Americans were when they rejected the League, but that is also one of the explanations why the League failed to preserve peace but the limitations of the source comes in the way of the explaining.