Why did the policy of Collective Security established by the League of Nations fail to prevent the outbreak of war in 1939?

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Daniel Longo

Collective Security Failure

History 11th HL

Ms. Mcphilemy

        

Why did the policy of Collective Security established by the League of Nations fail to prevent the outbreak of war in 1939?

        

        “I have returned from Germany with Peace for our Time!” waving in his hand the paper of the Munich Pact, on an airfield in Southern England, this famous phrase by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in September 1938 is mostly remembered for its massive misjudgement of Nazi Germany´s true intentions and the total failure of appeasement. However, it could – symbolically - also well be seen as the final nail in the coffin for the League of Nations covenant and its strategies of Collective Security and Disarmament.

        A few months earlier, in March 1938, Nazi Germany had annexed Austria, a League Member, thus causing a league member to “disappear” without any reaction from the League whatsoever, demonstrating to the world its absolute powerlessness, and less than a year after Chamberlain´s unintentionally ironic speech, Germany would invade Poland and start the Second World War.

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        These dramatic events were only the culmination of a number of significant events throughout the 30´s, which clearly demonstrated the League of Nation´s inability to uphold international stability and peace, the core of the League´s purpose, as emphasised in it’s theories of Collective Security and Disarmament . Such events included the Manchurian Crisis, in which Japan, affected by the depression and the lack of export, felt obliged to expand it’s territory to provide greater resources and living space to it’s population. As this meant going against the League of Nations, an opposition took place, resulting in Japan leaving the ...

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