The League of Nations

• The League of Nations was the predecessor of the United Nations.
• Its main function was the prevent future wars via collective security.
• Thus if one country was being aggressive, other countries would intervene and prevent the conflict, usually through negotiation (force only if necessary).
• This was one of Woodrow Wilson's 14 points to keep peace and the initiative came from him.

Problems of the League

• The mission was to settle disputes, prevent conflicts and disarmament.
• Their methods were to impose economic sanctions, condemning wars and expelling nations from the league.
• However expelling nations didn't work out as planned as countries that would be expelled would have already left on their own anyway, such as Germany, Japan and Italy.
• Economic sanctions also weren't effective often due to the motives of Great Britain and France getting in the way.
• Economic sanctions weren't generally effective except in some situations like the embargo on Japan by the U.S.
• The league couldn't use practical military methods either.
• This was because the league didn't have its own army and the nations of the league didn't want to use their soldiers for the league.
  
• At the beginning the league was only made of the victors of the Great War.
• Those who lost the Great War joined later.
• This felt unfair and unequal to a lot of people.
• The United States didn't join either, despite being a very important economic powerhouse.
• This was due to the foreign policy of the United States not wanting to be involved with Europe.

• A cartoon depicting the League of Nations as a bridge and the United States as the missing keystone (the keystone is a stone that holds up most of the weight of a bridge or arch and keeps it from falling).

Structure of the League

• The League of Nations had agencies, which had their own roles and jobs.
• For example the World Labor Organization, the Health Organization, the Commission for Refugees and the Slavery Commission.
• These agencies would seek to provide justice and help and prevent unethical acts such as exploitation or slavery.
• These agencies would later become part of the United Nations.
  
• Principal organs were the Assembly, the Council, and the Permanent Secretariat.
• This was a problem because some countries in the Council, such as Japan would act aggressively during the interwar, making it difficult to prevent fighting.
• The Assembly would be like a parliament, with all nations having representative members in it, although the Council would make the most big decisions. They met once a year to discuss and vote.
• It was difficult to make major decisions as they needed a majority support.
• The Secretariat consisted of 700 members from different countries. The Secretariat would manage organize conferences, monitor budgets and circulate reports.
• It included experts that would offer advice on disputes.

Successes of the League

• Although the league was generally ineffective, it did manage to prevent some minor conflicts.
• These conflicts were generally on a small scale and likely wouldn't have escalated much had they not been properly handled by the league.

The Åland Islands

• The Åland islands were located in-between Finland and Sweden and had a mostly Swedish population.
• The island belonged to Finland but Sweden wanted it due to the 95% ethnic Swedish population.
• In 1920 the League of Nations started an analysis to settle the dispute.
• The island was made to stay under Finnish rule in order to prevent other minorities in Europe from uniting with other nations.
• The Åland islands were given autonomy to preserve their traditions and customs and were demilitarized to prevent and threat to Sweden.

The Corfu Incident

• Italian General Tellini and his four assistants were murdered in 1923 while marking out the new border between Albania and Greece.
• The leader of Italy, Benito Mussolini ordered the occupation of the Greek island of Corfu to compensate for the death of General Tellini.
• Greece appealed to the Council of the League of Nations and it was eventually decided that Greece would have to pay a fine as compensation and Italian forces began to withdraw from Corfu two days later.

The Greco-Bulgarian Confrontation

• In October of 1925, two Greek border guards were killed and the others retreated from their posts. When reported to the Greek government the truth was greatly exaggerated and led them to believe Bulgaria had launched an invasion.
• Greece ordered an attack on Bulgaria but after the League of Nations was informed, both sides were told to cease military action.
• Both sides retreated and Greece was made to pay a fine for the crops and cattle some soldiers had stolen as they retreated.

Failures of the League

Vilnius

• The population of the city of Vilnius included Poles, Jew and it was recognized as a part of Lithuania.
• However the border between Vilnius and Poland wasn't clear.
• Even though a provisional border was agreed on in 1920, a Polish general marched into Vilnius with his soldiers.
• Several attempts were made to stop the attack but after an agreement couldn't be made between Poland and Lithuania and Switzerland didn't allow any forces moving through its territory to stop the invasion, the league declared that it had exhausted all options in 1922.
• The occupation of Vilnius was allowed to continue and it became recognized as a part of Poland by the league in 1923.

Manchuria

• Japan was greatly affected by the Great Depression as they relied on trade.
• Japan had been allowed forces in a region of Manchuria earlier to make trade easier but the Japanese army soon began to act aggressively.
• An artificial incident was made to give Japan a reason to act with force, called the Mukden Railway Incident.
• Although China appealed to the League of Nations there weren't serious attempts to stop Japan until Shanghai was threatened.
• This was important as a lot of western European powers had important business there.
• An investigation was launched and it declared that Manchuria should be made its own state (it was previously part of China and became a puppet state of Japan when they invaded).
• However Japan left the League of Nations and continued its aggression throughout the 1930s, which played an important role in the start of the Pacific War in 1941.

The Abyssinian Crisis

• Italy was similar to Japan as it was part of the league but also wanted to expand its territory.
• Italy wanted Abyssinia and had attempted an invasion in 1896, but failed. With Mussolini's rise to power in the 1920s there were new ambitions for the invasion of Abyssinia.
• Abyssinia was bordering the Italian colony of Somaliland, and there was a skirmish at the border leading to the loss of lives which Italy wanted compensation for.
• As tensions began to rise the great powers started to get involved.
• However Great Britain and France got involved out of their own motives to form positive relations with Italy in order to prevent an assault from Germany.
• Sanctions were made on Italy but didn't have a real impact.
• However the League of Nations was never allowed to properly act against Italy due to the interests of Great Britain and France.
• They were more focused on the threat of Germany and Italy invaded Abyssinia in 1936.

Why Was the League of Nations Destined to Fail?

• The league was problematic as it was made to enforce the flawed Treaty of Versailles.
• Thus the league wasn't fully supported as Germans hated the treaty and the Italians and Japanese disliked it.
• Due to need of a unanimous vote by the Assembly and because all the permanent members of the Council had a veto (a veto is the ability to prevent a law from being passed), it was very hard to make decisions during a dispute.
• The League had no army to enforce decisions or prevent conflicts.
• The League of Nations had a very small budget and little support for enforcing decisions.
• Additionally not all powerful nations joined the league, and many left later on.
• The main members of the league, Britain and France, were more concerned about their own affairs instead of the league.
• Europe was over represented, and eventually Great Britain and France were practically the sole members.
• Economic sanctions were ineffective.
• In general the league was under-supported and did not have the power for decision-making or enforcement and it had lost its meaning by the mid 1930s.

Image Sources

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Gap_in_the_Bridge.png?uselang=fi