Why the League Failed

After the Abyssinian crisis, the League gradually died.  It stopped intervening in international crises (such as the Spanish Civil War or the occupation of Czechoslovakia).  Few countries left the League, but they stopped relying on the League to protect their sovereignty.  Instead they made alliances, re-armed as fast as possible and prepared for war.  Many countries – including Britain – contracted out of Article 16 (ie they let it be known that they would not support sanctions). 

The League, however, did not do nothing:

  1.   In 1936, acknowledging the failure of 'collective security' to stop Italy in Abyssinia, the League set up a Reform Committee, to try to adapt to the new political realities of the 1930s.  Member states were invited to submit suggestions: some wanted to be tougher, others to stop even trying to stop wars, others to be more consultative, others to concentrate on prevention not intervention.  Given the differences, no progress could be made. 

 2.   The League's Agencies did continue their work and, in May-Aug 1939, a committee led by the Australian delegate Stanley Bruce recommended that they be reorganised under a central 'Committee for Economic and Social Questions' ... thus saving the economic and social work of the League whilst its political impact died.  Although the League adopted the Report, war broke out a few days later.  (After the war the Bruce Committee's recommendations were adopted by the United Nations.)

 3.   When war broke out in September 1939, the League closed down; its headquarters in Geneva remained empty throughout the war.

 4.   In 1943 – at a Conference in Tehran – America, Britain and Russia agreed to set up a new international organisation (the 'United Nations') when the war finished.

 5.   On 12 April 1946, the League met in Geneva and formally abolished itself.  The British delegate, Robert Cecil, said: 'The League is dead. Long live the United Nations'.

Going Deeper

The following links will help you widen your knowledge:

Pupil's essay

UN debate (1946) on the failure and achievements of the League

Impact of the 1930s Depression

Why did the League fail - Sources - essential

Why did the League fail - article by Peter Catterall

The League of Nations - views from the web

   ‘The main reason why the League of Nations failed to prevent WWII was because of how it was organised.’  How far do you agree with this statement? - 16-mark essay

- Giles Hill on the League's failure

- BBC debate-podcast on whether the League was a success

75 pupil statements on Mr Clare's History Blog - Why did the League fail?.

This 1920 cartoon by John T. McCutcheon for the Chicago Tribune shows the leading members of the League failing to keep their promise to promote world peace, and instead sowing the seeds of future wars.

Reasons for Failure

The League failed in Manchuria and Abyssinia because it WAS DUMB!

Try to explain how each of the following contributed to the failure of the League; click on the yellow pointers to reveal my suggestions.

•  Weak
  • the League’s ‘powers’ were little more than going ‘tut-tut’.  Sanctions did not work. It had no army.

    "Though article 16 expected member states to supply troops if necessary, a resolution was passed in 1923 that each member would decide for itself whether or not to fight in a crisis.  This clearly made nonsense of the idea of collective security…  [An attempt to change this] was made in 1924 by the British Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, in a resolution known as the Geneva Protocol, which pledged members to help any victim of unprovoked aggression.  With supreme irony the Conservative government which followed MacDonald informed the League that they could not agree to the protocol.  This left the League, as its critics remarked, lacking teeth."

    Norman Lowe, Mastering Modern World History (1988)

•  Association with ToV
  • by the mid-1920 not only Germany, but most nations realised that the ToV was flawed; One of the reasons the British government refused to accept the Geneva Protocol (1924) was because it was not prepared to go to war to enforce provisions of the ToV with which it disagreed.  Hitler used this antipathy towards the Treaty to drive a wedge between Britain and the League in the 1930s.
•  Structure
  • paralysed the League:

    “The machinery of the League of Nations was not suited for enforcement of the obligations.  The fact that the Assembly members had equal representation and equal votes made the League of Nations ill-suited to taking action.  The rule of equality and unanimity gave even the smallest member state power of veto over any collective action of the whole League.  This was compounded by the fact that the League of Nations did not have its own military force to enforce its decisions.  It had to merely depend on the goodwill of the members to carry out the League's decisions.  Owing to this weakness, it failed to curb aggression in Europe and to enforce the disarmament of its members.”

    Oboka et al., History & Government (2005)

•  Depression
  • the world-wide Depression made countries try to get more land and power; they were worried about themselves, not about world peace.
•  Unsuccessful
  • the more the League failed, the less people trusted it; in the end, everybody just ignored it and nations went back to building up their armies and making alliances.
•  Members
  • the League’s main members let it down – Italy and Japan defied and left the League, France and Britain betrayed it.

    America, the strongest nation in the world, never joined; Britain and France were not strong enough to impose peace on their own.  Although in the 1930s the USA worked closely with the League - eg refusing to acknowledge Manchukuo, helping stop the Chaco War, and opposing Italy in Abyssinia (which makes it look as though the absence of the US wasn't a very important factor), the fact that the USA was not a member made the League very reluctant to do anything in South or Central America for fear of upsetting the USA.

    other major world powers – Germany, Russia, Italy and Japan – were members for only part of the time.

•  Big bullies
  • in the 1920s, the League had been quite successful with small, weak countries; in the 1930s, powerful countries like Germany, Italy and Japan defied the League – they were too strong for the League to stop them.

... and a final word: