League of Nations
Revision
If you click on yellow
pointers, you will reveal all the facts that you ought to remember.
Try to remember BEFORE you click!
- FOUR AIMS OF THE LEAGUE [memory word:
SIDE]
- Stop war
- (Article 10 of the Covenant = ‘collective security’)
- Improve people's lives and Jobs
- Encourage co-operation in trade
- Economic and social agencies.
- Disarmament
- Enforce the Treaty of Versailles
- MEMBERSHIP OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS (5 THINGS)
- 42 countries joined at the start. By the 1930s this had risen to 60.
- May 1920, the US Senate voted against Versailles.
- The USSR did not join the League. In 1919 it set up the Comintern to cause revolution.
- Germany was not allowed to join the League as a punishment for causing WWI.
- The leading members were Britain and France, helped by Japan and Italy.
- THE STRUCTURE OF THE LEAGUE [memory word:
SCACHIRMS]
- Secretariat (2 things):
- supposed to co-ordinate the different functions of the League
- too few secretaries to do the work - slow and inefficient
- Council (2 things):
- met 4-5 times a year
- 5 permanent members - Br, Fr, It, Jap & Ger - with a veto.
- Assembly (2 things):
- the League’s main meeting, held once a year
- decisions only by unanimous vote
- + the Committees (CHIRMS):
- Court of international justice
- Health committee
- International Labour Organisation
- Refugees committee
- Mandates commission
- Slavery commission
- ALSO Conference of ambassadors (not really part of the League's organisation).
THE THREE STRENGTHS OF THE LEAGUE [memory Word:
SUM]
- Set up by the Treaty of Versailles
- Universal membership, all of which had signed the Covenant promising to support the League.
- Means of Influence (6 things)
- Covenant (26 promises which every member agreed to follow)
- Moral condemnation (public opinion)
- Arbitration (act as a referee)
- Sanctions (refuse to trade)
- Military Force (send an army)
- ‘Community of Power’ (acting together).
SIX SUCCESSES OF THE LEAGUE IN THE 1920s [memory word:
SAMBOK]
- Silesia, 1921
- Germany and Poland agreed to paritiion after a plebiscite.
- Aaland Islands, 1921
- said the islands should belong to Finland; Sweden and Finland agreed.
- Mosul, 1924
- the Turks demanded Mosul, Iraq. The League supported Iraq; Turkey agreed.
- Bulgaria, 1925
- Greece invaded Bulgaria, but withdrew when Bulgaria appealed to the League.
- Other (6 things):
- 400,000 Prisoners of War repatriated
- Turkish refugee camps (1922)
- Leprosy
- Drugs companies closed down
- Attacked slave owners in Sierra Leone and Burma
- Economic advice to Austria and Hungary
- Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928
- signed by 23 nations and supported by 65, to outlaw war.
SIX FAILURES OF THE LEAGUE IN THE 1920s [memory word:
VIMCOD]
- Vilna, 1920
- Poland refused the League orders to withdraw from Vilna.
- Invasion of the Ruhr, 1923
- by France; the League was not even consulted, and Britain disagreed.
- Memel, 1923
- The League told Lithuania to leave, but the Conference of Ambassadors agreed.
- Corfu, 1923
- General Tellini murdered, so Italy occupied Corfu. The Conference of Ambassadors overruled the League’s order to Mussolini to leave – forced Greece to pay compensation to Italy.
- Other Treaties (4 things):
- Washington, 1921
- Dawes Plan, 1924
- Locarno Pact, 1925
- The Geneva Protocol, 1924 (to support the League of Nations) failed because Britain refused to sign it
- Disarmament (2 things):
- Britain objected to the 1923 conference
- 1932-1934 conference was wrecked when Hitler demanded parity with France.
TWO FAILURES OF THE LEAGUE IN THE 1930s
- Manchuria, 1931 (3 points):
- The League sent officials (took a year)
- voted that Japan return Manchuria (Feb 1933 - Japan resigned from the League)
- could not agree economic sanctions or arms sales ban.
- Abyssinia, 1935 (3 points)
- Mussolini invaded (October 1935) Haile Selassie’s Abyssinia
- Britain and France secretly agreed to give Abyssinia to Italy (Hoare-Laval Pact, 1935)
- The League tried sanctions on arms sales, rubber and metals, but they did not close the Suez Canal or ban oil sales.
- These failures killed the League:
- Mussolini gained prestige
- Britain, France and the League were weakened - countries decided it was a ‘sham’, left and began to prepare for war instead.
EIGHT REASONS THE LEAGUE FAILED [memory word:
BUSTED UP]
- Britain and France
- were not prepared to use their armies and had other priorities.
- USA, USSR and Germany (3 points):
- USA was never a member
- USSR not until 1934
- Germany not until 1926, and Hitler left the League in 1933.
- Structure
- its organisation [SCACHIRMS] was cumbersome so decisions were very slow.
- Treaty of Versailles set up the League
- so it was hated because the Treaty was hateful.
- Economic Depression
- countries acted to save their own interests, and ignored the League.
- Dictators
- dictators like Mussolini and Hitler would not compromise.
- Unsuccessful
- the League’s failures damaged its reputation, so members left/ignored it.
- Powerless (3 points):
- moral condemnation was just ignored by powerful nations
- the League had no armies
- people found ways round sanctions.