Intentions and Failures of the League of Nations

Question 1

Based on Wilson’s 14th point of his 14 point plan… When was the league founded?

Answer 1

10 January 1920

Question 2

Intentions of the League of Nations?

Answer 2

• facilitate greater security and cooperation among nations
• help enforce the terms of the treaties
• resolve international disputes
• administer world justice
• avoid future conflicts

Question 3

Failures of the League of Nations?

Answer 3

• Little real authority: relied on trade sanctions, moral pressure and public opinion.
• No military force to enforce authority, called a “toothless tiger” by opponents
• USA and USSR were not originally members, weakening the league.
• Nationalism proved more powerful than internationalism

Question 4

Results of the failures of the League of Nations…

Answer 4

Led to:

• Japans invasion of Manchuria (18 September 1931): no sanctions or real action was taken
• Spanish Civil War (beginning 17 july 1936): Germany and Italy supported General Franco and Soviet Union supported the Spanish Government, became a proxy war and thus a dress rehearsal of WWII, again the league took no action
• Italy invaded Abyssinia (beginning 3 October 1935), the league attempted to impose sanctions but the most effective target, oil, was exempt.
• Germany and Japan would go on to form the anti-comintern pact joined by Italy November 6 1937, would form the Axis Powers in WWII.
• Germany enacted massive rearmament programs
• remilitarised Rhineland
• Annexed Austria 12 March 1938
• Demanded the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia, Munich agreement of 30 September 1938
• then occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia