League of Nations

Question 1

Example of League success: Aaland Islands

Answer 1

Both claimed the islands and there was a risk of conflict. In 1921, the League decided that the islands should remain part of Finland, but with special rights for Swedish-speaking residents and the island was demil’d. Both countries accepted.

Question 2

Example of League success: Upper Silesia

Answer 2

Previously German, now Polish, both countries claimed it.
A plebiscite was held in 1921, and Germany won.
Poland got the industrial areas, Germany got the rural ones, with power connections between the two maintained.
Both coutries accepted it.

Question 3

Example of League Failure:
Corfu (1923) and the Greek invasion of Bulgaria (1925)

Answer 3

Corfu:
* Italian General murdered in Greece
* Italy demands compensation
* Greece refuses
* Italy seizes Corfu
* League initially side w/ Greece, but more powerful countries aligned with Italy
* Italy retreats, but got their compensation.

Bulgaria:
* Greek officer killed on Bulgarian border shoot-out.
* Greece invades Bulgaria
* League orders them to retreat and pay compensation.
* Hypocrytes, sided with the victim this time as Greece were weak