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

Question 4

Example of League Failure:
Manchuria Crisis.
What happened?
Why?

Answer 4

1931 Japan invades Manchuria

• China was in civil war and was not coordinated enough to stop the Japanese
• The great depression had caused tarrifs on silk imports to the US, and decreased rice imports to Japan. They could not feed their population increase of 1m a year without more land and factories.
• The League condemned Japan, but the Lytton report was a year late.

Question 5

Example of League Failure:
Abyssinia.

Answer 5

• After an outpost was ambushed at wal wal in 1934, Italians invaded Abyssinia in Oct 1935.
• The league did not embargo oil for fear it would upset America, only rubber and metal.
• Suez canal was still open to them as Britain did not want to hinder its trade.
• Hoare-Laval pact (Dec 1935), which was a secret agreement to end the war and give Italy 1/3 of Ethiopia, was uncovered and humiliated the League.
• The League had failed to maintain goodwill with Italy as it joined the Rome-Berlin axis in 1936.

Question 6

Overall, why did the League Fail?

Pick a few key ones that you can remember!

Answer 6

• Britain and France had neither the popular support nor money to be world police.
• Japan (in 1933) and Germany (in 1937) had left
• The League lacked America and lacked an army.
• Hoare-Laval undermined their integrity.
• The assembly required a unanimous vote, and onnly met annually.

Question 7

What good did the league do?

Answer 7

• Blocked large German, Dutch, French, and Swiss illegal drug companies.
• Made international highway code.
• Freed 200k slaves in British-owned Sierra Leone
• Organised raids against slave owners in Burma.
• The ILO:
  * Banned Lead from paint
  * Limited child working hours.