reasons LON lost credibility / Failures of LON Flashcards
Reasons that showed failures of LON
- Failure in Disarmament
- The Abyssinian Crisis (1934-1936)
- The German Remilitarisation (1936)
- Non-membership of key states such as US and USSR
Failures in disarmament
- 1920s : League Commisson to prepare for World Disarmament Conference (1926)
- 1920s : The Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)
- 1930s : The World Disarmament Conference (1932-1934)
Failure in Disarmament (1920s)
- one of the key aims of LON was to encourage countries to reduce their armaments
- LON led international talks to promote disarmament among all countries as early as the 1920s
World Disarmament Conference
Factor #1
Date + Incident
LON commission to prepare for the WDC in 1926 : Britain and France refused to cooperate
Kellogg-Briand Pact
Factor #2
Date + incident
Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) :
- an agreement that force (eg. going into war) should not be used to settle disputes
- negotiated outside LON between 15 countries including US, France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Japan
- no clear way to enforce the pact
led to the failure of LON
Explanation 1
led to failure of LON :
- countries refused to cooperate with LON and were still focused on the arms race - ignore the efforts made in disarmament
- as the Kellogg-Briand pact was negotiated outside of LON, it undermined LON’s authority and prestige as the guarantor of peace in the world
led to the outbreak of WWII
Explanation 2
led to the outbreak of WWII :
- there was no clear way to enforce disarmament agreements - emboldened aggressor nations to defy agreements
- Hitler was emboldened by LON’s lack of authority, who would then go ahead to pursue his expansionist plans and ultimately invading Poland, triggering WWII
Link
Hence, LON failed as they were unable to come out with means (through disarmament) to resolve dispute using peaceful means, and the failure of disarmaments in 1920s was an underlying cause that led to the outbreak of WWII
Failures of disarmament (1930s)
World Disarmament Conference (1932-1934)
- LON managed to persuade the US and 60 other states to attend the World Disarmament Conference - held in Geneva in Feb 1932
- nations such as France, Poland and Czechoslovakia refused to disarm due to fear of a potential German invasion
Agendas/Issues
- Disagreements in Limiting Offensive Weapons
- Disagreements in dealing with Germany
- Rearmaments of Germany - after Conference Reconvenes in 1932 (participation of Adolf Hitler in the Conference)
Disagreement in Limiting Offensive Weapons
- produced resolutions to prohibit the bombing of civilians populations and chemical warfare and limit the size of artillery and tonnage of tanks
challenges faced
- difficult to get all countries to agree on what offensive or defensive weapons were
- resolutions passed did little to ensure how the limitations on weapons would be achieved
- eg. the bombing of civilians was to be banned, but all attempts to agree to abolish lanes capable of bombing were unsuccessful
- also, proposal to ban the manufacture of chemical weapons was unsuccessful
- individual countries used the conference to raise their own particular issues, eg. Italy demanded to have a navy the same size as that of France
Disagreements in dealing with Germany
- Germany joined LON since 1926
- most countries shared the view that the terms set out in TOV should be fairer to Germany (eg. terms limiting the size of Germany’s military were perceived to be unfair)
- there were two options discussed - but countries were reluctant to allow either option
- option 1 : every country to disarm to a level that Germany had been forced to
- option 2 : allow Germany to rearm to a level closer to that of the other powers
- France’s reluctance
- did not want the second option - due to its painful experience with Germany WWI
- demanded that either France continue to have a much larger armed forces than Germany, or Britain and the US would guarantee to fight alongside France (if a war ever broke out between France and Germany)
- Britain and the US were reluctant to commit themselves to guaranteeing France’s future security. Similarly, Germany accused France and the other major powers of hypocrisy
- July 1932 : Germany put forward proposals for all countries to disarm down to its level
- when the conference failed to agree on the principle of “equality”, the Germans walked out, and the conference broke up
Explanation
- disarmament failed as countries could not come to a common consensus on the terms of the agenda discussion
- this is because they prioritised their own needs, conflicting that of other nations instead of working towards the common good of disarmament
- this also meant there were a lot of reluctance to compromise of on the demands in disarmament
- the conference failed as it was seen merely a formality and unable to achieve any significant progress on the decision-making of disarmament
