The League of Nations

Question 1

The LON came to existence in 1920

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Question 2

The organisation was to be backed by an army and come together to settle disputes and crises

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Question 3

Everyone accepts that the League of Nations did not fulfil its main purpose to prevent War as another one broke out in September 1939

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Question 4

The league was separated into groups

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Question 5

The Secretariat was the civil service of the league, performed all financial work such as distributing agendas

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Question 6

The Assembly met once as year, every member of the league had one vote, it considered matters of general policy and elected nom permanent members of the council

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Question 7

The Council was the executive body of the league, they met four or five times a year and in times of crisis. In 1920 the permanent members were Britain, France, Italy and Japan

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Question 8

The Permanent court of Justice was based in the Hague, they provided legal advice to the council and were staffed by 11 judges and 4 deputy judges elected for 9 years by the Council and Assembly

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Question 9

The International Labour Organisation was based in Geneva and its central purpose was to promote good working practices with regard to issues such as working hours and women’s rights

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Question 10

The Assembly and Council would have been more effective if they had represented all major countries around the world

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Question 11

Despite the fact that the President Wilson was one fo the main inspirations behind the league. America had refused to join as they thought it would brig them into future Wars and disputes

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Question 12

America not joining was a huge blow as the league was based around the biggest and wealthiest countries such as USA as this would reduce their ability to take action on aggressive countries

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Question 13

Germany was not allowed to join until they had showed their peaceful intentions. Germany was allowed to join in 1926 and become a permeant member of the Council

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Question 14

However Hitlers first policy aim was to take Germany out of the League in 1933

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Question 15

Soviet Russia was not allowed to join the league because of their ideological reasons such as communism. Soviet Russia didn’t even want to join as many of organisation members such as Britain, France and Japan had been assisting the counter revolution during the Russian Civil War

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Question 16

Japan was one of original members of the league but they left in 1933 after they had received lots of criticism for invading Manchuria

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Question 17

Italy was also one of the original members but had left in 1937 after they had invade Abyssinia

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Question 18

The League was often the British and French politicians secondary though tin their mind as both countries had been weakened after the First World War. Britain still wanted to maintain there empire as France was concerned with increasing its security against Germany

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Question 19

Collective Security was the intended means by which the league was to maintain peace. They had three stages which were Moral Disapproval, Economic Sanctions and Military Sanctions

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Question 20

All decisions by the Assembly and Council had to be unanimous which meant if the Assembly or Council were voting on an aggressive action by a country then it would take one negative vote for the motion to fail which made it very difficult for the action against countries that are being aggressive to work

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Question 21

The LON did not have an army which meant that they could not impose military sanctions if a country was threatening World Peace. They could not impose these sanctions because they would have to gather an army together by asking countries to contribute towards an army which would take a long amount of time.

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Question 22

Most of the leagues success in the 1920s related to minor disputes

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Question 23

The leagues first success was the Aaland Island in 1921. This was between Sweden and Finland as most of the islanders wanted to be ruled by Sweden, however the League did some investigation and awarded the island to Finland but with safeguards for the islanders and demilitarisation. Sweden accepted this Judgement.

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Question 24

Upper Silesia in 1921 was a success. Upper Silesia was a valuable area located on the Border between Germany and Poland. This area had originally been granted to Poland in the draft of the Treaty of Versailles however German protests made the League hold a plebiscite. The overall results went in favour of Germany but in some parts of Silesia the votes clearly went to Poland. This made the League decide that Eastern Upper Silesia should go to Poland and Western Upper Silesia should go to Germany

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Question 25

Mosul 1924. In 1924 Turkey claimed the Kurdish-populated province of Mosul which was part of the British mandated territory of Iraq. The League investigated the problem and went in favour of Iraq

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Question 26

The LON also focused on social problems such as economic and military issues that directly or indirectly effected the peace and well being of the world

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Question 27

The refugee organisation helped find suitable transport, setting up camps, creating new settlements and teach new traded and skills. The organisation was an imaginative and logistical triumph that brought nothing but praise and thanks towards the league

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Question 28

The World Health Organisation was one of the Leagues most successful agencies as it established links with non member countries such as Germany and Soviet Russia and gave health advice to them. The organisation set up a number of research institutions in London and made vaccines for Diphtheria, tetanus and tuberculosis

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Question 29

The Economic and Financial Organisation helped with a number of countries such as Austria as they were in danger of financial collapse after the First World War. Action was taken stabilise the currency by controlling the level of interest rates, the circulation of banknotes and the issuing of Credit. Austria was also given a substantial loan

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Question 30

The International Labour Organisation during the 1920s under Albert Thomas had success in their main objective which was to improve working conditions. They had recommendations which included 8 hour working a day and 48 hours a week, annual holidays with pay and a minimum employment age of 15

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Question 31

The Slavery Commission had the main goal of stamping down onto slavery and slave dealing together with the practices such as forcing young women and children into prostitution. They had a success in freeing 200 000 slaves in Sierra Leone and the reduction of death rate for African worker on the Tanganyikan railways from 50 percent to 4 percent. This lead to lots of countries abolishing slavery such as Iraq, Jordan and Nepal

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Question 32

One of The LON failures were Vilna 192- following the Versailles Settlement with a Largely Polish population which was made the capital of the newly creates state of Lithuania. A polish army seized the city as a result Lithuania made an appeal to he League of which they told the Polish army to withdraw their troops as a Plebiscite was to be held however Poland had refused. This lead to the LON to pass the situation onto the Conference of Ambassadors who awarded Vilna to Poland

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Question 33

The Occupation of The Ruhr in 1923 was also a failure when Germany defaulted on its reparations payment I’m 1922 the matter should have been referred to the League. Instead France supported by Belgium decided to take action by ordering their troops to occupy the Ruhr in January 1923

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Question 34

The Corfu Incident of 1923 was the most important dispute because it exposed the weakness and ineffectiveness of the League when dealing with major Power.nIn August 1923 Mussolini ordered naval bombardment and occupation of the Greek Island Corfu. This action was in response to the murder of the Italian general and some of his staff who had been patrolling the border. The murders had been taken place on greek soil and Mussolini had immediately demanded 50 million lira in compensation as well as the execution of the assassins. Greek could not find the assassins so Mussolini resorted to direct action. Greece appealed to the LON however Italy passed the situation onto the Conference Ambassadors which ordered Greece to pay the compensation and Italy to withdraw its troops from Corfu as this showed the weakness of the League as they were ran by Italys bullying tactics

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Question 35

In October 1929 the Wall Street Crash marked the worldwide economic recession Every Country in the capitalist world was affected especially the USA.

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Question 36

Japan was very badly affected by the depression

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Question 37

Japan desperately needed silk as they were growing in an economic crisis which led to them seeing Manchuria as the answer to their problems

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Question 38

The Arms race between Germany and Britain made more war likely

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Question 39

The Discernment commission arranged a Disarmament conference to meet in Geneva between 1932 and 1934 so that the issues around disarmament could be solved

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Question 40

The members of the conference failed to agree because some states didn’t trust some others to disarm

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Question 41

France, Poland, and Czech were all worried about their future security in the event of Germany attacking which meant they were reluctant to place their faith in a system that had shown flaws

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Question 42

France was willing to disarm only if additional guarantees were provided by Britain and USA

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Question 43

Hitler had no intention in disarming and used these fears from France to say they were not serious about disarming and used this as an excuse to leave to League

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Question 44

For Disamrnmet to happen it was clear that all the countries had to participate and by 1934 it was obvious it was never going to happen

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Question 45

in 1896 an Italian army had been defeated in Northern Abyssinia in a failed attempt to conquer the country and turn it isn’t a colony which ever since then Italians had been set upon revenge

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Question 46

The Abyssinian army was no match with their spears and arrows to the Italian tanks, planes, and poison gas

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Question 47

Mussolini had attacked with mo remorse as people were shocked by Italy’s actions as they had destroyed small and local towns with their modern equipment

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Question 48

The Italian invasion was clearly unprovoked aggression and the League condemned the action and imposed economic sanctions

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Question 49

The League were determined not to make the same mistakes that they did with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria

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Question 50

To avoid embarrassment in December 1935 the French and British government agreed on the Hoare Laval Pact which meant Mussolini would get two-thirds of Abyssinia in return of Stopping the War

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Question 51

The News of Mussolini accepting this got leaked and reached the French press which did not go well with the French and British public which lead to them abandoning the idea

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