The League Of Nations

Question 1

What, in essence, was the League of Nations?

Answer 1

The League of Nations was an international peacekeeping organisation based in neutral territory (Geneva, Switzerland) which, from its first meeting in 1920, had as its main aim the prevention of war. The League lasted officially until 1946, when it voted to dissolve itself and pass its main functions over to the United Nations.
That there would be a League of Nations in the first place was written into the Treaty of Versailles (and also into the four other peace treaties we have studied). The rules or ‘articles’ of the League, known as the Covenant (a covenant is a set of rules that member countries agree to follow), were also included in the treaties.

Question 2

Why was there support for a League of Nations by 1918?

Answer 2

• Support for the League of Nations in 1918 is directly traceable to the worldwide wave of revulsion at the appalling loss of life in WWI. Millions of soldiers and civilians had died in the “The war to end all wars” because it had been a world war (the great European powers had colonies and drew on them for manpower and raw materials), because the slaughter had been on an industrialised scale, and because the participants had waged ‘total war’ in a desperate effort to win (e.g. using mass conscription for the first time).
• People now demanded something new in international relations. They pinned their hopes on the “League of Nations” to preserve world peace. The original idea was not Woodrow Wilson’s, but he championed it at the end of WWI, and as he was the leader of the most powerful country in the world (US help had been crucial in defeating Germany), his triumphant tour en route to Paris for the Peace Conference had helped to create enthusiasm for the League, so he deserves much of the credit for there being such widespread support for the League (as was recognised in 1919, when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts).

Question 3

What were the main aims of the League?

Answer 3

The main aim of the League of Nations, stated in the Covenant and therefore written into the early clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, was the prevention of war. This was to be achieved through:
• The disarmament of nations (and the reduction of the arms trade)
• The application of the principle of ‘collective security’ (i.e. the belief that all
nations standing together must be stronger than a single aggressor)
• The peaceful, open arbitration of disputes between nations (in the Assembly
of the League, in the International Court of Justice, or in special conferences)

Question 4

What was the structure of the League of Nations?

Answer 4

• There were 32 original members of the League, rising to a peak of 58 in 1934- 35.
• Germany, forced to sign the ‘War Guilt’ clause, was not allowed to join until she had proved that she would honour the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and behave in a peaceful, civilised fashion (she was eventually allowed to join in 1926, after signing the Locarno Pact in 1925, in which she agreed not to try to reverse the terms of the Versailles Treaty).
• Russia was not allowed to join, because she was a Communist state. By the time she joined in 1934 (after Hitler had come to power – this is why she was allowed to join), Russia was known as the USSR.
• The USA did not join the League of Nations.

Question 5

Why did the USA not join the League of Nations?

Answer 5

• The Democrat Wilson’s neglect of domestic politics had cost him control of Congress to the Republicans. This was significant because it made it hard to persuade two-thirds of the Senate to approve the Treaty of Versailles, which the US Constitution required of all treaties concluded by presidents with foreign powers.1
• Leading Republicans like the Senate Majority Leader and Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee Henry Cabot Lodge opposed the League, especially Article X of the Covenant, which committed the USA to going to war on behalf of any League member state attacked by an aggressor. In post-war USA, belief in isolationism was strong: Americans did not see why they should die in their thousands for European quarrels that had nothing to do with them.
• Republicans and Democrats alike were concerned about the financial cost to the US of keeping the global peace, as well as the cost in lives. Millions of Americans (not just German-Americans) had opposed US entry into WWI in the first place. The above factors were important because they caused opposition to US membership of the League to begin organising itself against Wilson even before he left America for Paris to negotiate the peace treaty.2
• Congress was unhappy at India being a member of the League of Nations, because it was not an independent country, and Wilson’s own view had been that member-states should be self-governing: Republican politicians asked: “Why is part of the British Empire allowed to join when Britain is already a member?”
• One further reason was Wilson’s own stubbornness and personal dislike of Lodge: he refused to cut deals with the Republicans or make concessions even on a single clause. He insisted that they accept everything, so they accepted nothing. This was very important because if he had made even some limited concessions, he could have got a majority for most of the Treaty, which would have got the USA into the League. In the end, he lost by just 14 votes.
• By 1920, Wilson was old, sick (he had a stroke while touring the USA to promote the League) and bitter: he felt he had achieved great things in Paris and that Congress should recognise this. The Republicans in Congress disagreed: the first-ever president, George Washington, had warned fellow Americans in his farewell speech to avoid dangerous entanglements with foreign powers, and the Republicans intended to follow his advice. Later that year, the Republican Warren Harding was elected president on an anti- League platform, winning with slogans like ‘America first’: this shows that isolationism was a popular policy.

Question 6

Why was it such a blow to the League that the USA did not join?

Answer 6

• The USA was the world’s strongest military and economic power and also a powerful moral force. Its absence from the first-ever international peacekeeping movement, whose machinery for punishing aggression involved moral, economic and military sanctions, was serious, arguably fatal: potential aggressors would be less likely to be deterred by the thought of League sanctions as they would not involve conflict with the USA.
• The absence of the USA mean that three of the world’s strongest military powers, the USA, Germany and Russia (the former an actual military power, the latter two past and potentially future ones) were not members of the League from the start.

Question 7

How was the League structured?

Answer 7

The League’s complicated structure reflects the fears and desires of the great powers, all of whom, until 1926, were victors in WWI – hence the accusation that the League was just a “winners’ club”. Great Britain and France in particular did not want to be drawn into a war by a smaller nation, especially if the dispute was far from Europe and did not directly involve their interests. But to have any hope of success, the League had to have a wide membership, so the smaller nations had to be convinced that there was something in it for them. The League’s eventual structure was therefore an uneasy, resentment-inducing compromise:

Question 8

The LoN - The Assembly

Answer 8

The Assembly was the League’s ‘parliament’. It met once a year and each member country had one vote. Its jobs were to elect members to the Council, to vote on the League’s budget and to admit new members to the League. It could recommend action to the Council, but it could not insist on action being followed. Its recommendations had to be unanimous (e.g. all member countries had to agree to them).

Question 9

The LoN-The Council

Answer 9

The Council’s role was to act as the executive body of the League (i.e. it was to the Council that the League’s members looked to get things done). The Council, not the Assembly, took the real decisions in the League of Nations. Since the main purpose of the League was to keep or restore peace in the world, this meant that the Council’s main function was to settle international disputes. Officially, it met three times a year but it could also meet in emergencies. It was made up of permanent members (Britain, France, Italy, Japan and - from 1926 - Germany) and temporary ones, elected for three years. The decisions of the Council had to be unanimous. Permanent members could veto (from the Latin ‘I forbid’) decisions they didn’t like. This was a system devised by the great powers to make sure that they could not be forced to go to war on behalf of a small state in a remote location.

Question 10

The LoN - The Permanent Court of International Justice

Answer 10

The Court was based in The Hague, in the Netherlands. It was made up of 15 judges from different countries (i.e. with different legal systems). Its roles were to rule in disputes between countries and to give legal advice to the Assembly and the Council. The potential strength of the Court was that it provided an important new mechanism for solving territorial disputes without resorting to war (this would always have been useful, but it was particularly vital after WWI because the Peace Treaties had made so many territorial adjustments). Its weakness was that it had no way of making sure its rulings were obeyed or its advice followed.

Question 11

The LoN - The Secretariat:

Answer 11

The Secretariat worked for the League all year round, kept records of meetings and prepared reports for the different parts of the League, like the Council, the Assembly, and the various committees on issues like health and disarmament. Its strength was that its staff consisted of several hundred experts in the areas the League dealt with. Its potential weakness was that it was quite a large bureaucracy, which meant that it operated slowly.

Question 12

The LoN - Special Departments Commissions

Answer 12

These commissions had responsibility for all the areas the League was concerned with issues which, in their own way, were also important to peacekeeping, like health and the treatment of minority populations, and also the administration of the former colonies of the Central Powers and their allies in WW1. The strength of a League Commission was that it could take responsibility for a single issue and focus on it. The potential weakness was that it could make little progress on an issue unless individual countries themselves were convinced that progress was in their own interests.

Question 13

What was the League’s Machinery for Keeping the Peace if an act of aggression was committed?

Answer 13

• The country which had been invaded or attacked could complain to the League, which could meet in special session and debate the issue in the Assembly (in theory, a three month ‘cooling off period’ could give the aggressor time to change his mind, or make both sides willing to negotiate)
• The dispute could theoretically be resolved in the International Court of Justice, acting as an arbitrator (the problem with this mechanism was that the Court had no power to enforce its decisions).
• A Commission of Inquiry could be set up to investigate the dispute and report back to the Assembly with recommendations (the potential problem with this was that the investigation would take too long, giving the aggressor time to complete his conquest and present the League with a fait accomplit).

Question 14

LoN - Moral Sanctions

Answer 14

• Moral Sanctions – stating publicly that the aggressor’s actions were wrong. This was considered essential because it allowed the League to occupy the moral high ground in the eyes of the world. It was also intended to give the aggressor time to reflect on the error of his ways, in the hope that he would withdraw his army.

Question 15

The LoN - Economic Sanctions

Answer 15

• Economic Sanctions – refusing to trade with the aggressor, especially in war materials. The thinking behind this was that (a) the lack of war materials would bring the aggressor’s invasion to a halt, and (b) even if it did not, the economic hardship suffered by his people would cause them to put irresistible pressure on him to end the war and resume trade with member states.

Question 16

The LoN - Military Sanctions

Answer 16

• Military Sanctions – making war on the aggressor. This was the sanction of last resort, and in theory it was failsafe, because the effective application of collective security would lead to the aggressor being hopelessly outmatched. But the League had no standing army (i.e. an army that was permanently in existence, ready to be sent where it was needed to punish aggression). In the absence of the USA, if Britain and France were unwilling to supply troops, military sanctions were impossible.

Question 17

What was the Disarmament Commission and was it successful?

Answer 17

Article 8 of the League’s Covenant stated that countries should disarm “to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety”. The problem was convincing countries that the weapons they already had were enough and that they did not need any more. This was difficult given great powers rivalries in regions like the Pacific, where America, Britain and Japan were suspicious of each other’s naval power. Economic necessity more than the persuasiveness of the Disarmament Commission led to the Washington Naval Convention of 1922, which halted the building of capital ships for 10 years. In 1929, the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war (Kellogg, like Wilson before him, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize), but it was one thing for the US Secretary of State to negotiate an agreement signed by 15 nations outlawing war: it was quite another for him to prevent war; the Pact was nothing more than a declaration of intent. The Wall St Crash and the Great Depression helped force Japan to invade Manchuria and it also brought Hitler to power in Germany. This doomed League’s World Disarmament Conference of 1932-4 to failure, so the Disarmament Commission cannot be considered a success. At best, it might be considered a well-meaning, even heroic failure.

Question 18

How successful was The ILO (International Labour Organisation)?

Answer 18

The ILO was one of the League’s major non-peacekeeping successes:
• It campaigned successfully to have poisonous white lead removed from paint
• It persuaded some countries to adopt an 8-hour day/40-hour week
• It had success in ending child labour in many countries
• It had success in persuading ship owners to take responsibility for accidents
involving their own seamen
• It had success in increasing women’s rights in the workplace

Question 19

How successful was the Health Organisation (now the World Health Organisation)?

Answer 19

The Health Organisation could also point to major successes:
• Success in reducing the spread of leprosy (in particular), malaria and yellow fever
• Success in reducing typhus epidemics (working with the Soviet Union)
• Success in proving a forum for discussion/agreement on common policies on
treatment of diseases, hospital design and health education.

Question 20

How successful was The Slavery Commission?

Answer 20

The Slavery Commission also had solid achievements to its credit:
• It did not succeed in ending slavery which is still with us today), but it did have slavery officially abolished in several countries in the 1920s and 1930s, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Bahrain.
• It was also successful in pressurizing countries which controlled former colonies of the Central Powers under a mandate to abolish slavery there. If countries wanted to join the League (e.g. Ethiopia, in 1926) and those countries still had slavery, the League’s Slavery Commission was in a strong position to make abolition of slavery a condition of membership.
• The death rate building the Tanganyka Railway in Africa was 50% among Black workers. The League brought it down to 4%.

Question 21

How successful was The Refugees Commission?

Answer 21

This Commission did very impressive work, especially in the aftermath of WWI, when the dislocation of war had caused enormous refugee problems. As many as three million soldiers were displaced, many stranded in Eastern Europe, thousands of miles from their homes:
• The famous Norwegian explorer Nansen helped at least 400,000 refugee- soldiers return home in the first two years.
• He also created the so-called ‘Nansen passport’, which gave stateless people a means of identification.

Question 22

How successful was The Economic Committee?

Answer 22

• The Economic Committee’s task was to persuade countries to abandon the protectionist policies which had helped to create dangerous tension between countries whose economies had suffered because they had not been able to sell their goods. The Committee was tasked with promoting the idea of a world as a gigantic free trade zone instead. It staged two international conferences (one in 1927, before the Wall St, Crash, and one in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression), but the nationalist demand for protectionism was too strong for the Committee to make progress

Question 23

How successful was The Mandates Commission?

Answer 23

Germany and Turkey – two of the defeated powers in WWI – had overseas empires. What would happen to these territories after the War? Who would rule them? Would they rule themselves? Would the victorious Allied Powers add them to their empires? This would be hard to reconcile with numbers 5 and 12 of Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points which favoured self-determination and ‘no annexations’, as Wilson had put it in a speech. He distrusted the old empires of Europe and suspected (rightly) that they wanted to divide up the German and Turkish empires between themselves. Other victorious powers like Japan and Italy (and also British dominions like Australia and New Zealand) coveted German territory in the Pacific and East Africa, and Wilson knew this, too.
In the end, it was decided that these territories would NOT be added to the empires of the Allies as it would make the victors look too hypocritical. Instead, under Article 22 of the Covenant, they would be administered by them as League of Nations Mandates’ (a mandate in this context refers both to the territory itself, and also to the authority invested by the League in a country to allow it to govern a territory). To oversee this process, a Permanent Mandates Commission was established in 1919 at Geneva, the League’s eventual headquarters.

The Mandates were divided into different classes: A, B and C Mandates according to each colony’s level of development. Class A Mandates were some of Turkey’s former colonies in the Middle East, like Palestine (which went to Britain) and Syria (which went to France). Class B Mandates were German colonies in West and Central Africa. Class C Mandates were the German colonies in the Pacific.
The Mandates Commission also took responsibility for administering Danzig and the Saar region (it was the League which oversaw the plebiscite in 1935 in which the Saarlanders were allowed to decide whether they wanted to belong to Germany, France or be administered by the League).

Question 24

What were the weaknesses of the Mandates Commission?

Answer 24

• The Germans and Turks bitterly resented these arrangements. Article 22 described Mandates as “a sacred trust of civilisation”, but the Germans saw it simply as theft. This fuelled resentment at the Treaty and the League and it helps explain support for the Nazis and other right-wing parties in post-war Germany.
• The USA also resented the arrangements, especially as America did not join the League of Nations. The USA’s objection was that while Britain and France claimed that all the victorious powers had approved of the way in which German and Turkish former colonies had been divided up, this was not the case: Britain and France had acted without consultation and to suit themselves. The Mandates settlement helps to explain why the USA instructed its overseas officials not to co-operate with the League in the immediate post-war period.

Question 25

What were the strengths of the Mandates Commission?

Answer 25

• The concept of the Mandate itself was new in international affairs, and even though the USA, Germany and Turkey were cynical about it, it did force the administrative power to submit annual reports to the League on the welfare of those it ruled.
• Minorities within mandated territories had rights to appeal to the International Court set up by the League.
• Over time, the Permanent Mandates Commission gained a reputation for integrity and expertise. It became hard (though far from impossible) to accuse it of being a mere front for old-fashioned imperialism.
• Finally, even though the League’s attitude towards colonies was vulnerable to accusations of racial condescension and paternalism, the parent-child relationship presupposes that one day the child will grow up and be capable of looking after itself: this meant eventual independence was a possibility for the colonies, as the ruling powers were under moral pressure to make sure they ‘grew up’.

Question 26

The Aaland Islands Dispute (1921):

Answer 26

Almost equidistant between Finland and Sweden, they had been Finland’s since 1809, when Sweden had been forced to give them up. A majority of the islanders still wanted to be governed by Sweden, which sent troops to occupy the islands. In 1921 they asked the League to adjudicate. The League’s decision was that they should remain with Finland but that no weapons should ever be kept there. Both countries accepted the decision. Note: the Japanese supported Finland out of self- interest: the ruling that the islands were part of a Finnish archipelago, separated from Sweden by deep waters was seen by the Japanese as a useful precedent for their planned expansion into the Pacific.

Question 27

Upper Silesia (1921):

Answer 27

• The Treaty of Versailles gave the people of Upper Silesia the right to have a referendum on whether they wanted to be part of Germany or Poland. 700,000 voted for Germany; 500,000 for Poland. Riots followed and the League was asked to intervene. After a six-week inquiry, the League split Upper Silesia between Germany and Poland. The decision was accepted by both countries and by the people of Upper Silesia.

Question 28

Greece and Bulgaria (1925):

Answer 28

• In 1925, sentries patrolling the Greco-Bulgarian border fired on one another and a Greek soldier was killed. The Greek army invaded Bulgaria. The Bulgarians asked the League for help and the League ordered both armies to stop fighting and the Greeks to withdraw their troops from Bulgaria. The League sent a Commission to report on the dispute. The report held the Greeks to blame and fined them £45,000. Both nations accepted the decision.

Question 29

Italy (1919):

Answer 29

• In September 1919, 2,000 Italian extreme right-wing nationalists, led by war- hero Gabriele D’Annunzio, captured the small port of Fiume in North Italy, which had been given to Yugoslavia by the Treaty of Versailles. The British, American and French troops stationed there had to withdraw. D’Annunzio hoped Italy would annex Fiume, and when it did not, he named it an independent state. The League did nothing to intervene. In the end, the Italian navy bombarded Fiume and D’Annunzio surrendered. This showed League weakness from the outset.

Question 30

Vilna/Vilnius (1920):

Answer 30

• In 1920, a Polish general seized Vilna in Lithuania and set up an independent state (copying D’Annunzio). Lithuania appealed to the League. The League asked the Poles to withdraw. They did not. Sanctions should have followed but (a) Britain and France wanted Poland as an ally against Germany and (b) they wanted a large Poland as a buffer state against Communist Russia. Poland ruled Vilna until WW2

Question 31

War between Russia and Poland (1920 to 1921)

Answer 31

• In 1920, taking advantage of the weakness of Russia after WW1 and the Russian Revolution, Poland invaded Russian territory. The Bolsheviks government had no choice but to sign the Treaty of Riga which handed over to Poland nearly 80,000 square kilometres of Russian land. This one treaty all but doubled the size of Poland. The League did nothing. Russia was not a member of the League (she was not allowed to join until 1934 – note: soon after Hitler came to power) and leading League of Nations countries like France and Great Britain had only recently had troops in Russia trying to (as Churchill put it) “strangle the Bolshevik baby in its cradle”. This crisis, like the Vilna crisis, showed that the League’s great powers, Britain and France, would act in their own interests, not punishing aggression in this case because it suited their own, anti-communist interests.

Question 32

The invasion of the Ruhr (1923)

Answer 32

• In 1923, when the Germans defaulted on a reparations payment, French and Belgian troops invaded Germany’s industrial heartland. This was contrary to League rules. Both Belgium and France were League members. Britain was France’s ally and also a recipient of reparations. France was a major power. The League took no action against France or Belgium, and this provided the League’s enemies with further proof that it was a ‘winners’ club’.

Question 33

The Manchuria Crisis, 1931

Answer 33

Manchuria was Chinese territory, but the South Manchurian railway line was owned by the Japanese. In 1931, a Japanese army officer secretly set off a small amount of dynamite by the side of the railway line – too small to cause any damage (a train passed by with no trouble an hour later), but the Japanese claimed that the Chinese were responsible and used this as a pretext to invade Manchuria.

Question 34

Why did Japan really invade Manchuria in 1931?

Answer 34

• Japan had a chronic over-population problem, which was made worse by racist immigration policies of countries like Britain, France and the USA
• Japan lacked raw materials and mineral resources and needed these for peaceful and aggressive purposes
• Japan had imperial ambitions – she wanted an empire in the east to rival the European empires, of which she was jealous and resentful
• Japanese trade collapsed after the Wall St Crash (the USA had been Japan’s main trading partner, but silk exports collapsed, as it was a luxury good)
• The Japanese government’s control over the Japanese Army was not complete, especially as the Army was not actually in Japan, but in the Korean peninsula, which Japan had ruled since 1911. The Army believed that since the government had failed to tackle the Great Depression, a policy of military conquest was the only alternative.

Question 35

What happened after Japan invaded Manchuria?

Answer 35

• The Japanese launched a full-scale invasion and annexed Manchuria. Arguing that China was unable to control the province properly, they set up a new state, which they called Manchukuo. In an effort to make it look good, the Japanese installed Pu Yi (who had been the last emperor of China) as a puppet ruler.
• China appealed to the League of Nations. Note: China also appealed to the US, as both countries had signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact. But the USA did not help China (a useful example if you are considering the possibility that even the presence of the USA in the League might not have deterred aggression or led to its effective punishment, for it seems that the USA could find excuses for acting just as easily as Britain and France). President Hoover argued that economic sanctions against Japan would be like ‘sticking pins in tigers’. Even more than Britain and France, the USA was too preoccupied with the Great Depression to act.

Question 36

What action did the League take at Manchuria?

Answer 36

• Moral sanctions were employed (i.e. the Japanese action was condemned by the League). The League ordered the Japanese to withdraw. The Japanese ignored the League.
• The League then sent a commission, headed by an English aristocrat, Lord Lytton, to investigate. The Commission did not report back until 1932, a year after the incident. It rejected the Japanese claim that the invasion of Manchuria was an act of self-defence.
• Economic sanctions were NOT employed because Britain and France had for years sold a lot of arms to Japan and the Wall St Crash and the Great Depression had weakened the economies of both countries. War in Asia meant general disruption to trade in Asia and the western democracies felt they could not afford this.
• Military sanctions were NOT employed because the USA was not a member of the League of Nations (so the world’s strongest military power was not present to provide an army), because the crisis was in Asia (so the great powers, Britain and France, did not want to risk involvement in a crisis outside western Europe) and because the Great Depression and the Wall St Crash made Britain and France reluctant to spend money on wars anywhere.
Note: Japan, as a permanent member of the League, could have vetoed military action even had the Council of the League decided to take it. In the end, Japan did not even have to do that. When the League’s Assembly adopted the Lytton Commission’s recommendations, Japan left the League in protest.

Question 37

What were the consequences of the Manchuria Crisis?

Answer 37

• The League’s failure to deal effectively with the Manchuria Crisis was a heavy blow to its prestige: the lesson seemed to be that aggression paid because the League was a paper tiger. Sanctions were shown to be ineffective (only moral sanctions were applied) and the delays in researching and publishing the Lytton Commission’s report made the League look slow and weak.
• Smaller member-states lost confidence in the League, as it seemed that the great powers would not shoulder their responsibilities but act only in their own short-term interests. In their different ways, Britain, France and Japan had all betrayed the League.
• Hitler, who came to power in the year that Japan left the League, learned the lesson that aggression would not be punished. This made him bolder in his foreign policy, and encouraged him to take risks in reversing the terms of the Treaty of Versailles (e.g. re-militarising the Rhineland in 1936) and got away with them.
• Mussolini, too, learned the lesson, invading Abyssinia in 1935, despite being, like Japan, a member state. The League’s failure to deal with the Abyssinia Crisis finished it as a serious peacekeeping body.
• When Japan left the League of Nations in 1933, she set a precedent that the other future Axis powers followed: Hitler took Germany out in 1933; Mussolini took Italy out in 1937 (note: Hitler achieved the Anschluss the very next year).
• Military success in Manchuria raised the prestige of the Japanese Army and allowed it to pressure the Japanese government into approving the invasion of another Chinese province (Jehol) in 1933, and to launch a full-scale invasion in 1937. This was possible because the balance of power in Asia had been shifted in Japan’s favour, and her victory allowed her access to vital resources like coal and iron ore which would allow her to wage war in the future.
• Britain and France became disillusioned with the League: this made an alternative policy of dealing with aggression (i.e. Appeasement) more likely.

Question 38

What was the background/build-up to the Abyssinia crisis?

Answer 38

The Abyssinia Crisis was the second of the two major crises that the League faced in the 1930s. Abyssinia was an independent state in Africa, ruled by an emperor, Haile Selassie. It bordered two Italian colonies, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. In 1895, the Italians had invaded Abyssinia in the hope of expanding their empire. Due to a series of military mistakes and also the bravery of the Abyssinian tribesmen, the Italian army had suffered a humiliating defeat in 1896 at the Battle of Adowa – one of the worst defeats ever suffered by a modern army. In 1922, Benito Mussolini, the Fascist leader, became Prime Minister of Italy. During the next few years, he used violence and intimidation to make himself dictator. Italians referred to him as Il Duce=the Leader.

Question 39

What pretext did Mussolini give for invading Abyssinia in 1931?

Answer 39

In 1934, there was a border clash between Italian and Ethiopian soldiers at an oasis just inside Abyssinian territory. Mussolini claimed it was Italian territory, and demanded an apology. This was a pretext: he had been preparing for war since 1932.

Question 40

How did the Ethiopians respond?

Answer 40

The Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie, appealed to the League of Nations. Mussolini pretended to be negotiating, as if he wanted a peaceful settlement, but he was playing for time, as he had to transport his army from Italy to Africa for the invasion. He had already signed a separate agreement with France which guaranteed that the French would not interfere. In September, after taking eight months, a League committee reported back that the border clash was nobody’s fault. The League proposed a peace plan which would have given Mussolini part of Abyssinia. Mussolini rejected the plan. On 3rd October 1935, Mussolini launched his invasion. Adowa, the scene of Italy’s humiliating defeat of 1896, was bombed by the Mussolini’s modern air force.

Question 41

Why did Mussolini really invade Abyssinia?

Answer 41

• Revenge for the humiliating defeat at Adowa in 1895.
• Revenge was not the only motive, or even the main one. Fascism is a
political ideology which glorifies war. Fascists believe that war is the supreme test of a nation. Mussolini was therefore testing his people with a view to glorifying Italy, and thus himself.
• A dictator is only as secure as he feels, and Mussolini wanted the prestige and glory that comes from military success to strengthen his hold on power.
• Italy, like other countries, was suffering from the effects of the Great Depression: conquering and exploiting new colonies seemed a solution. It would distract the Italian people from economic misery and provide land for Italian settlers.
• Hitler had come to power in 1933, which reduced Mussolini’s options for conquest in Europe. But a war in Africa was one he had a chance of winning.
• Ancient Rome had controlled the Mediterranean, referring to it as Mare Nostrum (‘Our Sea’) and much of Africa, too. Mussolini dreamed of a ‘Second Roman Empire’, with himself as emperor.
• Mussolini was confident Britain and France would do nothing, and his confidence was based not just on the League’s failure over Manchuria. In 1935, the leaders of Italy, France and Great Britain had met at Stresa. The agreement they reached (known as the ‘Stresa Front’) was vague, but Mussolini interpreted it to mean that if he sided with Britain and France against the expanding power of Germany, he would be allowed a free hand to invade Abyssinia.

Question 42

How did the League respond to Abyssinia?

Answer 42

• Limited economic sanctions were applied. The League banned arms sales to Italy, (war) loans to Italy, rubber, tin and metal sales to Italy.
• The vital decision on whether or not to ban oil sales to Italy was delayed for two months. One reason the League hesitated to ban oil exports was that it was not sure the USA (not a League member) would support the ban (note: even if the USA had decided to ignore the ban on oil sales, it would still have been devastating to Mussolini’s invasion if Britain and France had cut oil supplies. Since supplies went through the Suez Canal (which was controlled by the British) it would have been easy to do. It has been estimated that Mussolini’s invasion would have ground to a halt in a week.
• The foreign ministers of Britain and France were Sir Samuel Hoare and Pierre Laval. In secret, they drew up a plan, known as the Hoare-Laval Plan, which would have involved Mussolini being given two-thirds of Abyssinia if he would halt his invasion. Hoare and Laval were going to show the plan to Mussolini in secret before the League saw it, but details of the plan leaked to the press, and both ministers were forced to resign because of the public outcry.

Question 43

Why did the League react poorly to Abyssinia?

Answer 43

• The British and French feared war with Italy. They over-estimated Mussolini’s military strength, making the mistake of taking his propaganda at face-value.
• They also feared losing Italy’s support against Germany. They felt they needed his support against Hitler, especially as Mussolini had acted decisively to prevent Hitler’s attempt at Anschluss in 1934 by moving troops to the Italo-Austrian border.
• They doubted their own military strength, as they were great powers in decline.
• They were worried about the security of their empires in Asia if the Japanese attacked while they were bogged down in Africa.
• They were suffering from the effects of the Great Depression: economic sanctions would lose them revenue and cause unemployment (30,000 miners stood to lose their jobs if exports of coal were banned).

Question 44

What was the League’s final action to Abyssinia?

Answer 44

The decision on whether or not to ban oil sales dragged on. By February 1936, it had still not been decided. The USA had been willing to along with it, but they got so sick of waiting for the League to make up its mind that in the end they decided they would not support it. By then, it was too late: Mussolini had already conquered most of Abyssinia. The following month, Hitler, who had been watching the Abyssinia Crisis closely to see how tough Britain and France were prepared to be, sent his troops into the ‘de-militarised’ Rhineland unopposed. There was now no chance of the French opposing Italy, because they wanted Mussolini’s support against a Germany that once again had troops on the French border. The Italian troops entered the Abyssinian capital, Addis Ababa in May, and the Emperor Haile Selassie was forced into exile.

Question 45

What were the consequences of the Abyssinia Crisis?

Answer 45

• After Abyssinia, the League had no credibility as a peacekeeping organization, and the idea of peace through collective security was utterly discredited.
• For the second time five years, the world had seen an aggressor nation (itself a member of the League) defy the League of Nations and get away with it.
• Sanctions were once more shown to be slow and ineffective: unlike in
Manchuria, economic sanctions were nominally imposed, but not in crucial commodities like oil. Therefore, ‘limited’ sanctions made no difference: the great powers were still thinking about their own economic and military welfare first.
• The world had also seen League members like Britain and France take no serious action, and actually hatch a plan behind the League’s back which would have rewarded aggression (this showed that Britain and France themselves had lost faith in the League, and were actually beginning to pursue a policy of Appeasement in secret).
• Hitler, who had taken Germany out of the League in 1933, had seen aggression rewarded a second time. He became bolder in his foreign policy, taking advantage of League pre-occupation with Abyssinia to re-militarise the Rhineland in 1936.
• The Abyssinia Crisis helped push Hitler and Mussolini closer together (e.g. in the ‘Axis’ agreement of 1936); within two years, Hitler attempted the Anschluss again and succeeded this time because Mussolini did not oppose him. This led to further acts of aggression in the late 1930s.
• Neville Chamberlain, who became British Prime Minister in 1937, was even more convinced that the policy of Appeasement was the best one to protect British interests, especially since the Axis threatened British naval interests in the Mediterranean.