Failure of The League Of Nations In The 1930's

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Failure of The League Of Nations In The 1930's

The league of nations was formed in 1919 to encourage the member

countries, to co-operate in trade, improve social conditions, complete

disarmament and to protect any member country that was being

threatened with war. Woodrow Wilson the American President came up

with the idea of The League Of Nations because he didn't want anything

like the world war 1 to be repeated. However we know that the Second

World War lost more lives than the the first, and therefore most

people conclude that the League Of Nations failed, but why?

The League Of Nations had many weaknesses with probably the most

important and noticeable weakness, the absence of the USA. It was a

great shock and disappointment for the rest of the world when Woodrow

Wilson decided not to join the League Of Nations.

The League Of Nations also seemed to have a weakness in not accepting

Germany in the League when it was first formed, and this gave the

impression that the league was for the victors of WWI. Another

weakness of the League was that it did not have an army of its own.

In 1929 the 'Wall Street' collapsed and it effected a lot of countries

especially Japan. After this Japan were desperate for raw materials

such as coal and Iron ore (which Manchuria had plenty of).

Despite all these weaknesses, the League did have some success in the

1920's. The League had sorted out a disagreement between Finland and

Sweden over the Aaland Islands.

However as you know the League did have failures in the 1920's such as

Corfu and Vilna, and failed in its aim to archieve disarmament. The

small holes in the League became gaping ones after it's downright

failure to do anything significant in the two main 'crisis' of the

early 1930's.

The invasion of Manchuria by Japan in 1931 and the invasion of

Abysinnia by the Italians in 1935. China appealed to the League, which

decided to set up a commission of Inquiry under Lord Lytton, who was

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