League of Nations Weaknesses

1. Weaknesses

From the start, there were some major problems with how the League was organised and how it functioned. It was established as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, but the Treaty had many flaws and not all countries accepted its terms. This was a problem because one of the League's primary functions was to enforce the terms of the Treaty. Germany hated the Treaty and a lot of people wanted to see it completely destroyed. Italy was unhappy with the terms of the Treaty because it did not get any of the territorial concessions it had asked for after World War I. The Japanese also had issues with some of the terms, notably the Western powers' refusal to insert a racial equality clause into the Covenant of the League of Nations. The League therefore wasn't fully supported in all of its activities. A number of further issues made the work of the League harder.

• It was difficult to reach any conclusions because both the Assembly and the Council had to have an unanimous vote. The four permanent members of the Council also had the power to veto any decision. As a result, it was very hard to make a decision about what actions to take in a crisis.

• Even when the League could agree on a course of action, it didn't have its own army to enforce it and would have to rely on its members to send military aid. As a result, the League only really had two options: moral disapproval and economic sanctions. Neither of these options were very effective as punishments or deterrents for aggression. Countries were often reluctant to impose sanctions because it could hurt them as well, and moral disapproval depended on whether the aggressor agreed that doing something was wrong in principle. Furthermore, three of the most powerful countries in the world weren't members of the League of Nations; Germany wasn't allowed to join, America didn't want to join, and Russia refused to join. This became especially problematic when the great powers were the ones causing the trouble. When Italy invaded Abyssinia in 1935 and Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, the League could do very little to solve the crisis.

• The League always faced money issues. It was funded by its members, who decided how much money to give. Between 1924 and 1927, the League had only $4 million per year to fund all of its activities. The biggest contributor was Britain, while other countries contributed what they could. This slowed down the League's ability to respond to crises, because they had to issue calls for funding first, and the process between asking for funding, having governments decide whether to give it, and then receiving the money can take extremely long. This meant that the League often had to rely on charity organisations like the American Red Cross or Save the Children to react to humanitarian crises.

Despite all of these weaknesses, the League could have been successful if the great powers wanted it to be. However, the great powers mostly tried to protect their own interests instead of working towards a durable peace. The League's reliance on the cooperation of the great powers was perhaps its greatest and most significant weakness.Weaknesses of the League Members of the LeagueGreat Powers Without Membership

The effectiveness of the League was severely damaged because not all the great powers were members, and therefore had no obligation to support the League's work or adhere to its covenant. Let's look at each of the great powers in turn, considering their motivations and the consequences.

1.1 The United States

Even though the League was the result of US President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, the US Senate voted against joining the League of Nations when he returned to the USA to present the Treaty of Versailles to Congress for ratification. Between November 1919 and March 1920, the Treaty was put to a vote three times, and each time the Congress rejected the proposal. One of the chief concerns of the members of Congress was that the US's membership in the League would cause the country to become involved in future wars, and they wanted to avoid that. Many US soldiers had died during World War I, and nobody wanted a repeat of that event. Many Americans were also isolationist and didn't want to get involved in the affairs of other countries.1.2 Germany

At the Paris Peace Conference, the Allied Powers refused to allow Germany to join the League despite the fact that Germany wanted to join. The Allies argued that Germany had to first prove that it was reformed and wanted peace. Germany joined the League in 1926 as a permanent member, but Adolf Hitler and many other right-wing Germans thought the League was a club for the winners. Hitler therefore decided to take Germany out of the League when he came to power in 1933.

1.3 Russia (Soviet Union)

When the League was formed in 1920, the issue of whether Russia ought to be a member was a complicated one. Russia had undergone a revolution in 1917 and had become the world's first communist country. It had also initially been one of the Allied Powers, but had signed a treaty making peace with Germany after the new Russian government was established. The Allies were therefore wary of Russia, because the communists made no secret of the fact that they wanted to overthrow capitalism, the dominant economic system in western Europe. In turn, Russia did not like the Allies because they had attempted to thwart the Russian Revolution in 1917 in order to keep it capitalist. The Soviet Union saw the League as a capitalist club whose ideals were incompatible with its own. Russia did join the League in 1934, when it became clear that it wasn't a threat to the Allies, but it was expelled in 1939 when it invaded Finland.

2. Great Powers With Membership

2.1 Japan

The Empire of Japan was one of the founding members of the League of Nations in 1920. It had a permanent seat on the Council. From the start, many Japanese were against the League because they did not think that its members would recognise principles such as racial equality, and many people expected that the League would only serve to preserve the status quo that benefited the Western Allies. At the Paris Peace Conference, the Japanese delegation tried to make some changes to the covenant of the League of Nations, but with little success. Their proposal to add a clause on racial equality was rejected by the United States and Britain, although they did manage to make some amendments to the clauses that could restrict the Empire's growth.

In the end, Japan decided that having good trading relations and securing the Chinese province of Shandong (which had been taken from Germany) were more important, and so they joined the League. However, it soon became clear that the League was mostly concerned with European matters, and that it would take action to preserve the interests of European nations if necessary. When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, the League voted that the occupation was illegal. In response, Japan announced that it would leave the League in 1933.

2.2 Italy

Italy was one of the founding members of the League of Nations. However, Italy was not entirely happy with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, because it was not awarded any territory when Germany's former colonies were distributed after the war. In 1922, Benito Mussolini led the March on Rome, overthrew the government and installed a fascist, nationalist government that changed Italy's trajectory. Mussolini sought to restore the grandeur of ancient Rome by expanding Italy's colonial empire. In 1935, Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and the League voted to impose sanctions. However, the League took very long to decide exactly what sanctions to impose on Italy, and by the time they came to a conclusion Italy had already taken Abyssinia. In response to the sanctions, Italy left the League of Nations in 1937 because Mussolini felt they were receiving unfair treatment for doing the same thing the other great powers had done in the latter half of the 19th century, namely colonise Africa.

2.3 Britain and France

As the only two great powers who remained a part of the League of Nations from its inception in 1920 until its dissolution in 1946, Britain and France were responsible for carrying out much of the League's work. However, both countries had other concerns. France was worried about its neighbour Germany, and Britain was struggling to maintain control over its massive empire. As a result, neither were particularly keen on getting involved in the League's affairs if it clashed with their own interests. The League of Nations was just not very high on their list of priorities.

3. Other Members

3.1 Founding members

The list of countries that formed part of the League of Nations when it was founded in 1920 include:

Belgium South Africa New Zealand Australia Cuba Czechoslovakia China Greece Norway Persia (Iran) Spain Venezuela 3.2 Joined later

A number of countries joined the League of Nations later. These include:

Abyssinia Mexico Turkey Iraq Egypt