League's Failures Explored

1. Manchuria

The Manchurian Crisis in 1931 was the first time the League had been challenged by a great power. Had the League been able to intervene and stop Japan, this would have sent a strong message to other great powers like Germany and Italy. However, the League's failure to put an end to Japan's aggression in Manchuria did the opposite, it showed the great powers that the League was ultimately powerless against a great power intent on imperial expansion.

2. Abyssinia

The League's failure in Manchuria was welcome news to both Hitler and Mussolini, both of whom wanted to expand their countries' territory. After Manchuria it became clear that national interests would continue to trump international interests and that the League would not be able to make meaningful interventions. As a result, the likelihood of aggression from Italy increased, and Hitler ruthlessly pursued his goal of destroying the Treaty of Versailles, knowing that the League would not be able to stop him. The aftermath of the Abyssinian Crisis in 1935 also undermined the League, because it became clear that the great powers were not as invested in the League's goals as they perhaps ought to have been. The double game that France and Britain played when they negotiated the Hoare-Laval Pact while simultaneously supporting sanctions against Italy made a serious dent in the League's reputation, from which it never recovered.

France and Britain had attempted to maintain a good relationship with Italy as a guarantee against Hitler. However, this attempt failed and Italy left the League in 1937. Later that same year, Mussolini visited Berlin and then signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany and Japan. This pact was meant to show a united front against communism, an ideology hated by the elites (those with wealth and political power) in all three countries.

The Comintern ("Communist International") was an international organisation founded in 1919 in the aftermath of World War I. It was led by the Soviet Union and its goal was to support the growth of global communism.

3. The League's Failures and Appeasement

Above all, the League's failures(opens in a new tab) in the 1930s showed the world that neither France nor Britain took the organisation seriously. After the Abyssinian Crisis, both of these governments realised that the League would be unable to guarantee collective security, and thus that an alternative solution had to be found. Germany had already begun rearming, and thus France and Britain decided that they too should rearm as a matter of precaution. Public opinion was not in favour of this strategy, as many ordinary people had faith in the League's mission.

Even so, by 1936 both Britain and France had come to the conclusion that rearmament was the only way to attempt to deter Hitler from taking aggressive action. They also knew that the process would take several years before their countries were ready for another big war. In the meantime, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier took a different approach to dealing with dictators between 1936-1939: the policy of appeasement. In 1938, they met with Hitler and Mussolini in Munich, shortly after Hitler had invaded Czechoslovakia and claimed a part of its territory. At the Munich Conference, the leaders decided to give the Sudetenland to Germany as a way to appease Hitler, hoping he would be satisfied with this territory and not invade anyone else (although of course it didn't quite work out that way). Czechoslovakia was not at the Munich Conference, and left with no allies had no choice but to give the Sudetenland to Hitler, since the League by then had become obsolete and no other country (except for the Soviet Union(opens in a new tab)) was willing to fight the Germans in 1938.Consequences of the League's Failures Responses to the Versailles Settlement What were the long-term consequences of the Versailles Settlement?1. Italy and Germany

World War I ended in two stages: an armistice was declared in November 1918 that ended the fighting, and this was followed by the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where the terms of a peace agreement were negotiated. The concept "Versailles Settlement" refers to all of the peace treaties concluded between the victors and the vanquished after World War I, not just the Treaty of Versailles. In total, five treaties were drawn up:

Treaty of Versailles (Germany) Treaty of Saint-Germain (Austria) Treaty of Trianon (Hungary) Treaty of Neuilly (Bulgaria) Treaties of Sèvres/Lausanne (Turkey). The settlement also created the League of Nations, a multinational organisation tasked with peacekeeping. As part of the terms of the treaties, former empires on the losing side of the war were partitioned and a number of successor states were formed. Implementing and enforcing the terms of the treaties proved to be a difficult task, and even more so because Germany and Italy were dissatisfied with the results of the negotiations.

1.1. Italy

The Versailles Settlement was very unpopular in Italy, because despite the high number of Italian soldiers who died fighting on the side of the Allied powers, Italy had not received the concessions it had been promised(opens in a new tab) in return for its entry into the war. They wanted the Port of Fiume and the Dalmatian Coast (in modern Croatia) along with some of the German Empire's colonies. US President Wilson rejected Italy's claims on the basis of the principle of national self-determination. This slight caused a lot of resentment. Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando stormed out of the Paris Peace Conference; when he returned later he was sidelined by the other major leaders (USA, Britain and France).1.2. Germany

The Treaty of Versailles was very harsh on Germany. It lost 65 000 km² of territory and 7 million people. All German colonies were redistributed among the victors, Germany's military was limited to 100 000 soldiers, and Germany had to pay a huge reparations penalty. However, Germany still had a vast amount of economic resources, and because the war had been waged outside the borders of Germany, there wasn't massive destruction like there was in France. Germany had the ability to rebuild its economy and its military if it wanted to. By 1925, just seven years after the end of WWI, Germany was producing twice as much steel as Britain. Still, most Germans felt the terms of the treaty were humiliating and unfair. For example, Germany was forbidden from uniting with German-speaking Austria, which many took to mean that the principle of self-determination was applicable to everyone but Germans.

In Germany after the conclusion of the peace agreement, political parties that opposed the Treaty of Versailles became more popular. Some wanted to see it revised, while others, including Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, wanted to see the treaty destroyed completely. Hitler's foreign policy was centred around his desire to tear up the treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain. He himself was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and saw the Germans who lived in the newly created state of Austria as part of the German Volk. Between 1933 and 1939, he took several actions contrary to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles to realise his goals:

1936: German rearmament and the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, which has been occupied by the French since the end of the war 1938: Austria annexed and joined with Germany (Anschluss) 1938: Annexation of the Sudetenland, a region in Czechoslovakia on the border with Germany where many Germans live 1939: Invasion of Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia 1939: The seizure of Memel, a former German territory located in modern-day Lithuania 1939: Invasion of Poland.2. France and Britain

In the immediate aftermath of World War I, British and French people had a lot of resentment and anger towards Germany for causing the hardships of the war. For that reason, they wanted to see Germany punished for its actions. However, not all people held the same view, and as time went by and the effects of the war and the treaty became more apparent, some people's feelings started to change.

2.1. France

Germany and France have a complicated history; the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and the loss of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine had caused resentment towards Germany on the part of the French. When WWI broke out, the memory of this loss had only just started to fade, only to be brought back into focus as France became the site of the Western Front and suffered massive destruction.

The majority of the French therefore did not simply want a peace treaty, they wanted to see Germany punished and they wanted it permanently weakened so that it no longer posed a threat to France. When the treaty was made public, many thought that it was still too lenient and would not deter Germany from future aggression. These fears were realised when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and started to rearm and rebuild the military in contravention of the terms of the treaty. In response, France built the Maginot Line, a series of defences along its eastern border aimed at preventing or at least delaying a German invasion. They also worked with Britain in an effort to find a peaceful revision of the treaty.2.2. Britain

Initially, the British public was in favour of the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles, although some officials in the British government thought the French were being vengeful and would only exacerbate instability in Europe by trying to enforce the treaty. However, as time went on and the effects of the treaty became clear through events such as the hyperinflation crisis and the rise of right-wing extremism, people's views became more moderate. When the Great Depression hit in 1929, public opinion shifted towards sympathy. Many now thought that the treaty was too harsh on Germany. The rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party was seen as a reasonable response to the peace agreement, and thus many people thought the British government should try to find a peaceful revision of the treaty.