8 How successful was the League in the 1930s?

Question 1

What are the arguments that the League was a success in the 1930s?

Answer 1

• The continuing good work of the agencies, committees and commissions. The Saar Commission, for example, successfully organised the plebiscite which led to the return of the region to Germany in January in 1935
• The contribution made towards the resolution of border disputes in South America between Bolivia and Paraguay over the Chaco and between Peru and Columbia over Leticia

Question 2

What can we easily describe the 1930s as for the League of Nations?

Answer 2

a disaster

Question 3

Which 3 permanent members of the Council leave the League in the 1930s?

Answer 3

Italy, Japan and Germany

Question 4

Which country was expelled from the League in November 1939?

Answer 4

Soviet Russia for invading Finland

Question 5

When was the next time the League met after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and what happened?

Answer 5

The next time was April 1946, when it was wound up and its assets transferred to the newly formed United Nations

Question 6

What are the three main events that collectively demonstrated the complete inadequacy of the League in the face of determined action to pursue national rather than international interests during the 1930s?

Answer 6

1) The Japanese invasion of Manchuria
2) The failure of the Disarmament Conference
3) The Italian invasion of Abyssinia

Question 7

What happened to the League in 1936?

Answer 7

The League had become an irrelevancy and was thereafter largely ignored by European statesmen

Question 8

How was Japan affected by the Depression?

Answer 8

Very badly as it is an island trading nation.
Japan was not self-sufficient in food and depended upon imports to feed its rapidly rising population
These imports had to be paid for with exports, but Japan’s main export commodity was silk.
As exports declined due to falling overseas demand, Japan faced a growing economic crisis

Question 9

Why did Manchuria look promising to Japan?

Answer 9

As it could provide a source of food and raw materials, a market for Japanese exports, as well as land for the surplus Japanese population

Question 10

What did Japanese soldiers do along the Mukden Railway line and when was it?

Answer 10

They staged an incident in September 1931

Question 11

What was the incident that Japanese soldiers staged along the Mukden Railway line?

Answer 11

Using the excuse of Chinese banditry, they launched an invasion of the local area

Question 12

What did the Chinese government do after the incident along the Mukden Railway line occurred?

Answer 12

They appealed to the League

Question 13

What did the Japanese Government do after the Chinese government appealed to the League about the incident along the Mukden Railway line?

Answer 13

They promised to to withdraw their troops. It soon became clear, however, that the civilian government was no longer in control of events and the Japanese army preceded to occupy the whole province

Question 14

When and what to did the Japanese Government renamed Manchuria?

Answer 14

In March 1932, they renamed Manchuria to Manchukuo

Question 15

What was the League’s response to the Mukden Railway line crisis and why?

Answer 15

The League could have called for sanctions but it failed to do so. There were several reasons for this:

1) None of the European powers wanted to reduce their trade with the Far East, especially since American firms could have taken over the lost business
2) The alternative of military sanctions was even less appealing. This would have involved European states sending a naval task force to the other side of the world with very uncertain prospects of success
3) Both Britain and France possessed colonies in the Far East, including Hong Kong and Singapore, and feared sanctions might provoke a Japanese attack

Question 16

Who did the League appoint to lead a commission of enquiry to Manchuria?

Answer 16

They appointed Lord Lytton

Question 17

With who and for how long did Lytton spend in the province?

Answer 17

He spent 6 weeks with four other men, including a representative from the United States

Question 18

What was Lytton’s conclusion after his 6 week period in Manchuria?

Answer 18

He concluded that although the Japanese were provoked in various ways by the Chinese, the invasion was not justified.

Question 19

What response did the Lytton Report have on the League?

Answer 19

The Lytton Report was considered by the Assembly in February 1933 where the findings were accepted by a vote of 42 to 1. Japan’s response was to terminate its membership of the League

Question 20

What were the main problems with the League’s response to the Manchuria crisis?

Answer 20

1) League didn’t act quickly enough - Lytton arrived at Far East in April 1932, Japanese were busy strengthening their hold on the province by this time - Assembly of the League voted on report 18 months after crisis
2) The European powers were unable to call upon nearby military forces (as Soviet Russia and US weren’t part of League) and the chances of economic sanctions achieving a positive result at a time of world recession looked remote

Question 21

How did the rest of the world react to the League’s response to the Manchuria crisis?

Answer 21

Because of the two reasons, the rest of the world were willing to give them another chance. However, if it was a European power instead of Japan, other countries would have regarded their conclusion differently.

Question 22

Why did the members of the conference fail to agree about Global Disarmament?

Answer 22

• France, Poland and Czechoslovakia were all worried about their future defensive security in the event of an attack by Germany and were reluctant to place their faith in a system of collective security that had already shown flaws
• France were willing to disarm, but only if additional guarantees were provided by Britain and the United States. This is something that the latter countries were not prepared to give
• Hitler, who had no intention of disarming, was able to exploit these fears and claimed that France was not serious about disarmament, using this as an excuse to withdraw from the conference altogether. Shortly afterwards, Germany left the League.
• With the exit of Japan over the League’s attitude to its conquest of Manchuria, it soon became apparent that general disarmament was going to remain a pipe dream

Question 23

When did Germany’s rearmament begin and which other countries started to rearm?

Answer 23

Hitler announced it in 1935, and therefore, Italian and Japanese rearmament soon followed

Question 24

What caused Mussolini to begin build-up of Italian forces in Eritrea and Somaliland?

Answer 24

The border incident at Wal Wal in December 1934

Question 25

Why was the world shocked by Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia?

Answer 25

As there was no formal declaration of war. The world were shocked at the ruthlessness of the Italian action as primitive villages and small towns under the rule of local chieftains were destroyed by the invaders’ modern military equipment

Question 26

What did the League impose on Italy after their invasion?

Answer 26

They promptly condemned the action and imposed economic sanctions

Question 27

How did the economic sanctions impact Italy?

Answer 27

At the start, the League was looking like they were strong and that they were not going to repeat the mistakes made over the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. But, it soon became apparent that economic sanctions were having little impact on the progress of the war

Question 28

Why was economic sanctions having no impact on Italy after their invasion of Abyssinia?

Answer 28

1) Essential war materials such as oil and coal had been excluded from the list of prohibited items
2) The Suez Canal, the main artery for the supply of the Italian army, was kept open for fear of possible Italian naval attacks on the British colonial professions of Gibraltar and Malta

Question 29

What did Britain and France do in December 1935 to avoid embarrassment?

Answer 29

They concocted a secret deal, the infamous Hoare-Laval Pact. Italy would receive approximately 2/3 of Abyssinia in return for stopping the war. The remaining mountainous rump and ancient kingdom would be compensated for this loss by being given a narrow strip of territory to provide access to the sea through Italian Eritrea.

Question 30

Why did the Hoare-Laval Pact have to be abandoned?

Answer 30

As when Mussolini was indicating that he would accept this deal, news of it was leaked to the French Press. The consequent storm of public protest in both France and Britain meant that the plan had to be immediately abandoned.

Question 31

What did Mussolini and the League do after the Hoare-Laval Pact was abandoned?

Answer 31

They continued the war with Addis Ababa, the Abyssinian capital, being captured in May 1936. The League lifted sanctions in July.

Question 32

Why did the League fail to tie effective help to Abyssinia?

Answer 32

As Britain and France had been trying to pursue two contradictory objectives:

1) They felt they were duty-bound to support the League of Nations and idea of collective security (so they applied economic sanctions)
2) They were fearful of offending Italy to the extent that they would become an ally of Germany.

The second objective was regarded as more important than the first objective.

Question 33

What happened when the League tried to accomplish two contradictory objectives at the same time in Abyssinia?

Answer 33

Britain and France ended up with nothing. the League of Nations was dealt a death blow from which it never recovered, while Italy was so offended by the imposition of the economic sanctions that it decided to make common cause with Germany and leave the League in 1937.

Question 34

How did the Abyssinian crisis affect other country’s images on the League?

Answer 34

Other countries started to ignore the League when they had a major issue of foreign policy

Question 35

Name some examples of major issues after 1936 that the League was not consulted or asked for help with

Answer 35

• the Anschluss or union between Germany and Austria in March 1938
• the Sudetenland Crisis in February 1938
• the Munich Conference in September 1938

Question 36

How did the Britain and France respond to the lack of the League’s presence in the world?

Answer 36

They began to rearm and seek military allies in order to check an increasingly aggressive Germany

Question 37

What successes of the League of Nations is being used in the United Nations?

Answer 37

• the Permanent Court of International Justice

- the International Labour Organisation