WORLD HISTORY: THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS – Part 2
EVALUATION OF THE LEAGUE
SUCCESS OF THE LEAGUE
- Much was done to foster international co-operation. One of the most successful was the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
- Other successful results were the Refugee Organisation, the Health Organisation and the Mandates CommIssion.
- Several political disputes were solved by the League. For instance, the quarrel between Finland and Sweden, Peru and Colombia, etc.
FAILURE OF THE LEAGUE
The following were the reasons for the failure of the League:
- The League seems like an organisation created especially for the benefit of the victorious powers.
- The USA did not join the League; thus, League was deprived of a powerful member.
- Other important powers such as Germany was not allowed to join until 1926 and USSR only became a member in 1934.
- The Conference of Ambassadors took percedence over the League on several occasions, for example, in Corfu incident.
- The League had no military force of its own.
- A resolution was passed in 1923 that each member would decide for itself whether or not to fight in a crisis. This defeated the idea of collective security.
- The continued absence of USA and USSR and hostility of Italy made the League very much a French-British Affair.
- With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, the govts in countries such as Germany and Japan who refused to comply to the League.
- The League could not impose any sanction on Japan after her invasion of Manchuria in 1931.
- Germany withdrew from the League after its demand for equality of armaments with France was not met.
- The Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 was not followed by strong sanctions from the League. This was the most serious blow to League’s credibility. After 1935, League was never taken seriously again.
CONCLUSION
League should not be dismissed as a complete failure. How could the League deal with aggressors if it had no army of its own and no mechanism to compel member states to provide their troops? In fact, its great contribution was that it provided the blueprint for a second, more effective and longer-lasting form of international cooperation- the United Nations (UN).
