The League of Nations

1919-1939

The birth of the League

In 1918 nobody wanted to repeat the mass slaughter of the war.

The First World War should be “the war that ended all wars”

Countries needed to find a place to meet and collaborate to find peaceful solutions to their disputes

This picture by the British cartoonist David Low appeared in the Star newspaper on11 November 1919.

But leaders disagreed about the type of organisation that was needed:

The LoN should be like a world parliament in which representatives of all nations would meet regularly to reach agreements

The LoN should only meet when an emergency arose

The LoN should be a strong organisation with its own army

Mainly followed president Wilson’s ideas

All major nations would be members

Nations would disarmDisputes among nations

would be solved by the LoNThey would protect each

other whenever an invasion occured

Any nation breaking the Convenant would suffer an economic blockade

The LoN Covenant

Although the LoN was president Wilson’s idea the American Senate

rejected it:Some Americans did not like the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in which the LoN Covenant was included

Some Americans did not want to be involved again in European disputes or wars

American businessmen were worried about the cost of maintaining the League and its decisions

Some thought that the USA would be controlled by other nations through the LoN

The LoN’s Weaknesses

USA’s rejection discouraged many other nations about the power of the LoN to take action

Great Britain’s priority was to strengthen its Empire and trade

France was still concerned about Germany and thought that the L0N was useless without an army which could enforce its decisions

Membership of the League

42 countries joined the League at the start, and in 1930 it had 59 members.

Great Britain and France were the major powers that guided the LoN policy.

Italy and Japan were also members of the Council.

To discourage agressionTo encourage disarmamentTo increase cooperation among nations,

especially in trade an businessTo improve the living conditions of people

The Aims of the League

The League worked for a better world

The League had set itself a wider task than simply waiting for disputes to arise and hoping to solve them.

Through its commissions or committees, the League aimed to fight poverty, disease and injustice all over the world.

Border disputes in the 1920’s

• Poland occupied Vilna, capital of Lithuania

• The LoN could not solve it

Vilna, 1920

• Germany and Poland disputed the region• It was divided in two by the LoN

Upper Silesia, 1921

• Sweeden and Finland disputed the islands

• The LoN decided that the islands would belong to Finland. Sweeden accepted the decision.

Aaland Islands,

1921

Border disputes in the 1920’s• Greece and Albania disputed the island. Italians

sent to inspect border. • An Italian general was killed and Mussolini,

prime minister of Italy, bombarded and occupied Corfu.

• Greece complained to the League which condemned Mussolini’s actions. In the end, Greece had to apologise and pay compensation to Italy.

Corfu, 1923

• Great Britain and France designed the Protocol to avoid the League to be undermined by one of its members as in Corfu.

• It stated that the members of the League would have to accept the League’s decision.

• The British Parliament rejected it.

The Geneva Protocol

• Greece invaded Bulgaria.• The LoN forced Greece to apologize and

pay compensations to Bulgaria.• It showed the members that there seemed

to be a different rule for the large states (Italy) and for the smaller ones (Greece)

Bulgaria, 1925

Failure of disarmament

No major agreements were made apart from the Washington Conference (1921) in which USA, Japan, Great Britain and France accepted to reduce the size of their navies.

This damaged the reputation of the League (particularly in Germany, who had disarmed)

However,

a series of international agreements seemed to promise a more peaceful world.

The two most important of these were …

The Locarno Treaties, 1925

The Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928

Germany accepted the terms of the Treaty of Versailles related to its Western borders: Borders with France and

Belgium Demilitarisation of Rhineland Disputes with other nations

would be solved at the LoN

In exchange, Germany was accepted as a member of the LoN in 1926

65 nations renounced war as a way to solve disputes but it made no provisions for sanctions if any member broke the pact.

The states agreed that they had to keep their armies for “self-defence”.

International Agreements

The mood by the end of the 1920’s

The LoN has not been succesful in some territorial disputes or in disarmament but international relations were at their high point with all nations willing to collaborate and avoid war.

At the same time the economies of European nations were recovering.

The Dawes and Young Plans

- The Dawes Plan (1924) established a way to collect war reparations from Germany, thus getting British and French economies moving again.

- The Young Plan (1929) reduced Germany’s reparations payments.

- Trading relationships among nations reduced tensions.

However, American loans would be a

burden to Europe’s economy in the 1930’s

During the 1920’s the League of Nations tried to increase international cooperation to avoid war. Nevertheless …