Failure+of+League+of+Nations+and+Appeasement

Joe Xiang

World War II undoubtedly was one of the most horrific events to happen throughout the history of the world. This global scale conflict was seemingly caused by small little conflicts, and to an extent failed diplomatic agreements. These conflicts and failed agreements would balloon up into worse situations for the world, and finally cause World War II. During World War II, countries joined up into alliances, in what would be known as the Allies and the Axis. With these two coalitions battling each other with total warfare, the number of casualties, both military and civilian, would reach an absurd amount, and many people would suffer due to pointless warfare for revenge and world dominance. However, if there was some type of international governing power available at the time that was capable of settling out these small conflicts, many people argue that WWII would have never even existed. Ironically, this is exactly what the League of Nations failed to do. Even though the League of Nations was set specifically to solve the world’s problems, it utterly failed. Thus, mainly due to the inability of League of Nations to be a proper governing power and to some extent appeasement, aggressive countries were able to rise to power once again as some of the world’s strongest powers and involve numerous countries in World War II. The League of Nations was made directly after World War I as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. [i[1] The countries that won in World War I, which included France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States drew up a covenant for the League during the League at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. [ii[2] Immediately following that, the League Assembly met for the first time in November 1920 in Geneva, Switzerland. [iii[3] Woodrow Wilson, the president of the United States at the time, actually was the first to propose the idea of an international committee that would complete several tasks in able to defend all member nations under collective security. In Wilson’s Fourteen Points, he speaks of “a general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike” [iv[4] For this idea to work, member nations were required to promote disarmament, open diplomacy, mediate international disputes, and defend the independence and territory of all members. [v[5] Ironically, even though Woodrow Wilson, the president of the United States drew up such a plan for a league, the United States did not join the league. The United States Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, which also meant it also rejected the League of Nations. [vi[6] This small act was just a precursor into the many other failures the League would face, which would ultimately cause the collapse of the League of Nations. Although the United States did not join the League, that reason alone did not cause the League to collapse. Truthfully, the League was riddled with problems, one of them being countries only worrying about their own problems. After World War One, many countries needed to focus all their attention on rebuilding their own respective countries or working on their own security. For example, the United Kingdom was in an economic slump after World War One, and was more concerned with trade to rebuild its economy. [vii[7] France on the other hand, wanted to make sure its security agreements were maintained with Germany, and that they would not be attacked in the near future. These pursuits of national interests started to undermine the League’s purpose, and in turn, undermined its reputation. Other problems were even more disastrous. Nations were being banned from even taking part in the League at all. These banned nations, called criminal or outlaw states, [viii[8] could not voice their opinions in the League, and thus, refused to even co-operate whatsoever. Major nations that were banned from the League included Russia and Germany, and due to this ban, the League lost three Great Powers Nations. The absence of these three nations (USA, Russia, Germany) meant that the League had had even less power to condone actions or even bring sanctions upon other countries. Shortly after these events, the League started to slowly lose power and would eventually collapse. Although World War One had just been concluded just a few years ago, countries still decided that there had not been enough bloodshed, and that their own interests were still more important than global peace and security. One of these countries was Japan. Japan became increasingly interested in Manchuria, which was part of China. Although Japan did own the South Manchuria Railroad, [ix[9] they felt the need to expand their empire. On September 1931, Japan found the chance to take over Manchuria. The South Manchuria Railroad the Japanese owned was attacked, in what would be called the Mukden Incident. Seizing this opportunity to invade China, Japan orchestrated a highly organized attack on Manchuria, and was met with little resistance. Responding to this attack, the League gave warnings to Japan, which Japan simply ignored. Economic sanctions were discussed among the League’s members, but however, the members were very much divided [x[10]. However, the League did agree that they would not acknowledge the conquest of Manchuria, and faulted Japan for the whole incident. Japan in response simply removed themselves from the League. [xi[11] Another incident involving aggressive action from a country was the Second Italo-Abyssinian War occurring on October 1935. In this incident, Italy, under the leadership of Mussolini attacked Ethiopia, who was a member of the League of Nations. The League responded to this outrage and on October 7, 1935, acknowledged that Italy was the aggressor, and started to impose sanctions on Italy. [xii[12] However, these sanctions did not include vital materials, such as oil. The League feared that an oil sanction would influence Italy to buy oil from other countries such as the United States, who was not a member. The League also was divided upon this issue as well. Britain and France just wanted to avoid conflict with Italy, and also did not want Italy to alliance themselves with Germany. Thus the League appeased Italy, and let Italy take control of Ethiopian territory. A few years after, Italy also withdrew themselves from the League, and joined Japan and Germany in an alliance. [xiii[13] Just as Britain and France had appeased Italy in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, they would repeat their actions once more, and appease Hitler with the Munich Pact. The Munich Pact, which was made as an agreement between Neville Chamberlain, Premier Edouard Daladier, Benito Mussolini and Hitler, allowed Hitler to invade Czechoslovakia and make it a part of Germany. The rationality was that Czechoslovakia was discriminatory to the Sudetan people and secession of Sudetan people would fulfill their request for self-determination. [xiv[14] Thus, on March 1939, Germany marched into Czechoslovakia, and followed through on the agreement. Unknown at the time to France, and Britain, Hitler had no intention to just stop with Czechoslovakia. On September 1, 1939, Hitler had also begun his attack on Poland, and this time, France and Britain declared war on Germany, leading to World War II, and the fight between the Allies and the Axis. In the end, one can see that the League of Nations really did absolutely nothing. They were slow to condone countries for military aggression, and could not properly impose sanctions when they were needed the most. Thus countries really were able to do whatever they pleased, and could apparently attack other countries without much penalty. This caused the League to collapse and began part of the reason why World War II happened. Appeasement on the other hand, also played a role in the reason why World War II started. By allowing countries such as Italy and Germany to take other countries land, and to do absolutely nothing is downright absurd. When Hitler was appeased, he nullified the Munich Pact and forced countries to declare war on Germany, thus bringing several countries into a global conflict. Thus, even thought the League of Nations and the idea of appeasement generally were seen as good prototype ideas for greater world security and peace, when taken off paper and applied, one can see that these two things ultimately caused World War II.

[i[1] Goda, Norman J.W. “League of Nations.” //World Book Advanced.// World Book, 2009 Web. 16 Nov. 2009 [ii[2] Ibid. [iii[3] Ibid. [iv[4] Wilson Thomas W. “The Fourteen Points Speech” January 8, 1918 [v[5] Goda, Norman J.W //World Book Advanced.// World Book. [vi[6] Goda, Norman J.W //World Book Advanced.// World Book. [vii[7] Goda, Norman J.W //World Book Advanced.// World Book. [viii[8] "League of Nations." //History Learning.// [ix[9] "The Manchurian Crisis." //U-S-History//. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. . [x[10] Ibid [xi[11] Ibid [xii[12] "Second Italo-Ethiopian War." //New World// //Encyclopedia//. 30 May 2008. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. [xiii[13] Goda, Norman J.W //World Book Advanced.// World Book. [xiv[14] "Munich Pact." //Think Quest//. Think Quest, Web. 9 Dec. 2009. .