Failure+of+the+League+of+Nations

Mary Corbett December 10, 2009 Hinze Period 2 The League of Nations; what did that do? Throughout the 1800’s and early 1900’s war was prevalent. In search of an answer to conclude fighting and problems in the war, America’s president Woodrow Wilson made an interesting idea in his 14 points. The League of Nations. It started 1918 and was to prevent WW1 from happening and possibly stop total destruction. [|[1]] Although the idea was reasonable, not all countries participated and the league couldn’t stop countries from trying to do what is best for their country. The failure of the League of Nations was not in spite of its idealistic origins but because the League of Nations had no enforcement and couldn’t recruit major countries into the League. Germany, The United States and Russia didn’t join the League of Nations and, therefore; it suffered greatly. These countries didn’t have to go by the Leagues rules and could basically do whatever they felt. The United States was the biggest country missing from the League. The United States was the wealthiest nation and even promoted the idea of the League of Nations [|[2]]. Because of the failure to promote the United States into the League, countries felt as though they could not join because the United States wasn’t. Also, the League didn’t include Germany and Russia. It gave both Germany and Russia another reason to become angry with the other countries because Germany had extreme war debt from World War 1 and Russia had lost territory [|[3]]. Another reason the League of Nations needed to include Germany and Russia was because eventually Germany and Russia teamed up together in the Treaty of Rapallo. Basically this was an agreement of economic and military co-operation. Germany was able to receive weapons not allowed by the Treaty of Versailles and disarmament provisions of the Treaty of Versailles were dead. [|[4]] This is important because the league depended on collective action and without major countries, the leagues effectiveness is lessened. Because of no enforcement by the League of Nations, their ideas couldn’t be carried through. Although the league was to promote peace, it lacked a much needed powerful army to promote peace. Without a strong army countries didn’t have a consequence or didn’t have anything to be threatened with. Also, collective security was followed by some members while other members like Britain rejected it [|[5]]. In order for the League to work it needed people to honestly respect collective security and have an army to enforce laws and treaties. [|[6]] Even though the failure of the League of Nations was because of its lack of enforcement and failure to promote to major countries, there are reasons why the League could have been in spite of its idealistic origins. First, the league had no control whether the United States joined or not. They could have promoted all they wanted and the Senate could have still said no. Also, the league couldn’t force countries to participate in the army because they could just drop out and not participate at all. The League of Nations is a learning part of history. In order to have a working multi-country organization you need powerful countries and army to help enforce. The League of Nations didn’t have this and therefore it failed.

[|[1]] 20th Century World History: Course Companion. Oxford U. Oxford, 2009 by: Cannon et al. [|[2]] Ibid. [|[3]] Whitney, Craig R. “World War I; why it still matters: in 1919, the ‘war to end all wars’ formally ended with The Treaty of Versailles. But 90 years later, we’re still living with the consequences.” New York Times Upfront b May 2009. 24+. Student Resource Center- Gold, Web. 16 Nov. 2009.  [|[4]] Ibid. [|[5]] Thomas J. Knock “League of Nations” The Oxford Companion to United States History. Paul S. Boyer, ed. Oxford University Press 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Infohio – NOACSC. 7 December 2009  [|[6]] Dictionary of American History. Ed Stanely I. Kutler. Vol 5. 63-65 Type in the content of your page here.