The League of Nations (LoN)

Organisation of the LoN - Council

• made most important decisions but had to be unanimous

• met 5 times a year

• 4 permanent members (Britain, France, Japan, Italy)

• 4 non-permanent members voted for every 3 years

• each permanent member had a veto

Organisation of the LoN - Assembly

• the league’s parliament

• every country sent a representative who could recommend an action for the council to vote on

Organisation of the LoN - International Court of Justice

• made judgements on international arguments and gave legal advice to the LoN

Organisation of the LoN - Commisions

• individual groups set up to deal with specific issues and problems

Organisation of the LoN - Secretariat

• a civil service that did the day-to-day administration and running of the LoN

what were the LoN’s powers?

• give them a warning - decided by the assembly

• economic sanctions

• referee

• Upper Silesia 1912 - success

• inhabited by both Germans and Polish

• a vote was organised to determine what side people wanted to be on

• the areas were split accordingly

Aaland Islands 1921 - success

• Sweden and Finland wanted the Aaland Islands and were threatening war with each other

• LoN gave the islands to Finland which Sweden accepted and war was avoided

Vilna 1920 - failure

• Vilna was the new capital of Lithuania but had lots of polish speakers

• Poland took control

• LoN sent a warning but Poland ignored

• Britain and France didn’t want to send out troops so Poland kept Vilna

Corfu 1923 - failure

• Greece and Albania’s borders needed sorting

• an Italian general surveyed the borders but was killed on the Greek side

• Italian leader demanded reparations and attacked Corfu

• Greece payed compensation to the LoN

• Mussolini persuaded the LoN to change the decision

The Great Depression

• caused by the Wall Street Crash 1929

• construction fell by 92% and over 100,000 businesses failed between 1929-1932

• 25% of the workforce unemployed

• USA had to recall all of the European loans

• other countries which depended on loans crashed

Manchurian Crisis 1931

• Japan controlled South Manchuria

• 18th Sept 1931 - Japanese army sabotaged it and blamed it on China so they had an excuse to attack

• Feb 1932 - Japanese army invaded Manchuria

• March 1932 - China appealed to the LoN but Japan claimed it was self defence

• Lord Lytton sent to investigate

• Oct 1932 - one year later the report was released saying Japan acted illegally

Consequences of the Manchurian Crisis

• members were preoccupied with the GD so were unable to send troops

• proved to Mussolini that he could do something similar

• Japan left LoN and the LoN lost a valuable member

Abyssinian Crisis 1934

• Dec 1932 - Wal-Wal incident

• Oct 1935 - Italy began a full invasion of Abyssinia with 400,000 troops

• LoN placed a ban on trades that took 6 weeks to work

• Britain and France didn’t shut the Suez Canal as they feared Italy would turn to Germany

• May 1936 - Abyssinia conquered