the League of Nations in the 1920's

successes of the league of nations 1920’s

1. 1921 upper Silesia an industrial region between Poland ad Germany. both nationalities lived there but both countries wanted control over it because of its mineral wealth.

   the league put the region under a plebiscite. asking the people who they wanted to be under.

   based on the votes the LON had spilt up the regions 2/3 to Germany and 1/3 to Poland

2. 1921 the Aarland islands between Sweden and Finland. both countries wanted ruled over the islands. both countries threatened each other to fight over the island.

   but instead they called appon the league to be a mediator in the dispute. in the end it was decided that the islands were to stay under Finnish control, however the Swedish people would have special benefits and their rights protected. this was agreed by both.

3. 1925 Bulgaria, in October Greece had invaded Bulgaria after some of their troops had been killed in a boarder dispute.

   Bulgaria appealed to the league, at first the league appealed to both to stop their fighting and sent a commission to investigate the matter.

   the commisson was found in favour of the Bulgarians and forced the greeks out of the country and was told to pay compensation they obeyed.

4. the league was able to repatriate about 400,000 ww1 prisoners of war back to their own country.

5. commissions like the anti-drug trafficking one was very successful in fighting the drug crisis. as well as fight against slavery including white slavery which is sex trafficking. even being able to free 200,000 slaves in Sierria Leon.

6. the kellogg-briand pact was another success as 65 countries signed promising not to use force to settle disputes and instead appeal to the league and by using the international court of justice the matter would be resolved peacefully

failures of the league in the 1920’s

1. 1920, Vilna. where Poland and Lithuania wanted the city because it the capital of Lithuania, however the majority of the people were polish. and so in 1920 the polish army had just moved in trying to seize the city.

   Lithuania appealed to the league. it appeared that poland had broken the covenant as they were the agressors in the situation.

   the league protested against this however the city still remained under polish control. France supported Poland in return for polish support in the event of Germany trying to invade them. no one in the league cared enough to send in troops to stop this, and in the end the polls kept control over Vilna

2. in 1923 Italy had invaded Cofu. Italian soldiers working for the league were killed as they were mapping out the boundary between Greece and Albania.

   Mussolini demanded 50 million Lira in compensation from the greeks who he had blamed for the attack. and called for the exicution of the murderers too.

   because the greeks didn’t know who had killed the soldiers the italian army had invaded and island called corfu. and he put pressure on the leagues council to support italy instead of greece.

   in September instead of carrying on with the condemning of italys actions the league. the league told greece to pay what it owed in return for italy removing its troops from the island.