The League of Nations

The League of Nations

• The 14th point on Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Point Peace plan
• His idea, though his country did not join it once it was created
• An organization made up of many countries after the war with the idea that they would try to prevent any future wars
• However, it was largely unsuccessful due to a multitude of reasons

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Four Main Goals

• Stop Wars
• Improve people’s lives and jobs (living and working conditions, improve international trade)
• Disarmament
• Enforce the Treaty of Versailles

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Flaws in the League of Nations

• The Assembly only met once a year
• Assembly decisions had to be unanimous
• 4 permanent council members were all from Allied countries
  • Britain, France, Italy, and Japan
  • Italy and Japan became fascist countries, fascism disagreed with the core principles of the League of Nations (militarism vs disarmament, violence vs stopping wars)
  • Britain and France were busy trying to rebuild their own countries from the war
• Considered a “winners only” club, members of the Central Powers were not allowed to join at first
• The US, a global powerhouse, never joined the League

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Keeping the Peace

• To maintain peace throughout the world, the League of Nations used three steps:

  1. Pressure of world opinion (basically, they would tell the country making trouble not to do whatever they were doing)
  2. World trade ban (economic sanctions on the country)
  3. Force if necessary (however, the League had no army and could not effectively enforce this)

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Collective Security

• League members swore to take common action to defend each other in the event of an attack
• However, this did not always happen

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Failures of the League of Nations

• Manchuria and Abyssinia (Ethiopia), explain more of this

• Powerful military threats like Italy and Germany were too strong for the League to contend with as they had no army

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Remember, the League of Nations…

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Weak-- little power and no army

America never joined

Structured poorly-- unanimous votes, 4 permanent Allied judges, etc.

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Depression caused countries to focus on their economies rather than the League as a whole

Unsuccessful-- most countries ignored its jurisdictions

Members like Italy and Japan left, others like Britain and France ignored their duties

Big bullies like Italy, Japan, and Germany were too strong for the League to deal with

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