The Failure of the League of Nations

Steven Bosco

Mrs. Carty

Global 10

May 31, 2012

The Failure of the League of Nations

At the end of World War I, the League of Nations was formed by the Treaty of Versailles and created a more organized way of negotiation between countries, but it was unsuccessful. Its first goal was to attain a peace for World War I. Its aims were to guarantee international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security. The League of Nations was the first systematic attempt to create an organization to prevent war and promote peace. The League of Nations failed because it was not universal. It excluded the superpowers Russia, Germany, and the United States. It was a defective tool for achieving German disarmament and did not build a strong alliance. It did have some success in; although, it was ultimately unsuccessful, it was an ambitious attempt to change the abuses of the state system while containing the individual sovereignty of each nation.

The League of Nations was far from universal and this was a big problem. The conflict between Britain and France affected the League. France wanted to punish Germany as much as possible and completely take away their war making power. Great Britain believed France’s demands to be a little too harsh.  There were major disagreements between the British and the French over the scale of German disarmament and security guarantees. There was also an argument between the British and the Americans over German naval disarmament. France was afraid Germany might attack them again and did not want to take any chances. France wanted to strip Germany of their military power so they could not hurt them. Britain, like the United States of America, was less interested in the goal that France valued. Another major problem was that Russia, the United States, and Germany were not even in the League of Nations. Russia was a communist nation and was not allowed to join. America refused to join despite Wilson’s interest in joining. Germany was not allowed to join the League because they started the war. Leaving out Germany was intended as a punishment. Without these three extremely powerful nations, the League was very weak in enforcing its policies. France and Britain did not care about Eastern Europe and suffered too much from World War I to pay much attention to the League.

The League of Nations failed to achieve its disarmament goals. The Disarmament Conference met to achieve these disarmament goals. The conference failed to produce real results. The differences of opinions between the nations in the League were too great. Hopes of true disarmament died with the departure of Germany from the League. Germany ignored the disarmament policies and mobilized and trained soldiers under Hitler. France and Britain were too weak to really enforce disarmament because of their recovery from the war. There were domestic forces within the nations opposing disarmament. The Disarmament Conference was organized too late amidst hostile situations. The overly ambitious aims and practical problems involved in the reduction of armaments. The League also failed to impose and enforce military spending constraints.

The League of Nations failed to achieve an adequate alliance. It did not build up any strong alliances. League of Nations did not function as a credible alliance itself either. It failed to provide adequate security promises for its members, like Poland, who could not defend themselves from superpowers like Russia. Without alliances, the aggressive policies by the authoritarian states led to an arms race. The Treaty of Versailles broke territory promises made to Italy. Italy took over Fiume and the League did nothing about it, even though it was set up to enforce and maintain peace.

The League of Nations did experience success in some ways. The League failed to stop a gory war in Turkey. It did respond to the humanitarian crisis caused by this war. The League sent doctors to Turkey that worked to cure diseases. The League also spent a large amount of money on building farms and homes for the refugees of the war. Greece invaded Bulgaria. Bulgaria pleaded their case to the League and asked for help. The League reviewed the situation and demanded Greece to leave and gave a fine of £45,000. The status of people in the Third World was improved because of the League’s work. Drug smuggling was attacked by the League. The greatest success the League had was informing the world of important issues that needed to be resolved. It was almost like an international newspaper.

Overall, the League of Nations was a failure. The League did not maintain peace as it had hoped. It did not create a link between nations to work together either. “Any threat of war is a matter of concern to the whole League and the League shall take action that may safe guard peace.” This quote is from Article 11 of the League’s Covenant. The League did not live up to this. When Italy attacked Fiume, the League did nothing. Some successes did come through the League as mentioned earlier that gave ideas for the United Nations. The nations within the League focused on building up themselves rather than working together to fix international problems. From the very beginning, the League was setting itself up for failure. Without the help of such powerful countries, enforced policies, and alliances, the League was destined to fail. Few successes came out of the League. The League of Nations was a legitimate attempt to unite nations to solve international problems, despite its ultimate failure.

Works Cited

 

Eloranta, Jari. Why Did the League of Nations Fail? Presentation. Web. 24 Apr. 2012. <http://www.ata.boun.edu.tr/ehes/Istanbul Conference Papers- May 2005/WHY_DID_THE_LEAGUE_OF_NATIONS_FAIL.pdf>.

Hinsley, F. H. “Frontmatter – University Publishing Online.” Cambridge Books Online. Cambridge University Press, Jan. 2010. Web. 24 Apr. 2012. <http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511622458>.

Oppenheim, L. The League of Nations and Its Problems; Three Lectures,. London: Longmans, Green and, 1919. Print.

Pollock, Frederick. The League of Nations. London: Stevens and Sons, 1920. Print.

The Failure of the League of Nations