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 Set up as part of the Treaty of Versailles

 It was envisioned to be a truly INTERNATIONAL

organization which would MAINTAIN WORLD PEACE
AND SECURITY by ACTING TOGETHER to PREVENT
WAR

 Collective Security

 For a brief idea of its organisation, do look at Fig. 6

on page 43 of your textbook

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 Important Note:  The League of Nations also tried to

 When EVALUATING HOW SUCCESSFUL / HOW MUCH influence:
A FAILURE the League of Nations was … you must  Aid
look at HOW MUCH of its AIMS the League was able  Labor Issues
to FULFIL:  Mandates
 To promote international co-operation, peace and security
by accepting an obligation not to go to war  Collective Security
 To promote open, just and honorable relations between  Human Rights
nations  Minorities
To lay out a system of international law

 Health Issues
 To maintain, or help to modify, treaties between nations

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 Dealing with social issues such as the  Weakest at dealing with issues that nations
improvement of living and working saw as a threat to their security
conditions worldwide (through ILO)

 Most members of the League were unwilling

 Dealing with health issues – targeted the
treatment of specific diseases (e.g. leprosy) to put the security of their nations at risk in
order to fulfill collective security
 Set up commissions that improved living
conditions in poorer countries

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 Attitudes to the League  Attitudes to the League

 Many countries found the peace treaties unpopular
thus they were not very accepting of the League of
 Membership Nations as it was a part of the treaty

 The League of Nations WAS NOT TAKEN SERIOUSLY

 Mandates by Britain and France

 The USA was not a member – sending the signal

 Difficulties in Resolving Disputes that if the USA did not take the LON seriously, why
should other countries?

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 Membership  Mandates
 USA was not a member  The legal right to govern under the control of the
 Germany, Austria and Hungary were not allowed to League
join (resented by Germany)  Took over most of Germany’s former colonies
 Constant shift of membership as joining and leaving  Countries holding colonies in mandate had to
the League was very easy
help the colonies move to self-government as
 Many countries left because the League opposed soon as possible
their actions or because it wasn’t doing much to
help  However, even after 20 years, this was not
 The League had very little control over its member
happening and many countries who had been in
states favor of the League turned against it

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 Difficulties in Resolving Disputes FAILURE PARTIAL SUCCESS SUCCESS

 Usual form of punishment for disobeying the League The Ruhr (1923) Upper Silesia (1921) Aaland Islands (1921)
Corfu (1923) Memel (1923) Albania (1923)
was the imposing of SANCTIONS (not allowing trade Vilna (1923) Greek-Bulgarian Border
to take place) Dispute (1925)

 Method was quite useless because sanctions hurt

trade with other countries so they were removed as
quickly as they were imposed

 League had no force of its own (expected members

to contribute troops) so it could not prevent the rise
of authoritarian regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan

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Evaluating the League of Nations
 Successes:
 Social issues – improvement
of living and working
conditions
 Health issues –
improvement in the
treatment of diseases such
as leprosy
Solving some territorial

disputes and conflicts
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How Far did Hopes for Disarmament
Succeed?
 Failures:  What is Disarmament?
 Unable to enforce collective
security  Dismantling of armies and the breaking up of
 Unable to act as an effective weapons to be in the position of making war
deterrent towards aggressive impossible
countries
 Attitudes towards the League  Disarmament was part of collective security
 Lack of strong membership because if nations cut down their use of
Failure of the mandate weapons, the world would be safer

system
 Difficulties in resolving
disputes
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Collective vs. Individual Security Reasons for not Disarming

 While nations felt  Britain:
that collective  The need to defend the Empire and to stop trouble in
parts of the Empire seeking independence
security was good,
many still wanted to
 France
focus on individual
 Defend France from Germany
security:
 China
 Civil War in progress and the need to defend China
against Japanese advances

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Reasons for not Disarming

 Japan:
 Power of the Japanese Army and the need to defend
Japan against European land-grabbing in the Asia-Pacific

 Switzerland
 Army was small and only big enough to defend their
neutrality

 Poland
 Need to defend their new country, especially from
Germany and Russia

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German Disarmament
 Supervised by the League of Nations

 Was slow and took advantage of several

loopholes:
 Trained its cut-down Army as officers so as to
secretly train others to be ordinary soldiers

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Disarming the rest of the World

 Naval Disarmament
 Targets set by agreeing to a ratio of shipbuilding
between nations
 Tensions between countries based on ratios
allocated
 Proportions were applied to all warships
 Everyone could build submarines but at a low
level

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Disarming the rest of the World

 Military Disarmament
 1923 Treaty of Mutual Assistance
 Countries would limit arms
 League of Nations would come to their assistance
 Very few agreed to the TMA

 1924 Geneva Protocol

 Nations would agree to bring disputes to arbitration instead of
going to war

 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact

 Signed by 65 nations
 Promised no war over the next 5 years except in self-defence

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Difficulties of Reconstruction & Recovery

 Post-War Economic  Reparations made Germany’s economic problems

Problems after the war, WORSE:
Prices Rose
War Damage (esp. France)


Wages Fell
Broken Trade Links


High Unemployment
 Industrial Problems 

High Levels of Discontent

 Disrupted Communication 

Systems  French Invasion of the Ruhr after debt default

 Debt  Strikes by German workers worsens the situtation
 The Weimar Government responds to the situation by
printing more money and creating inflation

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Children using bundles of

money as building blocks

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A housewife using
bundles of money to light
her stove

In 1923, it cost
200 Billion Marks to buy
a loaf of bread in
Germany…

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 Simply put, inflation is a rise in prices relative to money available. In other

words, you can get less for your money than you used to be able to get.
 Here's an example:
 You buy a candy bar for 50 cents. A year later, you go to buy the same candy
bar and it's 60 cents. You still have only 50 cents, but the prices of the
candy bar has gone up. We can say that inflation is at work. The price of
that bar has been inflated.
 When inflation rises but people's pay-checks don't, this means that people
have to spend more of the money to buy the same things that they used to
be able to buy for less.
 Let's go back to the candy bar. You have only 5/6 of what that candy bar
now costs. Your money supply hasn't changed, but the price of what you
want has. That's inflation.

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 Became Chancellor of Germany in 1923

 Replaced the German mark with the Rentenmark

and reduced government spending

 Improved relations with Germany’s enemies (e.g.

Treaty of Locarno)

 Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1929

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 Introduced the Rentenmark

 Borrowed money from overseas to increase

Germans’ confidence in the new currency
(had proper currency to back the value of the
new currency)

German Mark (before Rentenmark)

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 The Ruhr, Germany’s most industrialised area, was

occupied by France after Germany defaulted on her
reparations.

 As a result, workers went on strike or worked slowly,

generating little or no profits. This was harming the German
economy.

 Stresseman negotiated with the workers and the economy

improved. He also borrowed money from overseas for
building schemes, taking off many unemployed people off
German Rentenmark
the streets.

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Protest placard against the occupation

of the Ruhr District (Theo Matejko,
1923): Hands off of the Ruhr District!

 Signed the Locarno Treaty in 1925, normalising

relations with Britain and France

 Entered the League of Nations in 1926

 Signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928

 Stresseman’s efforts encouraged the USA to

produce 2 plans to cut down the amount of
reparations and lend Germany money

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 Germany was to pay less money

 USA would lend Germany money

 French troops would leave the Ruhr

 Germany would give the A/G for Reparations gold, which

would be invested and the interest used to pay off the
reparations

 Profits from the German railways would be used as well

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 Cut German reparation amounts to ¼ of the original  The Results:

amount
 Despite the 2 plans, Germany still could not
meet the requirements
 Lengthened the repayment period by 59 years
 Most of the borrowed money went to economic
 Made the repayment method fairer and more achievable recovery programmes
 Some of the money was funneled towards secret
re-armaming
 When Hitler took over power in the 1930s, the
Young Plan was abandoned

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