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01history League of Nations
01history League of Nations
01history League of Nations
League of Nations
Aims
1. To improve people’s lives and jobs worldwide.
2. Global disarmament.
3. International co-operation towards peace.
4. Enforce Treaty of Versailles
Organisation
Assembly
Council
Secretariat
Administration.
Strengths
1. Popular – membership from 48 – 60 in 10 years
2. People wanted it to work – didn’t want more war.
League of Nations
Weaknesses
1. Membership – No USA – missing the world’s strongest nation so no
economic or military might.
2. Part of Treaty of Versailles – many automatically resented it e.g.
Germans.
3. Relied too much on Britain and France – Only major powers,
considerably weakened and poorer after WW1.
4. Self-interest – Depression, countries poor and more interested in
regaining wealth than international peace.
5. Economic Sanctions hard to enforce – Would affect countries’ wealth to
stop trading, not keen on it.
6. No army of its own – Britain and France too poor to give military help,
only USA could help but wasn’t a member.
7. Structure – decisions had to be unanimous, made it hard for anything to
be decided.
8. Couldn’t deal with strong countries – e.g. Italy and Japan.
Successes
1. Greece and Bulgaria (1925) – border skirmish, Greek soldier killed.
Greece invades Bulgaria who asks league for help. Greece told to pull
out and fined £45,000. Both countries accept this.
2. Aaland Islands (1921) – Islands equidistant between Finland and
Sweden. Traditionally belonged to Finland but many inhabitants wanted
League of Nations
Swedish rule. Couldn’t decide so asked League who ruled that they
should stay with Finland but no weapons to be kept there. Still in place
today.
3. Healthcare – World Health Organisation (WHO) did work on malaria and
leprosy in particular.
4. Prostitution and slavery – worked on getting rid of them.
5. International Labour Organisation – introduced minimum wage and
worked on ending child labour.
Failures
The Manchurian Crisis – 1931
Too far away to bother – only USSR was near and they weren’t part of
league.