The Failure of the League of Nations

1084 Words3 Pages

The Failure of the League of Nations The League of Nations was always a rather idealistic idea. The idea of keeping peace around the world obviously had good intentions but there would always be conflicting issues between member states of the League. When founded on January 10th 1920, The League of Nations was made up of 24 nations including Britain and France who were the economic haves from the First World War, this meant they had benefited through gaining in land and reparations money in the wake of the First World War. This gave the League strength in numbers and they were seen as more authoritative as many nations agreed with the idea of the League and joined, giving it power. Although many of these nations were based in Europe, notable absentees were USA and Russia, Britain and France were not happy with Russian for leaving the War before the end so would not have Russia in the League, this caused tensions around the world that which League should have been trying to eliminate, it was not a good start, this also applied to the fact that Germany were not allowed to join until 1926, by rejecting about some nations, it created an ‘us vs. them’ mentality which was not good for a peaceful world. Woodrow Wilson (US president) devised a fourteen-point plan on the League’s principles and aims and proposed them to American Congress on January 8th 1918; this was essentially the first public announcement of the idea of an international peacekeeping force. However in 1921 a new President was elected called Harding, Harding was not in favour of the league so withdrew the USA from any involvement with the league. This was a bi... ... middle of paper ... ...d their capabilities. The fact the League had no army was a big part as it was up to the member states to deploy troops and if they didn’t the force would be weakened. The League could put economic sanctions on countries, but by doing that many member states lost trade with them so the sanctions were not beneficial to the League so in some cases just disintegrated and were not upheld, e.g. sanctions on Italy in reaction to invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. The League was a good idea and probably did delay major conflicts for about 10 years as the World was not ready for peace after the bloodshed of the First World War and many conflicts had not been resolved which meant the League had very little chance of functioning properly as it faced a very uphill task which not enough countries were dedicated too achieving.

Open Document