The Failure of the League of Nations

Causes of World War II:
The Failure of the League of Nations

bao-bao and van

Evidences:

1.
The first crisis the League had to face was in north Italy In 1919, Italian nationalists, angered that the "Big Three" had, in their opinion, broken promises to Italy at the Treaty of Versailles, captured the small port of Fiume. The Treaty of Versailles had given this port to Yugoslavia. For 15 months, an Italian nationalist called d’Annunzio governed Fiume. The newly created League did nothing. The situation was solved by the Italian government who could not accept that d’Annunzio was seemingly more popular than they were – so they bombarded the port of Fiume and enforced a surrender. In all this the League played no part despite the fact that it had just been set up with the specific task of maintaining peace.

2.
The next crisis the League faced was at Teschen, which was a small town between Poland and Czechoslovakia. Its main importance was that it had valuable coalmines there, which both the Poles and the Czechs wanted. As both were newly created nations, both wanted to make their respective economies as strong as possible and the acquisition of rich coal mines would certainly help in this respect. In January 1919, Polish and Czech troops fought in the streets of Teschen. Many died. The League was called on to help and decided that the bulk of the town should go to Poland while Czechoslovakia should have one of Teschen’s suburbs. This suburb contained the most valuable coalmines and the Poles refused to accept this decision. Though no more wholesale violence took place, the two countries continued to argue over the issue for the next twenty years.

3.
The League was mostly silent in the face of major events leading to World War II such as Hitler's re-militarisation of the Rhineland, occupation of the Sudetenland and Anschluss of Austia, which had been forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles.

4.
This problem was inter-linked with the fact that the League was very slow at making decisions. With no armed forces this made it difficult to impose decisions. Therefore when a crisis occurred the League was supposed to act fast with resoluteness. Although, often the League met too infrequently and took far too long to make critical decisions. This need for all members to agree on a course of action undermined the strength of the League. The League was too indecisive; they needed some influential countries.

Citation:

"League of Nations Failure." History Learning Site. 7 Jan 2009 http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/league_nations_failures.htm.

"League of Nations." Wikipedia. 6 January 2009. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 7 Jan 2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations.

"The Failure of the League of Nations." Planet Papers. 7 Jan 2009 http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/1677.php.