League of Nations Paper 2 Outline

"Failures of the League of Nations and attempts at collective security were in fact the main cause of World War II" To what extent do you agree with this statement?

The Failures of the League of Nations were for largely irrelevant to the actual causes of World War II. The League did not do much to truly cause war, but instead failed in its purpose of preventing it. The main cause of World War II was the rise of militarism as a popular method of dealing with issues of economic and nationalistic importance.

1. Failure of the League: Failure to punish Japan for invading Manchuria

• 1931, Japan invades the Chinese territory of Manchuria for largely economic reasons (Manchuria contained large amounts of natural resources) and for more living space, similar to Hitler's idea of lebensraum (Manchuria was three times as large as the Japanese empire, but had a third of the number of people living in it.)
• Both Japan and China were members of the League of Nations. The League's attempts at collective security failed, because no nations wanted to give up trade or start a conflict with Japan.
  
• In 1932, the League attempted to please both Japan and China by requesting that the Japanese military leave Manchuria and that Manchuria become a semi-independent nation. Japan withdraws from the League and continues to take Chinese provinces such as Jehol.
• Militarism- The Japanese military believed that conquering foreign lands would be an effective way to get out of the Great Depression, which destroyed Japan's economy in 1929. The opportunities for trade, resources, and employment offered by Manchuria were very appealing to Japan.
• The League did nothing to cause Japan to invade Manchuria, but simply failed to prevent its militaristic behavior.
  

2. Failure of the League: Failure to resolve the Ethiopia Crisis

• 1935, Italy invades Ethiopia. This was because Italy had been relatively unsuccessful in the European "scramble for Africa" in the 1800's, having only gained 3 colonies: Libya, Eritrea, and Somaliland. In addition, Italy was disgraced by its defeat at the hands of Ethiopia in 1896 at the Battle of Adowa. It is likely that Mussolini wanted to restore some amount of dignity to his nation, and to gain territory in Africa to benefit from trade and resources.
  
• Italy and Ethiopia were both members of the League of Nations. This was the first time the League actually issued sanctions against a country, but it failed in doing so. The sanctions were delayed for six weeks, and some of Italy's allies did not stop trading with Italy. The sanctions that were made were not entirely devastating to Italy, because there was no sanction on oil, much of which was controlled by the US, a non-League nation.
• The Hoare-Laval Plan suggested that Italy take a large portion of Ethiopia and stop its invasion. Mussolini agreed to this, but many people thought that the plan was unfair to Ethiopia, and so it was not carried out.
  
• Militarism- Mussolini's Italy saw its superior military strength (Ethiopia was poorly equipped) as the best means of restoring its national pride and gaining economic benefits.
• Clearly a failure for the League, but even if the Hoare-Laval Plan was successful, Italy still would have been in control of Ethiopia, and there was no guarantee that it's aggression would not continue.
  

3. Failure of the League: Failures at the World Disarmament Conference

• 1932-1933, the League of Nations met with the purpose of decreasing the amount of arms held globally by member states in order to maintain collective security.
• Germany asked for arms equality with France. France refused, saying that Germany would have to wait 8 years for this. Germany uses this as an excuse to withdraw from the League.
  

4. Failure of the League: Failures of the Locarno Treaties

• 1925, Germany, France, and Belgium agreed to respect their borders. Britain and Italy agreed to enforce this.
  
• Germany did not guarantee its borders with Poland and Czechoslovakia. Britain did not argue against this. It could be said that this encouraged Hitler to invade these countries. However, Hitler attacked France and Britain anyway, so it is unlikely that he would have changed his plans had Britain agreed to help Poland and Czechoslovakia.
  

5. Failure of the League: Failure of Appeasement

• 1935, Germany increased the size of its army by 550,000 troops. Treaty of Versailles had set a limit of 100,000.
• Remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936
  
• Anschluss with Austria in 1938
• Although France and Britain could have used their own military forces early on to counter those of Germany, it had been proven that the League could do very little to stop Germany, and so it is difficult to blame the League of Nations for actually helping to cause the war in this case.