The first ten years of the League of Nations 1919-1929

[Spiritus Naturae]

Those first ten years of the League were very much a 'Golden era', an international answer to the aftermath and devastation of Europe as a result of World War I. So what went wrong? Why did the League fail so miserably ten years later?



Jonathan

[TheAnalogman]

A. Because it never enforced laws.
B. Because during the world wide depression, an individual came to power in Germany (Hitler), broke most of the League of Nations rules, and was never really challanged.
C. Becuase Neville Chamberlain was the biggest wuss of all time.

[Spiritus Naturae]

A. Because it never enforced laws.
B. Because during the world wide depression, an individual came to power in Germany (Hitler), broke most of the League of Nations rules, and was never really challanged.
C. Becuase Neville Chamberlain was the biggest wuss of all time.

Yes Neville was a colossal weenie and Hitler reared his ugly head. A lot of the failure had to do (IMO) with the fact that those first ten years the League was pretty much created in a 'vacuum' if you will, no learning curve from which to grow and strengthen. An idea whose time had not yet come.

[Vorkosigan]

US never joined.

[Alden]

that would be my foremost pick

[Ryokan]

1. No US.
2. Neville Chamberlain
3. Disengenuous Soviet involvement.

One of the big powers was ignoring the league, another was actively opposing it, and another pretended to work within it but actually was bent on conquest as well. So what hope was there. And Neville Chamberlain seriously miscalculated on Hitler.

[DunnySaze]

1. No US.
2. Neville Chamberlain
3. Disengenuous Soviet involvement.

One of the big powers was ignoring the league, another was actively opposing it, and another pretended to work within it but actually was bent on conquest as well. So what hope was there. And Neville Chamberlain seriously miscalculated on Hitler.

I dunno. I think the League was a dead duck before Chamberlain's shenannigans in '38 over Czechoslovakia. Look how wimpy it looked during the crises in Ethiopia and Manchuria. There are other failures; e.g. the invasion of the Ruhr by France for German non-payments of reparations in 1923, the Polish invasion of Russia in 1920. There were a few modest successes in the early 20's (e.g. Greek invasion of Bulgaria halted), but by the 30's, the League was seen as generally worthless.

On the other hand, one might conclude that it wasn't so much that the League that failed, it's that there wasn't the political will of the countries with power to carry out it's mandates when aggresive invaders (e.g. Italy, Japan) refused to be checked by rhetoric alone. That would be a case of claiming that the surgery was a success, even though the patient died.