Assess the Short Term Impact of the Economic Crisis on the League of Nations Essay

The confederation of Nations was created in January tenth 1920. It worked by the principle of corporal protective covering, in which some(prenominal) disputes minatory struggle would be submitted to the unite and any member f completely backing to state of war would fix broken the Covenant, and would face incarnate fill by new(prenominal) members. heretofore, abiding members such(prenominal) as Britain and France, had veto occasions to hold out decisions to safeguard their own national affairs. Thus, compact was never achieved. til now the league was non initially as antecedentful as it seemed as it lacked basic requirements such as a police force and potency overall. in that locationfore the huge impression was not the only factor which had an im accordance on the league as there remained many another(prenominal) faults in the track the league was run. The world-wide stinting crisis of 1929 affected nearly all great powers. It led to countries who owe d money to individually other drowning in huge debt e. g. Austrias bank, which went bust. During the stinting crisis, all(prenominal) earth obligate high duties on imports in an grounds to protect its own industries.This increased tensions amongst countries as they were all trying to create their own economy and secure themselves as the close powerful sphere, but revealed the conferences weaknesses. This is back up by a historiographer who states, The daub really began to drift out of restrainer with the onset of the great stamp, it brought unemployment and living standards to most countries causing extreme right go governments to come into power in lacquer and Germany together with Mussolini, they ref utilise to keep with the rules and took a series of actions which revealed the compacts weakness. japan was affected by the economic crisis of 1929, so conveyed to rebuild its economy. provided they did this by acquiring the south Manchurian Railway, bit complet ely ignoring the unites aim of avoiding aggression.China was angered by this and considered the confederation for help and meet, so the federation fixed to set up an enquiry headed by Lord Lytton, who rejected japanese claims and called for a withdrawal of japanese forces as they refused to have it out-of-door Manchukuo as a separate state. However little did China now that the conferences pincer efforts would go to waste once Japan withdraws from the coalition in 1933 because without its own arm forces the League could not compel Japan to comply with the commissions collects. This press outs the Leagues major(ip)(ip) weakness as it freely allowed countries to leave whenever the conditions didnt get them, indicating no clear system and a sense of universe powerless.Robert Wolfson and John laver share the same view as they state this was in a sense, the second base of truth for the League how would it masses with a member who rejected its decisions? , he later indi cates if joint security is not used in effect(p)ly in Manchuria there may be a European war in 10 years time. Furthermore, distracted by the great depression, the European powers and U. S lacked the will and resources to oppose Japanese militarism. The League therefore failed to live up to its collective security and receptive how weak they were, this is plunk for up by Tony Howarth who states, The invasion of Manchuria had cardinal important side effects putt aside for a moment its portentous revelation that the League was powerless in the face a determined aggressor. original it raised the prestige of the Japanese army. Second, it make it possible for the army to pressurise the Japanese government to undertake a indemnity of armed expansion. Here we batch understandably see that the League was unable to deal with the more powerful and larger states as they were lacking power and pledge, this is perfectly cerebrate to the cartoon David Low drew in 1933 where it shows Japan getting away with trample over the League and a League official freely allo vanish them to get away with the aggression (giving flowers) .This shows the League being wound and blames the weak leaders and not the League itself as they were not taking proficient action in order to proscribe Japans invasion of Manchuria, this links back to the world(prenominal) economic crisis as it was primarily the great depression which affected the League as the crisis was a forget from the 1929 catastrophe. On October third 1935 Italian troops invaded Abyssinia from Eritrea and Italian Somaliland.The League stated that Italy were the aggressors and imposed limited sanctions they failed to dapple sanctions on Oil which was needed to enable the continuation of war. Sanctions were not increased or universally applied, even after it emerged that Italian forces were making use of Chemical weapons against civilians. rather of imposing sanctions the British and French contradictory ministe rs came up with the Hoare-Laval Pact. This pact would end the war but would grant Italy large areas of Abyssinia.This pact weakened the Leagues position as Britain and France (2 atomic number 82 members) were prepared to give way to Italy. However Antony Eden reveals his contradictory views in his Telegram, There is neither sign of any weakening in overwhelming support for the compact car which was feature of debate in meeting nor any sign that members of the League would be unwilling to shoulder their obligations should situation demand it. The only nation which has shown a marked lack of enthusiasm for effective action under the covenant is France.Antony the British curate favoured the League so this source send packing be biased as his interests would without interrogative sentence lay upon the League, however he blames France for not following the basic rules of the covenant and does not focus much on Italys invasion of Abyssinia, indicating that maybe he was fair with the invasion. However, A. J. P Taylor shares contrary views as he states that There is no concrete interest in the state of Abyssinia. Mussolini was concerned to show off Italys strength and not require practical gain.Taylor suggests that Italy only did what they did in order to gain security for their country while having no intentions of causing conflicts and having self-centred aims. w thence did not invade Abyssinia for economic reasons. What is more, is that the global economic crisis brought right wing leaders into power e. g. Adolf Hitler, who was looked upon as a great leader and last re kind in Germany who could introduce reforms and change Germanys economy for the better, especially after they were cursed for the outbreak of the war and faced major reparations which worsened their economy, far more than any other major countries economy.The great depression gave Hitler the opportunity to aggressively campaign in order to secure Lebensraum and restore territories lost, this frustrated Leagues efforts to maintain peace as they were not living up to their polity of collective security. Germany left the League of Nations in 1933, which do it even harder for the other great powers to control and regulate actions interpreted by Hitler. An example of Hitlers robustness improvisations was the re-occupation of the Rhineland in March 1936, which could no agelong be dealt with by the League of Nations as it lost the control to interfere with what Germany did.Therefore in general the great depression had a major clashing on the League of Nations as it exposed ein truth bit of the Leagues weakness, as supported by Robert Wolfson and John Laver who states each of these coincidences and accidents made it all the easier for a collective security system to fail. However it is fair to severalise that the League itself was not initially powerful. It lacked authority and had no police force whatsoever, hence the reason why powers were continuously threatening to leave the League, such as Japan and Germanys withdrawal in 1933.This undermined the Leagues power as it simply failed to control the Leagues members and what was worse it that any country could join the League when it suited them, which caused divisions and conflicts as the policy of collective security was not turning out to be very successful as it primarily was vista to be. During Neville Chamberlains speech, he stated the league of nations and the policy of collective security to which we have given so whole hearted support with such disappointing results.We should therefore abdicate the idea of the League and give up the ideals for which the League stands He is all the way undermining the Leagues power and indicating that they did not live up to what they promised. Chamberlain shares the views that the League might have been able to sort out little problems but it was clearly unable to stop major crisis as the Nations would have to find another way to deal with that.Hit lers Mein Kampf reveals how he mat about the League of Nations, they did not piss that in most cases they were dealing with persons who had no backing whatsoever, who were not authorized by anybody to conclude any sort of agreement whatsoever so that the practical result of every negotiation with such individuals was controvert and the time spent in such dealings had to be reckoned as utterly lost. Here Hitler is expressing how the League were clearly not organised and had no authoritative numeral or system whatsoever which is a major setback and a mischance of how the League was run overall.Another major issue was the fact that the U. S. A and USSR did not join the League. This was a problem as these were the only 2 powers near generous and strong enough to take effective action, however were not members of the League, which is why the League lacked power and authority. Americas accordant refusal to use nothing more than spoken communication in support of the League had s hown secure how toothless and helpless the international residential area was when it came to enforcing and upholding the peace.A dangerous precedent had been set. This can be linked to the cartoon called the bed cover in the bridge, which shows a paste in the bridge and a guts which represents regular army, not joint to the bridge, preventing the League from being stable and unable to function without ground forcess support, so consequently all the foreign nations try to pull USA into the League as they are do-or-die(a) for a Nation which is military and economically stable, hence tied and dependent on the US.In conclusion the global economic crisis had a huge impact on the League as it exposed its weaknesses and undermined its authority and power. the existence of the League caused cabinets and foreign ministers to paddle between the old and the new diplomacy, usually securing the benefits of neither, as the Manchurian and Abyssinian cases amply demonstrated. However t he setup and running of the League itself lacked enforcement powers and had no real machinery of collective security. Ironically, therefore the Leagues genuine contribution turned out to be not deterring aggressors, but confusing the democracies. thence after analysing many contemporary sources and historian views it was mainly the global economic crisis which had an impact on the League of Nations as it highlighted and exposed the weaknesses of the League while undermined its system of collective authority.