The League Of Nations - A Success In The 20’s, A Failure In The 30’s. How Far Do You Agree With This Satement?

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The League Of Nations was set up after World War One. The idea was discussed by American, British and French Politicians with the aims of; 1. Preventing future war, 2. Keeping the peace, 3. Deciding on matters via. the council. It wanted to do this through punishment methods, it did this through a system called "˜collective security' which meant that country's acted together to punish and stop any country that attacked another.

During the 1920's the League Of Nations was a success in many areas. It kept peace between Finland and Sweden after an argument erupted over the Aland Islands in 1920, it rescued from Austria from a financial crisis in 1922 and the action they took stopped a war between Greece and Bulgaria in 1925.

However during the 1920's the League also failed to maintain peace in some areas, an example of this is when the League could not agree on the action to take when Italy seized the Greek island of Corfu.

During the 1930's the League of Nations was not as successful in keeping peace. It's failures in peace keeping included- In 1931 the "˜Japan and Manchurian Crisis' when Japan attacked the Chinese province fo Manchuria. The League did little apart from criticising, which japan disliked and decided to leave the League in 1933. Then in 1934 a year after Hitler gained control of Germany they also left the League as he had always despised the organisation. Then in 1935 Italy invaded Abyssinia, the League tried to stop them via. economic sanctions but did not include oil so they failed. After that the League was not taken seriously.

The failure of the League Of Nations can also be placed on one important factor- the USA. The United States Of America did not join the League because President Wilson has a disagreement with the US Senate over the league, it ended with the Senate refusing to allow the USA join the League. This left the league with very little power over the world. But the failure of the League could also be blamed on the fact that they would not use violence to in force the peace which was needed in some situations.

I partly agree that the League Of Nations was a success in the 20's and a failure in the 30's. I only partly agree, because although the League could be seen to have "˜failed' in the 30's this can really only be applied to a failure in peace keeping. They were very successful in other areas including: The Refugee Organisation which was set up by the league to help victims of war, The Labour Organisation which tried to improve working conditions and The Health Organisation which encouraged schemes to improve healthcare. All of which still exist as part of the United Nations today. Also the League cannot be seen as a complete success with a 100% success rate in the 20's either as they failed to agree on any action to take when the Italians invaded the Greek island of Corfu. So when looking back with the benefit of hindsight my opinion is that the League was still a success in non-peace keeping areas during the 30's.