User:JRidley93

The league failed in the 1930’s because it faced greater challenges than the 20’s
I agree with this statement as I believed that the challenges in the 1930’s were so much more difficult to deal with. In the 30’s there was a giant economic depression so this forced people like Mussolini to invade a mineral rich country like abbysinia. When the league did nothing it made it seem weak and in effective

A success of the 20's
In the 20’s they succeeded many times one of these successes was in the Aaland Islands both sweden and finland wanted to rule over the islands, which were right in between both countries. After much debate Finland gave the case to the league of nations ,who decided to give the islands to finland, both countries accepted the ruling and got on with their business. Quite an easy conflict to deal withas were quite a few in the 20’s

Challenges of the 30's
In the 30’s it faced tougher challenges such as the Abyssinian crisis On October 3, 1935, shortly after the League exonerated both parties in the Walwal incident, Italian armed forces from Eritrea invaded Ethiopia without a declaration of war. In response, Ethiopia declared war on Italy and the two nations were at war. On October 7, the League of Nations said that Italy was the aggressor and started the slow process of imposing sanctions. However, but the sanction weren’t very good because they did not cut off the important supplies, such as oil and even the weak sanctions were not carried out by all members of the League. Specifically, the United Kingdom and France did not take any serious action against Italy (such as blocking Italian access to the Suez Canal).Even actions such as the Italian use of chemical weapons and the massacre of civilians did little to change the League's pen pusher approach to the situation. In December 1935, Hoare in Britain and Laval in France proposed the secret Hoare-Laval Plan which would end the war but allow Italy to control large areas of Ethiopia. Mussolini agreed to the plan, but it caused an outcry in Britain and France when the plan was leaked to the media. Hoare and Laval were accused of betraying the Abyssinians, and both resigned. The plan was dropped, but the perception spread that Britain and France were not serious about the principles of the League. After the plan was dropped, the war continued and Mussolini turned to German dictator Adolf Hitler for alliance. This was exactly what the British and French didn’t want.

My Opinion
To be honest I don’t think the league could have succeeded in the 1930’s without America. There was no army, not even a peace keeping force, so how did they think they were going to enforce any disputed decisions with dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler on the prowl for resources. If the L.O.N. had America in it there was a chance of it succeeding, but as it stood in the middle of the worst depression ever, there was little chance of it changing its isolationist state of mind. I agree that the League of Nations failed because of the harder challenges but if the league was armed with a peace keeping force and USA I believe that it could have succeeded and we would be living in a very different world today but as it stood it was neither use nor ornament.