In my opinion the League of Nations was from the start doomed to fail.
The League of Nations was set up with the primary goal of keeping world peace. I don't know about you, but World War Two does not sound all that peaceful. One then must think League of Nations was a failure, and in may respects it was. This article deals with how it failed and why.
The League of Nations started flawed. It was too pedantic about the countries that could get in for a start. The Russians were not allowed to join because they were communist. The Germans were not allowed in because the victors of World War One were snobs. "Ah, Germany is a defeated nation it can not get into our "club"." Does anyone know why not allowing one of the most industrialized countries in the world in an organization to keep peace is a good idea? In addition to, two of the most powerful countries in the world not being allowed in the most powerful - America - would not even join the club they themselves set up. So what does this leave... Britain and France - the most powerful... eh, BANKRUPT nation. Has anyone spotted a pattern yet?
To further illustrate the weakness of the League of Nations, their sanctions were no good either. Their sanctions consisted of first gathering nations together to discuss their problems. If one country disagreed they may declare war on the nation they disagreed with. The League of Nations would come down on them... take them round the back and give them a good kicking? No, they sent them a letter. I'm sorry but when was the last time Mr Hitler felt threated by a stern letter - I think not too often.
They would then go onto impose "economic sanctions". This was ment to result in no country trading with the aggressor. However, not may countries would lose up to a few billion pounds worth of trade because the League of Nations told them too. There for, the league failed yet again.
The final sanction was that the League of Nations would declare war on the aggressor - hypocrites. The aggressor would then probably say "and with what army?" The League of Nations did not even have an army. Now how do you declare war with out an army? The members did not want to go to war over what does not concern them so they remain neutral.
So the League of Nations was bound to fail on its main goal of keeping world peace. However they did have some success against small countries like Greece who were scared of the League of Nations. They did also do a lot of humanitarian work and set up The World Health Organization. But really they did overall fail. Do you not agree?
tweet this!
