The League of Nations: the UN That Wasn’t

The League of Nations was not a great success given the limitations with which it had to work. To begin with, this supposedly “worldwide organisation” consisted of only European major powers giving it a thoroughly Eurocentric viewpoint which had no relevance in a world filled with conflict. The fact that the world’s most powerful country, the United States, refused to join was the first big blow to the League and proved to be the most debilitating. Without the United States’ fiscal and geographical edge behind the League, Britain and France were left to govern it themselves and frankly were too busy repairing the damage done to their own countries during the First World War to give a hoot. The only time that Britain and France used the League was for their own benefit.

Also the belated and sporadic memberships of the Germans, Japanese, Italians, and Russians made it increasingly difficult to halt aggression and promote peace. The League of Nation’s call for disarmament went virtually unheard and Germany, Japan, France, and Italy continued to build up their armies. It is all well and good to say “build fewer bombs”, but if you do not create an environment conducive to disarmament your plea will fall on deaf ears. Collective security should have, in theory, eased countries’ fear of aggression and invasion, but it did not, forcing nations to abandon the notion of disarmament. By failing to make countries feel safe, the League of Nations was unsuccessful in its goal of disarmament which led to more soldiers and set the stage for another global conflict. This failure also undermined the League of Nations’ goal to prevent war.

As previously mentioned collective security failed miserably because all the member states acted in accordance to their own agendas which ruined any chance that the League had to becoming a cohesive international power. In addition, when push came to shove, the League never managed to mobilise troops allowing aggressor nations to face no resistance or consequence. The Manchurian Incident, in which Japan invaded China, displayed this perfectly. China appealed to the League of Nations to help them fend off their Japanese attackers but the League, as Eurocentric as it was, never did send help because its major powers had nothing to gain from participating in an Asian conflict on the other side of the world. This lack of cooperation from member nations not only destroyed what little faith there was left in collective security, but also showed the League of Nations to be incapable of fulfilling its original purpose; to prevent war.

All of this was further solidified when Italy invaded Abyssinia and the League of Nations implemented petty economic sanctions on Italy in response. It is not so much the fact that these sanctions did little to hinder Italy’s aggressiveness as it is that they were intentionally lenient in an Anglo-French attempt to keep Mussolini from siding with Hitler. In the end, it was all in vain and accomplished nothing more than sealing the fate of an already doomed organisation. By now all belief in collective security had evaporated and the idea of disarmament was considered idyllic at best.

When Hitler began expanding the German military and breaching the Treaty of Versailles, the League barely noticed. Then World War II happened. The League of Nations because of its Eurocentric, self-serving, major powers, failed at disarmament, failed at preventing war, and failed as an international peace organisation. Even when we consider all the limitations and obstacles that the League faced, all its successes still pale in comparison to the fact that it was unable to prevent war. Over twenty million people died as a result of World War II – that does not sound like a success to me.