Was The League of Nations Successful?

Was the League of Nations successful?

The League of Nations was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the American president Wilson making it one the points in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. The League’s goals included upholding the new found Rights of Man such as right of non whites, rights of women, rights of soldiers, disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation and it also tried improving global quality of life. This seemed like a good idea in the sense that countries could sort their problems out with more than just their own views about it and it should have helped settle and prevent many bad things happening.

                  The league had success in the Aaland Islands. These islands originally belonged to Finland however most of the islanders wanted to be governed by Sweden. As neither Finland nor Sweden could decide of who owned the islands that in 1921 they consulted the League of Nations who then decided what to do. The League’s decision was that they should remain with Finland but that no weapons should ever be kept there. Both countries accepted what was said and it is still in action to this day. Another example of the League’s success was in that same year in Upper Silesia. The Treaty of Versailles had given the people of Upper Silesia the right to have a vote on whether they wanted to be part of Germany or part of Poland. In this vote, 700,000 voted for Germany and 500,000 for Poland. This close result resulted in rioting between those who expected Silesia to be made part of Germany and those who wanted to be part of Poland. The League was asked to settle this serious matter. After a six-week inquisition, the League decided to split Upper Silesia between Germany and Poland. The League’s decision was accepted by both countries and by the people in Upper Silesia. This was a good example of the success as without the League much violence would have occurred until sorted out and the decision was faster and probably fairer than it would have been in just Germany and Poland decided to sort it out between them.

                The league was also very effective in the sense that it cared for the countries part of it. An example is after the war in Turkey in 1923 where 1.4 million refugees had been created and as a result typhoid and cholera were extensive. The league were very successful as they sent doctors to check on the disease and help people, but also £10 million was spent on building farms, homes and other essential resources for the refugees. All this provided 600 thousand people with jobs by 1926. There was another problem in 1925 where Greece and Bulgaria on their common border the sentries who were patrolling fired at each other, and in the shooting a Greek soldier was killed, and Greece being angry invaded Bulgaria who then asked the League of Nations for help. Then they ordered the Greeks to leave Bulgaria, then later figuring out the Greeks were responsible and therefore received a fine of £45000.