Why did the LoN fail?

• The League’s Weaknesses:

  Membership:

  > USA never joined the League as the treaty was never ratified (approved by congress).
• The League’s Weaknesses:

  Membership:

  > Germany joins the League of Nations in 1926 (6 years after the League was created).
• The League’s Weaknesses:

  Membership:

  > Japan leaves the League of Nations in 1933, following the Manchurian Crisis.
• The League’s Weaknesses:

  Membership:

  > 4 powers were: mitigation, moral condemnation, economic sanctions (these powers did not work during the Abyssinian and Manchurian crisis) and using members states’ armies (the league did not have an army).
• The Great Depression:

  > In October 1929, the USA experienced the Wall Street Crash.
• The Great Depression:

  > This was when the value of shares in the stock market went down significantly. $25 billion worth of money was lost.
• The Great Depression:

  > The effects continued for a long time, by 1932 12 million Americans and 6 million Germans were unemployed.
• The Great Depression:

  > The Wall Street crash led to the Great Depression. The effects of the Great Depression were felt all over the world, with 25% of workers in the USA unemployed.
• The Great Depression:

  > People were so poor and desperate that they began to turn to extreme politicians for an answer. Fascists like Hitler (Germany) and Mussolini (Italy) became popular.
• Hitler and WW2:

  > The League of Nations couldn’t stop Hitler from developing tension in Europe after it failed in the Abyssinian crisis. This meant that Hitler wasn’t afraid to act aggressively, while the League was helpless and

  stayed silent through the Anschluss and the Sudetenland Crisis. The League was supposed to promote disarmament, but its own members were rearming in preparation for war.