The League of Nations

• Powers of the League

  • Covenant (Articles 10-17, members promised to keep the peace)
  • Condemnation (the League could tell a country it was doing wrong)
  • Arbitration (the League could offer to decide between two countries)
  • Sanctions (stopping trade)
• Dawes Plan


  Designed by America to prevent conflict through lending money to Germany so that they could pay reparations
• Locarno Treaties

  Germany agreed to accept the boarders laid out in the Treaty of Versailles, that the Rhineland would remain a demilitarised zone and that any future disputes between France and Germany would be settled by the League
• Kellogg-Briand Pact

  Agreement signed in 1928 by 63 countries who agreed to try and stop any future conflict through peaceful means
• On the whole, the League failed at stopping wars (Corfu) and disarmament (Kellogg-Briand), as well as enforcing the Treaty of Versailles (Poland). These failures were mainly due to the fact that the League had no way of effectively imposing sanctions due to its lack of an army and the fact that the one country that could support the League with the necessary economic and military power, the USA, was not a member. Britain and France were too weak following WWI to really be able to support the League.
• Overall the League was very successful at improving people's lives and jobs during the 1920s. These activities tended to be carried out by the League's committees, showing that this area of the structure worked particularly well. The work of the League which successfully highlighted social problems on a global scale and made positive steps towards eradicating diseases such as leprosy and their work in relocating refugees had never been achieved before by any organisation.
• Manchuria showed: It was slow (the Lytton Report took almost a year), A country could get its own way if it ignored the League 'Collective security' was useless against big countries - especially during the Great Depression, Even the great powers within the League (Japan was on the Council) were happy to ignore it.
• Why did the League fail? It WAS DUMB! Weak – the League's 'powers' were virtually useless. Sanctions did not work (Failed to stop the sale of arms to Italy during the Abyssinian crisis). It had no army. America – the strongest nation in the world never joined. Britain and France were not strong enough to impose peace on their own. Structure – the League was muddled, so it took ages to do anything. Members couldn't agree – but decisions had to be unanimous. This paralysed the League. It was very slow to act (Manchuria). Depression – the world-wide Depression made countries try to get more land and power. They were worried about themselves, not about world peace. Unsuccessful – the more the League failed, the less people trusted it. (Manchuria led to the invasion of the Rhineland). In the end, everybody just ignored it. Members – the League's main members let it down. Italy (Abyssinian Crisis) and Japan (Manchurian Crisis) betrayed the League. France and Britain did nothing to help it. Big bullies – in the 1920s, the League had dealt with weak countries. In the 1930s, powerful countries like Germany, Italy and Japan attacked weaker countries. They were too strong for the League to stop them.