The League of Nations was created at the end of WWI in order to keep peace between European countries. Proposed by President Woodrow Wilson as a way to create a sustainable peace throughout the continent, the president refused to compromise. He did all he could to make the League a reality, and eventually achieved his vision.
On paper, the League looked like a fairly decent idea. It consisted of a "covenant" that was used to settle disputes between countries. The covenant would address issues by discussing them, and then if an aggressive nation still would not cooperate, they would economically damage the offending country. If that still failed, military force could be used to bring the peace once again. However, the League did not have much of a military after WWI.
Military is just one of many reasons why the League failed. After all, the first world war caused nearly every country that was participating in the League of Nations to have a severely damaged army, and thus none of the countries were in a position to expand their military prowess.
Additionally, the United States did not join. As an additional, powerful outside country the US could have been a very strong force that would keep the League together.
Finally, it is debatable that the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh. Although Wilson desired for the punishment to be more modest, France and Britain were ruthless in making Germany pay. This kind of attitude towards Germany made Germans extremely unsatisfied with the League and the war in general. The fact that they were unable to join the League until "they were peaceful" only served to rub salt on their already open wounds.
The failure of the League of Nations can be attributed to a variety of factors - but the above are perhaps some of the most important.
This is very interesting analysis. If the US had joined would the League of Nations have succeeded? I don't think it would have because there was too much tension and too much dissatisfaction on all sides. One of the problems with the Treaty of Versailles is that no one truly came out super successful and happy. Although Britain and France did get a lot of what they wanted, guilt, reparations, Germany cutting down on military, those things couldn't replace the devastation of losing 2 million men at home. I don't think at this point the world was ready for a League of Nations to create peace and this shows by the failure of it.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the League of Nations would have never worked even if America had joined and if countries cooperated at first. Even today, with the more successful United Nations, and without any recent wars like WWI, members of the United Nations still have rivalries and will try to fight each other.
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