“One day it was a powerful body imposing sanctions, the next day it was a useless fraud.” AJP Taylor, an eminent British historian, being controversial at the same time, had a negative view of the League of Nations. The League was formed in January 1920, consisting of 42 members including France, Britain, Japan and Italy as the major powers, with its main aim of preventing wars in order to maintain the world peace. Due to the continuous pursuit of national interests in many great powers and imperialism in addition, the League seemed to be deteriorating with being neglected by countries, thus having incredibility in the other nations’ perspectives as seen to be malfunctioning, while on the other hand, was still able to accomplish some exploits for the peace.
The outset of the national interests hindering the efforts of the League was created by the US, the first country that had proposed the formation of the League of Nations but did not join with its consideration of national advantages. The US Senate was quite anxious about their sovereignty in taking actions because they were possible to be limited by the League if the US was joining. Another reason for the refusal of joining the League was that the country had adopted the policy of isolationism, which was clearly shown in the fact that Woodrow Wilson was the first US president to visit Europe[1] and as many Americans had supportive opinions with Monroe Doctrine (1823) which stated that European countries should not interfere with American affairs and so the US did not have a necessity to intervene in European affairs[2]. Excellent point The businessmen were also opposing to join the League because they had to pay taxes which would be used for the League and their trades could be lost once the sanctions were taken on them. Also almost all of the Americans had antipathy towards Britain since the United States of America was formed by American Revolution (1775-1783), after which 13 countries ruled by the British Empire finally became free and united to create a country,[3] so they had to cooperate with Britain if they decided to be the member of the League. You mean they were still angry at the UK for that? As the US had 117,000 soldiers[4] who died in World War I, simply by fighting for the European powers, the Allies, this experience made Americans to predict that they again will have a loss of people, who do not actually have to die if the US did not join. All of these points preventing the US from joining the League of Nations showed that the country made a decision not to become part of the League due to its consideration of national advantages, not world peace. It gave this international organization an untrustworthy quality because the US was the first country to suggest forming League of Nations and in fact it was not even joining. Furthermore, the US has grown rapidly into an economically dominant country since many major European powers were damaged in all the aspects including military and economy by the World War I and many of them had borrowed money from the US. The League could have gained much more credibility if the US joined but as it didn’t, it negatively influenced the other nations’ view on the League of Nations.
The deficiency of France and Britain in taking sanctions was another case showing how the pursuit of national interests could act as an obstacle to the work of the League. The Great Depression began in 1929 has stimulated two permanent members of the League, Japan and Italy to be desiring of their expansion in empire. There was an agitation in China, which was suffering from the Chinese Civil War (1927-1950) between the Kuomingtang and the Chinese Communist Party.[5] Using this as an opportunity, Japan invaded Manchuria and set up Manchukuo with its ‘puppet ruler’, Henry P’ui. Even though the League set up a commission led by Lord Lytton in December 1931[6] to investigate the situation in Manchuria when China appealed to the League, the report of commission took almost a year and two other major members of the League, Britain and France, did not impose any trade sanction nor sent any troop to prevent Japan because they did not want to lose their soldiers by intervening in an affair in Asia, and Japan could invade Jehol, next to Manchuria, in 1933[7] after quitting the League. It meant that a country could do as it wanted to if it ignored the League and the League was even giving a way to an aggressive country. Similarly, when Italy was going to invade Abyssinia with the ambition of reviving the glories of Rome, Samuel Hoare, the British foreign minister, and Pierre Laval, the French foreign minister secretly signed the Hoare-Laval Pact to give Abyssinia to Italy in December 1935.[8] Mussolini could easily invade Abyssinia and these two countries even tried to annul the sanction after the League put sanctions on rubber and metal[9]. Though Japan and Italy were the permanent members of the League, they were only caring about their countries and their territorial acquisitions with strong imperialism, and the situation got worse by the other two permanent members, Britain and France, ignoring the power of sanction and being regardless of their roles as the members of the League but to secure their safety and not intervene other disputes that might harm them. Moreover, in 1926, Britain was having a dispute with Turkey over Mosul, a region in Iraq that has plentiful oil deposits, insisting to give it to Iraq, not Turkey, because Iraq might give Mosul to Britain due to its supportive help in saving Mosul from Turkey, which would expand the British sovereignty over the country.[10] The selfishness of all these four major members of the League was being hindrance for the League to proceed as a peace-keeping organization. Japan and Italy were still eager to invade other countries for their own expansion, and France and Britain were not putting enough efforts as a means of preventing wars but to give ways for them, making other nations to find it unjustified, and the incompetence of the League was reinforced with its slow commission report and failures in solving the disputes due to its avaricious major powers. Lots of facts, bt minimal attention placed on the work.
On the other hand EXCELLENT!, the League was regarded to be successful with some feats it had accomplished which boosted the improvement of the world. Slavery commission of the League distributed to the extermination of slavery in the world and finally set 200,000 slaves in Sierra Leone free[11]. In addition, it reduced the death rate of workers who constructed the Tanganyika railway in the West African territory from 55% to 4%[12], showing a big difference, and this could be down by the Commission’s investigation and records on slavery and forced prostitution which were active, on the contrary to the slow reports done by the commissions in the Manchurian Crisis and the Abyssinian Crisis. After the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), there were a number of refugees from both countries, who more became to be an issue since 80% of them were women and children[13]. They were helped by the refugee camps established in Turkey in 1922 by the Commission[14] and their diseases were also being cured by the health committee, which tried to stop spreading and get rid of diseases such as malaria and leprosy. Not only with the welfare service, but also with economic assistance to Austria and Hungary, the League was quite successful. Because of the Treaty of St.Germaine in 1919, Austria had to pay for the ‘war reparations’ and had its lands shared between Czechoslovakia, Italy, Yugoslavia, Poland and Romania.[15] Another country created by splitting the Hapsburg Empire, Hungary, also had a great loss, especially in its territory, losing 61% of arable land and 83% of pig iron output[16] and part of the former Kingdom of Hungary’s finance was under the control of Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, the 3 nations that formed the Little Entente in 1920. These two treaties made Austria and Hungary to be suffering quite much economic damage with their losses of territories and finance. The League sent economic experts to these countries who worked for the financial recovery of these countries and some others such as Greece and Bulgaria.[17] The committees of the League proved its success by social aid, such as freeing slaves and refugees, curing diseases for them, and the League also showed its success by giving economic assistance to the other countries such as Austria and Hungary.
By the U.S not joining the League and four major powers, Japan, Italy, France and Britain, of the League making their roles meaningless, two of them being ambitious about expanding territories and the other two countries not trying to firm sanctions nor prevent the war, were the two reasons supporting the idea that the pursuit of national interests interfered the work and success of the League of Nations. The U.S.’s refusal to join the League lowered the credibility of the League and the misbehaviours of the four permanent members of it were perturbing the stability of it. Even though the League had these obstacles that thwarted its effectiveness, the League’s achievement in improving the world with social and economic assistance, for instance, helping slaves, refugees and less economically developed countries still showed that the League was not absolutely without any worthiness.
20/20 The only one who explicitly made a connection with the work of the League (although tentative) and provided a counter-argument as opposed to repeating the same simple points raised in class without question.
You are easily the most gifted student I have in my class; the quizzes you win are merely diversions from your abilities. A privilege to have siuch a student at this school, and you can use that quote when you start applying for universities.
[1] http://www.geocities.com/ultrastupidneal/Knowledge-Fact-President.html
[2] http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
[3] http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution
[4] http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/blww1castable.htm
[5] http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_civil_war
[6] http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Japan:+history+1912-41
[7] http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=102309
[8] http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/ir1/manchuriarev4.shtml
[9] http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/E/league/leaguexx.htm
[10] http://www.answers.com/topic/anglo-turkish-dispute-over-mosul
[11] http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_nations
[12] http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_nations
[13] www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-trivia-refugees.htm
[14] http://www.johndclare.net/league_of_nations4.htm
[15] http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_st.germain
[16] http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_trianon
[17] http://biblio-archive.unog.ch/detail.aspx?ID=404
No comments:
Post a Comment