The Corfu incident was an event that took place from August to September 1923. On August 27, an Italian general Enrico Tellini and his four staff members were assassinated at the Greek-Albanian frontier while attempting to delimit the frontier border. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini sent a harsh ultimatum to Greece that demanded the Greek government to pay reparation for the casualties and execute the assassins that were unknown and were unable to locate, but the Greek government failed to accomplish the two demands, especially the second one. Mussolini used Greek's failure to accomplish his demands as a pretext and sent Italian navies to invade and conquer Corfu, an island between Greece and Albania, on August 31,1923. Greece asked the League of Nations to judge the case; the League used its mighty power of condemnation to condemn Italy's actions after Greece promised to pay the League some reparations that was for Italy after the assassins were discovered, but Mussolini completely ignored the pointless condemns and continued Italy's occupation in Corfu. After the failure of condemnation, the main powers of the League had a conference for the case and came up with an conclusion of making Greece promise to apologize and pay Italy 50,000,000 lira worth of reparation for general Tellini and his four staff's death - Italy's men evacuate from Corfu under the League's pressure on September 27 1923 after Greece's apology and reparation.
The Corfu incident described above was considered as a success for the League of Nations; it was a conflict they prevented from amplifying into a war, it was a success made by the League from the peacekeeping point of view. But this incident also revealed one of the League's greatest weakness- the League is weak and useless against aggressive actions made by strong countries or countries that are significant for the League; Greece was assaulted and shamed for an assassination that was not significant enough to have a piece of land taken, then they had to apologize and pay reparation to get their lost land back in their control, and the reason for this unfair treatment to occur would be Italy's significance of being one of the four main members of the League, the case might be completely different if Italy was replaced by a country that had the same level of power and significance as Greece.
According to many sources, the reason Italy withdrew their forces from Corfu was because they were under great pressure from many powers including the League of Nations, but the pressure was applied to Italy after Greece apologized and paid their reparations to them, all the League did before was giving Italy pointless condemns. The situation described above requires comparison with the Bulgaria incident in 1925; a Greek captain and two Greek soldiers were murdered in Bulgaria, the Greek dictator Theodoros Pangalos used the incident as an excuse to invade the Bulgarian land, but they were forced to halt their action and pay reparation for the harms of the invasion by the League of Nations, the Bulgarians did the same act as the Greeks did two years ago when they appealed the League, and there was no bribing involved in this incident. The Bulgarian incident is an example of the League's method of dealing with a weak country or a country that is not really significant for them; the League did not use their power of condemnation on the Greeks when they were attacking Bulgaria- great pressure was applied to the Greeks directly without Bulgaria sacrificing in any form (Greece sacrificed pride and wealth when they appealed the League).
The Corfu incident was the first incident that revealed the significant weakness of the League of Nations, it was the start of a series of invasion and conquering committed by the Fascist countries during 1920~1939.
After the partially successful invasion in Corfu, Italy attempted to expand its land vigorously; they officially took control of a free port named Fiume by signing a legal treaty with Yugoslavia in 1924, they invaded and conquered an African country named Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) from 1935~1936, then they annexed Albania in 1939. During the expansion of Italian land, the League of Nation's primary, non-Fascist powers Britain and France did not perform any attempts to stop Mussolini, they even provided assistance to Italy during the invasion on Abyssinia by allowing Italy to pass through the Sues canal without any interference and secretly signing the Hoare-Laval pact with Italy which gave them the permission to keep 60% of Abyssinia's land.
The reactions of the League of Nations towards Italy's aggressive actions greatly influenced the other powerful Fascist countries- Germany and Japan. The Manchuria incident best describes how Japan was influenced by Italy's situations; Japan claimed that the Chinese blew up their railway in south Manchuria and used the claim as an excuse to invade the innocent land on September 18, 1931(the railway was actually destroyed by the Japanese themselves with a well-planned scheme). After the complete conquer of Manchuria in February 1932, the League of Nations sent a group of experts to investigate the situation, the crew arrived Manchuria in September 1932 and suggested that it was Japan's foul; the League then condemned Japan to depart from Manchuria but ended up being ignored completely. The Manchuria incident was another version of the Corfu incident; the invasion were all started by an excuse, the offended country both appealed to the League of Nations but only got the power of condemnation as a response of justice. This routine of invasion appeared frequently during the period of time when the Fascist countries were expanding their land.
The Corfu incident directly affected the outbreak of World War II by influencing Germany's action. Germany's desire for power and land became extremely aggressive after Hitler came to power, he clearly understood the League of Nation's weak attitude towards strong countries after observing many previous events and began his savage actions when he took absolute control of Germany in August 1934; he announce the rearming of his army to the world in March 1935 and took control of Rhineland exactly one year later, then he seized the control of Austria and Czechoslovakia in March 1938 and March 1939. Every time Hitler seizes a piece of land, the tension in Europe amplifies considerably; the last invasion Germany stroke was towards Poland on September 1, 1939, the invasion was also known as the outbreak of World War II. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days after the invasion, the situation between the Fascist countries and the main powers of the League that occurred first in the incident of Corfu finally varied after a decade and six years, the repetition of the situation that first occurred in Corfu came to a halt at last.
The Corfu incident was only significant for its time of occurrence; it should actually be considered as a small event for its short persistence and narrow affecting range, but it was also the event that greatly influenced the other Fascist countries that caused other significant events afterwards- the Corfu incident can be described as the origin of the whole series of invasion and occupation committed by the Fascists.
Values of two sources.
The information provided by www.bartleby.com that described the incident of Corfu was extremely detailed; the information on this site provided detailed facts that is not mentioned in the textbook or in the notes, the site mentioned that the general that was assassinated was called Enrico Tellini, and the assassination did not only cause one casualty, general Tellini's four staff member were also assassinated, the fact may be insignificant for some people, but it made my view for the incident a bit different (Italy's action seemed a bit more reasonable since they lost five men in Greece, and the casualty was caused by working for the League of Nations, so it would be more reasonable for Italy to launch a small-scaled offence, but occupying Corfu was too much). The origin of the site's information is from The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth edition with Peter N. Stearns as general editor, the exact address of the information is http://www.bartleby.com/67/1822.html. The information is most valuable for its simplicity; the paragraph that described the Corfu incidence was only seven lines, but it provided all the necessary information of the incident, and the language of the paragraph is simple and easy to understand, it is an ideal source for a student's research. The only limitation this information includes is the access of World Wide Web; the information can only be browsed if Internet access is available.
The information provided by www.answers.com about the Corfu incident is more shocking than the others; it mentioned some of the actions the League performed that is not mentioned in many other sites, the fact that the League actually had the thought of holding Greece's reparation is not mentioned in the other sources, it amplifies the League's unfairness. The origin of this site's information are from Ben Walsh's Modern World History, The Essential facts about the League of Nations published in Geneva, and George Gill's The League of Nations from 1929 to 1946, the direct link to this website is http://www.answers.com/topic/league-of-nations. The greatest value of this site is its overwhelming amount of information; the site contains two paragraphs about the Corfu incident, and it also introduced the background of the incident with simple language, the site is ideal for students that need a wider view of the incident. The limitation of this source is the access of Internet; it cannot be obtained without the access of Internet.
Mussolini was determined to be taken seriously, to be treated as an equal of the other victor powers, and reverse the humiliating treatment at Versailles. This meant the pursuit of a European policy. Mussolini adopted the trappings of post–war liberal League diplomacy to win the respect and co–operation of the other League powers. He happily signed the Locarno Treaty in 1925 since it not only restricted Germany’s room for manoeuvre, a key aim of Italian policy, but also gave the clear impression that Italy was now a responsible and weighty power, together with Britain and France one of the arbiters of Europe. In reality the two Western states still
regarded Italy as very much a junior partner, to be patronized and appeased. They found it difficult to take seriously a man who arrived flamboyantly at Locarno by speedboat across the lake surrounded by black–shirted, posturing aides; or who whipped up popular xeno–
phobia with ranting, radical rhetoric. Austen Chamberlain, the British Foreign Secretary, was condescendingly surprised to find Mussolini was a ‘man with whom one could do business’. But when he stepped out of line, as he did when Italian forces occupied the Greek island of Corfu in 1923 in protest at the murder of an Italian officer, Britain took the lead in compelling Italian withdrawal.
Mussolini got very little from his co–operation with Britain and France, neither real international parity, nor practical concessions. While Mussolini guaranteed France’s eastern frontier against German attack in the Locarno agreement, no guarantee was given to Italy protecting her from a revival of the German threat. The prospect of a union between Germany and Austria terrified Italians, who wanted to keep a powerful Teutonic state away from the Brenner Pass. On the border with Austria Italy had her own nationality problem, with 200,000 ethnic Germans in the province of South Tyrol, renamed Alto Adige in 1919, who were subjected to a vigorous, sometimes vicious, campaign of ‘Italianization’. Italy played protector to the new Austrian state, a reversal of fortune relished by Italians. Italian influence was pushed into Central Europe and the Balkans to replace the Habsburgs. Italy was every bit as anxious as
France about what would happen if Germany once again became a major power in Central Europe. Yet the fear was never quite strong enough to persuade Italy to identify her interests too closely with France and Britain; that smacked too much of the idea that Italian foreign policy depended upon the goodwill of the two leading states.
Mussolini was never willing to put himself in the position of Orlando at Versailles, begging for recognition. Ten years of active politics in Europe did not really advance Italy’s status. In March 1933 Mussolini made one final, theatrical attempt to secure parity with the great powers. He proposed a pact between Britain, France, Italy and Germany to create a directorate which
would arbitrate in all European problems. Other countries argued fiercely against the proposal, Poland in particular claiming that it would put the small states at the mercy of the great. That was precisely Mussolini’s intention; he wanted to fix Italy as one of the ‘big four’, rather than among the bevy of smaller states. But the group never functioned as Mussolini had intended. Although the Four Power Pact was formally signed in July 1933, it gradually became clear that the new German Chancellor, Hitler, had no intention of subordinating his interests to the Pact or to the League system. Nor were Britain and France happy with the rather vague alternative to the collective security of the League; the directorate withered on the vine. The Pact marked the high–water mark of Mussolini’s efforts to be respected as a power of the status quo.
http://www.bartleby.com/67/1822.html (12/31/2005)
http://www.fhw.gr/chronos/14/en/1923_1940/foreign_policy/facts/03.html (12/31/2005)
http://www.answers.com/topic/league-of-nations (12/31/2005)
http://www.indiana.edu/~league/1923.htm (12/31/2005)
http://www.fhw.gr/chronos/14/en/1923_1940/foreign_policy/facts/05.html (1/1/2006)
http://www.indiana.edu/~league/1924.htm (1/1/2006)
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