Okay, so successes of the League of Nations were few and far between, but there where a few (lets not mention the long list of actions they let slide which resulted in tragedies that outweighed their minimal successes by far).
In 1935 the League of Nations supervised a vote in Saar in which the citizens decided whether they were to become a part of Germany or France, proving that issues such as these could be solved diplomatically rather than through war.
They did make treaties in attempt to enforce anti military build-up in Italy, which Italy accepted and then didn't follow. So again they remain persistent and tried to work with Italy, and when they continued to ignore the League sanctions were imposed including an arms embargo, an end to loans and credits, refusal of imports from Italy, and an embargo of exports to Italy for potential war material goods. So they did put their foot down eventually, they just had no way of enforcing their policies. James G. McDonald, High Commissioner for Refugees for the League of Nations also helped many German Jews migrate to Palestine, but then he resigned when he decided that the League should directly challenge Hitler's policies, which didn't help the Jews any, but hey hindsight is 20/20 right?
All in all I think their biggest success was the whole idea and philosophy behind the League of Nations which eventually inspired the United Nations. My only question is why did it work now and not then? Was it the specific personalities of the time such as Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin that made it fail? Or was it people's inexperience and distrust of the ideas of Democracy?
I think global diplomacy can work now and not then because the world is getting smaller, well not physically but you know the idiom. Right now, if i truly wanted to I could get to China, North Korea, the Ivory Coast, Iran or any other country but tomorrow night. Well now, what does this mean? If you go to another country, meet a person form another country, just mildly understand another way of life, will you war them? I personally feel that a lot of what allow wars to happen is a lack of understanding and a lack empathy. I think what allows the UN to work and not the LoN is that the UN is ruling over an era of interconnected people and one very rarely wars a friend.
ReplyDeleteI agree with AJ that the UN works because the world is getting smaller and we HAVE to work together because of this. Conficts are very dangerous in a world where the US could destroy the earth 17 times.
ReplyDeleteBut I also agree that the LoN's greatest sucess was the fact that it set a precident for the UN. And it did have some good points, just maybe not as many as we would like to see. Overall, I think it was merely a young institution with limited power and less desire for conflit.
I agree with the world becoming tighter and smaller allows the UN to have much better success than League of Nations. I also believe that without the epic failure of the League of Nations the UN wouldn't have a good basis to stand on for improvement and a better organization.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't fully agree with the thing about being interested in a country avoids a war. I think nationalism and the feeling of being patriotic is a very powerful thing that once it gets rolling, I am not sure a little "crush" for another country will stop you from going to war with them.
I think that the countries that made up the UN weren't weak and unprepared like the League of Nations were back then. I mean the countries that made up the League of Nations just came our from a major world war, weak and traumatized. Because of this they wanted to avoid another war as much as possible clouding their judgment more, avoiding situations that would possible get them round up in another war. However today these countries are more prepared and experienced who is not traumatized by a recent world war who isn't intimidated into getting themselves into another war to solve a major problem (although they would like to prevent war as much as possible I mean hell thats their job right?)
ReplyDeleteThe League of Nations like i said in Kaylans blog was a joke. The UN wasn't as weak and ignorent. And I agree with AJ too, our world is getting smaller and we need each other, back then we were all seperated and just waiting to take over other nations. I mean now we aren't just waiting for a crash in the stock market to go and attack someone if anything we're waiting to help, which is a totally different view from back then.
ReplyDeletePersonally I agree that it was the people, but more so the time. I mean the people such as the ones you mentioned were definitely factors. In any situation I think if you have that kind of disruption and jsut anti-diplomacy feel anywhere and in the places you are wanting to join your "league" it is just not gonna fail. But I still think it was more so the timing of the whole thing. Everything was weak in the world, economies were in horrible conditions, so the world I think could not at that time make any big adjustments. The UN although developing with the ideals of the the L.of N., the timing and conditons of the world were more optimum for this change.
ReplyDeleteThe League of Nations also didn't have direct access to military forces; the UN does. It sounds harsh, but countries that aren't doing what you want are much more likely to listen when you have some muscle backing up your requests. As Hannah said though, it was also the people. Hitler and Mussolini were both willing to gamble about what they could get away with, but now everyone (with the exception of North Korea and the U.S.) is more careful about stepping on toes.
ReplyDeleteBiggest reason why the League of Nations was a fail is the fact that the U.S. was not a member. The League needed a strong country that could back up the policies enforced by it. They did not have one and so shied away from conflicts knowing they could possibly lose a war. The United Nations did not have this problem. The United States took the lead and today it is a global force.
ReplyDeleteI think we've determined that the shrinkiness of the world is a big factor in the sucess of the UN. In my opinion this is a very good point, and I think that many other changes besides the shrinking of the connected world affected the success of the UN. At the point of the formation of the UN the world had been through two devastating wars and I think people knew it was time to get serious or else they really could wipe out the entire population. Because of this I think people were much more ready to put their trust and power into a more consolidated force like the UN, whereas at the time of the formation of the League of Nations I feel like there was a certain amount of distrust and reluctance in it's formation.
ReplyDeleteAlright well I've learned my lesson about trying to use my phone to post blogs instead of using an actual computer (which in my defense I didn't have access to anyway.) But the comments I tried to post on my phone are not posting which is really annoying so I'm going to read it off my phone (if anyone needs proof that I actually did do them before today just ask to see my phone(: )
ReplyDeleteAnyway. To answer Tess' question, I think there were a lot of reasons why the League of Nations failed and the United Nations was successful. I think that animosities between enemies were still flaring after WWI; therefore, they weren't going to cooperate entirely with the League of Nations. Also, why join a league if the creators won't join it themselves? Isn't that just a setup for failure? And one of the reasons it failed was because nobody would join it or listen to it. Also, there was no real "bad guy" in WWI, so all sides "knew" they were the right ones. After WWII everyone was just so tired of fighting and of all these problems that were happening. And the people of Germany didn't want to fight anymore; Hitler's rule wasn't all it had been cracked up to be. It was a disastrous campaign in so many ways, and they saw that. Since there was a "bad guy" in WWII and Germany knew it was them, they just wanted to end it and make sure it never happened again. They knew they'd been wrong. I think proof of this today is that every German person I've talked to about it or heard talk about it has said it's something their people regret and are incredibly ashamed of. They've all said they hate Hitler just as much as we do now. Of course there are the exceptions who love him still; but then again, there are people in America who also love him.
I definitely think that the personalities of Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were to blame for some of the League's downfall. We see that once Germany got over resentment of their position after WWI and was defeated again in WWII Germans realized that they couldn't win and that there were better options. After WWII, the United Nations was their option. Totalitarianist governments failed because of the war and the people, who weren't in as bad a position before the war, couldn't act irrationally without their leaders. I agree with Ben and Shannon, too. The League could not enforce its demands because it had no military backing. Also, the United States wasn't a factor within the League, so the powers that may have turned to respect the U.S. didn't because the United States did not get involved.
ReplyDeleteI think that the conditions at the time just were not very favorable for the League of Nations. It was a good idea and an overall sound philosophy, but, like you said, there was a lot of inexperience and such that hindered it. I also think that people were very caught up in there own problems, and what they could do to solve them. Therefore the League as whole wasn't able to really cooperate and be effective.
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