B5, key topic 2 - The League challenged, 1930–39

Great Powers And Veto

The League was built on a big idea: if one member was attacked, the other members should treat that as a problem for everyone. This was collective security. In theory, a potential aggressor would stop because it knew that many states might combine diplomatic, economic and even military pressure against it.

In practice, collective security depended on the Great Powers. The League had an Assembly, a Council and a Secretariat. The Council mattered most in crises because it was smaller and could meet quickly. The original design expected the major powers to sit at the centre of decision-making. But from the beginning there was a weakness: the United States never joined, even though President Woodrow Wilson had promoted the idea of the League. That left Britain and France carrying much of the burden, while Japan and Italy were themselves Great Powers with imperial ambitions.

The "veto" problem was not exactly the same as the modern United Nations veto. In the League, the central problem was unanimity. Most important decisions in the Assembly or Council required all represented members to agree, unless the Covenant made an exception. This meant that one state could slow or block action. Even when an aggressor was excluded from voting on its own dispute, Great Powers could still use delay, negotiation, abstention or self-interest to weaken the response.

The Great Powers had different roles in the 1930s:

This matters because the League did not have its own army, its own tax system or its own automatic enforcement machine. It could recommend, condemn and coordinate, but the power still belonged to member states. If Britain and France did not want to close the Suez Canal, impose oil sanctions, or risk war, the League could not easily force them.

Misconception check: the League was not weak simply because it had "no army". That was important, but the deeper weakness was political. The League only had as much strength as its members were willing to lend it.

Manchuria, 1931-33

Manchuria was the League's first major 1930s test. It exposed the problem of delay against a fast-moving aggressor.

On 18 September 1931, an explosion took place near the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway close to Mukden. Japan blamed Chinese forces, but the incident gave the Japanese army a pretext to occupy Manchuria, a large and resource-rich region of north-eastern China. Manchuria mattered to Japan because it offered raw materials, land, strategic security and influence on the Asian mainland.

China appealed to the League. The League did not immediately use strong sanctions or military force. Instead, it investigated. In December 1931, it appointed the Lytton Commission. This was a normal League method: gather evidence, write a report, then recommend a settlement. The problem was timing. The Commission reached Shanghai on14 March 1932 and began its Manchurian visit on20 April. By then, Japan had already strengthened its control and helped create the puppet state of Manchukuo.

The basic sequence was:

The Lytton Report was not useless. It gave a careful investigation and refused to accept Japan's claim that Manchukuo was genuinely independent. It showed that the League could still create an international judgement. But judgement was not the same as enforcement.

The League failed in Manchuria for several connected reasons. First, it was slow. Investigation took months while Japan strengthened its position. Second, Manchuria was far from Europe, where Britain and France were focused. Third, the Great Depression made states even more reluctant to damage trade or risk costly conflict. Fourth, Japan was a Great Power; if it refused to obey, the League had no easy way to make it retreat.

The strongest explanation is that Manchuria showed the gap between moral authority and practical power. The League could say that Japan was wrong, but it could not make Japan leave.

Model mini-paragraph:

The League failed in Manchuria because its response was too slow and too dependent on Great Power cooperation. The Lytton Commission produced a reasoned report rejecting Manchukuo, but by 1932 Japan had already occupied the area and created a puppet state. Britain and France were unwilling to risk war or serious sanctions in East Asia, so Japan could reject the report and leave the League.

Abyssinia, 1935-36

Abyssinia, now Ethiopia, was an even more damaging failure because it happened after the warning of Manchuria. It also involved a European dictator, Benito Mussolini, and it exposed Britain and France's priorities.

Italy had already tried and failed to conquer Ethiopia in the 1890s. Mussolini wanted revenge for that defeat, an expanded empire in East Africa, and a dramatic victory to strengthen his fascist regime. He also knew that Britain and France wanted to keep Italy friendly against Hitler's Germany. That gave him reason to think they might avoid a direct confrontation.

Tension grew after the Wal Wal incident in December 1934 on the border between Italian Somaliland and Abyssinia. Ethiopia appealed to the League. There were months of negotiation, but Mussolini continued preparing for war. On 3 October 1935, Italian forces invaded Abyssinia from Eritrea and Somaliland.

The League did more than it had done in Manchuria. It condemned Italy as the aggressor and imposed economic sanctions. This looked stronger than the Lytton approach. However, the sanctions were limited. They did not include all the measures that might have quickly stopped Italy's war machine. Oil sanctions were delayed and never fully applied. Britain also kept the Suez Canal open, allowing Italian ships a vital route to East Africa.

The deepest blow came with the Hoare-Laval Pact in December 1935. Sir Samuel Hoare, the British foreign secretary, and Pierre Laval, the French premier, secretly discussed a plan that would give Mussolini large parts of Abyssinia in return for ending the war. When the plan leaked, it caused outrage. It looked as if the leading League powers were prepared to reward aggression while pretending to defend the Covenant.

Why did Britain and France behave like this?

By May 1936, Italy had captured Addis Ababa and annexed Abyssinia. In July 1936, the League ended sanctions. Abyssinia remained a League member in principle, but in practice the League had failed to protect it.

Abyssinia was more destructive than Manchuria because it made hypocrisy visible. In Manchuria, the League could blame distance and delay. In Abyssinia, the aggressor was closer to Europe, the victim was a League member, and Britain and France had more direct influence. Their half-hearted enforcement showed that collective security would be sacrificed when it conflicted with Great Power calculations.