The collapse of the League

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The state was Manchukuo, and its head was Puyi, the last emperor of China.

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Source A criticises the League because Haile Selassie reminds members that Abyssinia had trusted the League's promise of collective security, which implies that the League had broken that promise. Abyssinia was a League member attacked by another member, Italy, yet the League's sanctions from November 1935 left out oil, the Suez Canal stayed open, and in December 1935 the Hoare-Laval Pact had even offered Italy much of his country. His description of poison gas shows how the League had failed to protect his people from a modern army. He warns that 'the very existence of the League' and 'international morality' are at stake, suggesting that members had put their own interests before their principles. His final question, 'What reply shall I have to take back to my people?', challenges the members to justify doing nothing. The provenance strengthens the criticism: he was speaking as an exiled emperor in Geneva on 30 June 1936, after Italian troops had captured Addis Ababa in May and Italy had annexed Abyssinia. Members were about to lift sanctions, which they did in July 1936, so he was deliberately trying to shame them in front of the world.

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Source B is useful because it shows how the Depression pushed Japan towards aggression. The officer describes Japan as overcrowded and short of raw materials, and explains that 'since the Americans closed their markets, the price of silk has collapsed'. This is accurate: after the Wall Street Crash, American demand for Japanese silk collapsed, prices fell sharply and there was terrible poverty in the countryside. The source also shows the army's contempt for 'the politicians in Tokyo' and its belief that Manchuria, with its 'coal, its iron and its empty plains', was Japan's 'lifeline'. The provenance makes it especially useful. It was written by an army officer in 1931, the year in which officers of the Kwantung Army used the Mukden Incident in September as an excuse to occupy Manchuria. As a pamphlet it is propaganda, meant to win public support, so it blames the Americans, the politicians and the Chinese and exaggerates Japan's case. However, that is exactly what makes it valuable: it shows how nationalists used the hardship of the Depression to justify expansion, and why the invasion was so popular in Japan.

Source C is useful because it shows the other side of the Depression's effect: it made the League's leading member unwilling to resist aggression. The editorial says unemployment 'stands near three million' and that the government is right to cut spending. This reflects Britain in 1932, after the financial crisis of 1931. The newspaper rejects sending 'our fleet halfway round the world' and describes Japan as 'a valued customer', which explains why Britain did not want sanctions that would damage its trade. It even shows sympathy for Japan against a China 'that cannot even govern itself', a common view at the time because China was divided by civil war. The provenance adds to its usefulness: it was published in February 1932, while the League was sending the Lytton Commission and Japan was ignoring calls to withdraw. Newspapers reflected and shaped public opinion, so this helps explain why the British government did so little. However, it is only one newspaper's opinion and does not show official policy.

Both sources have limitations: each shows only one country's view, and neither mentions the rise of Hitler or the failure of the Disarmament Conference, which were also effects of the Depression. Nevertheless, together they are very useful. Source B shows how the Depression created aggression, and Source C shows how it destroyed the will to stop it, which is why the League failed over Manchuria.

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The Manchurian crisis of 1931-33 had serious consequences, and it is often argued that it encouraged Mussolini and Hitler to use force. I agree that this was an important consequence, but I think the most important consequence was the damage it did to the League's credibility and to the idea of collective security, because that was what made all the other consequences possible.

There is a strong argument for the statement. The crisis showed that a great power could invade the territory of a League member and keep it. The League took a year to produce the Lytton Report, imposed no sanctions, and when the Assembly accepted the report in February 1933, Japan simply walked out and kept Manchukuo. Other dictators were watching. In October 1933 Hitler took Germany out of the League and the Disarmament Conference, and in October 1935 Mussolini invaded Abyssinia, apparently confident that the League would be as weak as it had been over Manchuria. Many people at the time saw Manchuria as the first step in the collapse of the League.

However, historians debate how far Manchuria really encouraged the dictators. Hitler's decisions came from his own aims - overturning the Treaty of Versailles, uniting German speakers and winning Lebensraum - which he had set out in Mein Kampf long before 1931. Mussolini had wanted an empire in Africa for years and wanted revenge for Italy's defeat at Adowa in 1896. He was arguably more encouraged by events closer to home: Britain and France were desperate to keep him as an ally against Hitler, as the Stresa Front of April 1935 showed, and they said nothing about Abyssinia. So the link between Manchuria and the dictators' use of force is real but indirect.

There were other important consequences. The League lost Japan, a great power and a permanent member of the Council, when it announced its withdrawal in March 1933. This was followed by Germany's departure later that year, so the League was shrinking just when it needed to be strong. Japanese expansion also continued: Japan seized the province of Jehol in 1933 and in July 1937 began a full-scale war against China, which the League could not stop. Inside Japan, the army's power grew and civilian government weakened, and Japan moved closer to Germany, signing the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936.

The most important consequence, however, was the damage to the League's credibility. The crisis showed that collective security did not work against a determined great power, that Britain and France would not risk war or trade to enforce the Covenant, and that the League's main weapons - moral condemnation and the threat of sanctions - could be ignored. Smaller states began to lose faith in the League, and the aggressors of the 1930s drew the conclusion that they would not be stopped. This loss of credibility explains why Japan felt free to expand further and why the dictators could take risks.

In conclusion, the encouragement of Mussolini and Hitler was an important consequence, but it was a result of something more fundamental. Manchuria exposed the League as unable to stop a great power, and it was this loss of credibility, confirmed even more clearly by the Abyssinian crisis, that undermined collective security and encouraged aggression in the 1930s.